“God perceived the world,” Sonny said in prison. This is a change from “God created the world.”
Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is
In the very here and now,
The practitioner dwells
In stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows
How to dwell in mindfulness
Night and day
“One who knows the better way to live.”
( - Bhaddekaratta Sutra)
From prison, an alternative to creation spirituality, creatio ex nihilo, or even creationism. Instead, now, attention out of awareness. Now, “And the world is seen manifest,” resides alternatively alongside the phrase, “And the word is made flesh.”
God is seeing through what is.
God is what is seeing through.
There is a variation of the question, “Which came first the chicken or the egg? That question asks, “What is seeing what is?” Or, it can also be stated as a declarative, “What is seeing what is.”
Can the world be transformed by re-wording it?
Can our words be transformed by seeing the world new now?
Our deepest natural instinctive intuition sees the world in its true being.
Without adding or subtracting, are we willing or able to see the world as what is seeing the world?
Is the heart of God transformation of the world by fullness of word?
Transformation heals what is whole.
The whole of what is sees healing transformation.
Then, as everybody listens and watches with care, Andre reads his poem.
Thursday, March 27, 2003
“Sun is warm,” Saskia says standing half in front of kitchen window half in front of stove stirring orange chocolate in saucepan for almond torte in oven.
Cesco stretches between worktable and cold iron wood stove watching me pass, rubbing flank of his sensitive hindquarter. It has been lovely having him come to live with us. Sando heavy-lids on daybed.
Mu-ge intent on windowsill in upstairs study marveling at open airing through screen at birds below on this sweet spring morning. He takes calculations on height and distance to ground, torque to break through screen, probability of snatching bird in flight, and remaining time to right his legs landing on broken open seed shell below feeder. It’s a long deliberation hardly distracted by triangle wind chime tolling in his ear 16 inches away. He flattens down, at ease. The sun is rounding corner of old farmhouse to window brightening white spot on nose. He jumps back into room. Paw steps descending stairs.
Gale and Tom led Laura Soul-Friend Circle last evening. There was talk of being a community of one, that of the individual willing in love to be the one they are and open to each other. A community of two might result with this foundation. So, also, a community of twenty or two hundred. All in love.
The person realizing a community of one does not give herself or himself away. Rather, they open themselves to another. A community of two does not restrict themselves to only the other, but opens their love to allow others the radiance of their love, inspiring them to deepen their own love.
When something is open there is no giving or taking. When someone opens himself or herself there is nothing of them there to be given or taken. How, we might ask, is this love?
In some introductory comments in his book The Word as Truth (A Critical Examination of the Christian Doctrine of Revelation in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth), c.1944, A.A. Fairweather writes,
Barth insists that only the present event of God’s speaking is revelation. The written Word is the witness that God speaks. Despite its inclusion in the threefold form of God’s Word, it in no way expresses the content. (p.viii)
Two pages earlier Fairweather says,
Aquinas conceives revelation as given through intermediaries, an “inner light” elevating the mind of man to perceive with certainty what is thereby revealed. Speech is not the bearer of revelation. (p.vi)
Without written word or spoken word, what is God revealing right now?
War is visceral. No writing or speaking contains its revelation. The revelation of war is opened in the body. It, too, is incarnational.
Embodiment is the revelation of God’s presence. Like some Zen koan, we are asked to present our understanding in exactly who we are at this moment.
A community of one? Open within oneself?
A community of two? Allowing others to share the radiant mind and heart of what is found there?
A community of twenty, two hundred, two million, two billion? All open to the presence of love?
Movement and stillness:
Both are part of the same principle,
Emotions of this dusty world
Are not as important as the Way,
So I endure this thin paper robe
Until the dawn bell,
While pomegranate leaves and mulberry
Branches dance in the north wind.
- Tesshu Tokusai (d.1366)
For Aquinas and Barth there is the problem of sin. What blocks us, what defaces or effaces the revelation of divine truth and love to us? Each had their theories. For us today, what is it that diverts our energies to war and varied versions of narrow interests pitting one against the other instead of one open with and to the other?
Fairweather ends his study saying,
The witnesses to revelation in the past may warn us to expect a future self-revelation of God to us. But they certainly do warn us that His self-revelation is already abiding in operation; that it is God who awaits our response to it; and that this is the part that falls to us in the consummation of His divine purpose. (p.148)
How devoutly wished is this consummation? How complete is what is open? How unblock and dissolve barriers to love?
Open oneself to the light?
Without written word or spoken word, what is God revealing right now?
The sun is warm.
Cesco stretches between worktable and cold iron wood stove watching me pass, rubbing flank of his sensitive hindquarter. It has been lovely having him come to live with us. Sando heavy-lids on daybed.
Mu-ge intent on windowsill in upstairs study marveling at open airing through screen at birds below on this sweet spring morning. He takes calculations on height and distance to ground, torque to break through screen, probability of snatching bird in flight, and remaining time to right his legs landing on broken open seed shell below feeder. It’s a long deliberation hardly distracted by triangle wind chime tolling in his ear 16 inches away. He flattens down, at ease. The sun is rounding corner of old farmhouse to window brightening white spot on nose. He jumps back into room. Paw steps descending stairs.
Gale and Tom led Laura Soul-Friend Circle last evening. There was talk of being a community of one, that of the individual willing in love to be the one they are and open to each other. A community of two might result with this foundation. So, also, a community of twenty or two hundred. All in love.
The person realizing a community of one does not give herself or himself away. Rather, they open themselves to another. A community of two does not restrict themselves to only the other, but opens their love to allow others the radiance of their love, inspiring them to deepen their own love.
When something is open there is no giving or taking. When someone opens himself or herself there is nothing of them there to be given or taken. How, we might ask, is this love?
In some introductory comments in his book The Word as Truth (A Critical Examination of the Christian Doctrine of Revelation in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth), c.1944, A.A. Fairweather writes,
Barth insists that only the present event of God’s speaking is revelation. The written Word is the witness that God speaks. Despite its inclusion in the threefold form of God’s Word, it in no way expresses the content. (p.viii)
Two pages earlier Fairweather says,
Aquinas conceives revelation as given through intermediaries, an “inner light” elevating the mind of man to perceive with certainty what is thereby revealed. Speech is not the bearer of revelation. (p.vi)
Without written word or spoken word, what is God revealing right now?
War is visceral. No writing or speaking contains its revelation. The revelation of war is opened in the body. It, too, is incarnational.
Embodiment is the revelation of God’s presence. Like some Zen koan, we are asked to present our understanding in exactly who we are at this moment.
A community of one? Open within oneself?
A community of two? Allowing others to share the radiant mind and heart of what is found there?
A community of twenty, two hundred, two million, two billion? All open to the presence of love?
Movement and stillness:
Both are part of the same principle,
Emotions of this dusty world
Are not as important as the Way,
So I endure this thin paper robe
Until the dawn bell,
While pomegranate leaves and mulberry
Branches dance in the north wind.
- Tesshu Tokusai (d.1366)
For Aquinas and Barth there is the problem of sin. What blocks us, what defaces or effaces the revelation of divine truth and love to us? Each had their theories. For us today, what is it that diverts our energies to war and varied versions of narrow interests pitting one against the other instead of one open with and to the other?
Fairweather ends his study saying,
The witnesses to revelation in the past may warn us to expect a future self-revelation of God to us. But they certainly do warn us that His self-revelation is already abiding in operation; that it is God who awaits our response to it; and that this is the part that falls to us in the consummation of His divine purpose. (p.148)
How devoutly wished is this consummation? How complete is what is open? How unblock and dissolve barriers to love?
Open oneself to the light?
Without written word or spoken word, what is God revealing right now?
The sun is warm.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Breathe!
Wednesday Haiku
Dismal day in Maine,
Raw chill clouds over brown ground,
Rain and tears on way.
(wfh)
We have the word “Breathe” scattered about the shop. Melissa, who teaches Yoga, would post announcements of classes on the wall. When posting a new one I’d take the old one, pare off the word “Breathe” and tack it up in various places.
Names and news of the dead arrive in our homes.
Melissa’s picture is on page B11 of The New York Times, Monday, March 24, 2003. She holds framed photograph of her son, Cpl. Brian Kennedy, in his Marine’s uniform. In the caption, “'He died for all of us,’ his mother said.”
Eighth Station
Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
Consider how these women wept with compassion at seeing Jesus in such a pitiable plight, streaming with blood as he struggled along. “My children,” said he, “weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children.”(p.1413, The Roman Missal, 9th Edition, c.1934)
Leaving church after sitting a spell after Mass at St. Bernard’s, picking up cup of coffee and chocolate muffin at convenience store, parking on wharf, looking out at Rockland harbor. In fog beyond breakwater lighthouse two lights move from open Penobscot Bay. Ferry from Vinalhaven angles toward terminal as Democracy Now reports news about the war in Iraq. A piling across the marina has fallen over, hanging from pier by twisted wooden brace.
Weep for Jesus?
No, he said, don’t weep for me. Jesus was never interested in pointing fingers. Not at him. Not at those who’d broken the law. Not at evildoers or good doers.
Women in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, America, Australia, and Briton are weeping. It’s always that way with war. The weeping goes on, as war goes on, for us and for our children.
Breathe!
Mountain temple rainy,
Dark and gloomy all day,
Plums still half yellow, half green;
On my lone mat,
Still and quiet,
Deep in meditation,
I don’t let birds and blossoms
Into my garden gate.
- Betsugen Enshi (1294–1364)
March exhausts itself. Soon April will reinforce the soil and human spirit. Birds and blossoms will come seeking entrance into our garden gate. They will be lovely. And needed. But for the time being we have only news of war and death arriving in dooryards. The remnant mounds of snow decrease into wet rivulets atop loosening ground-frost waiting to swig into mud.
Melissa’s son did die for all of us. For this we are grateful. And sorrowing.
From Pennsylvania, an email that Esther’s sister “is now at peace. She died about 3 yesterday afternoon. We are glad her suffering is over.” She too, after years of living with deteriorating disease, dies for all of us.
Those women in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and all women in Jerusalem and Palestine today, weep for themselves, their children, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers.
Those who have the spontaneous, sincere wish to attain enlightenment for the ultimate benefit of all beings are called bodhisattvas. Through wisdom, they direct their minds to enlightenment, and through their compassion, they have concern for beings. This wish for perfect enlightenment for the sake of others is what we call ‘bodicitta,’ and it is the starting point on the path. By becoming aware of what enlightenment is, one understands not only that there is a goal to accomplish but also that it is possible to do so. Driven by the desire to help beings, one thinks, For their sake, I must attain enlightenment.
(--p.249-50, The Dalai Lama, in Radiant Mind)
We weep because we do not yet see the world longed for in our hearts and minds. We long for what Christ longed for. We long for what Buddha longed for.
What is this we long for?
Breathe!
Can you feel it? Can we find what Brian and all the sons and daughters of women everywhere and at all times have died for?
Here's a metaphor. We are all women in this metaphor. All conceiving, participating in creation, giving birth to instances of truth and beauty. All are women. All is woman. Until love completes its goal we only seem to be a fragmented division of male and female, boy and girl, human and angel, God and non-God.
In this metaphor, we are all Americans, all Australians, Britons, Iraqis, and every ethnic child of every woman throughout the world.
We weep because those who die in war, and those who die in all conflict of unawareness, are stark profound reminders.They die for us.
For us.
Can we get even the smallest glimmer of who we are?
Who are we that someone dies for us? Who are we, died for?
Really, we must ask ourselves, who are we. (No facile answers. Please. No unreflective, unsilent, unstill, or unaware responses – please.)
Until love completes us, we weep.
For all our sake, we must attain enlightenment. We must become who and what we are in love.
Breathe -- that all might live! That 'all' lives within each and every one.
Breathe -- until the metaphor, the transfer bearing us across the divide, comes true.
Breathe -- that our hearts, safely dwelling in love within each one, will be the light we see through.
In the meantime, our hearts go out to those who weep.
Wednesday Haiku
Dismal day in Maine,
Raw chill clouds over brown ground,
Rain and tears on way.
(wfh)
We have the word “Breathe” scattered about the shop. Melissa, who teaches Yoga, would post announcements of classes on the wall. When posting a new one I’d take the old one, pare off the word “Breathe” and tack it up in various places.
Names and news of the dead arrive in our homes.
Melissa’s picture is on page B11 of The New York Times, Monday, March 24, 2003. She holds framed photograph of her son, Cpl. Brian Kennedy, in his Marine’s uniform. In the caption, “'He died for all of us,’ his mother said.”
Eighth Station
Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
Consider how these women wept with compassion at seeing Jesus in such a pitiable plight, streaming with blood as he struggled along. “My children,” said he, “weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children.”(p.1413, The Roman Missal, 9th Edition, c.1934)
Leaving church after sitting a spell after Mass at St. Bernard’s, picking up cup of coffee and chocolate muffin at convenience store, parking on wharf, looking out at Rockland harbor. In fog beyond breakwater lighthouse two lights move from open Penobscot Bay. Ferry from Vinalhaven angles toward terminal as Democracy Now reports news about the war in Iraq. A piling across the marina has fallen over, hanging from pier by twisted wooden brace.
Weep for Jesus?
No, he said, don’t weep for me. Jesus was never interested in pointing fingers. Not at him. Not at those who’d broken the law. Not at evildoers or good doers.
Women in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, America, Australia, and Briton are weeping. It’s always that way with war. The weeping goes on, as war goes on, for us and for our children.
Breathe!
Mountain temple rainy,
Dark and gloomy all day,
Plums still half yellow, half green;
On my lone mat,
Still and quiet,
Deep in meditation,
I don’t let birds and blossoms
Into my garden gate.
- Betsugen Enshi (1294–1364)
March exhausts itself. Soon April will reinforce the soil and human spirit. Birds and blossoms will come seeking entrance into our garden gate. They will be lovely. And needed. But for the time being we have only news of war and death arriving in dooryards. The remnant mounds of snow decrease into wet rivulets atop loosening ground-frost waiting to swig into mud.
Melissa’s son did die for all of us. For this we are grateful. And sorrowing.
From Pennsylvania, an email that Esther’s sister “is now at peace. She died about 3 yesterday afternoon. We are glad her suffering is over.” She too, after years of living with deteriorating disease, dies for all of us.
Those women in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and all women in Jerusalem and Palestine today, weep for themselves, their children, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers.
Those who have the spontaneous, sincere wish to attain enlightenment for the ultimate benefit of all beings are called bodhisattvas. Through wisdom, they direct their minds to enlightenment, and through their compassion, they have concern for beings. This wish for perfect enlightenment for the sake of others is what we call ‘bodicitta,’ and it is the starting point on the path. By becoming aware of what enlightenment is, one understands not only that there is a goal to accomplish but also that it is possible to do so. Driven by the desire to help beings, one thinks, For their sake, I must attain enlightenment.
(--p.249-50, The Dalai Lama, in Radiant Mind)
We weep because we do not yet see the world longed for in our hearts and minds. We long for what Christ longed for. We long for what Buddha longed for.
What is this we long for?
Breathe!
Can you feel it? Can we find what Brian and all the sons and daughters of women everywhere and at all times have died for?
Here's a metaphor. We are all women in this metaphor. All conceiving, participating in creation, giving birth to instances of truth and beauty. All are women. All is woman. Until love completes its goal we only seem to be a fragmented division of male and female, boy and girl, human and angel, God and non-God.
In this metaphor, we are all Americans, all Australians, Britons, Iraqis, and every ethnic child of every woman throughout the world.
We weep because those who die in war, and those who die in all conflict of unawareness, are stark profound reminders.They die for us.
For us.
Can we get even the smallest glimmer of who we are?
Who are we that someone dies for us? Who are we, died for?
