The Nature of Spiritual Reality II

  1. There is that which needs to be done which needs you to do it—which needs you to bring forth who you are, and what you have to offer. Do not withhold yourself from that which needs to be done. Trust yourself to it. It will lead you to life. It is the only thing that will.

  2. Turn yourself over to your life—to the circumstances of your living—and see where it goes. Relax yourself into the moment, and trust it to guide you along the way, as you do what needs to be done, moment by moment, situation by situation. We do not benefit from the help that is at hand because we do not open ourselves to it, or because we have our own idea about the kind of help we need and turn down what is being offered.

  3. “Leave them alone and they will come home, wagging their tails behind them.” Or not. Either way, you avoid the pitfall of making things worse by trying to make them better by the time you think they should be better. Just “leave them alone”! And see what happens.

  4. ·There is that which is to be desired, and that which is to be avoided. There is the way of doing things, and the way of not doing things. There is right, and there is wrong. And, wrong is a step on the way to right. The wrong way leads to the right way. And, there is no absolute right or wrong. And, “everything moves in oneness.” But we can’t sit in the shade, and passively let the movement happen without us. And, the movement happens whether we participate in its happening or not. So, don’t waste your time trying to make sense of things. Strive to perceive what needs to be done, and do it, what needs to be not done, and don’t do it. Even though that will change with time, and you will be saying something else, perhaps even, the polar opposite in time to come.
                  Here and now is the thing. What is right and needs to be done right here, right now? Do that. Without thinking you are creating a precedent that must be locked into place for all time to come.

  5. Living roots that are set deeply in solid ground provide a foundation, a connection, which allows us to be constantly open to the flow of opportunities and follow them wherever they go. It is a fluid, being-in the-way-of-things, which is not the same thing as being in the way. We have to get out of the way to be-in-the-way, on-the-way, all along the way.

  6. It is all hopeless, pointless, useless, futile, absurd and coming to a very bad end (We all are going to die!)—and how we live in the meantime makes all the difference. Do not think of it as “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” Think of it as being yeast in the dough, not knowing what we are doing, or what the outcome will be, but trusting ourselves to That-Which-Is-Here-Now and doing our thing here/now, and letting that be enough, because we can never do more than that, and letting it be, because it is, instead of trying to force it to be what we want it to be even though we don’t know what to want or how to effect it if we did. Just be the yeast in the dough. and do what needs to be done right here, right now in each situation as it arises.

  7. An eye for the lights and life of Gay Paree disrupts the natural order! And, yet, everything is a part of the path, even Gay Paree. Don’t try to make sense of it. Let doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done (etc.), lead you along the way all the way! The process is not logical/rational/analytical/orderly/sequential/left-brained. It is intuitive/instinctive/numinous/imaginative/mystical/magical/mysterious/right-brained. And it requires us to walk two paths at the same time. Thinking and feeling. Knowing more than we can say/explain/define/comprehend. We have to trust ourselves to the way all the way.

  8. Governing a large country is not like cooking a small fish, in that the fish doesn’t have to cooperate with—and has no voice in—its cooking. The willingness of the people to be ruled in accord with what needs to happen in the situation as it arises—and not have to have the things the people of neighboring nations have—makes it possible to govern a large country like cooking a small fish. But where do you find citizens who are like small fish, willing to be cooked at all? A country, large or small, depends as much on having the right kind of people as it does on having the right kind of leadership. If everybody is in agreement about what to do and how to do it, when, and where, things go smoothly. Disagreement about these things leads to disarray. Agreement is born of life experience. Not of clear instruction. Reflection and realization, Kid. Reflection and realization.

  9. We live best when we don’t know how other people are living. We live best when we know how other people are living.

  10. What is there to gain? What is there to lose? What is more important, gaining or losing–or not-losing? The most important thing has nothing to do with gaining or losing, but with seeing/hearing/knowing/doing/being in sync with, aligned with, in accord with what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, and letting that be that, regardless of gains or losses.

  11. Ordinariness is another term for emptiness, for the kind of nothing that is the source of everything. Just being ordinary transforms the world without doing anything. An ordinary original human being would be extraordinary.

  12. What is the value of doing what needs to be done in the situation as it arises? What is the value of seeing things as they are, taking what is available and doing what can be done with it? What is the value of not seeing? Not doing? Not knowing?

  13. Misfortune, success, euphoria and dismay are part of the nature of things. Our experience is our experience, and our response to our experience is our response to our experience, and none of it means anything beyond what it means to those who are impacted by it, and how their response impacts life as it is lived about them. And it is all a part of the path. There is no figuring the angles and devising formulas for this meaning that, and when that happens do this, as a way of gaining the advantage and coming out ahead, and having it made. There is no having it made. There is only doing what needs to be done because it needs to be done, and not because it is the way to success, fortune and glory. That is having it made as much as we can have it made. Doing what needs to be done and letting that be is having it made in each situation as it arises.

  14. Regarding everything as difficult means understanding that there is no effortless way, and that we are called to expend our effort in the service of what needs to happen whether we want to or not. If you think that’s easy, hop in the saddle, and tell them to open the gate.

  15. Midwives assist in birth as it is happening. They do not beat virgins into delivering. We are midwives of our own future. How we live out our role in each situation as it happens makes all the difference.

  16. The sage does not expect anything to be easier than it is. No expectation. no agenda, no opinion, is the way of sage-hood. Sages do not worry about getting ahead. They have it made just as they are.

  17. What are we trying to make happen? What can happen? What needs to happen? What is happening? How can we assist what is happening in the direction of what needs to happen?

  18. In any situation, 10,000 futures are possible. How we live reduces the likelihood of some possibilities and increases the likelihood of others.

  19. One thing’s doing is another thing’s undoing. One thing’s ordered grace is another thing’s traumatic disruption. Dinner for the lion is not something the antelope would bless.

  20. Live without worrying about succeeding or failing, gaining or losing. Let come what’s coming and let go what’s going. Enjoy what is to be enjoyed. Grieve what is to be grieved. Do what needs to be done. Come to terms with how things are. Let your life be your life. Let your options be your options. Let your choices be your choices. Let your future be your future.

  21. Cleverness knows how to manipulate means to achieve its ends. Simplicity observes what is happening, perceives what is trying to happen, and assists what needs to happen. Offering the right help in the right way at the right time is the essence of wisdom. You can’t improve on that.

  22. Cleverness does this so that will happen. Simplicity does this so this will happen because this needs to happen whether that happens or not.

  23. What can be done about what needs to be done is all that can be done, which is not the same as what has always been done. It takes the vision of a sage to see what can be done in any situation in order to do the work of redemption and transformation and bring the new into existence out of the old, one step at a time by not trying to do anything except what needs to be done here/now.

  24. In remaining below, the sage receives what the situation has to offer and brings forth the baby struggling to be born.

  25. In any moment, the sage simply offers what the moment needs out of what she, what he, has to give–without knowing even that anyone was pregnant. Some baby is waiting to be born in every situation. Some future is waiting to unfold in every situation. And all of this is beyond understanding, comprehending. We can only trust that it is so and do what is called for here/now in light of what we know here/now.

  26. The sage does not calculate, strategize, manipulate, control. The sage observes what is happening, asks what needs to happen, and how she, how he, might assist its happening. You wouldn’t want a sage running your business. Do not hire one as a CEO. Making the shareholders happy is not the sage’s concern.

  27. We have to know what we are trying to do, and whether it can actually be done, and if it really needs to be done.

  28. Of what does life consist? Where is life to be found? What brings us to life, makes us alive? What do we need in order to be alive? What’s with all this other stuff doing in our life, cluttering things up, getting in the way with diversions and distractions, noise and complexity?

  29. Some things are clearly better than others. Every living thing prefers one thing over another. The lion’s life is the buffalo’s death. There is no happy state in which everyone has exactly what is needed at no one’s expense. But, compassion keeps things reasonably tolerable much of the time. Balance and harmony are the ideal. Homeostasis, stability, and equilibrium, allowing everything to find its own level–even though that impacts the levels of all other things. Knowing that there are no steady states of being, and that the scales are always adjusting themselves to take something else into account. Getting into the flow of adjustment and accommodation, acquiescence and adaptation.

  30. Compassion lets things be, and lets things become what they might be, and says, “No!” to what should not be, and “Yes!” to what should be—in each situation as it arises–knowing that what should not be is a step on the way to what should be, and vice-versa, and that everything is in flux all of the time, seeking balance and harmony and ease of functioning. And there is no Best for all things ever. If it is tolerable, that is pretty good, in light of all of the possibilities.

  31. To see what needs to be done and to do it—to be right about what is important and to serve it: That is all there is to it. Anything else is just a distraction.

  32. The resistance can come from without, or from within. Don’t let your principles, or your interests, keep you from doing what is important, what needs to be done!

  33. We want more than we can have, more than we have any business having, and cannot adjust ourselves to living within the limits of our life, within what our situation in life allows. “Our reach must exceed our grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” “You’ll never keep them on the farm once they’ve seen Gay Paree!”
                  What guides our boat on its path through the sea? Being better off for going? Going to see what happens? Going because we can’t think of anything better to do? Going because going needs to happen and we don’t know why? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Who knows what we should be doing instead? How do we know they know what they are talking about? How do we ever make sense of anything? We don’t live to make anything happen so much as to off-set the implications and impact of what is happening. We live to make things better, not to make things Good, finally, at last. And the work to make things better is never done.

  34. The meaning of life is to be alive in the time and place of our living. What does it mean to be alive in the time and place of our living? Answer that question correctly, and you have it made. On the other hand, you may be crucified.

  35. What is our life asking of us? What does the moment require? At times, our life is at odds with the  moment. The flow is not always smooth. Disruption and chaos are also part of how things are. We take it all into account, and do what needs to be done, here/now. Knowing that something else will need to be done then/there.

  36. Are we right about what needs to be done? Time will tell. We may be wrong. Maybe something else needs to be done here/now. We may blow it. Life is like that. We can blow it. When we blow it, we need to do what needs to be done about that, and the cycle repeats, perhaps with a better outcome, through all possible futures.

  37. Sometimes we are punished for doing it the way we do it. Sometimes there is a price to be paid for doing it our way, and a price to be paid for not doing it our way. Whose way is going to be the way for us? Whose way is going to be the way we do it? Who is going to live our life? If not us, who?

  38. The roots of tomorrow’s right are grounded in yesterday’s wrong. And the roots of tomorrows wrong are grounded in today’s right. What is needed here/now is the question.

  39. Trusting the inner knowing, and letting things have their own mind is the essential act of faith. If you are going to believe in anything, believe in the power of things to become what they need to be, particularly when assisted by those who do nothing to force their will on the way things are, but constantly look for what needs to happen, and help it come forth in the right kind of way.

  40. We are to our life as an artist is to the canvas. If you think the artist is the source of the painting, you should talk to an artist. Or become one. Wait! You are one! Your life is your canvas.

