Sabotage

All Satan can do (and he is pretty effective, in the short-run) is try to sabotage the goodness and harmonies God has created...which lead us to worship Him.

New Weariness

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

-- John Ruskin

Nothing Is...

Nothing is...mine.

Jammin'

Not Available

The busier I get, the less available I am to myself and to God within me. The less available I am to these things, the more critical I become of others. The more critical I am of others, the more angry I become...at them, at myself for being so, at nearly everything that doesn't cooperate with my agendas.

When I sense the latter, I look at how busy I have let myself become again...and make it a point to stop -- to go running in the woods, to sit down and look at something for longer than usual, to lay purposely in bed and not start on my list.

...guess what I did this morning?

Idea Camera

'Saturday Mornings' is like a camera; it takes pictures of ideas.

Threats

It often escapes us (me included) that the greatest thing we need at times of fear and worry is our awareness that He is with us...and not that we need relief from the threat.

Cultivated

What is valued in one’s country is what will be cultivated.

-- Plato

What do we cultivate?  ...especially in light of yesterday's post?

Un-Human

My kids rarely actually speak to someone in person. They use text messaging, Facebook, instant messaging, e-mail, and Twitter.

-- Fred N. Blitt, Legal Collection Advisor

"Rarely speak...in person"? Do we know the damage we are creating? This is not just technology, there is something un-human at work here.

Grievances and Grows

Have you ever noticed yourself slightly less enchanted with something than someone else is. Or how easy it is for such a thing to grow into something you resent...about that thing or even that person. This almost naturally then gives way to a kind of record-keeping about it, in order to maintain your position and your distance really from it (and, from them as well).

Equally, have you ever noticed that when you join someone in that thing that something unexpected happens, that your complaints and judgments start to wither. That something else grows, for that person, as well as for what they are doing.

Nothing ousts the sense of Gods presence so thoroughly as the souls dialogues with itself - when there are grumblings, grievances, etc.

-- Friedrich von Hgel

First

A (very) short poem:

You first.

By Myself

There can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting in which Christ matures us.

-- Eugene Peterson

The line that jumps out at me here is 'I am not myself by myself'. ...some would argue mightily with this. But, I think this is worth serious consideration.

Toil and Becoming

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.

-- John Ruskin

Reminds me of this one.

Numbers

Never worry about numbers.
Help one person at a time,
and always start with
the person nearest you.

-- Mother Teresa

So lose yourself.

Wonder

You can't help but wonder about some big stuff after looking at things like this.  Who thinks of stuff like this to flaunt about at us?

I don't think there is any better worship than wonder.

-- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Lose Yourself

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

-- Gandhi

Wrapped Up

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

-- John Ruskin

Draw us, Father, to the bigger, in you. We are made in your image, to be wrapped up in you.

Drawn

We are drawn to what makes us feel alive.

Good things...and bad things...can make us feel alive.

Lord, cause me to be drawn to what truly makes me alive.

Speech with the Holy One

For most of us, . . . entry into the Psalms requires a real change of pace. It asks us to depart from the closely managed world of public survival, to move into the open, frightening, healing world of speech with the Holy One.

-- Walter Brueggemann

Reaches So Far

Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.

-- John Ruskin

A helpful perspective regarding time, in light of yesterday's post.

First Day of My 50th Year

Today is the first day of my 50th year of life and so I am returning to the topic on the last day of my 49th -- Why Am I?

Why am I...

...capable of so much violence (actual or just in thought), perversion, self-indulgence, prejudice?

Why am I...

...in that same person beckoned in the morning by the sun rising over the horizon?

Why am I...this strange and unwieldy combination.

Perhaps another question will lead us to the answer to this one...

Why are other things what they are?


Why does a placid lake whisper 'peace' so softly, yet so loudly?

Why does morning mist linger over it so mysteriously?

Why do streams which feed it make a rippling sound?

Why does the cardinal have such brilliant red to flash?

Why does the tree have to grow so slowly, imperceptibly?

Why does it appear as nothing but dead month after winter-month only to explode with foliage in a matter of weeks...for a hundred years?