Really, we must ask ourselves, who are we. (No facile answers. Please. No unreflective, unsilent, unstill, or unaware responses – please.)
Until love completes us, we weep.
For all our sake, we must attain enlightenment. We must become who and what we are in love.
Breathe -- that all might live! That 'all' lives within each and every one.
Breathe -- until the metaphor, the transfer bearing us across the divide, comes true.
Breathe -- that our hearts, safely dwelling in love within each one, will be the light we see through.
In the meantime, our hearts go out to those who weep.
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
A young girl felt in her body the sense of an angel. She didn't know better. She yielded to the invitation to embody what could not be embodied. They say she did not know man. Yet, there she was, saying yes, becoming pregnant.
Young soldiers know her fear.
One’s own nature is great because
It can contain all things.
As all things are contained in
Your own nature,
If good and bad people are
Viewed with neither attachment
Nor repulsion, also without
Contamination, the mind which
Is like space, is called great.
For this reason, it is called maha.
( - Altar Sutra)
In Iraq old men and old women pray "God is great." Children are born of such mystery. The Middle East is full of mystery. God lived once in that desert. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Saddam, have each known the call of the stars in black night to preach water to sand. Yes, even Saddam. He is given us to weave a story about our souls in the early morning of new millennia.
Like Pharaoh's chariots racing toward waiting other side of Eden's rivers, the conquering army will not be dissuaded in their dream of victory. Running after them are billions of eyes and ears accounting for the half-mile and full mile the rocket fired and the bomb dropped. Whole civilizations of gamblers bet their opinions on who will win and what point spread of death and surprise strategy will cover the blowing grains pinging against khaki cloth and mottled steel at mid-day.
Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to a savior. Mary told Joseph he would have to wait his turn and turn his mind over and over deliberating whether God was in the wind that blew over his wife. Joseph told himself there was solace in the emptiness of empty desert night where nothing is yours and that which you do not have is not even yours to give up. Joseph didn't make it into the Magnificat. His soul didn't magnify nor glorify the Lord. His soul was dry as mid-afternoon outside Basra. His mind was as befuddled as drying blood in a stretch of sand near the edge of Nasiriya.
Annunciation to Mary has been windswept bare and clean by flecks of driven sand over twenty centuries of polishing pronouncement. Angel speaks, Mary responds, God silences everything within new residence. Impregnation by annunciation! How perfect. Say it, and it comes to be.
How perfect -- say war and it too comes to be. Like the burning bush that will not be consumed, a new Bush burns with vision of a new desert and a new conception for a new century. Hardly has Gabriel turned head to return to the intuition of God that centuries traverse the dunes arriving at Baghdad as light of day falls under dark blanket of night. Loud explosions and fiery bursts of light make the desert darkness festive.
We are present at the whispering of some other angel between missile and mortar. A crackling of syllables suspended over machine gun spurts and shoulder stinger burps fired at targets just a ways away. Our ears know the sound that insinuates itself between the curses and prayers of frantic faces.
First verse was turmoil. Second is promise of peace. This third stanza is who gives a shit; let's do these mothers to kingdom come. An odd old hymn of human din and discouraging certainty! A cakewalk, some said, as they danced the sexiest theory with sluttish deceit around the propaganda microphone. This lie is going to town tonight!
What travels these nights in the desert? Not Mary. Not Gabriel. Not Joseph. Not a story of miracles and mysteries. Not us. Not tonight. Not, it seems, ever.
"Let it be done to me according to your word," said Mary. She sensed the angel’s message with her yes dropping deep into an ovule's first yawning stir. "Let it be," she said, and it came to be.
Long lines of religious storytellers have disappeared behind extinguished fires and acrid smoke.
Their disappearance blends perfectly with out-breath.
A fool, it is said, can hold an extinguished dream in open hands.
This smoldering invitation to be what God is. Is anyone willing to say yes to life?
Tota pulchra es, Maria!
Young soldiers know her fear.
One’s own nature is great because
It can contain all things.
As all things are contained in
Your own nature,
If good and bad people are
Viewed with neither attachment
Nor repulsion, also without
Contamination, the mind which
Is like space, is called great.
For this reason, it is called maha.
( - Altar Sutra)
In Iraq old men and old women pray "God is great." Children are born of such mystery. The Middle East is full of mystery. God lived once in that desert. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Saddam, have each known the call of the stars in black night to preach water to sand. Yes, even Saddam. He is given us to weave a story about our souls in the early morning of new millennia.
Like Pharaoh's chariots racing toward waiting other side of Eden's rivers, the conquering army will not be dissuaded in their dream of victory. Running after them are billions of eyes and ears accounting for the half-mile and full mile the rocket fired and the bomb dropped. Whole civilizations of gamblers bet their opinions on who will win and what point spread of death and surprise strategy will cover the blowing grains pinging against khaki cloth and mottled steel at mid-day.
Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to a savior. Mary told Joseph he would have to wait his turn and turn his mind over and over deliberating whether God was in the wind that blew over his wife. Joseph told himself there was solace in the emptiness of empty desert night where nothing is yours and that which you do not have is not even yours to give up. Joseph didn't make it into the Magnificat. His soul didn't magnify nor glorify the Lord. His soul was dry as mid-afternoon outside Basra. His mind was as befuddled as drying blood in a stretch of sand near the edge of Nasiriya.
Annunciation to Mary has been windswept bare and clean by flecks of driven sand over twenty centuries of polishing pronouncement. Angel speaks, Mary responds, God silences everything within new residence. Impregnation by annunciation! How perfect. Say it, and it comes to be.
How perfect -- say war and it too comes to be. Like the burning bush that will not be consumed, a new Bush burns with vision of a new desert and a new conception for a new century. Hardly has Gabriel turned head to return to the intuition of God that centuries traverse the dunes arriving at Baghdad as light of day falls under dark blanket of night. Loud explosions and fiery bursts of light make the desert darkness festive.
We are present at the whispering of some other angel between missile and mortar. A crackling of syllables suspended over machine gun spurts and shoulder stinger burps fired at targets just a ways away. Our ears know the sound that insinuates itself between the curses and prayers of frantic faces.
First verse was turmoil. Second is promise of peace. This third stanza is who gives a shit; let's do these mothers to kingdom come. An odd old hymn of human din and discouraging certainty! A cakewalk, some said, as they danced the sexiest theory with sluttish deceit around the propaganda microphone. This lie is going to town tonight!
What travels these nights in the desert? Not Mary. Not Gabriel. Not Joseph. Not a story of miracles and mysteries. Not us. Not tonight. Not, it seems, ever.
"Let it be done to me according to your word," said Mary. She sensed the angel’s message with her yes dropping deep into an ovule's first yawning stir. "Let it be," she said, and it came to be.
Long lines of religious storytellers have disappeared behind extinguished fires and acrid smoke.
Their disappearance blends perfectly with out-breath.
A fool, it is said, can hold an extinguished dream in open hands.
This smoldering invitation to be what God is. Is anyone willing to say yes to life?
Tota pulchra es, Maria!
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Note: The Bookshop/Bakery is closed today, Sunday. We will reopen on Wednesday the 26th. Sunday Evening Practice at the Hermitage will take place from 6-8pm
...
With war, death.
Attain the mind of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet:
As myriad things act in concert,
I therefore observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.
( - Lao-tzu)
With death, sorrow.
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure: then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
(-poem "Death be not Proud" (Holy Sonnets: X), by John Donne)
With sorrow, prayer.
All’s misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.
(-- from poem "Epilogue" by Robert Lowell In Day by Day, c,1977)
With prayer, remembrance.
...
With war, death.
Attain the mind of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet:
As myriad things act in concert,
I therefore observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.
( - Lao-tzu)
With death, sorrow.
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure: then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
(-poem "Death be not Proud" (Holy Sonnets: X), by John Donne)
With sorrow, prayer.
All’s misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.
(-- from poem "Epilogue" by Robert Lowell In Day by Day, c,1977)
With prayer, remembrance.
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Note: The Bookshop/Bakery is closed today, Saturday, and tomorrow, Sunday. We will reopen on Wednesday the 26th.
…
Surrender to Spring!
Winter has lost its spot on the calendar page. Snow melts into earth. Violent war shudders and shatters all opinion to the contrary. We are crowded with cheerleaders, with righteous acceptance of war, and crowded with disguises that hide a terrifying enemy in our midst. That enemy is forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is a crowd that excludes anything but the crowd. We must remember each individual. We must make room for each one of us. In our lives. In this country. In the world.
It is time to look at and listen to Meetingbrook’s motto:
Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone,
Stepping aside to make room for Another.
Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about...
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems to be dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
The speech of war is shrill terror. Do not believe soft cadences of explanation. Do not be seduced by confident tones promising beneficial outcomes. The language of war is the extraction of silence from the soul. Replacing it is incessant insinuation of success and “It’s just us, only us,” a signature mantra that numbs heart and mind
“Life is what it is about,” says the poet. Right now it is about war, bombs, bullets, suffering, and death in Iraq.
There is no acceptance of war. It is seen. It is heard. It is grieved over. But it is not accepted. It can’t be accepted.
War appears as “is not,” and takes away what is there.
“Is not,” like non-being, or evil as the absence of good, cannot be accepted. There isn’t anything there. There isn’t anything to accept. War, in this day and age, is failure camouflaging itself as ideology. Ideology is failure dressed for success. .
What is? What is, is. Or, as prayed worldwide, Only God is.
Surrender is what is! Surrender is a great gift. We can only surrender to what is. Being is. The antithesis of war is surrender. The government of Iraq will surrender. Soon, the government of the United States of America will surrender.
Iraq will surrender to war and the demands of war’s agents. America will surrender too. That surrender will be different. America will surrender to an inevitable awareness that war is failure. Ideology, like the one positing one country as model and matrix, is seductive. Like all who have used power to get what they want or believe to be true and profitable, this country too will learn that power and war are seeds of destruction infecting the hand sowing them.
There are deeper seeds to be thrown and cultivated. There is a need to surrender to what is. What is, what some call God, is all there is. No power, no war, no good intention, no blueprint for political success – none of these are capable of surrendering to what is, surrendering to God.
It is a frightening thing to claim to know the mind of God or attempt to bring about someone’s version of the will of God.
We are on fragile ground.
Count to twelve.
Keep quiet.
Surrender to spring.
…
Surrender to Spring!
Winter has lost its spot on the calendar page. Snow melts into earth. Violent war shudders and shatters all opinion to the contrary. We are crowded with cheerleaders, with righteous acceptance of war, and crowded with disguises that hide a terrifying enemy in our midst. That enemy is forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is a crowd that excludes anything but the crowd. We must remember each individual. We must make room for each one of us. In our lives. In this country. In the world.
It is time to look at and listen to Meetingbrook’s motto:
Embodying the dwelling place of the Alone,
Stepping aside to make room for Another.
Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about...
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems to be dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
The speech of war is shrill terror. Do not believe soft cadences of explanation. Do not be seduced by confident tones promising beneficial outcomes. The language of war is the extraction of silence from the soul. Replacing it is incessant insinuation of success and “It’s just us, only us,” a signature mantra that numbs heart and mind
“Life is what it is about,” says the poet. Right now it is about war, bombs, bullets, suffering, and death in Iraq.
There is no acceptance of war. It is seen. It is heard. It is grieved over. But it is not accepted. It can’t be accepted.
War appears as “is not,” and takes away what is there.
“Is not,” like non-being, or evil as the absence of good, cannot be accepted. There isn’t anything there. There isn’t anything to accept. War, in this day and age, is failure camouflaging itself as ideology. Ideology is failure dressed for success. .
What is? What is, is. Or, as prayed worldwide, Only God is.
Surrender is what is! Surrender is a great gift. We can only surrender to what is. Being is. The antithesis of war is surrender. The government of Iraq will surrender. Soon, the government of the United States of America will surrender.
Iraq will surrender to war and the demands of war’s agents. America will surrender too. That surrender will be different. America will surrender to an inevitable awareness that war is failure. Ideology, like the one positing one country as model and matrix, is seductive. Like all who have used power to get what they want or believe to be true and profitable, this country too will learn that power and war are seeds of destruction infecting the hand sowing them.
There are deeper seeds to be thrown and cultivated. There is a need to surrender to what is. What is, what some call God, is all there is. No power, no war, no good intention, no blueprint for political success – none of these are capable of surrendering to what is, surrendering to God.
It is a frightening thing to claim to know the mind of God or attempt to bring about someone’s version of the will of God.
We are on fragile ground.
Count to twelve.
Keep quiet.
Surrender to spring.
Friday, March 21, 2003
Note: The bookshop/bakery is closed today, Friday. We'll reopen for Saturday Morning Conversation at 9:AM.
...
The temptation of the desert is strong.
Jesus said to them, ‘Go and learn what the text means, "I require mercy, not sacrifice."
I did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners.’
(Matthew 9: 13 New English Bible)
Words, diplomacy, and international good faith have been sacrificed in America's action against Iraq.
Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will proclaim your praise;
for you do not delight in sacrifices: if I offered you a burnt offering, it would not please you.
The true sacrifice is a broken spirit: a contrite and humble heart, O God, you will not refuse.
(--from Psalm 51)
There will be scant sincere praise for the actions of America. There was no praise for Saddam Hussein's rigid hold on his country. There will be little praise for George Bush's incomprehensible motivations for shunting sound and sensible means other than invasion and war.
Those who seek liberation for themselves alone cannot become fully enlightened. Though it may be said that one who is not already liberated cannot liberate others the very process of forgetting oneself to help others is itself liberating. Therefore those who seek to benefit themselves alone actually harm themselves by doing so, while those who help others also help themselves by doing so.
- Muso Kokushi (1275-1351)
But we are a poor and foolish voice calling for mercy, longing to praise but stuttering instead invective, and contrite for being overtaken by strong feelings of disgust and mistrust of the perpetrators of fear and violence.
It is an odd sacrifice called for by this war. Respect is bloodied by the steel edge of fear.
It is an odd mercy evoked by this war. With Saddam gone, someone, perhaps the slaying hunter, could very easily inherit his power.
In the Christian metaphor the Lord's Prayer ends with the words, "For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever." Whoever takes power, appropriating it to himself, has begun the process of deterioration that accompanies something cut off from its source. This is why "power" is best left in the hands of God. When someone says, "I am God," they draw all attention to themselves, like iron-bits to magnet. I fear those who reserve to themselves that which belongs to the participatory gathering of men and women of good will -- that is, to the presence of God felt in the assemblage with faith, trust, and love.
Mere mouthing of those three words 'faith, trust, and love' -- deserves skepticism. We are not meant to spin and finesse rhetoric like a salesman only interested in selling his wares. But we are meant to embody those words until the words themselves disappear from our vocabulary and emerge in clear eyes, serving hands, and feet that are unshod walking with us.
This is how lies are recognized. Lies have eyes that shift and mock, hands that slap and take, and feet that kick then walk away.
We already long for someone to replace the man that has tricked us into thinking he represents us in the world.
In the spiritual desert of Jesus, the struggle of Jesus was not to accept the offer put to him by the tempter.
In the political desert of Messer’s Bush, Cheney et al, our struggle is not to accept the offer put to us by them.
Like Jesus in his Near Eastern desert, ours, too, is not the world, the power, and the adoration of others. Jesus left the desert understanding only God is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Like Jesus, we'd best not leave the desert before learning to decline the offer being made to us by the leaders of this administration in Washington.
Rather, imperialism must give way to the kingdom paradise that resides within and around each one of us; super-power must give way to participatory-power-of-divinity that includes everyone in the conversation about its use, and; self-congratulations must give way to resplendent and glorious humility that lives, breathes, and has its being in the service of all beings in the world.
The temptation of the desert is strong. We have to decline the temptation of the desert.