  41. What is to be gained by being the favored one? What is to be lost by being the disfavored one?

  42. People who are not afraid of dying are not afraid either because life has no value, and they do not care if they live or die, or because they know what is truly important, and are willing to sacrifice their life in the service of that good. And the difference between the two is a simple shift in perspective that turns the light around. How we see what we look at makes all the difference in how we live in response to what we see.

  43. We have to carve wood the way we carve wood, not the way someone else carves wood. We have to live our life the way we would live our life, not the way we think our life ought to be lived—not the way we think someone else would live our life, or have us live it. We take the photo we see, not the photo someone else sees, not the photo we ought to see. And let that be that.

  44. With nothing to live for, there is no reason to live. Therefore, finding value in life is the foundation of life. The spiritual quest is the search for what is important, for what counts, matters, makes a difference—has meaning—in our life, if no one else’s. What is life for you? Do more of that. Do that more often. It will lead you all along the way.

  45. How much can we put up with, and still be who we are? Where do we draw the line? I don’t know how much time you think you have left to live, but how much of it are you willing to spend being not-you, doing what is not-you, associating with those who are not your kind of people? Where, and how, and how often are you drawing lines, saying “No,” and giving yourself to the things that have your name on them?

  46. We have to know when who we are is running afoul of who we must (pretend to) be.  We have to play parts, assume roles, do what must be done—and we have to be true to ourselves. We have to be who we are. We have to know when something is a role, a part, and not-us—and we have to compensate ourselves for all of our not-me roles by stepping out of the part as often as possible, and giving ourselves to the things that are us all the way. This is called walking two paths at the same time.

  47. Who knows why? Why this and not that? It doesn’t matter why. We have to step into the What and deal with the way things are, regardless of why they are that way, or of why we have to deal with it, or of why we have to live with all that we have to live with, or of why this and not that… What is required, here and now? What is being asked of us? What needs to be done? What next? What now? It is enough that we answer these questions without being lost in the questions that cannot be answered. Choosing the right questions to ask is the path of wisdom and life even before we answer them–even if they cannot be answered.

  48. Creating intentional communities of innocence—innocent in that they have no agenda to serve, no need of us, no interest in us beyond existing to help us see, hear and understand who we are and what is being asked of us by the time and place of our living—enables us to find what we need to do what needs to be done within the context and circumstances of our life, and helps us be fully alive in the time and place of our living–simply by listening us to the truth of what we have to say.

  49. Where are we most alive? How often do we go there? Where are we mostly dead? How often do we find ourselves there? How often do we do the things that bring us to life? What prevents us from doing those things more often? How often do we engage in the things that please us? How conscious are we of being pleased when we are being pleased? How often do we deliberately give ourselves the gift of life, the pleasure of being alive?

  50. It is the way of things to think that the way we do it is the way it is to be done. Every living thing has its idea of how it is to be done, of how to do it. We all think it is better to be this way than that way. It is better to do it like this than like that. We all think we know what we are doing, and that the others should do it our way.
                  How often do we step back, stand aside, and consider what we are doing, how we are living, from the standpoint of emptiness/stillness/silence? Just seeing, just hearing, just knowing, and seeing what happens?

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

The Parable of the Prodigal Son,
if understood and applied,
would have been the end of the religion
of the Jews in Jesus' day,
and would be the end of Christianity as we know it
in our own day.

I will take you through it
and show you what I mean.

First, the Parable, from the New International Version:

Jesus is speaking:

“There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
 
In verse 18, the son "comes to his senses," and reasons,"If I say, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants,' I will be better off by far than I am now.

(This reminds me of The Princess Bride where Mandy Patinkin practices his lines, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.
You killed my father. Prepare to die." I envision the son practicing his lines all the way home, and when he arrives there, that is exactly what he says, following the script
perfectly. But it was completely unnecessary.)

Before the son can say anything his father runs to embrace him and kiss him and welcome him home. When the son finally gets his chance and says his line, his father brushes his words away, calling his servants to dress him for the party and make things happen to celebrate the return of his long lost son, and so they do.

And now, the first question:

What would the son have had to do for the father to say, "You are no son of mine! Go back to where you have been, and never even think of coming here again! Hell itself is too good for you and your kind! Get out! Get out! I don't want to see you ever!"

Would the son have had to be gay? Transgender? Perhaps a physician who performed abortions? A drug dealer? A male prostitute? An atheist? What would it have taken for the father
to say, "Be Gone, Damn You!"???

The father would have never said that. I repeat: The father would not ever say that! We will get back to this point.

The religious establishment of Jesus' say would have said it to anyone who was poor and could not pay the Temple Tax. They would have said it to lepers and to the families of lepers. They would have said it to the undesirables of every shape, size, gender, variety.

And so would the so-called Christian church today. All of which have signs on their front lawn saying "All Are Welcome." With the unstated line being "except those who don't fit the mold." And there are 10,000 ways of not fitting the mold. Asking questions being the most significant one. Particularly questions the church cannot answer.

The parable blows away all concepts of merit and reward and what we have to do to be deserving of such--which forms the basis of why anyone would ever consider going to church: In order to get to heaven when we die. But without having to meet certain stipulations to be accepted into heaven, why bother with the church here and now? Indeed. Why bother?

If our birthright is heaven, or its equivalent, on the other side of death, why bother with the church here/now?

The question is one of those not allowed.
 
The thrust of the parable is always quickly redirected to the "repentance" of the son. Never mind that the son did not repent,
never intended to repent, but was simply continuing the con-man routine he was so accustomed to running ("I'll say I'm sorry and get my foot in the door"). The father gave no thought to the son's memorized lines, and welcomed him with the genuine gladness of a father upon seeing his son.

And the elder son shows his true colors in reacting as he did to his brother. "I've never had a party! Yet, this scoundrel get all the glory!" The eldest son's motives are exposed for what they are, playing it smart and inheriting all of the wealth of his father, instead of just enjoying the father for who he was, and his own position for what it was, without thinking about gain or reward, and letting the day be sufficient for itself every day.

That is the attitude/perspective at the heart of self-transparency, simply seeing/being/doing what needs to be done, with no motives/expectations/agendas/plans/opinions/desires beyond doing what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, for the joy of doing it and the satisfaction of having done it alone.

In each situation as it arises. Forever. 

This is the innocence, integrity, sincerity, spontaneity, transparency that makes us "transparent to transcendence" (Joseph Campbell), and brings the wonder of that which has always been called "God" to life in our life, and we and "the father" become one in this way, and all are blessed by the grace and beauty of "more than words can say" in the here and now of the day-to-day.

Now, back to the earlier point:

In verse 32, the father proclaims, "We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." Two things here: It is the son's birthright to be welcomed home! By virtue of his birth he belongs home with the father and his family! There is no original sin keeping any of us out of the father's good graces! There is no need of redemption! Of atonement! Of repentance! Of confession and penance, and votive offerings and any of the rest of the blah, blah, blah. All we have to do is show up. We don't even have to mean it!

That's the first thing. The second thing is like unto it. The father says about the prodigal son, "This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." The younger son has been raised from the dead! The younger son has been resurrected! We do not have to be redeemed because we are resurrected just as Jesus was resurrected--we are as Jesus is!
We are Jesus!

This is the true meaning of the word "transubstantiation." It is not that the bread and wine of Communion are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, but that WE are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, in a "Thou Art That" kind of way!
And so it becomes our birthright on a second level.

Not only are we daughters and sons of our father, and are welcomed into his presence as a right of birth, but also because we are Jesus in the flesh and have been resurrected as he was, dead and now alive, lost and now found. There is nothing more to it than that. It is just a matter of rising and becoming who we are, one with the father, and the son, and the holy spirit!
It is called "Turning the light around."

This is the truth of the Parable of the Prodigal Son for all who have eyes to see, and ears to hear and hearts to understand.

The Nature of Spiritual Reality I

  1. The foundation of Spiritual Reality is Emptiness/Stillness/Silence/Solitude—which are essential for Clarity.
    Emptiness is emptying ourselves of fear, desire, duty, agendas, opinions, beliefs, ambition, and all of the things that interfere with our being here, now. It is the space between breaths. Where connections are made, and awareness and realization come to life.

    Stillness/Silence/Solitude (Marianne Moore said, “The cure for loneliness is solitude”) create the space necessary for hearing/seeing to happen. We have to separate ourselves regularly from “the noise of the world,” in order to know what’s what and what needs to be done about it in the present moment—in each situation as it arises—all our life long.

    Our spirituality depends upon and flows from Emptiness/Stillness/Silence/Solitude/Clarity. Nothing happens until that does.
  2. The ground of spirituality is experience—not belief, not faith, not tradition, not the Bible, not theology, not doctrine, not dogma. We encounter the Sacred, the Numinous, the Ineffable in nature, art, music, and resonance with some aspect of wonder at work in our life, synchronicity, perhaps, a dream, a conversation, a poem… Something touches us, we touch something, and become the moved in response to the Mover, the known in response to the Knower, and things shift for us, in ways we could not have designed, created or produced. And we become the seeker/servant of More Than Meets The Eye.

  3. Jesus is an inkblot; God is an optical illusion. So is the Tao—an ink blot, and an optical illusion. So is the Buddha. What we see depends upon how we look. Now we see it, now we don’t. Now it’s like this, now it’s like that. Sometimes it’s this way, and sometimes it’s that way. Everything is a mirror, showing us ourselves. Or not. Projection, reflection, it’s all the same to eyes that see. Eyes that see, see into the heart of things, and know how things are and how they also are, and what is happening, and what needs to happen in response, and what we need to do to assist with what needs to happen in each situation as it arises—which is what knowing what’s what is good for, that is: Doing what needs to be done. Spirituality sees/hears/knows/does what is important, what needs to be done.
  4. Prayer is the soul’s expression of, response to, the truth of its own experience, the truth of the way things are and the way things also are, its experience of the oppositional nature of truth, of what it is to be alive in the time and place of its living, of the experience of life, living, and being alive. It is the meditative, mindfully aware, attitude/perspective/environment in which we go about our life.

  5. Don’t think that you can say anything about Truth that won’t be opposed—and deepened, enlarged and expanded—by something else you say about Truth. Truth is more than facts. Is more than words can say.

  6. Truth is true only so far as it goes. Nothing is so true that it never clashes with a contradictory truth. “Yes, but…” is always the response by those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that understands. And, if you are one of those people, you are saying “Yes, but,” about now.

  7. When our heart is in what we are doing, we are one with the center. But, perspective shifts with time, and we see things with new eyes, and do things differently in time. There is more than one way to see things, do things. Things do not stay the same forever. We do not think the way we have always thought, or do what we have always done. Those who see things clearly, see things differently over the course of their life. Changing our mind about what is important is one of the skills we have to develop on the spiritual journey—is the essence and nature of the spiritual journey—is the journey.

  8. To see what needs to be done, and do it in the way it needs to be done, at the time it needs to be done, is to be “on the beam,” and “in sync with the Source.” We may do things differently next time. The beam is not rigid, unchanging. “The spirit is like the wind that blows where it will.” The Source is fluid, dynamic, alive. And, “A path that can be discerned as a path, is not a reliable path” (Martin Palmer).