Why does the lace of a flower float so beautifully above its supporting green?

Why...

     do daisies face the same direction?
     does the yellow iris yelp its color?
     does the purple iris moan with delight?

Why do many docks have so many patient kayaks aboard them?

Why does the empty park sometimes fill with a whole town?
     while at other times do families of geese wander within it so freely?

Why do people walk 4 dogs at a time?
     or puppies lick you the way they do?
     do cats stare?

Why does color beg?

...and these are just the things I 'why-ed' when I was out early this morning.  Imagine the rest of them!

Everything is made for a reason, a unique reason, but a shared reason.
I am, too.

My 'whys' merge when I wonder about myself in light of the something more and larger that is going on in life.

When I see all these things, a mosaic emerges.  And, it's image says, "you are blessed...to be a part of all of this...joy".

So I join it,

and, in doing so, find out really...why I am.

Why...Am I?

...crashing can lead to an important question:

Why Am I?

Crash

...and, therefore, we must crash into ourselves at one point or another.

Terrible Within

I don't give people drugs because they need to find The Terrible within.

-- a doctor

Forces of Ourselves

We are forces of ourselves.

The good, the bad;

and we can't get away
from ourselves.

...whether we want to,
or others want us to.

We are who we are,
forces
of ourselves.

Hills of Purple

We all see the soul of God coming over different 'hills'.  But, my oh my, does it ever shout!

...here is more purple.

Soul of God

Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the soul of God shouting for joy.

-- William Blake

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-- William Wordsworth

This concludes my 'week' of poetry (guess it was longer than that). Must say it 'danced' with me, leaving me with a question, one that I will probably come back to a few times before the end of things:

'What is poetry?'

I'm still drawn to the notions with which I began this time -- poetry is a means of alluding to things like beauty, sadness, transcendence....

Too Low

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high
and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

-- Michelangelo

Why Not?

Someone may ask you a 'why would you...' type of question. Maybe they have already...or will some day.

What kind of person, or thinking, or sensitivity, does it take to respond (after some pause) with...

...'why not?'

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

-- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

There Are Many, But Only One

The following came to me one recent morning when I was running on an indoor track at a time too early to mention. The trailing slumber, and probably the night before's ice cream were chanting throughout my body that there was no way I could complete the normal 32 laps. When my body took over my mind, it kept pointing out how many laps remained...how impossible it would be to make it all the way...that day. And, it struck me, as I simply plodded on, that all I could really do was run the current lap. And then, the next one came and I did the same thing, thinking the same thing. And, before I knew it, I had run 10 laps...and counting.

Focusing on the likelihoods of the future was disabling something in me. When I focused on the only lap I could run, the current one, I found myself continuing. 20. Then 30. Only 2 to go. I ran faster....

How much like life, I thought, is this lesson. When I try to grasp the whole thing, especially the future, I become too aware of impossibility, of unlikelihood. When I focus on one choice, like one lap, at a time. Slowly a life gets built. And, I learn that I can do things I didn't think I could do.


There Are Many, But Only One.

Like choices, there are many laps in life.
We count them.
We predict them.
And, in doing so, we can miss the one we're on.

Do we predict
because we have counted?
Asking, can we make it?
Will I have enough...to finish?

There is something fearful
fueling all our predicting
which disables something
about this one.
For I can only run the lap I am on.

Each lap can be run,
but only one at a time
as we learn to lean on
Another source within
to accumulate the growing many.

...and that IS enough
to make it,
to make it all the way;
starting with the only one,
the lap (or choice) I'm on.
This one.

Poverty & Power

When is poverty not related to the mis-use of power?

Really

What if I bring an empty cup
An empty cup to You?
What if I can pour nothing out
That's good or loving true?
What if all I really have
is an angry brew?
A dark, ground, scalding shout
Directed right at You?
Do you really want this cup?
Won't it burn Your lips?
Ah, Your eyes do brightly shine
Between the long, slow sips

-- Tim Koshnick

Oil and Water

Like oil and water, we lean
toward independence.
Our learning forces us to wait
for a blended fragrance
to waft us back togethered,
trusting
the betternness within each other
to soften the fast-grown
crusting.
With oil and water now mixed,
we savor the bread's
surprising moments:
The trust of unseparation
...unlike oil and water.