Resist sacrificing others. Respond by being merciful to one and all. Refuse to accept the offer of fools. Rather, embrace counter-intuitive wisdom -- rendering to God the transmission rendered to us all.
Let there be 'No' to the sacrifice of integrity for fragments of wealth -- give it back!
Let there be 'Yes' to the rising spirit of conscience and consciousness, mercy for our broken spirits -- share it well!
...
The temptation of the desert is strong.
Jesus said to them, ‘Go and learn what the text means, "I require mercy, not sacrifice."
I did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners.’
(Matthew 9: 13 New English Bible)
Words, diplomacy, and international good faith have been sacrificed in America's action against Iraq.
Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will proclaim your praise;
for you do not delight in sacrifices: if I offered you a burnt offering, it would not please you.
The true sacrifice is a broken spirit: a contrite and humble heart, O God, you will not refuse.
(--from Psalm 51)
There will be scant sincere praise for the actions of America. There was no praise for Saddam Hussein's rigid hold on his country. There will be little praise for George Bush's incomprehensible motivations for shunting sound and sensible means other than invasion and war.
Those who seek liberation for themselves alone cannot become fully enlightened. Though it may be said that one who is not already liberated cannot liberate others the very process of forgetting oneself to help others is itself liberating. Therefore those who seek to benefit themselves alone actually harm themselves by doing so, while those who help others also help themselves by doing so.
- Muso Kokushi (1275-1351)
But we are a poor and foolish voice calling for mercy, longing to praise but stuttering instead invective, and contrite for being overtaken by strong feelings of disgust and mistrust of the perpetrators of fear and violence.
It is an odd sacrifice called for by this war. Respect is bloodied by the steel edge of fear.
It is an odd mercy evoked by this war. With Saddam gone, someone, perhaps the slaying hunter, could very easily inherit his power.
In the Christian metaphor the Lord's Prayer ends with the words, "For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever." Whoever takes power, appropriating it to himself, has begun the process of deterioration that accompanies something cut off from its source. This is why "power" is best left in the hands of God. When someone says, "I am God," they draw all attention to themselves, like iron-bits to magnet. I fear those who reserve to themselves that which belongs to the participatory gathering of men and women of good will -- that is, to the presence of God felt in the assemblage with faith, trust, and love.
Mere mouthing of those three words 'faith, trust, and love' -- deserves skepticism. We are not meant to spin and finesse rhetoric like a salesman only interested in selling his wares. But we are meant to embody those words until the words themselves disappear from our vocabulary and emerge in clear eyes, serving hands, and feet that are unshod walking with us.
This is how lies are recognized. Lies have eyes that shift and mock, hands that slap and take, and feet that kick then walk away.
We already long for someone to replace the man that has tricked us into thinking he represents us in the world.
In the spiritual desert of Jesus, the struggle of Jesus was not to accept the offer put to him by the tempter.
In the political desert of Messer’s Bush, Cheney et al, our struggle is not to accept the offer put to us by them.
Like Jesus in his Near Eastern desert, ours, too, is not the world, the power, and the adoration of others. Jesus left the desert understanding only God is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Like Jesus, we'd best not leave the desert before learning to decline the offer being made to us by the leaders of this administration in Washington.
Rather, imperialism must give way to the kingdom paradise that resides within and around each one of us; super-power must give way to participatory-power-of-divinity that includes everyone in the conversation about its use, and; self-congratulations must give way to resplendent and glorious humility that lives, breathes, and has its being in the service of all beings in the world.
The temptation of the desert is strong. We have to decline the temptation of the desert.
Resist sacrificing others. Respond by being merciful to one and all. Refuse to accept the offer of fools. Rather, embrace counter-intuitive wisdom -- rendering to God the transmission rendered to us all.
Let there be 'No' to the sacrifice of integrity for fragments of wealth -- give it back!
Let there be 'Yes' to the rising spirit of conscience and consciousness, mercy for our broken spirits -- share it well!
Thursday, March 20, 2003
In the harbor a big gray barge completes replacing mooring blocks for finger floats where dredging took place through the winter. It rounds the outer channel marker buffeted by head seas and increasing wind on its way to Rockland Harbor.
A storm is coming. The cold sea is a deep darkness whose surface locks our attention. Across the planet in a desert country bombs and bullets battle the night in a deep darkness of war. We must learn to penetrate the surface of night, to surrender into the deep darkness, to confront the vast desolation that believes war is just, merely another tool to manipulate human consciousness.
War as tool locks down mind and heart.
Letter to a Wild Monk
Other than the birds,
Who watches over you?
Lordly peaks, your neighbors.
White head held pillowed on a stone.
Grey robe ragged, but not soiled
Chestnuts pile up on your path.
Monkeys circle where you sit.
If you ever set up another Zendo,
I swear I’ll be the one who sweeps the floors.
- Kuan Hsiu (832–912)
We need someone to open the doors and sweep the floors of our thinking and opinion about war. War is mud splattering and cloaking hearts and minds. Miring.
But now you have rejected and disgraced us; you do not march out with our armies.
You make us retreat before the foe; those who hate us plunder us at will.
You hand us over like sheep to be slaughtered, scatter us among the nations.
You sell your people for nothing; you make no profit from their sale.
You make us the reproach of our neighbors, the mockery and scorn of those around us.
You make us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us.
All day long my disgrace is before me; shame has covered my face
At the sound of those who taunt and revile, at the sight of the spiteful enemy.
All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, nor been disloyal to your covenant.
Our hearts have not turned back, nor have our steps strayed from your path.
( -- From Psalm 44)
Our hearts and minds lurch toward center ground between meditation and mockery. One by two all day they wander in. Refugees from combating sides of belief and opinion. Our door is open. We were going to close. Business should not continue as usual when so many are falling into deep darkness. But we are not a usual business. There's no need to explain or defend, take or not take sides, be cheery or despondent. Each arrives as, how, and who they are.
(Sign on door of bookshop):
War is terrible.
…
We sorrow with
all suffering the terror of war.
…
We pray for everyone affected by this war
…
Please care for yourselves,
whether active or at rest.
…
Be compassionate with
those with differing opinion.
…
Take some silence and stillness.
…
Our chapel/meditation cabin at the Hermitage is open & available for visiting.
…
Bill & Saskia
20March03
(Should we be closed, we will leave a message on answering machine, 236.6808, and post on www.meetingbrook.org, Today at Meetingbrook the date we’ll reopen)
Out of deep darkness we cry -- unmire our minds, sweep clear our hearts!
A storm is coming. The cold sea is a deep darkness whose surface locks our attention. Across the planet in a desert country bombs and bullets battle the night in a deep darkness of war. We must learn to penetrate the surface of night, to surrender into the deep darkness, to confront the vast desolation that believes war is just, merely another tool to manipulate human consciousness.
War as tool locks down mind and heart.
Letter to a Wild Monk
Other than the birds,
Who watches over you?
Lordly peaks, your neighbors.
White head held pillowed on a stone.
Grey robe ragged, but not soiled
Chestnuts pile up on your path.
Monkeys circle where you sit.
If you ever set up another Zendo,
I swear I’ll be the one who sweeps the floors.
- Kuan Hsiu (832–912)
We need someone to open the doors and sweep the floors of our thinking and opinion about war. War is mud splattering and cloaking hearts and minds. Miring.
But now you have rejected and disgraced us; you do not march out with our armies.
You make us retreat before the foe; those who hate us plunder us at will.
You hand us over like sheep to be slaughtered, scatter us among the nations.
You sell your people for nothing; you make no profit from their sale.
You make us the reproach of our neighbors, the mockery and scorn of those around us.
You make us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us.
All day long my disgrace is before me; shame has covered my face
At the sound of those who taunt and revile, at the sight of the spiteful enemy.
All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, nor been disloyal to your covenant.
Our hearts have not turned back, nor have our steps strayed from your path.
( -- From Psalm 44)
Our hearts and minds lurch toward center ground between meditation and mockery. One by two all day they wander in. Refugees from combating sides of belief and opinion. Our door is open. We were going to close. Business should not continue as usual when so many are falling into deep darkness. But we are not a usual business. There's no need to explain or defend, take or not take sides, be cheery or despondent. Each arrives as, how, and who they are.
(Sign on door of bookshop):
War is terrible.
…
We sorrow with
all suffering the terror of war.
…
We pray for everyone affected by this war
…
Please care for yourselves,
whether active or at rest.
…
Be compassionate with
those with differing opinion.
…
Take some silence and stillness.
…
Our chapel/meditation cabin at the Hermitage is open & available for visiting.
…
Bill & Saskia
20March03
(Should we be closed, we will leave a message on answering machine, 236.6808, and post on www.meetingbrook.org, Today at Meetingbrook the date we’ll reopen)
Out of deep darkness we cry -- unmire our minds, sweep clear our hearts!
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
We are being asked to marry the present moment.
Right now there are many unfavorable and favorable circumstances asking for acceptance with a compassionate heart.
Foremost, for all of us, is the need to wake from sleep. No matter what political preference any one of us espouses, it is now vital to take all next steps with an awake heart and an awake mind.
In liturgical gatherings beginning Advent or Lent in the Christian tradition words are used to remind us, "Be reconciled to God.... Behold, now is the acceptable time" (2 Cor. 5: 20; 6: 2), And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. (Rom. 13:11)
At St. Bernard of Clairvaux Church in Rockland this morning a celebration of the feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary mother of Jesus. Breads and other baked goods were placed on steps of alter and blessed. It is a sweet tradition.
"Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife." [Mt. 1:16, 18-21, 24a]
We, too, sleep through what is taking place in our lives and in the world.
Joseph awoke. We must awake. In an odd variation of the Matthew text, we are being asked to marry the present moment.
Since sky and earth are mindless,
They last forever.
What has mind has limits.
A person who has attained
The Path is like this too.
In the midst of no activity,
She carries out her activities,
Accepting all unfavorable
And favorable circumstances
With a compassionate heart.
- Yunmen (864-949)(dailyzen)
Contrary to black and white simplistic rhetoric and thinking, no one with right mind and heart sees war as good and desirable. War is awful. It pains, causes suffering and death, untold destruction, and a residue of bad memories in those undergoing its devastation. War is an option a nation takes only with deep and grave elimination of options other than war.
By days end we will be lost in the mechanism of war. We pray for everyone caught in that terrible machine.
Let not be listed as casualty in this war a compassionate heart. (And let no political position dare appropriate to themselves the word ‘compassionate.’) If killing be done, let our hearts weep. If destruction occurs, let our hearts be sorrowing. If victory be swift, let our hearts be sober. If uncertainty and dark times follow this incursion, let our hearts remain open to light and grace wherever it might be found.
Joseph was devastated when his wife became pregnant and he was not the father. He had to consider as option the practice at the time to have her punished by stoning unto death. The sleep of revenge and humiliation numbed him. He was being asked to accept something beyond his comprehension. He considered dismissing her quietly – not a death by stoning, but walking away, letting her be.
Rather, he awoke.
Life looked from him. He saw Mary. He took the next step.
For us as individuals that same confusion and request to enter compassionately into something beyond our comprehension is occurring. Something paradoxical and unsettling is awakening now within us.
Right now there are many unfavorable and favorable circumstances asking for acceptance with a compassionate heart.
We are being asked to marry the present moment.
Stones? Compassionate hearts?
Angels guide us!
Right now there are many unfavorable and favorable circumstances asking for acceptance with a compassionate heart.
Foremost, for all of us, is the need to wake from sleep. No matter what political preference any one of us espouses, it is now vital to take all next steps with an awake heart and an awake mind.
In liturgical gatherings beginning Advent or Lent in the Christian tradition words are used to remind us, "Be reconciled to God.... Behold, now is the acceptable time" (2 Cor. 5: 20; 6: 2), And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. (Rom. 13:11)
At St. Bernard of Clairvaux Church in Rockland this morning a celebration of the feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary mother of Jesus. Breads and other baked goods were placed on steps of alter and blessed. It is a sweet tradition.
"Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife." [Mt. 1:16, 18-21, 24a]
We, too, sleep through what is taking place in our lives and in the world.
Joseph awoke. We must awake. In an odd variation of the Matthew text, we are being asked to marry the present moment.
Since sky and earth are mindless,
They last forever.
What has mind has limits.
A person who has attained
The Path is like this too.
In the midst of no activity,
She carries out her activities,
Accepting all unfavorable
And favorable circumstances
With a compassionate heart.
- Yunmen (864-949)(dailyzen)
Contrary to black and white simplistic rhetoric and thinking, no one with right mind and heart sees war as good and desirable. War is awful. It pains, causes suffering and death, untold destruction, and a residue of bad memories in those undergoing its devastation. War is an option a nation takes only with deep and grave elimination of options other than war.
By days end we will be lost in the mechanism of war. We pray for everyone caught in that terrible machine.
Let not be listed as casualty in this war a compassionate heart. (And let no political position dare appropriate to themselves the word ‘compassionate.’) If killing be done, let our hearts weep. If destruction occurs, let our hearts be sorrowing. If victory be swift, let our hearts be sober. If uncertainty and dark times follow this incursion, let our hearts remain open to light and grace wherever it might be found.
Joseph was devastated when his wife became pregnant and he was not the father. He had to consider as option the practice at the time to have her punished by stoning unto death. The sleep of revenge and humiliation numbed him. He was being asked to accept something beyond his comprehension. He considered dismissing her quietly – not a death by stoning, but walking away, letting her be.
Rather, he awoke.
Life looked from him. He saw Mary. He took the next step.
For us as individuals that same confusion and request to enter compassionately into something beyond our comprehension is occurring. Something paradoxical and unsettling is awakening now within us.
Right now there are many unfavorable and favorable circumstances asking for acceptance with a compassionate heart.
We are being asked to marry the present moment.
Stones? Compassionate hearts?
Angels guide us!
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
War consciousness numbs that of God, conscience, and history.
The world waits. Diplomacy is swept aside.
The Pope opposes America's incursion into Iraq.
The papal spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Walls, said, "Whoever decides that all peaceful means available under international law are exhausted assumes a grave responsibility before God, his own conscience and history."
We wait for common responsible sense to find its way back from what has been swept aside.
A deeper, more profound consciousness is what is being asked for.
And we, spectators, always, everywhere,
looking at, never out of, everything!
It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses.
We rearrange it, and collapse ourselves.
( - Rilke, in Eighth Duino Elegy)
Some men have never seen out of anything. They can only look at.
War looks at, and tries to take away or destroy what it looks at.
Something collapses in this movement of war. What? Ourselves?
Soon, that which numbs will attempt reversion to life again. Victory will be declared. Victors will try to look suitably serious, but will smirk looking off camera. It is a perquisite of power to gloat when it is not impeded.
Some good will come. Liberation? It is hoped. Regime change? No doubt. Few deaths? We pray. An easy transition to American rule? Possibly.
There are worries too. Terrorism backlash? Resentment from European and Middle Eastern countries at American arrogance? New status as feared evangelical bullies? Cynicism, at home and abroad, at the motivations and deceptions of the President and his inner circle of democracy hawks?
With the good, so too worry. It is not enough to claim that evil is being defeated. Not enough that metaphysical balance of good and evil forces is restored. Nor is the soul satisfied with any other facile interpretation of the outcome. The soul seeks solace in silent watchfulness.
God, conscience, and history watch out of themselves.
The rest of us are restricted to looking at the frightening spectacle of war.
Watch we must. To remember.
And recount when asked.
The world waits. Diplomacy is swept aside.
The Pope opposes America's incursion into Iraq.
The papal spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Walls, said, "Whoever decides that all peaceful means available under international law are exhausted assumes a grave responsibility before God, his own conscience and history."
We wait for common responsible sense to find its way back from what has been swept aside.
A deeper, more profound consciousness is what is being asked for.