  9. We interfere with our ability to see by having plans and agendas, and imposing them on our life—by willing what we want, by wanting what we have no business having. We have to separate ourselves from ourselves in order to see ourselves, hear ourselves, know the disparity at the heart of ourselves—which is the disparity of Adam and Eve—the dichotomy at the center of existence, “On one hand, this, and on another hand, that.” We are, at once, who we are and who we also are. And we walk two paths at the same time—really, more than two paths. We do that by walking this path while keeping our eye on the other path. All of the time. It is Yen/Yang all the way down.

  10. When we enter into, or create, situations that have never existed before, we have nothing to guide us in knowing what to do, and we avoid the discomfort of not-knowing by making up rules and policies that don’t fit, and saying what nice rules and policies they are, and forcing everyone to abide by them. It takes time to figure out what is required in response to the impact of a new thing. There has to be leeway for flexibility, and making things up as we go.

  11. There is “in sync,” and there is “out of sync.” Out of sync may well be in sync with ultimate sync-ness, and it will take time to see that it is so. A child growing up can be out of sync with her, or his, parents’ ideas of how she, or he, should be. The child has to be willing to be seen as out of sync in order for ultimate sync-ness with the child’s own heart to shine through. Harmony, oneness, is everywhere—though it may not always be apparent. “Yes” to this is “No” to that. “Yes and No” are like “In Sync and Out Of Sync.” And like “Good Luck” and “Bad Luck.” And all the other dichotomies there are. Leading someone, I forget who, to say, “All of our dichotomies are false dichotomies.” There is wholeness at the bottom of the pie. And all things depend on each other being exactly as it is.

  12. The art of life is knowing when to give ourselves over to the Great Sea of Life, and allow it to carry us where it will—is knowing that we are afloat upon the Great Sea of Life at all times, in all places, being carried about as it will, so that we do not “give ourselves over to it,” so much as “recognize what is going on,” and “give ourselves over to that,” in a “Thy will, not mine, be done,” kind of way (With the “Thy” being the Great Sea of Life).

  13. ·  The sage does things as they should be done. Which is to say that things are usually done as they should not be done. Which is to say it is better to do things as they should be done, than to do them as they should not be done. But even the “should not be” fits into all things being exactly what it should be in time. We are partial to the sage. Wisdom is preferred over folly. Why then do we persist in folly?
                  Why do we not make it our life to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, the way it needs to be done, because it needs to be done, with nothing in it for us beyond the joy of doing it, and the satisfaction of having done it using the gifts/daemon/genius/shtick/virtues/talents/etc. that came with us from the womb (Our original nature)—in each situation as it arises, throughout the rest of time? There is nothing beyond this to seek, or do, or want, or get, or attain, or acquire, or have.
                  This is Lived Spirituality: Who we are connected with the conditions and circumstances, the here and now, of our life in the physical world. Living in balance and harmony, Mythos with Logos, Psyche with Soma, Soul with Body, day by day, situation by situation, all our life long.

  14. Don’t worry about it, just live your life, the life that is yours to live, in the time and place of your living, and let that be that. Let your detractors be your detractors, and your critics be your critics, and your supporters be your supporters, and your fans be your fans… Let those who are against you be those who are against you, and let those who are for you be those who are for you, and don’t be undone, or impressed, or distracted by any of it. Live on! Live on!

  15. We know enough. We don’t have to know everything. Live toward the best you can imagine based on what you know right now, in light of what is called for in the situation at hand. What more you need to know will become apparent over time.

  16. We work with the givens (With our original nature and the resources available to us) in doing what needs to be done, which is perceived by those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that understands, in each situation as it arises.

  17. It takes a lot of looking to be able to see, a lot of listening to be able to hear, a lot of asking, seeking and knocking to be able to understand. It takes a lot of living to be able to be awake, aware and alive. Don’t wait until you have it down. You won’t live that long.

  18. Stepping aside, and letting life have its way with us, is a test of faith, of our capacity to trust ourselves to life unknowing, confident only that stepping aside is the right thing to do at that point in our life.

  19. Oneness is the fundamental presumption. As is emptiness. As is nothingness. Quick! Which is it?

  20. It is said, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” What isn’t said, but is also true, is that those who don’t live by the sword, die by the sword, or by those who wield the sword. Existence is violent. “Life eats life.” Peace hinges upon the cooperative, unilateral, good will of all concerned in the work to produce and maintain peace. If you think that’s easily arranged, try pulling it off in your family of origin.

  21. What is this “No!” to violence from those who say “Say Yes to life!” and “Everything moves in oneness,” and “Nothing in the world is separate, unworthy, or lost”? Violence, harmony, impartiality, indifference—all is a part of the path. When to be violent, and when to be non-violent, is the question. Both violence and non-violence have their place in the field of action. To embrace all is to embrace ALL. It is to say, “Yes!” to “No!” And to do what needs to be done, regardless of what that might be.

  22. Respond to your circumstances by doing what is called for in the situation as it arises! That’s the plan for the rest of your life

  23. The sage doesn’t worry about it, but the sage knows about it.

  24. What do we want? What is it that we cannot get enough of? What is the need that goes unmet, and sends us forever crashing into the limits of our life? What are we after? How does that interfere with what is being asked of us? With what is important? With what needs to be done?

  25. Trying to have more than we can have—or have any business having—ravages the countryside, and rends the hearts, in every country. When do we have what we need? When can we be content, satisfied, rest easily, not worry, trust ourselves to our life, assured that we will always have what it takes to deal appropriately with our circumstances? The way that is the way is not the way to what we want. To have all that we want is to have more than we have, always. Trying to have more than we can have is the end of the world as we know it.

  26. Balance and harmony are not achieved, done and that’s it. They are not steady states of being. There are no steady states of being (I say that a lot to drive home the point). Life is movement. Compensation. Adjustment. Readjustment. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We live in the service of what needs to happen here and now, without preconceived notions of what that might be. Sometimes disruption. Sometimes chaos. It is ad-lib all the way, and we are surprised to find ourselves doing what we do, having done what we have done, in the work of balance and harmony.

  27. The sage doesn’t have to have things be different than they are, but has eyes to see what is possible, and assists in the movement-to-the-good that is a potential in every moment. We live toward the best we can imagine in the situation as it arises, and let nature take its course.

  28. Some futures are better than others. Some things are to be preferred over others. All states of being are not equal. It matters how we live, and what we live toward, and what we live away from.

  29. ·  Those who are alive, are alive in and to the time and place of their living. They see what is possible, and do what needs to be done in the service of a good that is greater than their own good. They do what is theirs to do without thinking about what they stand to gain or lose, or who is watching, taking names, keeping score. Whose advantage is served in doing what is right, now? It doesn’t matter. “Just do it.”

    Right/good in terms of what? In terms of Truth, Justice, Equality, Freedom, and the true good of all concerned. Balance and harmony, Kid. Balance and harmony. Balance and harmony are/is the highest good. Just living in accord with the Tao. Just being who we need to be in the time and place of our living. Just being who we are as “one thus come,” as the Buddha was, as Jesus was. This is to be the Christ, doing what needs to be done according to what is called for in the here/now–which cannot be determined apart from the situation in which the need for action arises. We live with integrity and sincerity in response to the need of the moment, beyond morality, beyond ethics, aligned with the Tao, unconcerned with what people think.

  30. Some things have no business being. The child molester cannot be allowed to be himself, herself. The alcoholic, the psychopath, cannot be allowed to be who they are, as they are. Control and interference have their place, else why try to control the controlling power of those in control, or to interfere with the interference of those who interfere? Always we live to serve balance and harmony within the here/now of our living.

  31. ·  The trick is that each thing has to be itself in caring relationship with each other thing being itself. We are to be true to ourselves in caring relationship with others. We are to meet our own needs and express who we are, without interfering with anyone else’s ability to meet her or his own needs and express who she, who he, is. This does not make for peace and harmony, and easy living around the table. The Yellowstone caldera blows, being true to itself, spewing discord and chaos for thousands of miles. No one thinks, “How wonderful the smooth accord of natural things.”
                  “This” means “That.” And “That” has implications for all concerned. Working it out means bearing the pain of life. It does not mean having our way. “Smooth and easy” does not come around often or last long. We have to “let come what’s coming and let go what’s going,” all our life long. Understanding that and letting it be because it is, is the real achievement of the Hero’s Journey, as we work to balance out the excesses and the deficits in harmony with all the contrary needs and desires.

  32. ·  The catch is that all things must be themselves in relationship with all other things/selves. That’s the rub that results in the mess. The fox’s way of being clashes with the rabbit’s way of being. Everything has its own idea of how things ought to be. Everything has to make its own peace with how things are, and respond in ways appropriate to the occasion. And bear the pain of the consequences. Bearing the legitimate pain of life throughout life is a lost art, and a necessary one to recover. Nothing happens until that does. We have to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises no matter what!!! Like it or not.

  33. ·  Whose good is served by the good we serve? Whose good should be served? How good is the good we call good? Good for what? For whom? For how long? The debate over what is good here and now, and what needs to be done about it, is the quandary of the ages. Who is to say? We are, and we have to be right about it, and that is the pebble in the shoe on the Hero’s Journey. Only time will tell if we are right about it. That is the gift of hindsight. We see after the fact, and apply what we know then to what is coming next, and gradually get things right over time.

  34. Once virtue becomes desirable, it ceases to be virtuous and becomes destructive. Seeking some end, we no longer listen to the moment, or offer what is being called for in the situation as it arises. We serve our agendas, follow our plans, assume the outcome will be what we want it to be, wonder what happened, where the mess came from, and look for someone to blame.

  35. We are free to do what we want—to live like we feel like living—as long as we can get away with it. When we can no longer get away with it, we have to adjust our living to take the limits into account. All paths walked with awareness lead to the center. Awareness leads to the center, not the path. Awareness is the path. The center holds the tension of all the contraries/contradictions/dichotomies/incompatibilities/mutually exclusive polarities. It is a hell of a place to be. We have to be able to bear the pain to live at the center and maintain the tension that keeps the whole in place. Wholeness is as much sorrow and sadness as it is joy and gladness. Hold the tension! Bear the pain! In a “This, Too. This, Too.” Kind of way.

  36. Receiving what comes without judgment, conditions, expectations, agendas or opinions, opens us to the possibilities inherent in each situation, and enables an appropriate response, situation by situation.

  37. Live with direction and preference, and without judgment, will or opinion! And do what needs to be done, anyway, nevertheless, even so! And let what needs to be, be!

  38. The inner stillness permits perception into the heart of things. Knowing how things are enables us to understand what is called for within the situation as it arises, and allows us to offer what is needed in the moment of our living. Emptiness, stillness and silence are the way of the Hero’s Journey. Clarity and direction arise and flow from there.

  39. To be in accord with what is needed in the situation as it arises, we only have to get out of the way with our judgment, will and opinion. Our place is to cooperate with what is trying to happen, as midwives assist with the birth of a baby. We do not impose our will on the situation, but listen, look, to see how we might best assist in the process of bringing forth what needs to come forth.

