vergessen warum, ich lebe

The scientist contemplative Franciscan sister said something to the effect that 'Christ is in someway every person.'

Catching my attention, it gives a different shape to the question often asked by contemporary inquisitors, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?”

The response could be, “Do you accept me as such?”

Let’s immediately obviate and traditional feinting umbrage of sacrilege and condemnation to fiery stake at dusk. But, instead look at it differently.

If Christ is in each — if the divine creation has sounded into and through each instance and episode of created being, then the Christ so (rightfully) associated with Jesus is resplendidly (yet/not-yet) latently emergent through and with each being in creation.

Creation spirituality suggests the energy of original coming-into-being is the creative energy of the One we call God. Each is originated, sustained, and seen through with that which is poetically called divine breath or Holy Spirit. 

The “suchness” of the response “Do you accept me as such?” is, perhaps, ambiguous, or, perhaps, premature to any spiritual realization. We have to consider that realization is the common inner identity of each being. This identity is mostly obscured and unrealized. 

When Dōgen says that practice and enlightenment are undifferentiated, when Siddhartha Gautama says our very nature is already enlightened, when Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is within us, when Francis avers the common poverty of mirroring Christ — these are strong dispositions.

suchness, noun, such·​ness, plural -es

1

: the quality or state of being such : essential or characteristic quality

—without any apparent regard to the suchness of her environment,                                                            she sat down.   —J. D. Salinger

2

Buddhism : nameless and characterless reality in its ultimate nature

  called also tathata,  thusness

 This suchness is neither an accomplishment nor a reward. It is given. Perhaps, there is, it is, what-is given. Es gibt!

Although we are enlightened, awareness of this givenness is another story. Like Salinger’s reference, we are regard-less.

Some worriedly strive to comprehend who they are, why they are, what will become of them.

I don’t know.

Perhaps to contemplate what the Franciscan said — that each is Christ, that all is Christ — might lead to a new hermeneutic of biblical scripture in intimate association with the scripture of nature, creation, being, and becoming.

Ein neuer Anfang.   (A new beginning.)

Perhaps there is no ‘why’.

Vergessen warum, ich lebe!
 
   (Forgetting why, I live!)

incoming

Walking Ragged trail falls

Acorns showering around

Rolling underfoot

a different intonation

Let's locate ourselves.

Where's my compass? 

"IT MAY BE THAT UNIVERSAL HISTORY is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors." With these words Jorge Luis Borges concludes his brief sketch of the history of the metaphor of the infinite sphere.1 In that essay he traces its origins back to Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles. Skipping centuries, Borges turns next to the twelfth century theologian Alan of Lille, who, he tells us, discovered the formula "God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere" in a fragment attributed to Hermes Trismegistus; following him, medieval and renaissance writers used the metaphor to describe the being of God. According to Borges it was given a different intonation only after the discoveries of the new astronomy had shattered the closed world of the Middle Ages: searching for words "to tell men of Copernican space," Bruno described the universe as an infinite sphere.2 But while Bruno had exulted in this infinity, "seventy years later there was no reflection of that fervor left and men felt lost in space and time.... the absolute space which had meant liberation to Bruno, became a labyrinth and an abyss for Pascal." Nature had become "a fearful sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere."  

(in, Harries, Karsten. "The Infinite Sphere: Comments on the History of a Metaphor." Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 13 no. 1, 1975, p. 5-15. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hph.2008.0143.

Many think it silly to think about who we are and where we are.

I'd agree with them if only I had a place to stand. From there, I suppose, I could move the world.

Could I borrow your lever, Archimedes? 

What's that sound?

our instantiate and interposed existence

It takes a while, sometimes, to reflect on words. 

Poetry, yes. 

But also scriptural references. And if associated with horrific incidents of police involvement gone wrong, it takes even longer.

As video footage of the fatal police shooting of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman who lived in Springfield, Illinois, circulates online, many viewers are memorializing her near-final words: “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

Massey initially called 911 from her home on July 6, citing concerns of an intruder. The body-camera footage, which was released July 22 by the Illinois State Police, shows sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson shooting Massey in the head following a brief exchange over a pot of hot water. Grayson has since been fired and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery, and official misconduct, and the US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Massey’s death.

According to some faith leaders and scholars, Massey’s near-last words, spoken twice in an even voice to the deputies before her death, carry a spiritual and cultural weight specific to Black church communities.

“Every person raised in a certain kind of black church knows the power and gravity of those words,” Womanist biblical scholar Wil Gafney wrote on her website on Tuesday. “Those are the words to be said when facing the evil that has walked in your door and will soon take your life. It is not a prayer to save one’s life or for God to come down and prevent the flagrant act of violence to come. It is something between a benediction and a malediction, laying bare the wickedness of the soul encased in human skin standing before her.”

(-- from, "Sonya Massey said, ‘I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.’ What’s the significance?" by Kathryn Post, July 29, 2024, The Christian Century)

We'd like to think all our interactions are grounded in social and cultural similarities and differences. But the ones that perplex us are the interactions that morph below and beyond the concrete material and biological dimensions of human experience.

It is a realm I am not familiar nor comfortable with. The dimension of the meta-human or meta-physical.

That aspect of existence wherein the forces of good and evil, truth and falsity, being and non-being, heaven and hell, form and emptiness, possibility and probability, imagination and unimaginativeness -- all these contrasts -- swirl around each other in perpetual discussion and/or disagreement as to what and whom will emerge into the sentient and manifest observable universe.

It is the stuff that I once thought was the purview of philosophy and theology, phenomenology and spirituality. 