And we, spectators, always, everywhere,
looking at, never out of, everything!
It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses.
We rearrange it, and collapse ourselves.
( - Rilke, in Eighth Duino Elegy)
Some men have never seen out of anything. They can only look at.
War looks at, and tries to take away or destroy what it looks at.
Something collapses in this movement of war. What? Ourselves?
Soon, that which numbs will attempt reversion to life again. Victory will be declared. Victors will try to look suitably serious, but will smirk looking off camera. It is a perquisite of power to gloat when it is not impeded.
Some good will come. Liberation? It is hoped. Regime change? No doubt. Few deaths? We pray. An easy transition to American rule? Possibly.
There are worries too. Terrorism backlash? Resentment from European and Middle Eastern countries at American arrogance? New status as feared evangelical bullies? Cynicism, at home and abroad, at the motivations and deceptions of the President and his inner circle of democracy hawks?
With the good, so too worry. It is not enough to claim that evil is being defeated. Not enough that metaphysical balance of good and evil forces is restored. Nor is the soul satisfied with any other facile interpretation of the outcome. The soul seeks solace in silent watchfulness.
God, conscience, and history watch out of themselves.
The rest of us are restricted to looking at the frightening spectacle of war.
Watch we must. To remember.
And recount when asked.
Monday, March 17, 2003
In every heart, mind, mouth, eye, and ear -- right now -- may there be the longing and finding of peace that is beyond our abilities to comprehend! Today, in the midst of darkening clouds, we wear green.
Green, hidden under white snow, sends breath of fog to fill the air. Cars pass through this breath, dogs bark into it, and silent men and women prepare to step out into it.
Green is not sandy blanch. Green is not hot red fire. Green is not rhetoric of war, justified or unjustified, hanging in the air, gallows set to loose trap door.
Green is path of chickadee flight from vertiginous branch to half-filled feeder. Green is the clawing climb of curious cat to screened but open window over kitchen roof where birdcall bounces.
Green is Irish smiles of my family's women gone to places beyond death’s door. Green is table flowers and father’s beer saluting family men and ancestors hardly even imagined in New York City's fast hold of separation from one's country.
Green is hope this war will not be death too far and too many upon all the forces that converge to fight. Green is the sons and daughters of all the parents in all the countries that gather in harms way.
Green is not cold steel heating with fire, exploding and ripping soft flesh and fragile bone from the souls of those it shatters. Green is not all and any excuse explaining why we kill each other.
Green breathes through slowly melting snow in middle Maine, its foggy exhalation a silent prayer. Green stills trunk and branch on hillside trees climbing Ragged and Bald mountains to see farther than we can see.
This is our prayer -- May the paradise of Christ, the clear light seeing through of grace-filled now, save all from illusion and fear. And may we come to see through the dim necessity of war.
This is our prayer – May innerstanding and understanding of true relationship enter & fill each as breath fills and empties us. And may the loving freedom of what surpasses self permeate all, now.
This is our prayer -- It is Saint Patrick’s Day. In the joy of the feast, and in sorrow for the suffering we inflict on our brothers and sisters, we lift our hearts and minds, listening.
May we learn the deep meaning of ‘catching’ people. It isn’t the upstanding and erect that need catching, but those of us falling in this time of unsteady and uncertain launching plunge into deep waters.
When Jesus had finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. ( - Luke 5:4-11)
Or, in Gaelic:
Nuair a stad sé den chaint, dúirt sé le Síomón: "Tarraing amach san uisce domhain agus cuirigí amach bhur líonta ag iascach." D'fhreagair Síomón agus dúirt: "A Mháistir, thugamar an oíche go léir ag saothrú agus níor thógamar aon ní; ach i ngeall ar d'fhocalsa, cuirfidh mé amach na líonta." Nuair a rinne siad é sin, cheap siad clais mhór éisc. Bhí a gcuid líonta ag briseadh, agus sméid siad ar a gcomrádaithe sa bhád eile teacht i gcabhair orthu. Tháinig siad agus líon an dá bhád nó go raibh siad ar tí dul faoi. Nuair a chonaic Síomón Peadar é sin, chaith sé é féin ag glúine Íosa ag rá: "Imigh uaim, a Thiarna, mar is peacach mé." Óir ghabh alltacht é féin agus a chompánaigh uile faoin ngabháil éisc a thóg siad agus mar an gcéanna do Shéamas agus d'Eoin, clann Zeibidé, a bhí i bpáirt le Síomón. Agus dúirt Íosa le Síomón: "Ná bíodh eagla ort, as seo amach is daoine a bheidh tú a ghabháil." Agus tharraing siad na báid aníos ar an trá, d'fhág siad gach uile ní agus lean é. (-Lúcás 5:4-11)
Finally, this:
The Breastplate of Saint Patrick
I rise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confessions of the Oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.
I rise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his coming for judgment.
I rise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In prayers of ancestors, In predictions of prophets, In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors
In deeds of the righteous.
I rise today
Through the strength of heaven
Light of sun, Radiance of moon
Splendor of fire, Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea, Stability of earth, Firmness of rock.
I rise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me.
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life-giving rays,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep dark sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.
Christ to shield me this day,
So that there come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit, Christ when I rise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye who sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
(Celtic Daily Prayer, compiled by Andy Raine and John T. Skinner of the Northumbrian Community. http://www.osfphila.org/resources/pryr_svcs/prayer_st_patrick.html)
I greet each and all in this, prayer!
Green, hidden under white snow, sends breath of fog to fill the air. Cars pass through this breath, dogs bark into it, and silent men and women prepare to step out into it.
Green is not sandy blanch. Green is not hot red fire. Green is not rhetoric of war, justified or unjustified, hanging in the air, gallows set to loose trap door.
Green is path of chickadee flight from vertiginous branch to half-filled feeder. Green is the clawing climb of curious cat to screened but open window over kitchen roof where birdcall bounces.
Green is Irish smiles of my family's women gone to places beyond death’s door. Green is table flowers and father’s beer saluting family men and ancestors hardly even imagined in New York City's fast hold of separation from one's country.
Green is hope this war will not be death too far and too many upon all the forces that converge to fight. Green is the sons and daughters of all the parents in all the countries that gather in harms way.
Green is not cold steel heating with fire, exploding and ripping soft flesh and fragile bone from the souls of those it shatters. Green is not all and any excuse explaining why we kill each other.
Green breathes through slowly melting snow in middle Maine, its foggy exhalation a silent prayer. Green stills trunk and branch on hillside trees climbing Ragged and Bald mountains to see farther than we can see.
This is our prayer -- May the paradise of Christ, the clear light seeing through of grace-filled now, save all from illusion and fear. And may we come to see through the dim necessity of war.
This is our prayer – May innerstanding and understanding of true relationship enter & fill each as breath fills and empties us. And may the loving freedom of what surpasses self permeate all, now.
This is our prayer -- It is Saint Patrick’s Day. In the joy of the feast, and in sorrow for the suffering we inflict on our brothers and sisters, we lift our hearts and minds, listening.
May we learn the deep meaning of ‘catching’ people. It isn’t the upstanding and erect that need catching, but those of us falling in this time of unsteady and uncertain launching plunge into deep waters.
When Jesus had finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. ( - Luke 5:4-11)
Or, in Gaelic:
Nuair a stad sé den chaint, dúirt sé le Síomón: "Tarraing amach san uisce domhain agus cuirigí amach bhur líonta ag iascach." D'fhreagair Síomón agus dúirt: "A Mháistir, thugamar an oíche go léir ag saothrú agus níor thógamar aon ní; ach i ngeall ar d'fhocalsa, cuirfidh mé amach na líonta." Nuair a rinne siad é sin, cheap siad clais mhór éisc. Bhí a gcuid líonta ag briseadh, agus sméid siad ar a gcomrádaithe sa bhád eile teacht i gcabhair orthu. Tháinig siad agus líon an dá bhád nó go raibh siad ar tí dul faoi. Nuair a chonaic Síomón Peadar é sin, chaith sé é féin ag glúine Íosa ag rá: "Imigh uaim, a Thiarna, mar is peacach mé." Óir ghabh alltacht é féin agus a chompánaigh uile faoin ngabháil éisc a thóg siad agus mar an gcéanna do Shéamas agus d'Eoin, clann Zeibidé, a bhí i bpáirt le Síomón. Agus dúirt Íosa le Síomón: "Ná bíodh eagla ort, as seo amach is daoine a bheidh tú a ghabháil." Agus tharraing siad na báid aníos ar an trá, d'fhág siad gach uile ní agus lean é. (-Lúcás 5:4-11)
Finally, this:
The Breastplate of Saint Patrick
I rise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confessions of the Oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.
I rise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his coming for judgment.
I rise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In prayers of ancestors, In predictions of prophets, In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors
In deeds of the righteous.
I rise today
Through the strength of heaven
Light of sun, Radiance of moon
Splendor of fire, Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea, Stability of earth, Firmness of rock.
I rise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me.
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life-giving rays,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep dark sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.
Christ to shield me this day,
So that there come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit, Christ when I rise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye who sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
(Celtic Daily Prayer, compiled by Andy Raine and John T. Skinner of the Northumbrian Community. http://www.osfphila.org/resources/pryr_svcs/prayer_st_patrick.html)
I greet each and all in this, prayer!
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Were we once one? And did we then become multiple? Is our current state of mind and heart a deep forgetfulness of former awareness of who we really are in unity?
At night deep in the mountains,
I sit in meditation
The affairs of men never reach here;
Everything is quiet and empty
All the incense has been swallowed up
By the endless night.
My robe has become a garment of dew.
Unable to sleep I walk out into the woods
Suddenly, above the highest peak,
The full moon appears.
- Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
War is multiple isolation. War is a terrible choice. Once the commander has ordered troops to fight, we are a divided mind and heart. We want the troops safe. We don't want war. We want the world a safe place. We don't want to perpetuate killing and destruction in the name of securing peace. We want freedom. We don't want to be manipulated and used in the name of freedom.
But I put my trust in you, Lord;
I say: “You are my God,
my fate is in your hands”.
Tear me from the grip of my enemies,
from those who hound me;
let your face shine upon your servant,
in your kindness, save me.
( -Ps 30 )
Were we once one? And is the multiplicity and forgetfulness we now experience able to be transfigured into a face we might see peace and truth and love shining through?
When Jesus was transfigured, his friends were terrified. They were made mute. They had no idea what they were seeing. Then Jesus says not to tell anybody what they saw until the son of man rises from the dead.
War is the face of death. It is where dead ideas and dead egos go to complete their disintegration. War is not the face of transfiguration and transformation. War disfigures and malforms multiples of peoples. Soldiers everywhere suffer war.
This war arrives. As war begins, through its duration, and when it lies exhausted in the sand -- suffering is the first salvo, the persistent wound, and the final breath of war.
What did those men see on the mountain with Jesus? What will the men and women see in the desert with war?
The full moon appears. Enough light to see one's face.
For all the terrified who face this war, we pray their prayer with them,
let your face shine upon your servant,
in your kindness, save me
Save us, all of us.
Face us.
Help us face you.
At night deep in the mountains,
I sit in meditation
The affairs of men never reach here;
Everything is quiet and empty
All the incense has been swallowed up
By the endless night.
My robe has become a garment of dew.
Unable to sleep I walk out into the woods
Suddenly, above the highest peak,
The full moon appears.
- Ryokan Taigu (1758-1831)
War is multiple isolation. War is a terrible choice. Once the commander has ordered troops to fight, we are a divided mind and heart. We want the troops safe. We don't want war. We want the world a safe place. We don't want to perpetuate killing and destruction in the name of securing peace. We want freedom. We don't want to be manipulated and used in the name of freedom.
But I put my trust in you, Lord;
I say: “You are my God,
my fate is in your hands”.
Tear me from the grip of my enemies,
from those who hound me;
let your face shine upon your servant,
in your kindness, save me.
( -Ps 30 )
Were we once one? And is the multiplicity and forgetfulness we now experience able to be transfigured into a face we might see peace and truth and love shining through?
When Jesus was transfigured, his friends were terrified. They were made mute. They had no idea what they were seeing. Then Jesus says not to tell anybody what they saw until the son of man rises from the dead.
War is the face of death. It is where dead ideas and dead egos go to complete their disintegration. War is not the face of transfiguration and transformation. War disfigures and malforms multiples of peoples. Soldiers everywhere suffer war.
This war arrives. As war begins, through its duration, and when it lies exhausted in the sand -- suffering is the first salvo, the persistent wound, and the final breath of war.
What did those men see on the mountain with Jesus? What will the men and women see in the desert with war?
The full moon appears. Enough light to see one's face.
For all the terrified who face this war, we pray their prayer with them,
let your face shine upon your servant,
in your kindness, save me
Save us, all of us.
Face us.
Help us face you.
Friday, March 14, 2003
Incarnational spirituality is to be embodied and respectful of such embodiment. It's how we dwell in this world.
As long as you are subject
To a life bound by force of habit,
You are not free from the
Burden of the body.
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
In prison this morning Sonny said he wasn't going to surrender his spirituality to anybody, "not even to God, because he don't need it."
Charlie and Les talked to each other attempting to get to the bottom of whether 'respect' was there even if you didn't agree with the opinion of another. (We decided 'respect' really meant 'to look again' at what was being said. In that 'looking again,' respect means not discarding out of hand, but taking another look at it.)
If you took notice of our transgressions, Lord – Lord, who would be left?
But with you is forgiveness, and for this we revere you.
- Psalm 129 (130)
Charlie, wondering about the one universal thing that everybody participates in said, when asked what is is, "I don't know; it's whatever it is."
Andre ends his poem/song entitled "Tough" with the couplet:
it's so much less exhausting not to want,
and not be lost in the emotions I was taught.
The Lord doesn't see our transgressions. The Lord sees us.
Charlie would suggest the fact might be "we believe we believe,” but don't.
We look again. We respect each other. All these bodies around a table, speaking each to each.
As long as you are subject
To a life bound by force of habit,
You are not free from the
Burden of the body.
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
In prison this morning Sonny said he wasn't going to surrender his spirituality to anybody, "not even to God, because he don't need it."
Charlie and Les talked to each other attempting to get to the bottom of whether 'respect' was there even if you didn't agree with the opinion of another. (We decided 'respect' really meant 'to look again' at what was being said. In that 'looking again,' respect means not discarding out of hand, but taking another look at it.)
If you took notice of our transgressions, Lord – Lord, who would be left?
But with you is forgiveness, and for this we revere you.
- Psalm 129 (130)
Charlie, wondering about the one universal thing that everybody participates in said, when asked what is is, "I don't know; it's whatever it is."
Andre ends his poem/song entitled "Tough" with the couplet:
it's so much less exhausting not to want,
and not be lost in the emotions I was taught.
The Lord doesn't see our transgressions. The Lord sees us.
Charlie would suggest the fact might be "we believe we believe,” but don't.
We look again. We respect each other. All these bodies around a table, speaking each to each.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
"Prayer is the sense of the source within our beings." That's what Tom R. said at Thursday Evening Conversation. When it was repeated to him what he had said he asked with a laugh, "Did I say that?"
Prayer is the sense of the source within our beings.
Coming to word is relational travel. Often in conversation we are graced with words, not initiated by separate self or small 'I,' but originating within the whole self, or relational 'we.'
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice,
"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.
As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what
they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.
(cf. Mark 9:2-10)
Jesus alone, with them.
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices,
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
- Hakuin (1686-1768)
Perhaps mossy crevices are the routes we travel with each other. The gift of conversation is stepping into the flowing water with no idea of stopping up or damming the movement. If we hear each other out we emerge from the burden of hiding, a hiding that weights and clouds our being.
The little stream, quietly, turns clear and transparent. It returns to itself, to its source, with simple surprise.