  40. Those who know, know they cannot say what they know. They don’t know, did not come to know what they know by hearing it said. The light comes on of itself in the darkness of not-knowing, not-seeing, not-hearing, not-understanding, empty, still and silent, waiting for the light to come on.

  41. ·  Every step forward is tentative, uncertain. Certainty and conviction are false turns leading to dead-ends. Do not go there, or follow those who do. Mistakes are the way of the Journey. We learn what to do by learning what not to do and doing something else instead until we find what works—knowing it may not work next time.
     
    All knowing is tentative, conditional, specific to this here and this now, and things are always shifting, changing, calling for something different in the next here and now, or the one after that. Rules, recipes and roadmaps are of no use on the Hero’s Journey. A Guidebook that starts out, “Listen to yourself all the way, and when listening to yourself (Your heart, your body [symptoms], your dreams) leads to a dead end, keep listening to yourself to get out of there and back on the path,” is the best guide there is. Keep consulting it to remind yourself of the importance of remembering to listen to yourself.

  42. Live the contradictions! Dance with the contradictions! Embrace the contradictions! Reconcile the contradictions! Integrate the contradictions! And bear the pain of the contradictions that cannot be reconciled or integrated. This is the way of life. Life is conflict/contradiction/complexity management. Do not think about, much less long for, smooth and easy. That will just get in your way and slow you down.

  43. ·  The “transcendent function of the Psyche” (Carl Jung’s term) is also the transcendent function of the conscious ego in sync with the Psyche. The conscious ego recognizes the fact of co-existent, and mutually exclusive dichotomies, and bears the agony of “This” and “That” (the polar opposites) being true at the same time—and transcends the awful truth of contraries at the heart of life, by acknowledging that truth and choosing to live in light of it, by acting in ways that lean toward one extreme “here,” and toward the other extreme “there,” as the situation and the circumstances dictate. We decide which values will be served as is appropriate to the occasion, and do not decree “this” to always be Right, and “that” to always be Wrong.
     
    We walk two paths at the same time—sometimes multiple paths at the same time—by walking on This path and keeping our eye on That path simultaneously, never forgetting what path we are on and what path(s) are also valid and necessary to life here and now. Knowing that “sometimes it is like This,” and sometimes it is like “That,” and sometimes it is like “That Over There, and Over There…”

    Accommodation, adjustment, acquiescence repeated over and over throughout our life is the nature of life. And the process of maturation. Which is assisted and made possible with grace and compassion all the way.

  44. ·  Step into your life with your eyes open. What’s hard about that? Besides the pain, I mean.

     We have to get used to the pain, and to bearing the pain. The Hero’s Journey is the Sisyphean Task of rolling the rock up hill, following it down hill, to roll it back up hill forever. We bear the pain to bear the pain and keep on going forever. That is the nature of the Journey, bearing the pain, growing up, maintaining our jolly perspective and our hope, and our determination, and our joy, and our good cheer through it all—doing the right thing in the right way at the right time with the right attitude in all times and places, no matter what.

  45. Keep the horse from stopping to eat grass, and it finds its own way home.

  46. There is no nice little trustworthy formula for living, “If you do this, that will happen.”

  47. The essence of bad religion is, “If you do this, that will happen.”

  48. What does it mean to “live successfully”? Who is to say? You are! But you can only say it about your own life. And you will have to change your mind over time.

  49. The sage has to insert herself, insert himself, between the strongly opinionated, the powerful, the influential—those who know how the people should be living—and the people. And the sage has to protect the people from themselves. And protect himself from the people. Crucifixion is always in the hands of the people, who never know what to do with it, and who use it to kill those who say what they do not wish to hear, instead of understanding that we all must die to ourselves in order to live to do the good that must be done, often at the expense of ourselves, in each situation as it arises throughout all the times and places of our living. We die in the service of the Journey. And grow up thereby. Resurrection always follows the right kind of dying. Only to die again and be resurrected again, on the Sisyphean Task of doing what needs to be done, here and now, forever.

  50. ·  We are to do what needs to be done in the situation as it arises, in every situation that arises, as long as there are situations that arise, no matter what, like it or not.
     
    Whose idea was this, anyway? It was nobody’s idea. It is just how things are. The Tao of Life and Being.

    The trick is that when we give ourselves to the Sisyphean Task of doing what needs to be done anyway, nevertheless, even so, magic happens. Joseph Campbell talked about doors opening where no doors exist, and help coming for out of nowhere just when help is most needed. “Where you stumble and fall, there is the treasure,” he said. And, “That which you seek is found far back in the darkest corner of the cave you most don’t want to enter.”

    Giving ourselves to the Task is the secret to the joy of doing it and the satisfaction of having done it, that no one can give us, but that we must discover for ourselves.

    You are going to have to take my word for this. You will never believe it until you experience it for yourself. And no one will believe you when you tell them about it. That is another burden of the Journey. Oh, well. Walk on! Walk on!

The Right Kind of Conversation

We do not talk to each other mindfully aware of what we are doing.

Our talk revolves around news, weather, sports and commentary/opinion. When we talk about ourselves it is in the spirit of “look what has happened to me.” “I’m getting married, look at my engagement ring.” “I just lost my job, and don’t know what I’m going to do.” “The kids are doing great—let me tell you what they just did.” “The kids are doing terrible—you won’t believe what they just did.”

Our talk to each other is about the drama of life, of our life. We can’t get away from how good it is, or how bad it is, what is happening, and what we hope will–or what we are afraid will—happen next. The drama consumes us. Without it to talk about, we would have nothing to say.

Talking about what we talk about saves us from having to think about what we are saying (Or hear what we are saying), or about what we say in response to what is said to us. We say what we always say. The conversations we have today were the conversations we had yesterday, and the ones we will have tomorrow. We speak to one another in a trance state, hypnotically, mindlessly, going through the social ritual of reaffirming our place in the group by reenacting the rite of membership: “I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay. Let’s do this again tomorrow, or maybe this afternoon.”

In order to be authentic, genuine, natural, original human beings, we have to have what we need in order to be who we need to be in each situation that arises in our life. We find that only in a community capable of engaging us in the right kind of conversation–a dialogue that brings our heart/soul/mind into the conversation, and engages us with our heart/soul/mind and our two lives: the life we are living and the life that is ours to live.

The right conversation is one in which those who are engaged in conversation are understood—and understand themselves–through the experience of being understood. When we make ourselves plain to others, we make ourselves plain to ourselves. When we become transparent to others, we become transparent to ourselves—and are “transparent to transcendence,” to use Joseph Campbell’s phrase. If you want to wake someone up, understand them in a way that allows them to understand themselves, by being listened to in a way that enables them to hear what they are saying.

Understanding ourselves is the prerequisite for moving in the direction of wholeness and integrity and sincerity, for coming to terms with how things are and how things also are—and how things need to be.  In other words, understanding ourselves is the prerequisite for growing up, and being who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are. We do not grow up without consciously moving from who we are/were to who we need to be to be who we are on the way to being who we are yet to be.

Carl Jung said, “We are who we have always been, and who we will be.” The work of growing up is understanding this, knowing it to be so, and living to be conscious of who we are, and of who we need to be, in each situation as it arises. We need a community to talk this over with—to allow us to talk ourselves into being who we are, and who we need to be.

When we dream, we dream about how it is with us—about how it is with us and our work, the work we came to do. Each night’s dream is a mirror reflecting how it is with us, our life and our work, here/now. As we work to understand our dreams, we work to understand ourselves, and to bring ourselves forth as it is appropriate to the occasions of our living. How many times during a week do you talk with other people about your dreams the night before? And, they to you about theirs?

When we talk, we have to talk about how it is with us, and our work, the work we came to do. We have to talk about how we are working with the conditions and circumstances of our life in order to accommodate ourselves to our working conditions, so that we might do the work that is ours to do, within those conditions and circumstances.

We have to talk about our balance and harmony, and what the destabilizing forces are at work in our life and how we might counteract them in restoring our equilibrium and homeostasis, in doing what needs to be done.

We talk to better understand what we have to say, and to understand what we are saying. It takes the right kind of community to listen us to the truth of who we are, of what we are doing, and what we need to do. We will never get it all said. There is always more to be said than has been said. Everything we say opens the way for more to be said. The deeper we go, the wider grows the world we are discovering, and it is always as though we are just beginning. The need to talk ourselves into greater understanding will be with us always.

Joseph Campbell’s comment, “Reflection on experience leads to new realizations,” guides us through our inner dialogue and our external conversations. As we say what our experiences are with our situation in life and with the work that is Our Work, we expand our understanding with new realizations. The more we talk, the more we discover what we have to say.

We are forever caught between the demands, requirements and restrictions of our situation and the work that is Our Work—and have to work things out between the often mutually exclusive requirements of both worlds. Our situation is the field of action, the canvas upon which we bring ourselves forth to share the boon of our being with the time and place of our living.

Our Work is what we are to do in the field of action, to bring forth who we are, offering the gifts we have to give, as blessing and grace upon the here and now of our living.  In doing that, we have to square ourselves with the contradictions and conflicts between the two worlds. There is the world of space and time, mortgages and dental appointments, speeding tickets and over-drawn notices. And, there is the world of instinct and intuition, nudges, hunches, flashes of insight and understanding, overwhelming encounters with meaning and purpose, wonder and radiance, and the aesthetic arrest of numinous reality. These are the worlds of Logos and Mythos. And we are to integrate the visible world of physical/somatic reality with the invisible world of spiritual/psychic reality.

We are to “take care of business” with regard to the two worlds—the world of our stiz im leben, our setting in life, and the world of our heart, soul and mind. We are to be who we are within the terms of life operative in this physical world of our birth and death. Between birth and death, we have a certain amount of time to come to terms with who we are—the truth of our own unique being—the “I” that only we can be—and with the facts of our life—the limitations and restrictions that shape and limit the expression of who we are.

We have to find ways to work it all out. We have to work with the givens of our time and place, and of our spiritual qualities, values, gifts, perceptions and ways of being, in producing a life that we can be proud of within the age and culture of our living.

This is called Walking Two Paths At The Same Time. We have to take care of business on two levels. The baby needs to be changed and fed, the dog needs to get to the vet, we have a project report to make for our job, and duties and obligations to meet, all related to our setting in life. And we have to live there in certain ways—in ways that take into account the gifts, art, genus, original nature and innate virtues that are ours to bring to life in our life—in ways that do the work that is ours to do in, and around, the demands of our setting in life.

We cannot relax this tension. We must bear consciously the pain of our twin responsibilities. We cannot r-u-n-n-o-f-t and join the circus, or the circuit of like-minded-world-renouncing-communes, or conversations, where we repeat our mantras, and wait for the world to end.

When we talk, we have to talk about our work, and our setting in life, and the difficulties we are having getting them together. Our setting in life is the matrix within which we do our work. It is necessarily difficult because the real work here is to grow up.

