GUM ON MY SHOE

Sometimes I step in gum.  It’s annoying.  It impedes my ability to move freely. 

Attachments are like that.  They interfere with travel to spots on the map that call us to a larger life, places where we might find adventure, solace, wisdom,  joy, love, or inspiration.

I’ve been thinking a lot about attachments lately, especially attachments to certain assumptions about myself, others, and about how the world works.  Like I’ve always assumed that I am “sensitive.”  Am I really?  What do I even mean by that?  Also, I’ve assumed that most others have confidence in themselves.  Do they really?  I like questioning these things because questioning creates a spaciousness, a feeling that the horizons of my consciousness are unlimited.

As I age sometimes I feel more like a teenager than when I really was one!  My identity continues to unfold into something bigger than I ever imagined.  I’m finding that watching my thoughts go by without being attached to them feels kind of like getting rid of the gum on my shoe. 

When the ancient Masters said, “If you want to be given everything, give everything up,” they weren’t using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself”  (from Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1988: Harper Perennial.)

ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I LOVE THE EUCHARIST

Here’s another gem from Joseph Campbell: “A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life.”
As embodied beings, we’re symbolically nourished as we travel through life by reverently taking in earth’s bounty – and we do this in community.  This is one of the reasons why I love the eucharist.

A POEM THAT BEGS TO BE SHARED

Monet Refuses The Operation by Lisel Mueller

Doctor, you say there are no haloes

around the streetlights in Paris

and what I see is an aberration

caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life

to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels

to soften and blur and finally banish

the edges you regret I don’t see,

to learn that the line I called the horizon

does not exist and sky and water,

so long apart, are the same state of being.

Fifty-four years before I could see

Rouen cathedral is built

of parallel shafts of sun,

and now you want to restore

my youthful errors: fixed

 notions of top and bottom,

the illusion of three-dimensional space,

wisteria separate 

from the bridge it covers.

What can I say to convince you

the Houses of Parliament dissolves

night after night to become

the fluid dream of the Thames?

I will not return to a universe

of objects that don’t know each other,

as if islands were not the lost children

of one great continent. The world

is flux, and light becomes what it touches,

becomes water, lilies on water,

above and below water,

becomes lilac and mauve and yellow

and white and cerulean lamps,

small fists passing sunlight

so quickly to one another

that it would take long, streaming hair

inside my brush to catch it.

To paint the speed of light!

Our weighted shapes, these verticals,

burn to mix with air

and change our bones, skin, clothes

to gases. Doctor,

if only you could see

how heaven pulls earth into its arms

and how infinitely the heart expands

to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

(With thanks to Barbara Fischer, School for Mystics.)

WHAT DID MARX REALLY SAY?

Most of us are familiar with Karl Marx’s famous quote: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”  If we believe this, we might feel smugly superior that we are not of “the masses.”  We feel “special.”  We feel more intelligent and enlightened than ordinary people.  We may feel we can look “reality” square in the eye and we don’t need any help in coping with pain, sorrow, and rage. We are cleverly cynical and like to dismiss religious sensibilities as superstitious and only fitting for those who aren’t very bright. 

Many of us go further and believe that religions are the source of all evil.  We might insist that if religions were to just go away, that if people would just “wise up” and give up their foolish beliefs, we all would live happily ever after in a world governed by reason and logic. 

That religions serve to divide and oppress is only too obvious.  These symbol systems are human constructions and therefore inherently flawed and clumsy – even destructive.  It’s quite fashionable to be mad at religion these days so I leave that rant for other writers to explore.  My interest lies elsewhere.  Read on.

Before we rest too comfortably in what we might assume is our superiority to “the masses,” let’s read a bit more of what Marx said: “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people” (From Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).

Who knew Marx could say such poetic words?!  I didn’t until quite recently – and I’ve long been an admirer of Marx.  He speaks in paradox.  “Spirit in a spiritless world.”  “Heart of a heartless world.”  I especially like the phrase, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature.”  We inhale the seemingly incomprehensible fragments of “reality.”  We take in the absurdity and the unfairness of life.  But then, we exhale.  As we sigh, our collective exhalation gives birth to religious symbols of love, mercy, justice, peace, charity, compassion, mercy, and hope. Each breath cycle has the potential to move us collectively and individually toward a new understanding of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.  For many of us, religion is the vehicle that facilitates this move.

So “opiate of the masses?”  Bring it on!  I love watching my so-called individuality slowly merge into the stream of “the masses.”  My feelings of being “special” are becoming more and more of a burden.  As I leave the tyranny of my “specialness” behind, I feel lighter and more free.  And opium?  Well, if finding “spirit in a spiritless” world is a form of intoxication, why not?  Inhaling without exhaling (without sighing) is not balanced.  Most meditative practices focus on the breath – in and out.  Without the sigh, we are simply oppressed.  We can choose to hold our breath until our face turns blue, or relax and breathe ourselves into the imaginative world of symbol and meaning.  We are free to make that choice at any moment and in any situation.  Now that’s intoxicating!!