Prayer is the sense of the source within our beings.
Is this a response to the conversation Jesus, Peter, James, and John were having on a high mountain apart by themselves?
Is the sense of the source within our beings a response to the question about what rising from the dead meant?
Tom, surprised by prayer in conversation, smiled his way out the door to the icy parking lot.
Prayer is the sense of the source within our beings.
Coming to word is relational travel. Often in conversation we are graced with words, not initiated by separate self or small 'I,' but originating within the whole self, or relational 'we.'
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice,
"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.
As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what
they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.
(cf. Mark 9:2-10)
Jesus alone, with them.
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices,
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
- Hakuin (1686-1768)
Perhaps mossy crevices are the routes we travel with each other. The gift of conversation is stepping into the flowing water with no idea of stopping up or damming the movement. If we hear each other out we emerge from the burden of hiding, a hiding that weights and clouds our being.
The little stream, quietly, turns clear and transparent. It returns to itself, to its source, with simple surprise.
Prayer is the sense of the source within our beings.
Is this a response to the conversation Jesus, Peter, James, and John were having on a high mountain apart by themselves?
Is the sense of the source within our beings a response to the question about what rising from the dead meant?
Tom, surprised by prayer in conversation, smiled his way out the door to the icy parking lot.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
The fear is that our words have no power.
When there is no communication between us, there is no power in our words. When we are angry and lash out at others, words are razors. When we promise something and fail to intend what is promised, words are spoiled and rotten food. When we decide to say something is when that something is not, when we presume to deceive and distort what we are saying, words are broken mirrors holding no recognizable images of us, nor semblance of truth.
So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
(Is 55:11)
This is why we long for the word of God. We long for words to replicate and embody what they say. We hunger for the Body of Christ (or, the Thusness of Being) to be what it is, to be the self-same reality with the One pronouncing it.
Just don’t seek from another
Or you’ll be far estranged from self.
I now go on alone
Meeting it everywhere
It now is just what I am
I now am not it.
You must comprehend in this way
To merge with thusness.
- Dongshan Liangjie (807-869)
So it is we long for Incarnation, Embodiment, Thusness, Things As They Really Are -- this is our pilgrimage alone to the Alone. We long to awaken to and realize mergence.
To emerge from unconsciousness is to merge with consciousness. There we finally see with the mind that sees what is there.
On wooden bench this morning with Cesco stretching himself across my knee on carpet, the position of silent watchfulness is our rite of prayer. Mu-ge watched birds outside front window. Cesco watched Mu-ge from carpet. I watched Cesco from bench. We are all watched by non-void word encircling us in silence. Saskia and Sando visit southern Maine watching cars and numbers pass by.
What is the end of Isaiah's word?
Completing what is -- this is Isaiah's word.
How do we complete what is?
We complete what is as no other, by no othering, by whole sighting what is there.
You ask me, "What does that mean?" I respond, That means when we pray we are the prayer we open to with full heart and mind. The one we call God is the one calling us.
The word of God is one calling one. It cannot be other than it is. The word in prayer wills, wants, what is God. Between you and me, when in prayer, no other longing exists but God as what is, the dwelling place of you and me. We long to be what we already are. We are what we are. But we forget. And forgetting, we hear no calling.
We only exist when words have power. Words only exist when we have the power of now. It is root silence that nourishes words, nourishes us, nourishes now.
Silence is the dwelling place of word. Sacred word dwells in sacred silence. The resonance of now is the power of each within God, God within each, within each now, God.
We go forth in the power of this resonance.
Thusness, merging longing, unafraid.
We are our word.
When there is no communication between us, there is no power in our words. When we are angry and lash out at others, words are razors. When we promise something and fail to intend what is promised, words are spoiled and rotten food. When we decide to say something is when that something is not, when we presume to deceive and distort what we are saying, words are broken mirrors holding no recognizable images of us, nor semblance of truth.
So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
(Is 55:11)
This is why we long for the word of God. We long for words to replicate and embody what they say. We hunger for the Body of Christ (or, the Thusness of Being) to be what it is, to be the self-same reality with the One pronouncing it.
Just don’t seek from another
Or you’ll be far estranged from self.
I now go on alone
Meeting it everywhere
It now is just what I am
I now am not it.
You must comprehend in this way
To merge with thusness.
- Dongshan Liangjie (807-869)
So it is we long for Incarnation, Embodiment, Thusness, Things As They Really Are -- this is our pilgrimage alone to the Alone. We long to awaken to and realize mergence.
To emerge from unconsciousness is to merge with consciousness. There we finally see with the mind that sees what is there.
On wooden bench this morning with Cesco stretching himself across my knee on carpet, the position of silent watchfulness is our rite of prayer. Mu-ge watched birds outside front window. Cesco watched Mu-ge from carpet. I watched Cesco from bench. We are all watched by non-void word encircling us in silence. Saskia and Sando visit southern Maine watching cars and numbers pass by.
What is the end of Isaiah's word?
Completing what is -- this is Isaiah's word.
How do we complete what is?
We complete what is as no other, by no othering, by whole sighting what is there.
You ask me, "What does that mean?" I respond, That means when we pray we are the prayer we open to with full heart and mind. The one we call God is the one calling us.
The word of God is one calling one. It cannot be other than it is. The word in prayer wills, wants, what is God. Between you and me, when in prayer, no other longing exists but God as what is, the dwelling place of you and me. We long to be what we already are. We are what we are. But we forget. And forgetting, we hear no calling.
We only exist when words have power. Words only exist when we have the power of now. It is root silence that nourishes words, nourishes us, nourishes now.
Silence is the dwelling place of word. Sacred word dwells in sacred silence. The resonance of now is the power of each within God, God within each, within each now, God.
We go forth in the power of this resonance.
Thusness, merging longing, unafraid.
We are our word.
Monday, March 10, 2003
When do we see the face of God? And how do we live with what we are seeing?
Mu-ge purrs on stomach and chest as sun comes through opaque iced window. He is well tuned. His young exhalation and inhalation the smoothness of morning sun melting crystal patterns formed by winter night's frozen artistry.
Zazen with sunrise melting drip!
Chanting melody of black & white coon cat-eared sage!
You will see then that
both your body and mind,
together with the mountains,
rivers, space, and earth
of the outward world,
are all within the
wonderful, illumined, and true Mind.
(- Surangama Sutra, dailyzen)
The whole outward world awaits the command to begin invasion of Arabic country by American military. There is, I suspect, room in the true Mind for one more war.
The ‘what is’ of all there is might find itself under screaming bombs and lamenting mothers wailing for their children.
It is equally possible the ‘what is of all there is’ could find itself in earnest deliberations, diplomatically resolving the interests of two nations to satisfaction without disturbing the prepared ennui of men and women with loaded guns and bombs.
At breakfast tables in both desert and city individual minds take toast and cereal in distracted wonder.
When do we see the face of God? And how do we live with what we are seeing?
‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me’. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’. (Matthew 25)
The mind, like the world, is a dangerous place. More accommodating is tea and toast, or coffee and soymilk alongside banana slices.
If we placed our minds on breakfast with the same unswerving attention of a self-licking cat or the single concentration of warriors readying pre-dawn attack – perhaps breakfast with true Mind would throw everyone and everything into original creation. Once there, in a complete realization of “do to one, do to me,” dangerous mind might just yield to awakened heart, and all would return to dwell within their true home.
At my window, night cold chiseled patterns of ice disappear and clear light moves through grime of accumulated dust and wind soil. Cat has run to other room sound of drapes pulled back.
Bells take wind’s passing and turn it to tolling sound. Mountain sits still. Pond makes thick ice its unmoving meditation. Broken open shells on frozen snow under birdfeeder hold emptiness as their new exclosure.
No one knows the mind of God. There are only faces. Billions of faces! And we are those faces. We look from those faces. We look at those faces. We face what we are seeing.
This is our prayer: May we see what we are looking at!
As such, our life is prayer.
And so, when we see the face of God, we live with what we are, seeing.
Mu-ge purrs on stomach and chest as sun comes through opaque iced window. He is well tuned. His young exhalation and inhalation the smoothness of morning sun melting crystal patterns formed by winter night's frozen artistry.
Zazen with sunrise melting drip!
Chanting melody of black & white coon cat-eared sage!
You will see then that
both your body and mind,
together with the mountains,
rivers, space, and earth
of the outward world,
are all within the
wonderful, illumined, and true Mind.
(- Surangama Sutra, dailyzen)
The whole outward world awaits the command to begin invasion of Arabic country by American military. There is, I suspect, room in the true Mind for one more war.
The ‘what is’ of all there is might find itself under screaming bombs and lamenting mothers wailing for their children.
It is equally possible the ‘what is of all there is’ could find itself in earnest deliberations, diplomatically resolving the interests of two nations to satisfaction without disturbing the prepared ennui of men and women with loaded guns and bombs.
At breakfast tables in both desert and city individual minds take toast and cereal in distracted wonder.
When do we see the face of God? And how do we live with what we are seeing?
‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me’. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’. (Matthew 25)
The mind, like the world, is a dangerous place. More accommodating is tea and toast, or coffee and soymilk alongside banana slices.
If we placed our minds on breakfast with the same unswerving attention of a self-licking cat or the single concentration of warriors readying pre-dawn attack – perhaps breakfast with true Mind would throw everyone and everything into original creation. Once there, in a complete realization of “do to one, do to me,” dangerous mind might just yield to awakened heart, and all would return to dwell within their true home.
At my window, night cold chiseled patterns of ice disappear and clear light moves through grime of accumulated dust and wind soil. Cat has run to other room sound of drapes pulled back.
Bells take wind’s passing and turn it to tolling sound. Mountain sits still. Pond makes thick ice its unmoving meditation. Broken open shells on frozen snow under birdfeeder hold emptiness as their new exclosure.
No one knows the mind of God. There are only faces. Billions of faces! And we are those faces. We look from those faces. We look at those faces. We face what we are seeing.
This is our prayer: May we see what we are looking at!
As such, our life is prayer.
And so, when we see the face of God, we live with what we are, seeing.
Saturday, March 08, 2003
Saturday morning sun. Room tidied after years of debris. Dust motes laze about cleared spaces. Floating in beams of sunlight through dormer window.
Settling into breath. A change of heart? The exchange of the dust we are with each other. Dust to dust. Breath to breath. Heart to heart.
Is Christ the intersection, the thin place, the connection?
Dust motes float this morning. This desk. This silence. This looking.
Settling into breath. A change of heart? The exchange of the dust we are with each other. Dust to dust. Breath to breath. Heart to heart.
Is Christ the intersection, the thin place, the connection?
Dust motes float this morning. This desk. This silence. This looking.
Friday, March 07, 2003
Lent.
40 days of intentional stillness (whether at rest or in motion), intentional prayer (whether listening or speaking), and intentional service (with one’s self or with Oneself Itself).
The Hermitage attempts to settle into itself and move through itself with stillness, prayer, and service. Meetingbrook intends to look into and through these 40 days. We meet each and all who visit one another in God’s dwelling place.
It is now time to tie together earth and heaven. We, each of us in prayer, enter into the connection, and move through the inseparable sacred reality of earth/heaven.
May all dwell in peace during these days! May we overcome war, which divides, and surrender into the connection with prayer and lives of prayer!
40 days of intentional stillness (whether at rest or in motion), intentional prayer (whether listening or speaking), and intentional service (with one’s self or with Oneself Itself).
The Hermitage attempts to settle into itself and move through itself with stillness, prayer, and service. Meetingbrook intends to look into and through these 40 days. We meet each and all who visit one another in God’s dwelling place.
It is now time to tie together earth and heaven. We, each of us in prayer, enter into the connection, and move through the inseparable sacred reality of earth/heaven.
May all dwell in peace during these days! May we overcome war, which divides, and surrender into the connection with prayer and lives of prayer!
Monday, February 24, 2003
Letter to Esther from Ragged Mountain:
You write about family members dying, that all would be grateful for prayer.
This Monday I am trying to remember something. I am trying to remember who I am.
Prayer, now, is looking.
How amazing, how amazing!
Hard to comprehend that
Nonsentient beings expound Dharma.
It simply cannot be heard with the ear,
But when sound is heard with the eye,
Then it is understood.
- Tung-shan (807-869)
It is the thin place that crosses between fear and love.
Visiting that thin place is a journey through disbelief, uncertainty, and unknowing. The journey to that thin place is both unnerving and uncharted. While there are some rough maps others have drawn to help us approach that place, it remains an individual and idiosyncratic journey for each one of us. Prayer is dwelling at home. Hence prayer, for many of us, is never really entered.
Perhaps we can only hope for, or actually experience, arrival at that thin place. It is in this crossing/touching place we approach home. It is not dwelling in the clutch of fear, and not yet dwelling in the full embrace of love.
Prayer, now, is looking.
In this time of the world, this time of my life, it all seems dim and distressing. Perhaps, as someone suggested to me, it is better I look, but keep silence. The temptation, even here, is to attempt what many find absurd in theological/spiritual study/practice -- namely, to allow silence become word, and word flesh -- to embody silence in all its expression.
To look, to glimpse, to see – these designations do not necessarily mean to understand, to forgive, and to actually love. To look is to merely look, there and intimate, with another.
The thin place of prayer is open eyes, open ears -- to, and with, all taking place. And when does ‘all’ take place? This is our question. Is ‘all’ taking place right now?
What is "all?”
In the thin place our journey wavers between holding onto what is and letting go what is not mere presence. There are no dreams, hopes, fears, and distress dwelling there. No completed anything there. Only stark presence. Also stark absence. This starkness is bare and unadorned wholeness. Can we comprehend joy without images? Can we begin to understand the wholeness and integrity of true reality -- of God -- devoid of thought, full of clear light?
Existentialists might call this the absurd. This incongruous, not conforming clear light. In that place we are neither this form nor that form. We merely are in that place between. Buddhists might call this the formless.
Prayer.
Is prayer the presence of no other? (How absurd does that sound?) If there is no presence is there any prayer? (Yes, we can 'say' prayers, and even find comfort from feelings associated with those prayers. We can sit in silence and find meaning there.) And yet it occurs to me this Monday morning that we might not have yet entered prayer. We might not have entered the thin place where there are no sides, no other to suppose or oppose. If prayer is the thin place where all meets, or, where each meets each in all, then have I ever entered prayer? Have I ever been (within) the heart beating? The heart that beats the whole of creation, the very pulse of life itself?
The sentence of an inmate in Maine State Prison goes, "We are not God, but God is us." That is, in an ambiguous way, his sentence in prison. It is the comma between "God" "but" that interests me. Else it reads, "We are not God but God is us." There is a subtle but interesting change in the sentence. I hear the sound of the Moslem, "There is no God but God." Perhaps our thin place is in the comma. In that pause, in that interval, in what grammarians would call the 'separation.'
Is this the first time I am willing to consider anew that I dwell in separation? I have often quoted (someone's) words that 'Sin is separation.' Is the thin place that interval and pause that brooks no separation, practices no-barrier, sees no-boundaries?
Is 'sin' the conscious choice to encourage separation? And is prayer simple dwelling in the midst, in the thin place between what some call 'both sides,' but which is actually a wholeness that has no sides? (Our calculative, dimensional thinking is perhaps not yet capable of receiving what is whole without fragmenting and dividing it.)
Prayer is now looking.
Not looking at. Not looking from. Not looking to.
Rather, looking as.
Looking as is a looking that merely looks. In times past we have described looking as in words specifically attributing a God at some distance from us
Has our view of God neared? How near?.
· 'God is all-seeing.'
· 'God sees all'
· 'God is all seeing all.'
Many of the descriptions thinkers have attempted of God include the prefix ‘omni,’ (i.e. 'all'). We've said God is all present, all knowing, all holy, all mighty, all-powerful, and all loving. I take nothing away from our thought of God. (I can’t.) Those who think of God have already said whatever can be said of God. My question has to do with looking ourselves as all.