Our work will grow us up if we do it within our life setting. If we r-u-n-n-o-f-t to do our work, we abandon our work, and remain stuck between worlds, but a citizen of neither, repeating our mantras, our truisms, our trite, worn, sayings that lose all meaning cut off from our setting in life.

Our conversations are necessary to keep our “feet to the fire,” and help us do the work that is ours to do in the time and place of our living. If they are helping us escape, deny, discount, discard either the work, or our setting in life, they are doing harm, not helping us maintain the tension, and work with what must be worked with on the two levels—they are not helping us “work it out” at all.

Thus, we have to think about what we are saying. We have to talk mindfully with people who are capable of receiving what we have to say, and respond mindfully to us. The right kind of conversation connects us with the work that is ours to do within the setting of our life—and forces us to consider how we are working with the things that face us in a day, in bringing the eternal things forth, deepening, enlarging, expanding who we are and what we are capable of, and growing up.

Tools? Or, Props?

We live at cross-purposes. When the church says something is important, but then lives as though something else is important, it is called “hypocrisy.” In the world it is called “business as usual.” What we say is important in either place varies from person to person, from situation to situation, from time to time. What is important in both places, all the time, is money. Everything else serves the money motive. In the church, nothing is said or done that the members won’t like because they will leave the church, or quit giving. Things work the same way in the world. We don’t do anything that isn’t smart, meaning “that hurts the Bottom Line.”

The United States hasn’t ratified a treaty calling for an end to the use of land mines, because we manufacture land mines, and because the military finds them to be very useful, and because no one is placing them in our neighborhoods, pasture lands, and scenic vistas. We won’t work for an end to global warming because industries would lose billions of dollars reducing emissions, taxes would increase, the cost of goods and services would go up, and the American people would vote politicians out of office who voted for clean air. It wouldn’t be good for business to end global warming. If it isn’t good for business, it isn’t done. In the church or out of it.

“Business” is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. It has a life, and a mind, of its own. No CEO ever recommended, and no Board of Directors ever approved, and no meeting of the Stockholders ever ratified, a business strategy that was designed to produce less profit for the sake of a cleaner environment or a better world. American automakers could have been producing smaller, more fuel-efficient cars for the last 50 years. Larger, less efficient cars were more profitable. We go where the money is. If a profit can be made, a profit will be made. Profit At Any Price. We go where the votes are. And, between the two, we’ll choose the money as the primary vote-getter.

We talk about values, and about being “value-driven.” We write mission statements about service and love. But money is the value. The mission is to make money, and to make more money this quarter than last quarter. We will do whatever it takes to achieve that end—and not do anything that might prevent the realization of that end. We like the idea of compassion and the Golden Rule, but we have to pay the bills—and the more bills we are able to pay, the better–never mind whether they are the right or wrong kind of bills in the first place.

As a nation, we are experiencing the Revenge of the Canarsee Delawares. The Canarsee Delawares, you will remember, sold Manhattan to Peter Minuit and the West India Company for a handful of glass beads and a couple of silver mirrors (Okay, that can’t be substantiated, but it makes for good copy, and it was for next to nothing no matter what actually changed hands, and no matter what was used for barter, my point remains untouched). Well, the joke is on us.

The Curse of the Canarsee Delawres drives us to sell heart and soul, and the worthy future of the whole country, and the entire world, for glass and plastic, which we regularly send to the landfill to make room for more glass and plastic. The ghosts of Native Americans gather regularly on the edge of the Happy Hunting Ground, to peer over the side, to look, point, and roll about laughing. But, unpacking our latest purchase of glass and plastic and admiring its sheen and shine, we cannot imagine a life that didn’t promise more of this stuff forever. And running up the wrong bills is what we do best. This is so it, it’s disgusting.

How much of the stuff that does not satisfy is enough? How much do we need? Of what, really, does life consist? The church should be able to explore these questions. The church should be able to conduct experiments in living that are immune to the cultural fascination with money and profit (and with glass and plastic). Ah, but, the church has bills to pay, too, you know. As long as there is overhead, the church is going to be compromised in its ability to be the church. Or, to put it another way, the church is going to compromise its ability to be the church in order to “take care of business” and pay the bills. How to be the church and pay the bills is not a question we ask. We just pay the bills. And it also leads me to suspect that we cannot be the church and pay the bills—which throws “being the church” into a different way of doing church.

Progressive Christian congregations talk about being inclusive, but look around. Mostly middle to upper middle class, middle-aged to elderly, well-educated and socially astute people in every progressive Christian congregation. Mostly people just like everyone else there. And how many of us would keep coming if lots of people not like us showed up? If the Religious Right, say, moved in, and wanted gospel music sung to CD’s played over the sound system, and took over the announcement portion of the service (if not the sermon) to rail against the things we approve, and to applaud the things we oppose, how long before we stopped coming?

We talk about being inclusive, but if we include only gay people who think like we do, and African-Americans who think like we do, and Yuppies who think like we do, and Octogenarians who think like we do, how inclusive is that really? How many people can we include who don’t think like we do, and still have enough of us to pay the bills we think should be incurred and paid? You see the problem. The problem is that the church can be the church only if it doesn’t have to pay the bills. When it comes down to being the church, or paying the bills, the church pays the bills.

The smart thing to do would be to incur the right bills. What are the bills that we need to incur in the course of being the church? At what point do the bills that enable us to be the church become the bills that keep us from being the church? When the church has so many bills that the focus of the church is on how to pay the bills, and not on how to be the church, the church has crossed the line.

I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, and served 5 congregations in that time. That’s a lot of church board meetings. In every church board meeting the major portion of the time spent meeting was spent talking about paying the bills. I have never served on a church board that spent its time imagining how to be the church, wondering how to be the church, discussing new and better ways to be the church. Every church board has spent most of its time imagining, wondering, discussing how to pay the bills in order to keep doing what the church has always done. Every new program idea, or proposal for ministry and service, was evaluated in terms of its potential impact on the church’s ability to pay the bills. In order to be approved, a program or ministry idea has to be so innocuous as to be invisible, because, otherwise, it might offend someone, and they might leave the church, or stop giving, and then where would we be?

On another level, all the programs in all the churches look exactly alike. What is a church without Vacation Bible School, and music programs, and choir practices, and bell choirs, and covered dish dinners, and Bible studies, and Sunday schools, and men’s groups and women’s groups and youth groups, and mission trips to Mexico? If you don’t do church the way church is supposed to be done, people may get the idea that this isn’t a church, and stop coming, and stop giving, and then who will pay the bills?

At some point, the bills stop enabling us to be the church, and start preventing us from being the church, and no one has any idea of where that point is. The same thing applies in our own personal lives, and the same thing applies to the country as a whole, and to the world at large. At some point, the bills that enable us to have a life begin to keep us from living. At some point, we begin to live to pay the bills. And, we have no idea of where that point is—or, of what bills we should incur, and what bills we should never consider being responsible for.

We have to do a better job of paying attention—and of being right about what is important, and of living in ways which honor and serve that. We have to have a better idea of what it takes—of what we need, and why we need it. We cannot just spend our lives collecting glass and plastic. What are we about? What do we mean, intend, with the lives we are living? How do the bills we pay serve that meaning, that intention? At what point do our bills begin to compromise that meaning, that intention? What do we want to do with the lives that are ours to live? What do we need to do with the lives that are ours to live? How does what we buy serve the life we need to live?

Hugh MacLeod, in his book Ignore Everybody, points out that there is a vast amount of difference between a tool and a prop. A tool helps us do what is ours to do. A prop serves to project an image. We have an image in mind of a successful life. We think we know what success looks like. To look successful we need the props. The image requires the props. A sailboat, say, and a house on the beach, and one in the mountains. We spend our lives collecting the props that sustain the image.

Do you see how empty that is? How sad it is? We buy success! We own the props, which project the image, which announce “Success Here!” We exhaust ourselves maintaining the props that sustain the image, that create the illusion that we are successful, have it all together, and are the envy of our peers. But, the props don’t enable us to do anything other than appear to be successful, and require us to maintain the props.

There are people, maybe you have known some of them, who have Steinway pianos in their home, which no one knows how to play, because they create the right effect. Other people own horses, which no one rides, for the same reason. How many of our bills pay for props, and how many pay for tools?

Before we make a purchase, we need to ask, “Is this a prop or a tool? What will it help me do what needs to be done?” We have to find ways to reduce our bills by incurring the right bills—by asking if, and how, our expenditures enable us to accomplish what is ours to do—by asking if, and how, they are enabling us to do what needs to be done.

Of course, to make that inquiry, we have to know what we are about. We have to know what constitutes our work. We have to know what we are doing here, and what we need in order to do what needs to be done. We cannot afford to pay for things that maintain an image, that create an impression without actually enabling us to do what we need to do in order to be who we are.

Communities of Innocence

We need help realizing, remembering, connecting with, and living out of the heart of what matters most.

Yet, that’s the first thing to go—our connection with the heart of what matters most.

We need a community to help us nourish, enable, sustain, and deepen our relationship with the heart of what matters most. We need a community to help us remember what is important, and to insert itself between us and the loss of our connection with heart/mind/soul. The type of community I have in mind is a community of innocence—a community with no agenda beyond enabling its members to see, hear and understand, know, do and be.

We need a community of innocence to help us know, and remember, who we are, and also are, and what we are about—to perceive, and live in light of, our particular gifts, our genius, daemon, shtick, virtues, etc., in offering what is needed in each situation as it arises for as long as we are alive. We need a community that believes in the power of individuals living in light of their own destiny, and out of the interests and abilities they have to realize and serve that destiny—which is nothing less than the power to transcend, transform, revitalize and redirect the world toward how things need to be and away from how things need-not to be.

And, who is to say? Who is to say what needs and needs-not to be? No one! No one says so! Everyone remains empty, still, and silent long enough to realize so, to know so, out of the depths of their own source, which is the same depths as everyone’s source. When we live connected to and directed by the source of our life and being, we move sincerely, spontaneously, toward how things need to be and away from how things need-not to be. And connecting us with the source is the work of all true communities of innocence.

When we lose the connection with the community of innocence, we lose heart/mind/soul, we lose our bearings, we lose our way, we forget who we are and what we are about, and we take a reckoning and conclude it’s hopeless, and we are overwhelmed with the pointlessness of it all, and wonder, at the bottom of the solid rock wall of reality, why pick ourselves up and run full bore into it again—asking ourselves the questions that kill our heart/mind/soul: “So what? Who cares? What’s the point? What’s the use? Why try? What difference will it make?” When that is the case with us, we need a place where we can gather to recover, to regroup, to restore our heart/mind/soul—a place of renewal, revival, resurrection—a place where we remember, and reconnect with, the core of what matters most. We cannot find our way heartfully, mindfully, soulfully, joyfully, through the world without a place like this in our lives. We cannot survive apart from a vital connection with a community of innocence.