P.S. ON PARADOX

“One must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: A mediocre fellow.”

Kirkegaard, S. (1985). Philosophical Fragments.

PARADOX IS THE THUMBPRINT OF GOD

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

(Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1988, Ch. 76).

I love this passage from the Tao Te Ching.  It reminds me of the importance of enjoying paradox – the importance of seeing how two seemingly opposing ideas can be intertwined in order to find a synthesis – like yin and yang.  This is called dialectical thinking and is considered to be the highest level of cognitive development by cognitive psychologists. 

I believe that both our internal and external conflicts could benefit from a softening – an opening – to new ways of seeing.  Can our politicians become less “stiff and hard?”  Can our relationships with others become more “tender and pliant?”  Can our inner conflicting voices become more “soft and yielding”? 

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are in constant flux.  Since we are in constant flux, at any moment we are capable of enormous transformations in how we see ourselves and those around us.  For example, think about how hope and despair seem to be polar opposites.  What kind of synthesis could come from seeing the truth of both emotional positions?  Here’s how I’ve worked it out – at least for the moment:  My intention is to stay open to the unknown – to be willing, even eager, to be surprised.  At the same time I sorrowfully witness the sadness – even horror – of what I see within myself and in the world around me. 

I will not give up hope and I will not look away from the suffering around and within me.  As I see it, being a “disciple of life” is grounded in the shifting sands of paradox, the thumbprint of God.  Staying “grounded” in “shifting sands” is truly paradoxical!  As the passage from the Tao Te Ching suggests, such discipleship might look something like the dancing doll in the music box – rooted by embodiment but always moving.  We turn and turn and turn again toward the source of our being.

HAVE FUN IN THE BELOVED’S DIVINE GAME

It’s summer!  So let’s follow the advice of Hafiz below to live worshipfully and have fun!

A Suspended Blue Ocean

The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.

The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,

And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves

Into my heart and upon
My skin.

There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,

For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.

They all say,

“Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved’s Divine
Game,

O, in the Beloved’s
Wonderful Game.”

—Hafiz

A NEW MYTHOLOGY?

Here’s a quote from Joseph Campbell that some might find interesting:

“One cannot predict the next mythology any more than one can predict tonight’s dream; for a mythology is not an ideology. It is not something projected from the brain, but something experienced from the heart, from recognition of identities behind or within the appearances of nature, perceiving with love a ‘thou’ where there would otherwise have been only an ‘it.'”

HUMILITY AND AGING

When I am older, I hope my facial expression looks sort of like hers (on the left).  As I think more about the joy of feeling “ordinary” and “humble,” I realize that it’s one of the perks of aging.  It’s an opportunity for kenosis (self-emptying) making room for new ideas and maybe even wisdom. 

The root of the word, “humility,” is from the Latin “humus” (earth). As we age, we become more and more aware of our finitude – our body ages, friends and family die, etc. We are increasingly humbled by the fact of our embodiment – its pleasures, pains, freedoms, and built-in limitations.  This humility allows us to turn our attention more to the transcendent while still grounded in the earth (humus).  We have a foot in both realities in a sense. 

It’s a privilege to gain perspective like this.  There are hardships associated with aging (loss, grief, disease, disability, etc.), but this is one of the compensations at least for me.  Finding peace in embodiment while seeking God in all things makes me feel gifted and graced.  Although I find concerns about self-esteem increasingly irrelevant as I age, I must admit it does feel good to know I have something valuable to offer others – if they have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.

WORSHIP AS A WAY OF LIFE (but do I have to get down on my knees?)

I know some folks resist the idea of “worshipping” a “higher power” because it suggests subservience or a hierarchical view of the cosmos – God is “above” and we are but mere mindless minions “below.”  But “worship” in its simplest meaning means to give worth to something (from the Old English worthscipe).

Those who seek God’s radiance in all aspects of life are worshipping in this sense.  They seek and they find.  They find joy in music, art, relationships, the scientific process, nature, history – and the countless details of an ordinary life.  Their worshipful attitude allows their minds to seek Spirit in everything.  Their senses are “God detectors.”  They respectfully stand in awe of the enormity, the complexity, and the ultimate mystery of what Paul Tillich (a German-American theologian and existentialist philosopher of the early 20^th century) called “the ground and the power of being.”

So do we have to get down on our knees to worship?  Each worshipper will need to come to his or her own conclusion on that one.  Speaking for myself, I sometimes pray on my knees.  Usually I do this when worshipping communally partly as a gesture of solidarity.  I also do it to enact my relationship with God as Creator, with God as Nature, and with God as enlivening Spirit.  I don’t feel subservient as much as I feel respectful of that which I can only experience as glimpses of glory.   I live for these moments.