What can be said of ourselves? Are we able to look as all? And if we did, would we conceive ourselves between all? Behind all? Beneath all? Within all? Beyond all?
Is that which has been attributed to God an attribution, a potentiality and capability, or even a current capacity of humankind?
Dying is prayer realizing itself. The capacity to be 'itself' involves letting go of what is not itself. (The "Itself," capitalized, in Keiji Nishitani's philosophy, is not other than what we in the west call "God.")
The ‘itself,’ the undivided and true reality of Being, is the dwelling place of all of us. It is the thin place where nothing is left out.
Prayer is nothing left out. Nothing is prayer but as itself. Looking is prayer as nothing other.
To live a life of prayer is to live journeying to the thin place where all is as all in all.
As we live, and as we die, everything and we look to look as each looks. Thus:
· This person is dying. We look.
· This address is changing. We look.
· This means of earning a living is ending. We look.
· This friend is no longer friend. We look.
· This war is coming. We look.
· This feeling is arising. We look.
· This day is arriving. We look.
· This color is appearing. We look.
· This love is flowering. We look.
· This moment is all. We look.
· This person is smiling. We look.
To look is to enter, engage, and intimately be what we are seeing, who we are looking. There is no distance, no separation, and no boundary. There is no other. We are merely and wonderfully (even if disturbingly) in the thin place of prayer with and as the one there.
There are so many ways to forget prayer.
There is only one-way – (it has been called a narrow way, but is actually the broadest possible way) – to remember prayer. That way is the unceasing inquiry, “Who am I?” “What am I?” “Where am I?” In this inquiry, (for those who worry), God is not left out.
In that inquiry, in that journey, we are already in prayer. We are already in the thin place. We are already in all there is to be within.
Cry if we wish to. Laugh if we wish to. Despair if we wish to. Dance if we wish to. But, remember. Remember. It is no surprise Jesus asks us to remember him and remember love. It is no surprise Buddha asks us to remember enlightenment and remember compassion.
And we must remember. Prayer is remembrance.
May we look and see family members living! May we look and see family members dying! May we be the family we look as and see!
And, with love and compassion, may we realize that all would be grateful for prayer. May we realize that all is grateful in prayer!
Therefore, friend, we visit you and yours in the thin place of prayer. May ours be yours, and yours ours, now in this space and time.
We wish each well -- here, home.
You write about family members dying, that all would be grateful for prayer.
This Monday I am trying to remember something. I am trying to remember who I am.
Prayer, now, is looking.
How amazing, how amazing!
Hard to comprehend that
Nonsentient beings expound Dharma.
It simply cannot be heard with the ear,
But when sound is heard with the eye,
Then it is understood.
- Tung-shan (807-869)
It is the thin place that crosses between fear and love.
Visiting that thin place is a journey through disbelief, uncertainty, and unknowing. The journey to that thin place is both unnerving and uncharted. While there are some rough maps others have drawn to help us approach that place, it remains an individual and idiosyncratic journey for each one of us. Prayer is dwelling at home. Hence prayer, for many of us, is never really entered.
Perhaps we can only hope for, or actually experience, arrival at that thin place. It is in this crossing/touching place we approach home. It is not dwelling in the clutch of fear, and not yet dwelling in the full embrace of love.
Prayer, now, is looking.
In this time of the world, this time of my life, it all seems dim and distressing. Perhaps, as someone suggested to me, it is better I look, but keep silence. The temptation, even here, is to attempt what many find absurd in theological/spiritual study/practice -- namely, to allow silence become word, and word flesh -- to embody silence in all its expression.
To look, to glimpse, to see – these designations do not necessarily mean to understand, to forgive, and to actually love. To look is to merely look, there and intimate, with another.
The thin place of prayer is open eyes, open ears -- to, and with, all taking place. And when does ‘all’ take place? This is our question. Is ‘all’ taking place right now?
What is "all?”
In the thin place our journey wavers between holding onto what is and letting go what is not mere presence. There are no dreams, hopes, fears, and distress dwelling there. No completed anything there. Only stark presence. Also stark absence. This starkness is bare and unadorned wholeness. Can we comprehend joy without images? Can we begin to understand the wholeness and integrity of true reality -- of God -- devoid of thought, full of clear light?
Existentialists might call this the absurd. This incongruous, not conforming clear light. In that place we are neither this form nor that form. We merely are in that place between. Buddhists might call this the formless.
Prayer.
Is prayer the presence of no other? (How absurd does that sound?) If there is no presence is there any prayer? (Yes, we can 'say' prayers, and even find comfort from feelings associated with those prayers. We can sit in silence and find meaning there.) And yet it occurs to me this Monday morning that we might not have yet entered prayer. We might not have entered the thin place where there are no sides, no other to suppose or oppose. If prayer is the thin place where all meets, or, where each meets each in all, then have I ever entered prayer? Have I ever been (within) the heart beating? The heart that beats the whole of creation, the very pulse of life itself?
The sentence of an inmate in Maine State Prison goes, "We are not God, but God is us." That is, in an ambiguous way, his sentence in prison. It is the comma between "God" "but" that interests me. Else it reads, "We are not God but God is us." There is a subtle but interesting change in the sentence. I hear the sound of the Moslem, "There is no God but God." Perhaps our thin place is in the comma. In that pause, in that interval, in what grammarians would call the 'separation.'
Is this the first time I am willing to consider anew that I dwell in separation? I have often quoted (someone's) words that 'Sin is separation.' Is the thin place that interval and pause that brooks no separation, practices no-barrier, sees no-boundaries?
Is 'sin' the conscious choice to encourage separation? And is prayer simple dwelling in the midst, in the thin place between what some call 'both sides,' but which is actually a wholeness that has no sides? (Our calculative, dimensional thinking is perhaps not yet capable of receiving what is whole without fragmenting and dividing it.)
Prayer is now looking.
Not looking at. Not looking from. Not looking to.
Rather, looking as.
Looking as is a looking that merely looks. In times past we have described looking as in words specifically attributing a God at some distance from us
Has our view of God neared? How near?.
· 'God is all-seeing.'
· 'God sees all'
· 'God is all seeing all.'
Many of the descriptions thinkers have attempted of God include the prefix ‘omni,’ (i.e. 'all'). We've said God is all present, all knowing, all holy, all mighty, all-powerful, and all loving. I take nothing away from our thought of God. (I can’t.) Those who think of God have already said whatever can be said of God. My question has to do with looking ourselves as all.
What can be said of ourselves? Are we able to look as all? And if we did, would we conceive ourselves between all? Behind all? Beneath all? Within all? Beyond all?
Is that which has been attributed to God an attribution, a potentiality and capability, or even a current capacity of humankind?
Dying is prayer realizing itself. The capacity to be 'itself' involves letting go of what is not itself. (The "Itself," capitalized, in Keiji Nishitani's philosophy, is not other than what we in the west call "God.")
The ‘itself,’ the undivided and true reality of Being, is the dwelling place of all of us. It is the thin place where nothing is left out.
Prayer is nothing left out. Nothing is prayer but as itself. Looking is prayer as nothing other.
To live a life of prayer is to live journeying to the thin place where all is as all in all.
As we live, and as we die, everything and we look to look as each looks. Thus:
· This person is dying. We look.
· This address is changing. We look.
· This means of earning a living is ending. We look.
· This friend is no longer friend. We look.
· This war is coming. We look.
· This feeling is arising. We look.
· This day is arriving. We look.
· This color is appearing. We look.
· This love is flowering. We look.
· This moment is all. We look.
· This person is smiling. We look.
To look is to enter, engage, and intimately be what we are seeing, who we are looking. There is no distance, no separation, and no boundary. There is no other. We are merely and wonderfully (even if disturbingly) in the thin place of prayer with and as the one there.
There are so many ways to forget prayer.
There is only one-way – (it has been called a narrow way, but is actually the broadest possible way) – to remember prayer. That way is the unceasing inquiry, “Who am I?” “What am I?” “Where am I?” In this inquiry, (for those who worry), God is not left out.
In that inquiry, in that journey, we are already in prayer. We are already in the thin place. We are already in all there is to be within.
Cry if we wish to. Laugh if we wish to. Despair if we wish to. Dance if we wish to. But, remember. Remember. It is no surprise Jesus asks us to remember him and remember love. It is no surprise Buddha asks us to remember enlightenment and remember compassion.
And we must remember. Prayer is remembrance.
May we look and see family members living! May we look and see family members dying! May we be the family we look as and see!
And, with love and compassion, may we realize that all would be grateful for prayer. May we realize that all is grateful in prayer!
Therefore, friend, we visit you and yours in the thin place of prayer. May ours be yours, and yours ours, now in this space and time.
We wish each well -- here, home.
Friday, February 21, 2003
Learning is now with uncertainty.
The day is warm. Skiers slap turns on trails beyond brook. Cabin woodstove finally expands breath, reaching loft. Squirrels leap from branch to branch, so tells their snow shadow below. Birds have feeder back, chirp, crack seed, and fly off.
Solitude in cabin. "Schola vacation," we say. In Meetingbrook terms, "schola vacation" means the empty conversation. Silence looks at itself, finds itself looking as well, and listens to what is unsaid there.
Neighbor’s dogs penned up hill bark at what they hear. Cars scurry Barnestown like busy mice enroute elsewhere. Planks of rough wood lay across ribs fastened to ridgepole. In spring two windows will follow sawsall cuts into Bald-side and brook-side gables.
February gives respite. Nearly three weeks of zero degree temperatures, wind chill to 30 below. Harbors ice over. Furnaces groan, puff, and pant reminding houses there is a thin membrane between being chilly and freezing to death. Automobile engines, like hoboes in refrigerator cars rousted by train yard cops, are shocked into complaining when hit with ignition sticks and told it is time to go.
The thought of enlightenment has many names but they all refer to one and the same mind. Nagarjuna said, “The mind that fully sees into the uncertain world of birth and death is called the thought of enlightenment.” Thus if we maintain this mind, this mind can become the thought of enlightenment.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
Prayer is awkward these days. War is afoot. There is little trust in proclamations of governments that urge war or delay war. Politics take off kid gloves and puts on gauntlet. So great is the longing to believe and trust in what seems to be taking place that ordinary people are beside themselves stuttering in anger or pontificating with secret intelligence. The gut says no one can be trusted. We know that. Its realization desolates. Apocalyptic voices sound like embezzling executives locking up their pronouncements in secret and secure deposit boxes guaranteed by federal insurance.
So much of the world is beyond our comprehension. So much of the noise of justification and analysis is fingernail on slate board. We are a population of guess and hunch, fear and paranoia. We lay bets on opinions like bookies at racetracks. The horse we back takes on patriotic significance as we defend our pick with fervor and blind conviction.
Things feel dark, even as daylight lengthens. So, prayer. What is seen there?
They shall see the Lord face to face and bear his name on their foreheads. The night shall be no more. They will need no light from lamps or the sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever. (Revelation 22: 4-5)
On the mountain beyond the brook squeals of delight and play echo through trees. It is winter vacation. Tubes, toboggans, skis, snowboards, fresh deep snow and warm sun brighten the afternoon. We are a people at work and play, needing to make enough money to pay for necessities, needing to engage in enough play to relieve the strain of being human.
Prayer is the thin place between work and play.
What is necessary is balance. The willingness to hold uncertainty in the thin place of prayer. This is a chance to see what cannot be seen elsewhere. Not by those certain of their opinions. Not by those certain they will win. Nor by those certain they are right and on a mission to call God back for judgment.
Has God ever gone? What are they calling back? And if we look as they call, what is it we think we will see?
What is our prayer?
Birth and death are reasonable bets. But they only get you to starting lines. Everything appears equal at the sound of the bell and the first lunge forward. Maintaining balance is the only readiness we can afford.
One thing is certain.
What is this one thing?
What is this one thing!
The words, "What is this one thing" -- are both question and exhortation.
Are we certain we know the difference?
Are we willing to learn now with uncertainty?
The day is warm. Skiers slap turns on trails beyond brook. Cabin woodstove finally expands breath, reaching loft. Squirrels leap from branch to branch, so tells their snow shadow below. Birds have feeder back, chirp, crack seed, and fly off.
Solitude in cabin. "Schola vacation," we say. In Meetingbrook terms, "schola vacation" means the empty conversation. Silence looks at itself, finds itself looking as well, and listens to what is unsaid there.
Neighbor’s dogs penned up hill bark at what they hear. Cars scurry Barnestown like busy mice enroute elsewhere. Planks of rough wood lay across ribs fastened to ridgepole. In spring two windows will follow sawsall cuts into Bald-side and brook-side gables.
February gives respite. Nearly three weeks of zero degree temperatures, wind chill to 30 below. Harbors ice over. Furnaces groan, puff, and pant reminding houses there is a thin membrane between being chilly and freezing to death. Automobile engines, like hoboes in refrigerator cars rousted by train yard cops, are shocked into complaining when hit with ignition sticks and told it is time to go.
The thought of enlightenment has many names but they all refer to one and the same mind. Nagarjuna said, “The mind that fully sees into the uncertain world of birth and death is called the thought of enlightenment.” Thus if we maintain this mind, this mind can become the thought of enlightenment.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
Prayer is awkward these days. War is afoot. There is little trust in proclamations of governments that urge war or delay war. Politics take off kid gloves and puts on gauntlet. So great is the longing to believe and trust in what seems to be taking place that ordinary people are beside themselves stuttering in anger or pontificating with secret intelligence. The gut says no one can be trusted. We know that. Its realization desolates. Apocalyptic voices sound like embezzling executives locking up their pronouncements in secret and secure deposit boxes guaranteed by federal insurance.
So much of the world is beyond our comprehension. So much of the noise of justification and analysis is fingernail on slate board. We are a population of guess and hunch, fear and paranoia. We lay bets on opinions like bookies at racetracks. The horse we back takes on patriotic significance as we defend our pick with fervor and blind conviction.
Things feel dark, even as daylight lengthens. So, prayer. What is seen there?
They shall see the Lord face to face and bear his name on their foreheads. The night shall be no more. They will need no light from lamps or the sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever. (Revelation 22: 4-5)
On the mountain beyond the brook squeals of delight and play echo through trees. It is winter vacation. Tubes, toboggans, skis, snowboards, fresh deep snow and warm sun brighten the afternoon. We are a people at work and play, needing to make enough money to pay for necessities, needing to engage in enough play to relieve the strain of being human.
Prayer is the thin place between work and play.
What is necessary is balance. The willingness to hold uncertainty in the thin place of prayer. This is a chance to see what cannot be seen elsewhere. Not by those certain of their opinions. Not by those certain they will win. Nor by those certain they are right and on a mission to call God back for judgment.
Has God ever gone? What are they calling back? And if we look as they call, what is it we think we will see?
What is our prayer?
Birth and death are reasonable bets. But they only get you to starting lines. Everything appears equal at the sound of the bell and the first lunge forward. Maintaining balance is the only readiness we can afford.
One thing is certain.
What is this one thing?
What is this one thing!
The words, "What is this one thing" -- are both question and exhortation.
Are we certain we know the difference?
Are we willing to learn now with uncertainty?
Thursday, February 20, 2003
What is the sign and instrument of the unity of humankind?
Night holds no terrors for me sleeping under God’s wings. (Antiphon, Sunday Compline)
This is a farewell for all who'll die in the war between America and Iraq. All men and women of every nationality, all youthful boys and girls, all children and infants, all living beings caught in the fire and noise of war and destruction.
I find myself anticipating grief. War will rage, massacre will bloody the sands, and power will temporarily shift. Lives will be taken. Yours. Mine. And time will go on.