Communities of innocence have nothing at stake in us beyond enabling us to be who we need to be in fulfilling our destiny, and bringing forth who we are within the context and circumstances of our lives. Communities of innocence are a means to the goal of individuation, self-realization, self-development, of their members and of the world. Communities of innocence do their work by listening us to the truth of who we are, and also are—by seeing us, hearing us, understanding us—thereby assisting us in the work of seeing, hearing, and understanding ourselves, and take up the work of balance and harmony, sincerity and integrity, spirit, energy and vitality. Communities of innocence bring to our awareness the full range of conflicts, contraries, dichotomies, discrepancies, and contradictions, that characterize our lives—and assist us in the work of reconciliation and integration. Communities of innocence connect us with what matters most, and help us bring that forth in our lives.

The rule is simple: Don’t allow the world to determine your response to the world! Our response to the world has to spring from our connection with our original nature and the innate virtues that are ours from birth, with our heart/mind/soul and with the center of what matters most. We have to live in the world as we would live if the world were what it ought to be. We take a step toward the ought-to-be when we live in light of it. We nudge the world toward transformation when we live in the world as expressions of how the world should be. We are to live in ways that bring hope, and wholeness, and joy to life. To live in ways that bring life to life. And we have to form communities of innocence which enable us to do this, to be who we are within the circumstances of each situation as it arises, all our life long.

We seek out, and help create, communities of innocence to assist us in remembering who we are and what we are about. These gatherings help us maintain our focus on what is important, and remind us to live in ways that bring hope, wholeness, joy, and life to life in our lives, and in the life of the world. And so, the search for those who will gather with us, and help us remember what matters most, and to live as though it does.

Did you think these things depend upon something else, something other than us? Did you think we are all waiting for deliverance from the outside? From the Great Beyond? That one day there will be a Great Getting’ Up Morning, dawning with a trumpet blast, and a mighty army of angels come to set things right? Did you think it’s all dismay and gloom until the magic hour when “the god of the machine” comes whizzing in on the greased cable to whack the bad guys a good one and set the world back on course? There will be no apocalyptic reversal. The tools that will do the turning are the communities of innocence that restore our heart/mind/soul, and the heart/mind/soul of the world.

It comes down to what we take seriously. Paul Watzlawick wrote a book in the eighties entitled, The Situation is Hopeless, but not Serious. It would be good for us to remember the phrase. We are forever giving up hope in situations that are not serious. We are defined by what we take seriously. How do we know that the seriousness with which we regard things is justified? What makes us think it’s hopeless and serious? That hopelessness is serious?  What are the truly serious things?

I hope laughter is on your list. I hope you are serious about laughing. And playing. And working something you love into every day. And having a good time. And being good company. I hope you take being good company seriously, and practice it with all your determination and resolve. And, being around good company. I hope you take seriously the importance of seeking out good company, and spending time there. And living with good faith. I hope you take good faith seriously.

We come together to remember the essential things, and to remind one another to act them out in the world: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Generosity, Self-Control, along with Compassion, Hospitality, Grace, Humility, Awareness, Trust, Hope, Faith. . . The list goes on.

These are the things that matter most, the things we gather to remember. If we come together and are re-oriented in the direction of these things; if we leave better able to laugh, and be good company, and seek good company, and do what we love, and serve the wonderful old values, we will have all that we need to extend the power of our communities of innocence, and carry that power over into all our lives. Then we will be able to plant such communities of innocence throughout our days, and that will be quite enough to save the world by waking it up to who it is to be, and what it is to be about, who it needs to be and what it needs to be about.

Doing Justice

If we are going to take spiritual growth seriously, we are going to have to take doing justice seriously. We’re going to have to get to work reforming society. It takes a revolution to bring justice to life. Justice doesn’t come about because everyone agrees that it ought to, or because everyone thinks it would be nice if it did. Agreeing that it ought to be done, and being willing to pay higher taxes, or go on a hunger strike, or be arrested and ignore the terms of probation and be arrested again—in order to do justice—are different things.

Carl Jung says “We are what we do—not what we talk about doing, or say we will do.” Doing is the foundation of being. When we do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, we become who we need to be. The path of spiritual growth is the path of action in the sphere of the hard and fast realities of the world of physical existence. The status quo loves a good book study, and is quite pleased when we gather to talk of spiritual truth. It is when we translate talk into action—and when action opens our eyes to what truly needs to be said—that the status quo takes notice, and responds.

There is an inequitable distribution of wealth in this country, and in the world. Do you think that is going to even itself out just because it ought to? Do we think it ought to? What is the mechanism by which that can happen? How about higher tax rates with fewer loopholes (so that you can’t charge housekeeping services or the cars you drive off to the business, for example) for those who have higher incomes? Think that will ever happen just because it ought to? How about a livable minimum wage? Think that will ever happen just because it ought to? The people keeping that from happening are the people who profit handsomely from it not happening. Think they are going to volunteer to serve the working poor? Maybe in a soup kitchen once a year, but that’s as far as their service is likely to go.

The status remains quo because it is too complicated to alter the status—and it works to the benefit of the status to keep it complicated, so that it takes too much effort over too long a period of time to change anything. We spend our time talking about what ought to happen, and practically none of it organizing and carrying out the revolution to make it happen. Besides, we have a fairly comfortable life, and we aren’t going to hand it over for the sake of improving some poor, homeless person’s standard of living. A living wage, affordable housing and health care are things we can agree ought to happen, but they aren’t going to happen without a revolution.

Ah, but. That asks hard things of us. We can’t just make a monetary donation and pull off a revolution. The Civil Rights Movement was a revolution. People died and suffered hardship in the service of their idea of how things ought to be. Do you know of anyone who is willing to die in the service of a living wage? Gun control, racism, homosexual and transsexual rights are all movements in waiting—waiting for revolutionaries fed-up enough with the way things are to force change into being.

And with the rise of the radical right (And how far away is the radical right from suicide vests and acts of terrorism?), comes the reality that the revolution they have in mind is the death of all not like them. Fascism hates everyone but fascists, and lives to destroy people of color, poor people, old people, homosexual people, transsexual people, liberals and left-leaning women. Which means that everyone who is not fascist has to take a stand firmly against fascism.

The easiest way to mount this kind of opposition to fascism is to vote it into place. Every person who is qualified to vote has to vote every time there is an election, from city council to the Office of President. The status quo fascists depend upon people not voting. It rails enough against those who are calling for change, and creates enough fear in the hearts of it’s faithful (fascist) base to turn them out in numbers large enough to win close elections—and those numbers don’t have to be very large.

Less than 45% of registered voters turn out to vote in most elections. 50% of 45% is only 25% of the voters registered to vote. If you cannot scare 25% of the registered voters into voting for you, you should be ashamed. The money spent by the status quo in campaigns in local and national elections has been spent to scare its faithful (fascist) base into turning out en masse to vote. It only needs 25% of registered voters to vote in most elections. The lethargic 75% give elections away time and again.

Rousing ourselves to vote is nothing. And it is the one thing that will make an immediate and lasting impact upon the way things are done. The more people who vote, the more likely the base of the status quo will be out-voted. This will certainly be true if those who vote, vote for the candidates most likely to do things differently than the NRA, the Tea Party and the Religious Right want things to be done. At this point in our nation this means voting for the Democrat in all elections.

We have become a society, and a culture, of personal virtue. We work on personal growth. We follow our bliss. We talk of finding the path. We seek enlightenment. We read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and nothing changes in the way the world works. I have spent more time here recommending that you be “true to yourself within the context and circumstances of your life,” than recommending that you spend your time involved with community organization for social change, or working with voter registration and getting people to the polls. Well, you can only be true to yourself for so long before you simply can’t stand yourself one more minute if you don’t participate in some form of organization for social change. But that kind of organization doesn’t get enough emphasis. Who knows where to go to join the movement and start the revolution?

Self-improvement has been the focus of a generation (or two). AA would have us believe that “acceptance is the solution to all of my problems today.” In some circles, understanding is held to be the path to peace. Well. Personal virtue does not transform social vice. The title of Reinhold Niebuhr’s book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, speaks directly to our plight. We don’t make the world a better place to be just by working to improve ourselves.

In the south in the sixties, it was said, “You can’t legislate morality,” and “Change people’s hearts and society will change.” These are the positions that keep everything comfortably the same forever. The contrary truth/fact is that if you change a person’s behavior, her/his thinking (or that of his/her children) will change. You change a person’s mind/heart by changing what that person does, by changing how that person lives. You don’t wait to get her/his permission. You don’t wait until everybody is on board. You don’t wait to achieve consensus. You say, “Jim Crow laws are wrong!” You say, “Racism—racial hatred—white supremacy—fascism is wrong!” You say, “Separate But Equal is wrong!” You say, “There is going to be a new way of doing things starting tomorrow, and nobody has to like it, but everybody has to do it!” And you make it stick. A generation later everyone wonders why things were done the way things were done a generation earlier.

Personal virtue leaves society unchanged. We have to seek social virtue with the same degree of fervor and commitment that we seek self-improvement and personal growth. We have to be organized. We have to be connected. We have to be smart. We have to be determined. And we have to be willing to take what comes. It takes a revolution to make things different than they are. If you make the revolutionaries comfortable enough, things will stay the same forever.

It’s too bad about this country’s non-existent energy policy (cutting more trees and drilling more oil wells isn’t an energy policy). But, who is going to lead the revolution? In Hitler Germany, it was too bad about the Jews, but who was going to lead the revolution? We all have an idea of what needs to be changed on a cultural/social level. We don’t have a clue about how to go about effecting the changes, and we don’t have the wherewithal to do it if we did. When you’re up against Big Money, it’s a problem.

Once, in the deep south, I wrote a view point column for the local weekly paper. One week I wrote about a large timber company buying up tracts of land, clearing the hardwood and planting pine trees. The very next week the paper ran a story about the timber company donating $10,000 to the town to develop a parks and recreation program. That’s what I call a public relations program. Money can tweak public opinion to the extent that wrong looks like right and the revolution never gains momentum, or stands a chance. The forces of change and transformation (read: revolution) are up against it from the start.

The Move Your Money Movement not too long ago was a beautiful response to the corruption exposed by the housing collapse but it never gathered the support it should have had. It is very difficult to keep people focused and moving in the direction of change. We have very short little attention spans. We lack the persistence and determination, commitment and resolution required to make things different at the level upon which things need to be different. And the status quo, which owns the media, keeps new issues slamming into us from every side so that we cannot begin to gather enough resolve to organize a revolution that stays focused on one issue over the length of time it would take to change things.

It is not difficult to find something that needs changing. Finding the people who are willing to do the work over time, that’s the problem. We’re too comfortable to be revolutionaries. We have too much to lose, too little to gain. We have to realize that being true to ourselves, and doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, means, at least, rousing ourselves enough to vote in every election, great and small—and voting for the Democrat. If we do that much, things will change radically for the better for the majority of United States citizens, over two or three election cycles.

Arrogance and the Profit Motive

I don’t know of anything that works better than arrogance for creating an intolerable situation for ourselves and others. That is probably why the biblical writers place so much emphasis on humility as the oil that enables relationship and life. It is too bad all their hard work is so wasted on us. The United States is as arrogant as any nation that has ever been labeled “the most powerful on earth.” Power does that to you. I think it must be a law: You can’t be even a little powerful without being a lot arrogant.