It is also an exploration rife with unexplained obstacles, such as over-enthusiastic expectations or fear-filled apprehensions. So, the majority of us, say thank you, no thanks, and go on about our daily lives content to walk the dog and purchase spaghetti at the market. These are well-advised alternatives.

But for Sonya Massey the pot of water, perhaps for cooking spaghetti, became an unexpected dive into this nether-world just before a cop shot her dead in her kitchen.  

What is it to rebuke in the name of Jesus?

Today, this Tuesday, it is warm and quiet at meetingbrook. Cats nap inside. Dog sleeps in dirt hole dug outside. Someones are at anchor miles out to sea by Isle au Haut. The observable world is sunny and existentially itself.

As with all injustices, I lament the death of Sonya Massey. The mechanism of criminal justice will pin the wrists of the shooter and drag him in and out of courtroom and news accounts. There will undoubtably be excuses and accusations protesting and speculating on the actions and movements of all parties involved.

When we notice something emerging that is harmful and intent on harming what stands before it, there is a powerful inclination to speak words of rebuke as we recognize a turning point in our instantiate and interposed existence.

Oremus.

Yes, let us enter prayer!

idiot compassion

 There’s no limit to the idiocy of the MAGA rhetoric and perverse accusations against their political opponents. 

As a relatively educated society, one would think that the idiocy would be seen for what it is, massively resisted, turning away from perpetuating lies, exaggeration and hostile cynicism, overt threats of violence against others, and blatant mendacity.

Listening to 2021 book Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, by Michael Wolff. 

The thought occurs during these days of assassination talk and recent arrest of man with gun at golf course, that it is more a mystery why no-one, experiencing in person Trump's obnoxious behavior and rhetoric over the years to staff and aides, has punched him in the mouth for his disrespect, belittlement, and mockery to their faces.

How such a blowhard avoided a fat lip or broken nose is befuddling.

Not that I would ever perform such a jab or roundhouse. No, I'd probably just look at his contorted face, taking the measure of his character, and begin feeling sorry for the sap, turning away shaking my head at the idiocy of a system, political party, and country that would proffer such a damaged man as their best hope for a leader.

Would I feel bad for not smashing his face? I don't think so. Punching faces is not in my repertoire. I'd probably offer some dumb prayer for him, his confreres, his followers, his country -- our country.

Not that prayer changes anything. But that prayer beckons and implores peace and understanding arise in the face of absurdity and perversity.

Some say they'll pray for you as some kind of coded f*#k you. Not me. I see prayer as an invitation to sanity in an insane situation.

Prayer is the invocation of beneficent wholeness and clarity in a time of maleficent desiccation and deboning cannibalism. 

When Trump or Vance try to dodge their awful cringeworthy comments on people or situations by saying they were only being 'sarcastic' -- accept what they are saying:

sarcasm | ˈsärˌkazəm | noun  --the use of irony to mock or convey contempt: his voice, hardened by sarcasm, could not hide his resentment.  

ORIGIN 

mid 16th century: from French sarcasme, or via late Latin from late Greek sarkasmos, from Greek sarkazein ‘tear flesh’, in late Greek ‘gnash the teeth, speak bitterly’ (from sarx, sark- ‘flesh’).

Mockery, tearing flesh, contempt -- the very essence of this strange leader's arsenal against all of us.

I dislike Mr. Trump. It's nothing personal. I simply dislike him ethically, morally, spiritually, and historically.

I suppose I wish him well. I'd prefer him to be well distant from the White House and any other office of responsibility for the health, sanity, and safety of the country.

As an idiorrhythmic mendicant I'd rather any remnant opinions I hold be dropped into a hole in the ground.

Opinions, views, and judgments are mostly unhelpful to seeing things clearly as they are.

Still, there is another danger:

In response I want to use [Thich Nhat] Hanh’s own teachings to make my case.  In his extensive writings on compassion he warns us of “idiot” compassion, which he believes is what therapists call “co-dependence.”  This condition comes about as a result of “forgetting that you are in the compassion equation.” If you allow others “to treat you like a doormat,” you are simply encouraging them to abuse you even further.  

 

If we give the pirates in our lives a free pass, it is unlikely that they will ever reform themselves.  We must learn to accept others, but we should not do this without any conditions or sanctions at all. 

(--The Buddha on judgement and acceptance, by Nick Gier)

A co-dependent or idiot compassion towards Mr. Trump will help nobody.

Still, he does not need to be harmed by one of this country's favorite weapons, an assassin's automatic rifle.

He should be changed -- in his heart and in his soul and in his mind. And not by anyone else. He should change himself.

If such a task be possible. 

Yet . . . such a seemingly impossible task . . .

deepest feeling always shows itself in silence

We didn't get specifically to this today in prison. 

But we neared.

Silence 

My father used to say,

“Superior people never make long visits,

have to be shown Longfellow’s grave

or the glass flowers at Harvard.

Self-reliant like the cat—

that takes its prey to privacy,

the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth— 

they sometimes enjoy solitude,

and can be robbed of speech

by speech which has delighted them.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;

not in silence, but restraint.”

Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”

Inns are not residences.

(Poem by Marianne Moore 1887 – 1972 )

The thing about conversations is the way, from time to time, we look at one another, in silence, genuinely listening.

we looked up ‘naive’

prison this morning

talk of gates, possessions, [christ]

gone, gone, division

ecological wholeness

radical equality

cosmothandric practice

 we read Panikkar

of the perichoresis --

sweet aporia

abandon your foolish guns

 instead, contemplate

what goodness is needed now --

become it, each day

on the annoying habit of people trying to shoot him

Please don't shoot the Trump

It's a remedy too far

Let him lose the vote

one by one each ballot cast

will drive him off, (sigh), at last