The universal body of reality
Is so subtle that you do not
Hear it when you deliberately listen for it,
And you do not see it when you look at it.
As for the pure knowledge
That has no teacher,
How can it be attained by thought or study?
- Huanglong
I greet you on our way to death. We are caught in a time when government officials in Iraq and America are riveted in a stalemate of intransigence. One controls his desert subjects with stranglehold singularity. The other paralyzes elected representatives and the people who did not elect him with laser-focused certainty and disconcertion stemming from 9/11 terrorist attacks. Both these men are arrogant. They are unwilling or unable to ask or answer questions about our lives. They are about themselves.
I'm not sure what the reason is we will die. The drawing room response given is to uphold the dignity of the United Nations resolution to disarm Iraq. The dirty cellar suspicion is to loot oil and begin to colonize Arab Middle East. Perhaps our deaths will be seen as further revenge for three thousand dead in New York's World Trade Towers collapse. Iraqis are easy targets. You and I have as little chance of escaping missiles and bombs as those who died on September 11th.
We will be killed because human beings are fools and sinners. Fools because we don't yet know better than murder and killing to resolve differences. Sinners because we do know better, yet refuse to follow the dictates and teachings of the God we try to leash to our standards.
Some say we'll live beyond death because being a fool and sinner isn't enough to permanently delete life in all its dimensions. Some say God's life does not exclude fools and sinners. Profound life, they say, changes, but it doesn't end. Dictators and fundamentalists, some suggest, can only make natural human life miserable and terrible.
Still...
We die because those who believe in peace, compassion, and love lack power. We might not lack courage and conviction, but we remain bystanders and observers, hoping that molecular atomic matter is changed by our participant-observer attentiveness. We have words to give but withhold our bodies. Dan Berrigan once wrote, "Bodies belong where words are." Our bodies should be in front of the insane leaders lighting the fuse of war, and under falling bombs next to the suffering innocent.
We organize protests in safe places but do not travel to harm's way to protest with our valuable lives. We aver, saying we are only human. If someone must die to illustrate the dark danger of war, it will be some of us who need no illustration. Does God die? Does the unillustrated God disappear in the klieg lights of horrible intention to maim, torture, harm, and disable one another in war?
We know God is dying with us. We know it is no beneficent ideal kills us. It is not freedom they fight for, not motherland, not our children, not democracy or liberation or justice, nor is it for a religious faith they so easily tout as our bedrock. No, it is none of these.
What kills us is lies and deceit, maleficent motivation that deludes their minds into thinking God and our way of life are synonymous. This kind of thinking has used, and will continue to use, people and power to fashion an illusory proprietary and self-serving model of ideology that values nothing but "this is mine," and "you can't have it."
What kills us is stupidity and ignorance, false ideals and selfish will, perversion of truth and failure to comprehend love.
The one we call Christ enters and attempts to transfigure our reality. The one we call Bodhisattva emerges and attempts to enlighten our reality. The angel of the Great One stands at dusk and dawn in constant prayer for those living in these times. Each of them dedicates their lives to relieving suffering and presencing love with compassion. They are wandering near the targets where the killing will begin, they are near our whispers of war, they stay with us who are about to die, they cannot stop the wrong and evil we propose and do.
I ready for war. I dress my body for battle. I look down at my wounds. I open my body to let blood seep. I have a mouthful of sand sopped with spittle. I have a leg blown off. I scream in pain at a bullet through my face. I cannot hear anything. I remember a minute of childhood. I release my stomach in retching. My bladder and bowels explode. I receive no last rites. I have no sound on my tongue. My eyes are blind. The din of dismay pervades the land. I think of an angel who, surely, will reach me. Now...
Now, Lord, you may dismiss your servant, in peace, according to your word. (Canticle, Compline)
May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death!
Sign? Instrument? Unity?
How live, together?
Water! Holy, water, please?
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Reading Don DeLillo's Libra and listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation during snowfall. Fictional assassination by default and factual dissidence by popular anti-war gathering. Over it all white flakes that mute and cover the middle ground.
It is not easy listening to the president's unwavering belief that the United States is going ahead into Iraq. Also not easy is the staunch optimism of Win Without War and Move On in their efforts to slow the roaring train of bellicosity.
Troops and wartime munitions gather at Iraq's border. E-mails, faxes, and phone call messages gather on desks of elected representatives of the people. The storm of power darkens both Iraq's future and the future of America. Death and terrorism are feared consequences of actions -- whether to be taken or not taken.
The teaching of the mind ground
Is the basis of Zen study.
The mind ground is the
Great awareness of being as is.
- Fayan
Debate finds no middle ground. Sides are seen migrating to extreme edges away from middle ground. When did we forget middle ground? Who was it painted middle ground the color gray? Who spun the place where all things meet into epithets like wishy-washy, compromise, and appeasement?
Middle ground is where all things meet. It is the Middle Way of Buddha. It is "In medio stat virtus" (In the middle stands strength/truth) of philosophical wisdom. It is the Celtic notion of the "Thin Place" where dwells authentic conversation and exchange of dimensions.
Middle ground is where earth and sea touch. It is where all opposites are nearest to each other. It is where hell and heaven negotiate a path to walk along without falling away from our human nature.
We need to re-find middle ground.
Bush and company are far out in front of themselves having in their minds fought the war in Iraq, eliminated Saddam Hussein, secured the weapons of mass destruction the West feels they alone should have, and taken administration of oil reserves that, along with a democratic prop in the Arab world, will secure the world for the foreseeable future.
And what vision does the anti-war people espouse? Do they see a time of rearranged priorities in America? Equitable distribution of our substantial comfort as compared with deprivation throughout the world? A dismantling of a system of rule that purchases power and influence and calls it Republic and Participatory Democracy? The resurrection of community, common sense, and shared reverence as hallmarks of our human interaction throughout the world?
Deep in the night monks sit in darkness holding still with silence the prayer that all might be surrendered to God.
Eventually, this is the only prayer -- that all might be surrendered to God.
Leaving us.
Humbled.
It is not easy listening to the president's unwavering belief that the United States is going ahead into Iraq. Also not easy is the staunch optimism of Win Without War and Move On in their efforts to slow the roaring train of bellicosity.
Troops and wartime munitions gather at Iraq's border. E-mails, faxes, and phone call messages gather on desks of elected representatives of the people. The storm of power darkens both Iraq's future and the future of America. Death and terrorism are feared consequences of actions -- whether to be taken or not taken.
The teaching of the mind ground
Is the basis of Zen study.
The mind ground is the
Great awareness of being as is.
- Fayan
Debate finds no middle ground. Sides are seen migrating to extreme edges away from middle ground. When did we forget middle ground? Who was it painted middle ground the color gray? Who spun the place where all things meet into epithets like wishy-washy, compromise, and appeasement?
Middle ground is where all things meet. It is the Middle Way of Buddha. It is "In medio stat virtus" (In the middle stands strength/truth) of philosophical wisdom. It is the Celtic notion of the "Thin Place" where dwells authentic conversation and exchange of dimensions.
Middle ground is where earth and sea touch. It is where all opposites are nearest to each other. It is where hell and heaven negotiate a path to walk along without falling away from our human nature.
We need to re-find middle ground.
Bush and company are far out in front of themselves having in their minds fought the war in Iraq, eliminated Saddam Hussein, secured the weapons of mass destruction the West feels they alone should have, and taken administration of oil reserves that, along with a democratic prop in the Arab world, will secure the world for the foreseeable future.
And what vision does the anti-war people espouse? Do they see a time of rearranged priorities in America? Equitable distribution of our substantial comfort as compared with deprivation throughout the world? A dismantling of a system of rule that purchases power and influence and calls it Republic and Participatory Democracy? The resurrection of community, common sense, and shared reverence as hallmarks of our human interaction throughout the world?
Deep in the night monks sit in darkness holding still with silence the prayer that all might be surrendered to God.
Eventually, this is the only prayer -- that all might be surrendered to God.
Leaving us.
Humbled.
Monday, February 17, 2003
Tom suggested the horizontal extension of what we call the cross is infinite. Therefore at any place transcendent awareness penetrates the extension, it serves as vertical dimension of the cross. Wayne Teasdale's words inform Sunday Evening Practice.
Like the cosmos whose age is 13.7 billion years and whose expansion is unending, the vertical/horizontal axis is the reflection of divine-in-matter co-operative wholeness.
If awareness is soul, and if deepening awareness makes sacred dwelling place of attentive presence, then the work of Christic love suffuses and deifies awakening of soul within each being.
I explain to you matters
Pertaining to enlightenment,
But don’t try to keep
Your mind on them.
Just turn to the ocean
Of your own essence
And develop practical accord with its nature.
- Yangshan
Comes the question: Is it possible that war is in any way the path of God in this existence?
The name of God is the presence of God.
God’s name and the name of each being might be pronounced differently, but call the same reality.
When we say, “Not in my name!” – We are saying the presence of God cannot hear the call for death and destruction of beings, not for any purpose reasoned by the minds of men.
But we are mere moments on the extension of infinite being. We can barely recognize our passing faces in the morning mirror.
God watches there. Our passing. Naming us. God’s own.
Calling, “This is my child. This one is not forsaken. This one dwelling the cross.”
God voices silence, asking, “And your name?”
And you hear, and you respond, “My name is…”
And you pronounce your name.
And no war sounds in your name.
Like the cosmos whose age is 13.7 billion years and whose expansion is unending, the vertical/horizontal axis is the reflection of divine-in-matter co-operative wholeness.
If awareness is soul, and if deepening awareness makes sacred dwelling place of attentive presence, then the work of Christic love suffuses and deifies awakening of soul within each being.
I explain to you matters
Pertaining to enlightenment,
But don’t try to keep
Your mind on them.
Just turn to the ocean
Of your own essence
And develop practical accord with its nature.
- Yangshan
Comes the question: Is it possible that war is in any way the path of God in this existence?
The name of God is the presence of God.
God’s name and the name of each being might be pronounced differently, but call the same reality.
When we say, “Not in my name!” – We are saying the presence of God cannot hear the call for death and destruction of beings, not for any purpose reasoned by the minds of men.
But we are mere moments on the extension of infinite being. We can barely recognize our passing faces in the morning mirror.
God watches there. Our passing. Naming us. God’s own.
Calling, “This is my child. This one is not forsaken. This one dwelling the cross.”
God voices silence, asking, “And your name?”
And you hear, and you respond, “My name is…”
And you pronounce your name.
And no war sounds in your name.
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Forgetfulness is the face of war.
Who sees we are each one? Who comprehends sin as the ignorant will to make other and attack with mind to destroy the other as cause of our own unhappiness?
Who is capable of accepting the truth of God -- not Gott mit uns as if God were a cheerleader in international scrums marching downfield to goal line uprights -- but the truth of God as the mystery of peace at center of each and every person and thing.
At center, where each is itself. Itself, where God breathes within one and all.
God's breath, where you and I dwell as no other.
There is a new axis of dualistic foolishness. From George Bush to Osama bin Laden, from Saddam Hussein to Kim Jong Il, from Tony Blair to Ariel Sharon -- the dos e dos of war rhetoric and foolishness of mired dualistic thinking continues.
"All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has escaped from their hands alive....What is, does not become; what becomes, is not." (-- Friedrich Nietzsche, in Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ.)
Acquisition, greed, and illusory-self love are clues to mummified concepts paraded in public wrapped in nationalistic and corporate flags for mass consumption & patriotic fervor. It is terrifying to think our leaders are aware they shill the dead and mummified knowingly for some benefit only they and a few with them accrue.
Nietzsche asks us to consider that we will not become a peaceful people after this or that evil is eliminated. Rather, we are a peaceful people that refuse to be what we are. That is our sin. There is no evil that takes away our good. We refuse the good we are. We cannot become what we are -- we can, though, desist denying what we are. If we deny what we are, we don't become something else -- we are not.
The sin of war-makers, if we can still make sense of the word 'sin', that Nietzsche might wish us to consider, is convincing us to deny who we are, forget what we are, and become murderers and plunderers. Then, these war-makers would have us believe, we would then strive to be what we are really becoming, namely, peaceful, loving, good citizens of our communities.
There are those who wish to claim we are good and evil, an amalgam of opposites battling to emerge authentically as shadows with light or light with shadows. Even here are seeds of understanding longing to flower.
We are not one or the other.
We are not one and the other.
We are one another.
There is no other.
Heidegger, after Kierkegaard, spoke of repetition. The German "Wiederholung" (retrieval, repetition).
By virtue of repetition the individual is able to press forward, not toward a sheer novelty which is discontinuous with the past, but into the being which he himself is. By repetition the individual becomes himself, circling back on the being which he has been all along. Repeating the Aristotelian ' to ti en einai' (that which a thing was to be), repetition is that by which the existing individual becomes what he was to be, that by which he returns to himself. (p.12, Radical Hermeneutics -- Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, by John D. Caputo, c.1987)
War is forgetfulness. It is the acting out of a primal mythology pitting one against the other. This mythology hurts, but has, in Richard Hugo's phrase, "compensations too lovely to leave."
The compensations of forgetfulness are power, wealth, and deceitful use of the other for benefit of the one. War is the delivery system of spoils to the spoilers.
War is the lie forgetfulness fails to recognize.
How do we return to "what a thing was to be?" How return to ones' self?
Try, try, and try to remember.
Look deeply into the face right there in front of us.
Gaze, long and carefully.
This, this, is our prayer.
Who sees we are each one? Who comprehends sin as the ignorant will to make other and attack with mind to destroy the other as cause of our own unhappiness?
Who is capable of accepting the truth of God -- not Gott mit uns as if God were a cheerleader in international scrums marching downfield to goal line uprights -- but the truth of God as the mystery of peace at center of each and every person and thing.
At center, where each is itself. Itself, where God breathes within one and all.
God's breath, where you and I dwell as no other.
There is a new axis of dualistic foolishness. From George Bush to Osama bin Laden, from Saddam Hussein to Kim Jong Il, from Tony Blair to Ariel Sharon -- the dos e dos of war rhetoric and foolishness of mired dualistic thinking continues.
"All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has escaped from their hands alive....What is, does not become; what becomes, is not." (-- Friedrich Nietzsche, in Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ.)
Acquisition, greed, and illusory-self love are clues to mummified concepts paraded in public wrapped in nationalistic and corporate flags for mass consumption & patriotic fervor. It is terrifying to think our leaders are aware they shill the dead and mummified knowingly for some benefit only they and a few with them accrue.
Nietzsche asks us to consider that we will not become a peaceful people after this or that evil is eliminated. Rather, we are a peaceful people that refuse to be what we are. That is our sin. There is no evil that takes away our good. We refuse the good we are. We cannot become what we are -- we can, though, desist denying what we are. If we deny what we are, we don't become something else -- we are not.
The sin of war-makers, if we can still make sense of the word 'sin', that Nietzsche might wish us to consider, is convincing us to deny who we are, forget what we are, and become murderers and plunderers. Then, these war-makers would have us believe, we would then strive to be what we are really becoming, namely, peaceful, loving, good citizens of our communities.
There are those who wish to claim we are good and evil, an amalgam of opposites battling to emerge authentically as shadows with light or light with shadows. Even here are seeds of understanding longing to flower.
We are not one or the other.
We are not one and the other.
We are one another.
There is no other.
Heidegger, after Kierkegaard, spoke of repetition. The German "Wiederholung" (retrieval, repetition).
By virtue of repetition the individual is able to press forward, not toward a sheer novelty which is discontinuous with the past, but into the being which he himself is. By repetition the individual becomes himself, circling back on the being which he has been all along. Repeating the Aristotelian ' to ti en einai' (that which a thing was to be), repetition is that by which the existing individual becomes what he was to be, that by which he returns to himself. (p.12, Radical Hermeneutics -- Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, by John D. Caputo, c.1987)
War is forgetfulness. It is the acting out of a primal mythology pitting one against the other. This mythology hurts, but has, in Richard Hugo's phrase, "compensations too lovely to leave."