The Fourth of July is the annual date for the celebration of our birthday as a country. There is nothing about our attitude toward power, and, hence, toward those who are less powerful than we are—and that includes everyone other than us in the world—that is worthy of celebration. We should be ashamed, but we don’t have enough awareness, or humility, to be ashamed.

Arrogance does that to you. It robs you of awareness. It keeps you from being able to see yourself, particularly as others see you. It allows you to do anything it takes to get what you want, regardless of whether or not it is good for you. Which gets us to the profit motive as the other side of arrogance.

Having to profit from every effort is arrogance in action, and it flows smoothly into the mantra of capitalism: Profit At Any Price! Capitalism is the end of democracy. Liberty! Justice! Equality! Truth! Are all on the auction block for sale to the highest bidder. Arrogance. Profit. Profit At Any Price. Are all one thing. One evil thing. And we think it is the greatest thing on earth. It is the end of the earth—with the fossil fuel industry leading the parade into the Void that swallows us all.

We have the military and economic might to muscle our way through all resistance and objection to goals that we deem to be in the national interest—though our national interest long ago devolved into the interest of the wealthiest few. Our power—and consequently our arrogance—is unmatched in the history of the world. We are not creating a legacy that anyone who lives with awareness, compassion, and sensitivity to the plight of others would be proud of.

The Fourth of July should be an occasion, not of national celebration, but of national contrition, heartache and shame. We have frittered away our position among the nations; we have squandered our place of leadership; we have let slip through our fingers the opportunity to envision, and effect a future that would be beneficial to the entire world; we have been self-indulgent, and unconcerned about the impact our living has on life in other nations, or life everywhere on the planet. The biblical injunction about “to whom much is given, much is expected” applies to us as it has applied to no one before us, and we all would be right to be appalled and ashamed of our failure to do right by those who share the world with us.

The only sins are the sin of arrogance and the profit motive. They amount to the sin of taking what really belongs to someone else—to the entire community, which, in our case, is the entire world—and using it for our own personal advantage and pleasure. The boon is meant for everyone. We are to be a blessing to the nations! The words of God to Abraham about being blessed in order to be a blessing are certainly to be applied to us as a nation. Yet, we have taken the “favored nation” status as an opportunity to indulge our appetites, and exploit our advantage, declaring “manifest destiny” as the justification to strip lands from Native Americans and consume the west—and on to the rest of the world, with the cosmos being next if we don’t destroy ourselves before we get there.

It is not for our own good that we have been given these two hundred plus years, yet, you would not know that by the way we act, by the way we swagger about, and use our influence on a global scale. The American Way of Life is the only way of life that we care anything about. If we use up a staggeringly high percentage of the world’s resources, what of it? We deserve it! We have ourselves to make happy! If it doesn’t serve us, it is impeding us, and we will destroy whatever stands between us and what we want. We think that we have the absolute right of kings to do as we will in the world and beyond, without any sense of regret, remorse, or mortification.

If you think this is a bit strong. If you think this is not the way it is. If you think I am overstating the case about our arrogance and insensitivity, here’s one for you: Ask your friends to tell you who they think are the five most evil US presidents. I’d bet you $20, if I still did that kind of thing, that you will not get a list from any of them. You may get shock that you could even think of such a thing, but you aren’t going to find anyone who can reel off the names of five presidents they think of as evil (Unless they think “Woke” is a synonym of “Evil’). Those people over there, across the ocean, are evil. Our enemies are evil. We are good to the core! That’s an easy example of arrogance at work in our lives.

I don’t know what to do about it. I have no cures or remedies to recommend. I think there is no solution. Growing up is the only solution, and no one can make anyone grow up. This gets us to the biblical idea of wailing and lamentation. We don’t do enough of those things. We medicate ourselves, or have another glass of wine, or say something on the order of, “Let’s go bowling, Dude.” We hide from our anguish, deny our pain, and develop symptoms we can’t begin to manage. We would have fewer symptoms and addictions if we did more wailing and lamentation. I wish I could be more helpful. Awareness, wailing and lamentation are all I can offer.

The ultimate solution is awareness, awareness, awareness. Seeing ourselves in the act of living arrogantly reduces the amount of arrogance in our lives, but I don’t have a solution for instituting the solution. Too bad the mirrors we stand before to adjust our hair and makeup don’t show us who we really are, how it actually is with us, the way it is with our hearts, in our souls. We need a seer at the cabinet level, like the slave riding in the back of the emperor’s chariot, whispering, “You, too, will die.” That didn’t work too well for the emperors, evidently. They still behaved arrogantly, and facilitated the death of their nation in so doing. We can be lulled to sleep by the very words that are meant to wake us up. Awareness cannot come to us from the outside. It all depends upon what we bring to the table. Which means, in the case of US policy, at home and abroad, wailing and lamentation are all that is left.

What we need is an antidote for arrogance. All we have is the Wailing Wall. Which is enough to drive you to the Doctrine of Original Sin—and to the idea of Principalities and Powers, and to Paul’s anguished wail (!) about “Wretched man that I am!” We are unable to do anything about any of the things that really need to be done. All of the real fixes for the human condition are out of our reach. The more aware we are, the more hopeless it all becomes, and anything we can imagine doing seems like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

At this point, we have to remember that we have to trust in something. This is the heart of faith. We have to trust in something, because the solution is beyond us. We cannot fix the things that are wrong with us. Our propensity for arrogance, and our contempt for the dangers of pride, and our delight in domination in all forms cannot be cured. In light of that, the only appropriate response is wailing, lamentation, and trust in something, faith in something.

Trust in what, is the question. Trust in that which is beyond us, is the answer. Trust in that which is beyond our power to effect and arrange—or imagine! In that which is for evening things out to the core, and is calling us as it has called people through the eons to open ourselves to its presence, and participate in the wonder of its realization upon the earth—the whole earth.

Here we get to the Source of Life and Being—and our destiny, our work, to bring forth the Source in our life. This is yeast in the dough, salt in the soup, light in the darkness. This work is hope beyond hope. We are called to enlist ourselves in the work to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises, and trust that will be enough. We offer what is missing to balance the whole in places that are void waste lands where there is no hope, and no reason for going on. Here is the rock-solid, wonderful truth that is at the heart of who we are in relationship with the Source of Life and Being: We have no control over any of the things that matter, but we exercise considerable, one might say infinite, influence over everything that is.

The metaphor for how this works at the heart of things, for the way things are at the level of the heart, of the soul, is Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was, as we all know, born in a manger, and died on a cross. How’s that for control? How’s that for power? How’s that for hopelessness, helplessness, impotence and vulnerability? Yet, who has been more influential in the history of the planet than Jesus of Nazareth?

The manger and the cross remind us that it is not “like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”! No matter how pointless and hopeless it seems, our potential for influence extends beyond us in all directions. And so, we work away, against all odds, in the service of the best we can imagine.

Arrogance abounds and we can be constant sources of compassion, mercy, kindness, awareness, sensitivity and humility upon the earth. We can make it clear that the way of the government of capitalism is not our way. We can buy fair trade products, support the slow food effort in our area of the country, and contribute to causes that serve the self-development of people worldwide. We can wake up, pay attention, and say “No!” to the things that should be opposed, and “Yes!” to the things that should be encouraged.

Our role is that of seeing and saying what must be done, and not done, and doing what needs to be done in the service of the best that can be imagined. The role of the awakening ones has been the role of prophets in every age: to call politicians away from self-service to service that takes the well-being of all, even “the least of these” into account. Our national interest is whatever is in the best interest of every living being, worldwide. It is our role to call ourselves to task, to the task of being what is needed worldwide in the moment of our living. It is a role that is easily abandoned, but one that we must consciously embrace, and deliberately live out if we are to be who we are called to be in doing the work we are called to do. We must stop living as though nothing we do matters, and begin living as though everything we do has ultimate impact, makes a significant difference. We must believe in ourselves and in our ability to influence outcomes far beyond, but certainly including, our immediate environment.

There has never been a time in the entire history of time when peace and justice issues were more pressing, or when the opportunity to participate in them was more available. We have access to a wide variety of organizations and agencies that are working to reduce oppression and increase freedom around the world. We have no excuse for believing more in impotence and hopelessness than in efficaciousness and transformation.

The world is waiting for us to participate in life as though we believe the power of Holy Presence is working in us and through us for the good of the environment and humankind. This country came into existence right out of the air over two hundred years ago, against all odds, and contrary to all expectations. There is no reason that we should be celebrating our continued existence as a nation except that our ancestors believed more in what they could do than in what could not be done. Theirs is a legacy we would do well to continue.

The process is simple: Believe in something, and live in its service until something better to believe in comes along, and then live in its service until something better to believe in comes along… Believe in something and do the work that needs to be done. Live toward the good—toward as much of the good as you can imagine—no matter what. The world will be different for your having lived. Life will be transformed because of your life. We all will be better off because of you.

Here’s To The Day!

“Here’s to the day! May it be all I need it to be—and may I be all it needs me to be!”

That’s good enough, I think, for a morning prayer. It reminds us that we need things from the day, and the day needs things from us. That’s the fundamental deal. We have to be clear about what we need, and about what the day needs, and understand that we are primarily in the business of seeing that needs are met.

Doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises remains the purpose and goal of every living thing. Sequoias and Monarch Butterflies hold up their end of the bargain. Human beings, not so much. “I want” has become an artificial, counterfeit, life goal for the entire population of homo sapiens. We live to serve “I want.” We are the toadies of “I want.” Without “I Want,” where would we be? What would we do? What would guide our boat on its path through the sea?

What needs us to do it is always there…

The day needs us to be who we are—to be true to ourselves within the relationships, context, and circumstances of our lives—in a spirit of genuine good will and compassion. The day needs us to bring our gifts of soul, self, and heart to life in the day, gracing the day with our presence and perspective. The day needs us to incarnate, express, and exhibit that which is deepest, truest, and best about us. The day needs us to bring clarity of perception to bear upon the day—to see, and hear, and understand what is before us in each moment, and what is being asked of us by the moment—that we might offer what is called for out of what is ours to give to what is in our path throughout the day. The day needs us to live with awareness, attentiveness, and mindfulness, so that we see what is to be seen, hear what is to be heard, know what is to be known, and respond in ways that redeem what can be redeemed, soften what can be softened, and make where we are a good place to be.

We need the day to provide us with oases of soul and spirit, resting places, breathing places, where we can regroup, recover, recharge, and reflect. We have to pause from time to time throughout the day to remember who we are, and what we are about. Life is not meant to be lived too fast to see. We have not evolved with the skills required to live with ten thousand things crowding in from all sides at the same time. We step into the fast-paced demands of modern life from a long line of ancestors who spent most of their time doing nothing. We need time to process our experience, adjust to it, and ponder our response to it. We do not live well on the run. We need places to pause in the day, to consider the day, and how we are responding to it, and how well that reflects who we are, and what we are about.