The compensations of forgetfulness are power, wealth, and deceitful use of the other for benefit of the one. War is the delivery system of spoils to the spoilers.
War is the lie forgetfulness fails to recognize.
How do we return to "what a thing was to be?" How return to ones' self?
Try, try, and try to remember.
Look deeply into the face right there in front of us.
Gaze, long and carefully.
This, this, is our prayer.
Monday, February 10, 2003
In the shop around the fire of a Sunday morning, Pat, an older woman, tells of her sister dying. A young man, Jonathan, listens. One other makes three.
Perfect and clear by nature
Is the Bodhi ocean;
Pure and faultless,
Bodhi is in essence wonderful.
Its fundamental brightness shone,
So by chance creating
An object which then
Obscured its radiant nature.
Thus in delusion there
Appeared one-sided emptiness
In which an imaginary world
Arbitrarily was built.
Steadying itself,
The thinking process made the continents
While the illusory knower
Became a living being.
- Manjusri’s Gatha
In their conversation, illusion, grandiosity, and separate selves dissolve. Remaining in their midst was a living being. That living being found its soul between them.
February 10 remembers Scholastica. Scholastica was Benedict's sister. They visited. She was, it seems, in her final days, dying. She wanted to talk for the duration.
Their spiritual conversation went on and the hour grew late. The holy nun said to her brother: “Please do not leave me tonight; let us go on until morning talking about the delights of the spiritual life”. “Sister”, he replied, “what are you saying? I simply cannot stay outside my cell”.
When she heard her brother refuse her request, the holy woman joined her hands on the table, laid her head on them and began to pray. As she raised her head from the table, there were such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated. Sadly he began to complain: “May God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” “Well”, she answered, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me and return to your monastery”. (--From the books of Dialogues by Saint Gregory the Great, pope)
Benedict stayed despite worrying he'd broken his will to return to his cell. They spoke. Then he went back to his cell. Three days later, she died. "Looking up to the sky, he saw his sister’s soul leave her body in the form of a dove, and fly up to the secret places of heaven."
Pat said she'd died once after an operation in the recovery room. Her mother bringing flowers found her unbreathing and flatline. When the medical people called her back, she lived to tell the story. Jonathan asked, "So you actually died and came back?" Pat looked at him, smiled, and said, "Look at this face; can't you tell?" All laughed.
We visit each other to visit the "between." It is there, in that "thin place," we engage each other while still remaining free of attachment and grasping. Engaged yet free -- a lovely phrase read from Wayne Teasdale's book A Monk in the World.
Benedict and Scholastica experienced "...such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated." Jonathan and Pat experienced intergenerational warmth from each other and fireplace telling their stories -- she of her brother dead and dying sister -- he of playing his synthesizer piano for his grandmother when he arrived just after she had died. "She heard you," says Pat. And Jonathan’s face is bright.
Staying a while with each other, letting fall the walls of our will and imagined separate egos, moving beyond barriers into the shared spaciousness of the between -- we dissolve into each other, into the between, for the duration.
No longer obscuring our radiant nature, we are of service to one-another. We are -- simply, silently, transparently -- there.
As Pat visits her sister today, we pray for that presence -- with each and all of us everywhere.
Friday, February 07, 2003
To war, these words: No, not now!
To peace, these words: Yes, now!
War is illusion with clenched bloody hand and closed mind.
Peace is reality with tender touching hand and open heart.
Those who have seen and known war understand No to war.
Those who see and feel peace innerstand Yes to peace.
Calm and contemplation
has in itself a
clarity and tranquility
beyond anything known to
earlier generations.
- Kuan-ting
God has learned from war. God weeps with this knowledge.
God is now here. God is now peace.
What are we learning? Where are we now?
To peace, these words: Yes, now!
War is illusion with clenched bloody hand and closed mind.
Peace is reality with tender touching hand and open heart.
Those who have seen and known war understand No to war.
Those who see and feel peace innerstand Yes to peace.
Calm and contemplation
has in itself a
clarity and tranquility
beyond anything known to
earlier generations.
- Kuan-ting
God has learned from war. God weeps with this knowledge.
God is now here. God is now peace.
What are we learning? Where are we now?
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Do we ask? Where?
What choice do we have in the face of contemporary world events?
"The choice in the midst of suffering is either bitterness or compassion." (--said to radio host 6Feb03 by Monsignor Thomas Hartman, co-author with Rabbi Marc Gellman of Religion For Dummies®)
Suffering these days entails a long list. You can hear it almost anywhere. It is heard in the bookshop. For some it almost seems too much. Their suffering goes far beyond their singular self. It stretches to the prospect of war, the failure of technology, the corruption of corporations, the deceits of governments, the harm done to trust in secular and church institutions, and the perpetuation of beliefs willing to amputate whole groups of people from the embrace of common support and economic safety.
Individuals reach for understanding. In last night’s conversation, after reading from The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain, it happens that someone suggests that stone matter was less substantial during placement of ancient stones or construction of pyramids, that sound assisted the moving of massive objects, that there were technologies used far beyond our imagination that would seem very odd to our linear, left-brain computations.
These ideas seem eccentric.
Eccentric also the ideas of those suggesting conspiracy in deaths of notable people like Paul Wellstone, Ron Brown, and countless others. The initial response might be to wince and move mentally to dismissal of insubstantial evidence. Questions of the space shuttle disintegration might lay side by side with questions of JFK, MLK, and RFK assassinations in the 60’s.
Since 9/11 our certitude and trust are sounding shaky and insubstantial. Voices attempting to sound strong and sternly resolute with arguments for decisive action against evil and foes, on the contrary, have a tin-like whine of suspect bravado not unlike bullying commands anywhere.
Where turn for certainty? The options diminish. Pema Chodron’s book suggests in its title we might consider becoming Comfortable With Uncertainty. Can we?
As a people, we seek either evidence or faith following death or significant events of destruction and suffering. Evidence is sometimes not forthcoming or is easily manipulated. So too, faith. What do we do when external voices and established structures no longer speak truth to the suffering?
While the ignorant only talk,
The wise apply their minds to practice.
There are also ignorant people
Who sit in meditation
With an empty mind and
Without thinking of anything
And who call themselves great.
It is useless to talk to them
Because of their views.
- Altar Sutra
Part of the practice of conversation is paying attention to ideas that, on first hearing, seem unlikely or absurd. Another practice of conversation is paying attention to the feelings and intuitions that arise within you listening to what is being said. The attention we devote to what is taking place has value when it is an attentive presence allowing transformation to take place. This transformation includes the one speaking, the one listening, the matter spoken about, and all the possible ramifications and consequences towards which attentive presence extends.
If we learned anything from Sept. 11, surely it is that there is a reason to worry when politicians hijack religion — just as we've learned from the church's scandal of the dangers that abound when religious leaders value political self-preservation over protecting the defenseless in their flock. ( NYT, Religion for Dummies, op ed piece by Frank Rich, 27Apr02)
The proper response these times might not be religion. What then? Ideologies not yet tried or semi-abandoned?
The practice of conversation is the practice of silence. We must begin again to listen to the sound of what is being said, within and without us.
If the true sound of what is being said is attended to, might the heaviness of our world become lighter? Might the oppressive weight of the false and untrustworthy become the insubstantial illusion it is? And might we return to a trust and confidence, faith and compassion the world so desperately needs in our time?
Real practice is to do what is true. Real presence is to be no opposite -- to be what is here.
When we are absent, when we are unwilling to pay attention, we have forgotten wonder. No wonder -- (and) we have forgotten God.
Do we ask? Where?
Do we dare?
What choice do we have in the face of contemporary world events?
"The choice in the midst of suffering is either bitterness or compassion." (--said to radio host 6Feb03 by Monsignor Thomas Hartman, co-author with Rabbi Marc Gellman of Religion For Dummies®)
Suffering these days entails a long list. You can hear it almost anywhere. It is heard in the bookshop. For some it almost seems too much. Their suffering goes far beyond their singular self. It stretches to the prospect of war, the failure of technology, the corruption of corporations, the deceits of governments, the harm done to trust in secular and church institutions, and the perpetuation of beliefs willing to amputate whole groups of people from the embrace of common support and economic safety.
Individuals reach for understanding. In last night’s conversation, after reading from The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain, it happens that someone suggests that stone matter was less substantial during placement of ancient stones or construction of pyramids, that sound assisted the moving of massive objects, that there were technologies used far beyond our imagination that would seem very odd to our linear, left-brain computations.
These ideas seem eccentric.
Eccentric also the ideas of those suggesting conspiracy in deaths of notable people like Paul Wellstone, Ron Brown, and countless others. The initial response might be to wince and move mentally to dismissal of insubstantial evidence. Questions of the space shuttle disintegration might lay side by side with questions of JFK, MLK, and RFK assassinations in the 60’s.
Since 9/11 our certitude and trust are sounding shaky and insubstantial. Voices attempting to sound strong and sternly resolute with arguments for decisive action against evil and foes, on the contrary, have a tin-like whine of suspect bravado not unlike bullying commands anywhere.
Where turn for certainty? The options diminish. Pema Chodron’s book suggests in its title we might consider becoming Comfortable With Uncertainty. Can we?
As a people, we seek either evidence or faith following death or significant events of destruction and suffering. Evidence is sometimes not forthcoming or is easily manipulated. So too, faith. What do we do when external voices and established structures no longer speak truth to the suffering?
While the ignorant only talk,
The wise apply their minds to practice.
There are also ignorant people
Who sit in meditation
With an empty mind and
Without thinking of anything
And who call themselves great.
It is useless to talk to them
Because of their views.
- Altar Sutra
Part of the practice of conversation is paying attention to ideas that, on first hearing, seem unlikely or absurd. Another practice of conversation is paying attention to the feelings and intuitions that arise within you listening to what is being said. The attention we devote to what is taking place has value when it is an attentive presence allowing transformation to take place. This transformation includes the one speaking, the one listening, the matter spoken about, and all the possible ramifications and consequences towards which attentive presence extends.
If we learned anything from Sept. 11, surely it is that there is a reason to worry when politicians hijack religion — just as we've learned from the church's scandal of the dangers that abound when religious leaders value political self-preservation over protecting the defenseless in their flock. ( NYT, Religion for Dummies, op ed piece by Frank Rich, 27Apr02)
The proper response these times might not be religion. What then? Ideologies not yet tried or semi-abandoned?
The practice of conversation is the practice of silence. We must begin again to listen to the sound of what is being said, within and without us.
If the true sound of what is being said is attended to, might the heaviness of our world become lighter? Might the oppressive weight of the false and untrustworthy become the insubstantial illusion it is? And might we return to a trust and confidence, faith and compassion the world so desperately needs in our time?
Real practice is to do what is true. Real presence is to be no opposite -- to be what is here.
When we are absent, when we are unwilling to pay attention, we have forgotten wonder. No wonder -- (and) we have forgotten God.
Do we ask? Where?
Do we dare?
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Time changes hands. Before to after midnight. Yet, it is still Now.
Standing alone beneath a solitary pine
Quickly the time passes.
Overhead the endless sky
Who can I call to join me on this path?
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Reading articles about deaths that trouble credulity and justice takes hours away.
Not-knowing is the conclusion and beginning of thinking.
I think of political figures that die and disappear. It is a theater of farce and fantasy too frightening to stage.
Returning to earth, leaving the sub-soil of political night crawling, bell outside window laments in wind.
Cesco's former mistress, Ky, left us license plates. The Volkswagen van wears them as of February first. They are question, prayer, name of God, and statement of faith in what matters --- NOW.
With Ryokan I ask: "Who can I call to join me on this path?"
Standing alone beneath a solitary pine
Quickly the time passes.
Overhead the endless sky
Who can I call to join me on this path?
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Reading articles about deaths that trouble credulity and justice takes hours away.
Not-knowing is the conclusion and beginning of thinking.
I think of political figures that die and disappear. It is a theater of farce and fantasy too frightening to stage.
Returning to earth, leaving the sub-soil of political night crawling, bell outside window laments in wind.
Cesco's former mistress, Ky, left us license plates. The Volkswagen van wears them as of February first. They are question, prayer, name of God, and statement of faith in what matters --- NOW.
With Ryokan I ask: "Who can I call to join me on this path?"
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Blizzard.
Earlier, Tom, Barbara, and David spoke of omens and location. Why over Texas? Is Columbia, the ancient appellation of America, warned by this microcosmic sign?
The three stand in front of counter as Sam and Saskia play harmonica and flute. The talk of the country's leaders, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, is filled with wary worry. The music seems to get louder as voices increase in passion. I am looking up books on psalms and reverence.
The perfect Way’s like boundless space
Nothing lacking, nothing extra
It is because of choice
That its absolute truth is lost.
Don’t pursue externals;
Don’t dally in the interior void.
When the spirit remains serene
In the unity of things
Dualism vanishes by itself;
When that unity is not clear
There is loss in both directions.
- Seng-ts'an (d.606)
Tom leaves with soups and Mabinogian Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton. Barbara goes afterwards with soup. David sits with musicians.
It seems a sin to forget the agreement between all things, all peoples, the All-God and All-God's no opposite. The agreement, like water in glass with glass around water, is to be for each other a place of integrity. As places of integrity we allow the other to be no other, rather, to dwell as neighbor each to each holding in reverence the agreement.
Unity is clear. No murdering, no stealing, no dishonoring.
Remember this -- agree to be this with each and all.
Hanging on bakery counter lamp is cross-made one evening conversation by David's son Forrest with two sticks and piece of string. All three items have kept their agreement with each other these six years. So have we with them. It is the way of the cross that remembers for us the agreement holding us together that we so easily forget.
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyaev in his "The Part of Imagination in the Moral Life" wrote,
The Ethics of creativeness presupposes that the task which confronts man is infinite and that the world is not completed.
May we be delivered from men intent on destroying another's face!
May we learn, forgetting self, to open to boundless space!
May we agree to dwell with all upholding grace!
Earlier, Tom, Barbara, and David spoke of omens and location. Why over Texas? Is Columbia, the ancient appellation of America, warned by this microcosmic sign?
The three stand in front of counter as Sam and Saskia play harmonica and flute. The talk of the country's leaders, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, is filled with wary worry. The music seems to get louder as voices increase in passion. I am looking up books on psalms and reverence.
The perfect Way’s like boundless space
Nothing lacking, nothing extra
It is because of choice
That its absolute truth is lost.
Don’t pursue externals;
Don’t dally in the interior void.
When the spirit remains serene
In the unity of things
Dualism vanishes by itself;
When that unity is not clear
There is loss in both directions.
- Seng-ts'an (d.606)
Tom leaves with soups and Mabinogian Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton. Barbara goes afterwards with soup. David sits with musicians.
It seems a sin to forget the agreement between all things, all peoples, the All-God and All-God's no opposite. The agreement, like water in glass with glass around water, is to be for each other a place of integrity. As places of integrity we allow the other to be no other, rather, to dwell as neighbor each to each holding in reverence the agreement.
Unity is clear. No murdering, no stealing, no dishonoring.
Remember this -- agree to be this with each and all.
Hanging on bakery counter lamp is cross-made one evening conversation by David's son Forrest with two sticks and piece of string. All three items have kept their agreement with each other these six years. So have we with them. It is the way of the cross that remembers for us the agreement holding us together that we so easily forget.
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyaev in his "The Part of Imagination in the Moral Life" wrote,
The Ethics of creativeness presupposes that the task which confronts man is infinite and that the world is not completed.
May we be delivered from men intent on destroying another's face!
May we learn, forgetting self, to open to boundless space!
May we agree to dwell with all upholding grace!
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