We have to see the day, what is happening there, and our place in it. We cannot do that if we are too close to the day. If “the world is too much with us.” If the day is too much in our face, with its demands and requirements, and its long list of things to do, we will not do well. We need working room. We need optimal distance between ourselves and the day in order to remember, and coalesce around, that which is deepest, truest, and best about us, so that we might bring that to bear upon the day’s deliveries.

Our problem with life—and it may well be our only problem—is that we are fragmented, scattered, and disconnected within—and unconscious of being that way. We live at cross-purposes. We want mutually exclusive things. Our desires are at odds with our ideals, and with our desires. We suffer from mutual conflicts of interest at the very core. We want what we cannot have, and live to possess what we have no business having. We are a squirming mass of contradictions and division. The opposing sides of ourselves are constantly vying for command and control, and working to sabotage and frustrate whatever side is currently exercising command and control—and so, we shoot ourselves in the foot again and again, acting out in self-defeating, self-destructive ways.

We are as disjointed and dysfunctional, and as far from unity, wholeness, solidarity, and accord, on an internal level, as the nations and religions of the world are on an external level. We are not at-one with ourselves. We are not complete, whole, integrated, centered and focused. We live as well as we do by limiting our options, and forcing ourselves into a life of tight moral and legal restrictions, because we cannot trust ourselves to live without external restraints on our impulses and inclinations. We desperately need, in each day, places to remember and realign ourselves with, that which is deepest, truest, and best about us, in order to express and live toward it when we step back into the day.

We have to come to terms with—make our peace with—who we are, and who we also are. We must live transparent to, and respectful of, ourselves—of all our selves. We have to know who we are, and who we also are, and be okay with that, be reconciled with that, at peace with that—and with our conflicts and contradictions.

Wholeness is not being one way only all of the time, but being aware of who the situation needs us to be, and being okay with contradictions. We can be this way in certain situations, and that way in certain other situations—but we cannot live in any situation as though that is the way we are through all situations, and we are never any other way in any other situation ever. We have to be conscious of all the roles we play, and of how our parts compliment one another, and make us who we are.

A life of solitude reduces the roles we play, and we can pretty much be who we are consistently over time, but one-dimensional and shallow. A rich life requires the integration of opposites. We are not built to be one way only, but a host of ways appropriate for each occasion that may arise.

We have to work with all of the roles our life is asking us to be, in order to integrate, harmonize, and reconcile them with one another—and we have to recognize those roles we are not capable of playing without violating our essential sense of self. There are things we cannot do and be who we are, or we can do them, but not often. I could not do a weekly cocktail party or football game.

Retirement is where I can get by with doing mostly the things I like to do. The list of things I can get by with not doing is getting longer. I don’t have to play roles that I am not equipped to play, and have fewer occasions forced on me that I have to “rise to.” The gap between the roles I have to integrate is narrowing, which makes it easier to be who I am with mindful awareness and compassion. But, I still have an identity I am seeking to form and to serve. I am still bringing myself forth into the light—still looking in my mirrors.

Our identity is the organizing core of all of the roles we are capable of playing in situations as they arise. I am not a mechanic or a carpenter. I am certainly not a surgeon, or a dentist, or a farrier. I am not a cellist or an opera singer. The list is long. But, there is another list. My identity encompasses a wide range of possible roles and aptitudes. We all live out of a repertoire of possibilities. We cannot be integrated and whole without being conscious of them.

Look in all of your mirrors. Every aspect of your life is a mirror, reflecting you to you. See who looks back at you from each one.  Start with the bed you wake up in.  What does the bed, and the bedroom, and the bathroom, and the house, say about you? What do they reveal of you?  Proceed from there, throughout your day. 

What do you wear?  How do you greet the first person you meet? The fifth?  Who do you show yourself to be in each scene of your day?  Who is the you that shines through in each of the roles you play?  Are there some you’s you don’t allow to shine through in some roles? 

How many you’s do you keep in seclusion, unavailable to public viewing?  It is crucial that you are aware of all the you’s there are, and that you work with them all, consciously, mindfully, compassionately, over time—to integrate, reconcile, harmonize, and choreograph into a whole that is completely transparent to you, so that all of you knows, and is comfortable with, all of you.

Don’t hide anything about yourself from yourself.  And no pretending to not be pretending!  Nothing happens for the good in your life until you integrate the whole, and step as one into your day.  Each day.

If we are going to find what we need from the day, in the day, we are going to have to offer that to each other, every day. The day is not going to magically make a place for us to do the work of reflection, recollection; to do the work of distancing; to do the work of re-affirming what is truly important, and re-directing ourselves toward it. What we need from the day is not going to flow easily to us from the day. If it comes to us at all, it will be because we—willfully, deliberately, intentionally—make it available to each other each day.

We have to be oases of soul and spirit for each other. We have to be places where others regroup, recover, recharge, and reflect. We have to ask one another, with routine dependability and complete seriousness, “Who are you? Who are you also? What are you about? How are you living in ways that reflect that? How are you living in ways that dispute that and deny, conceal and oppose, that?”

We—all of us together, collectively, communally—are what we—individually, and personally—need from the day in order to bring to the day what the day needs from us. We do not live well alone. We cannot do it alone. Without access to the right kind of community, we are a collective of conflict-driven individuals, unclear about what is deepest, truest, and best about us, at constant odds with ourselves, with no organizing principle, or aim, or intention to draw us toward wholeness and direct us toward the good.

We need one another to provide us with that compassionate, attentive space without answers in which to do the work of remembering, and rededicating ourselves to, who we are and what we are about—so that we might step back into the day, and provide what it needs out of our hearts and souls, and selves—which are as capable of redemption and restoration as any heart, soul, and self that has ever lived.

The Path to Numinous Reality

At times, our experience of life can sit us down and stun us into silence with the depth, and breadth, and marvel of creation. The fact that we are alive and a part of the all-ness of things can be overwhelming in an awe-inspiring kind of way. We can be amazed at being amazed.

To think of ourselves tucked in with all that is, is to risk losing our hold on the egocentric structure which holds the world together for us—the smugness which places us at the front and center of things, and makes us the hub around which life revolves. Seen in conjunction with quarks, black holes, and white dwarfs, we slip a few places in the order of importance, and take on the aura of “very lucky to be here.”

The insignificance of the “I” in relation to the rest of the universe, or just to the ocean, or the Grand Canyon, or one Giant Sequoia, or one seed of a Giant Sequoia, is, well, “I-opening.” In touch with the grandeur of it All, we lose touch with the world of normal, apparent, reality, and can no longer think that it is all about us, or continue to think that our plans, goals, dreams, interest, ambition and convenience are the things that matter. We cannot sit very long with the view from this perspective without running the risk of going crazy–or becoming religious.

The foundation of both insanity and religion is the loss of identity, bearings, orientation. The old, familiar world of normal, apparent reality is shattered by an experience that calls into question all that we had valued, thought, or held to be true. We see things in a way that invalidates the way we have always seen things, and leaves us wondering what’s what and how it can be. The fundamental, foundational, primary religious experience is the experience of being fragmented, splintered, displaced. It is the experience of being lost, and alone in the cosmos, wondering, “Does anyone see what I see???”

We do not live well without some organizing principle. We have to have some way of keeping things manageable, of thinking about ourselves in relation with everything else. We have to ground ourselves in something, orient ourselves toward something, coalesce around something. We have to be able, somehow, to hold the I in place in relation to the All. We have to fit into the time and place of our living. We have to belong. We have to find our place in the universe. Religion gives us a place. Religion helps us shape our response to the experience of being lost, and alone in the cosmos.

Religion at its best provides us with a framework for being amazed without disintegrating. Religion at its best surrounds us with the protection of the community of those who have been there before us, who are there with us, who know what it is like to be astounded, and who can comfort us with their confidence and compassion, as they teach us to sing from the heart of joy and wonder in responding to the marvel of the I in relation to the All.

From the standpoint of religion, our response to the wonder of being is the initiating experience into the community of those gathered as children of, as disciples of, as servants of, beauty, goodness, justice, equality, liberty, truth, grace, mercy, love and peace. This is to say that the foundation of worship is “Wow!” The heart of religion is awe and wonder.

If we have never felt stunned, shaken, overwhelmed at the very idea of existence, we cannot feel religious. If we are not overtaken by the magnificence of a starry, starry night, or of the Rocky Mountains, or of an infant in our arms, religion will never be anything more than a collection of dead rituals, and stale doctrines. If we are to be religious, we have to be alive, and to be alive, we have to be alert to, and impressed by, the time and place of our living. It has to mean something to us that we are here/now. Religion cannot mean anything to us if life itself does not mean anything to us. In order to be religious in the deepest, best, truest sense of the word, we have to be “wow-ed” by the fact that we are alive, by the fact that we are right here, right now.

The religious problem of the 21st century is how to get the “wow” back. Traditionally, historically, there have been three ways of initiating and maintaining the “wow response”: The encounter with beauty and truth in art, music and nature. Religious education in the 21st century is going to have to connect us, at the level of the heart, with beauty and truth in art, music and nature. Religious education in the 21st century has to be about seeing, hearing, perceiving, intuiting, imagining, creating, exploring, and, most of all, experiencing the wonder of life.

We don’t do this with words. We don’t do this with Sunday school books. Or with theology and doctrine. Or with even contemporary catechisms. We don’t even talk about art, music and nature. We give ourselves and our children the experience of art, music and nature. We throw ourselves into art, music and nature. The religious task in the 21st century is waking ourselves up by becoming alive to the life that we are living, to the life that is waiting to be lived by those who see, hear, understand, and know how it is with them, and about them. We wake ourselves up with art, music and nature.

So, your homework assignment is to immerse yourself, beginning today, or with what is left of it, in art, music and nature. If you are going to be spiritual, you have to be sensual, you have to be physical, you have to see, touch, taste, hear, sense and smell. You have to wake yourselves up to life, and to the wonder of living. You have to be alive and know you are alive. You have to be shocked awake by experiencing the experience of being alive. You have to put yourself in the position of being shocked awake by exposing yourselves, again and again, to the wonder of life through art, music and nature.

You have to put yourself there repeatedly, and wait for the magic to happen. Wait for your eyes to open, for your ears to hear. For your heart to understand. One of the stories about the Buddha has him lifting a lotus flower before those gathered to hear him speak. The lotus flower was his sermon. Only one person in the audience of disciples, Mahakashyapa, “got it,” smiled, and was enlightened. If the Buddha had done the same thing the next day, maybe two people would have gotten it. Maybe six the next, a few this time, a few more the next time, until all were enlightened–awake to the wonder of being alive.

The magic of art, music and nature works just this way. We cannot hurry the moment of seeing, of hearing, of understanding. We can only put ourselves in the position of perceiving the moment when it comes. We can only prepare the way for the power of numinous reality to Wow us awake; we cannot force the Numen to come our way, on our schedules, at a time and place when, and where, it is convenient for us. We give ourselves to the experience of art, music and nature, and wait, expectantly, in order to lose our place in the universe and to find it at last.