Starred

>Never a word, their silence sown,
Flickers delicate upon my own.
Light the touch -- no accident --
One silence with another blent,
Till I become accustomed to
A hope the growing quiet knew:
Of finding in my own soul-wide
A quiet sparkle deep inside.

-- Tim Koshnick

Tough vs Strong

Tough is hard,
while strength doesn't have to be.

Tough is outside; strong is from within.

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

-- John Keats

Beauty is so strong, this is partly why it is a joy.

Deeper

There are deeper things you do not know;
Mysteries that will remain so.
Until your heart, its courage found,
Looks to where your Fears abound...
Then seeing them stretch from east to west
You hold open your frightened eyes lest
Your true condition you somehow deny,
And the deeper work passes you by.

-- Tim Koshnick

Perceived or not, this work is a thing of beauty.

West Wind 2

You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.

-- Mary Oliver

...we row so hard...in the wrong direction. Trust your Captain's voice and the work he asks of you.

The Third Body

A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long
at this moment to be older, or younger, or born
in any other nation, or any other time, or any other place.

They are content to be where they are, talking or not talking.
Their breaths together feed someone we do not know.

The Man sees the way his fingers move;
He sees her hands close around a book she hands to him.

They obey a third body that they share in common.
They have promised to love that body.

Age may come, parting may come, death will come.
A man and a woman sit near each other;
as they breathe they feed someone we do not know
Someone we know of, whom we have never seen

-- Robert Bly, from the collection "Ten Poems to Open your Heart" by Robert Housden


I am turning to poems this week. On the surface they allude to something, both farther in and farther out, something underneath, something behind...

...something wounding, like beauty.
...something comforting, like sadness.
...something glorious, like transcendence.

It will be a good week.

Thinking & Feeling

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become...habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! What we think we become.

-- Margaret Thatcher



The movie (The Iron Lady) is an interesting view of the merging of youth and old age, forgetting and remembering, thinking and feeling.

I find this an interesting and repeating function of aging over each generation...the identifying and holding on to what is felt to be (or thought to be) 'right', virtues and liabilities inevitably in tow....  This one is worth seeing, especially for those who grew up in that era.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit - Revisited

The question from a prior post was, "What do you think characterizes the 'poor in spirit'?"

It strikes me that the NLT translation of Matt 5:3 is getting at it:

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

I've seen many poor people who have no realization of this...in this sense, they are no different than the rich who don't either.  In other words, as my Dad says, "you can be as greedy with $15 as you can with $15,000".

Life of Passion - You Don't Need It!

You do not need to have a life full of passion. What is that life, anyway?

-- Penelope Trunk

My oh my, do I love this one!  Finally someone who stops blowing the 'passion' horn.  I've always hated that...noise.

I do think we're often talking about something else, when we're talking about that.  Penelope does a good job of helping re-construct it (see link above).

All Our Busy Rushing

We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.

-- Psalm 39:6

Puts things a bit more in perspective, doesn't it? It leaves you asking a few important questions about we're all doing here...so busily.

Income Tax Day

On this day of internal revenue
       some of us are paid up,
       some of us owe,
       some of us await a refund,
       some of us have no income to tax.

But all of us are taxed,
       by war,
       by violence,
       by anxiety,
       by deathliness.

And Caesar never gives any deep tax relief.

We render to Caesar...
       to some it feels like a grab,
       to some it is clearly a war tax,
       to some - some few ---
              it is a way to contribute to the common good.

In any case we are haunted
       by what we render to Caesar,
       by what we might render to you,
       by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
       when what you ask is an "easy yoke":
              to do justice
              to love mercy
              to walk humbly with you.

-- Walter Brueggeman

Thanks for sending, Sue.

Going Home

The new Leonard Cohen CD has a profoundness to it that is difficult to fully grasp or describe until we are face to face with our common end.  He opens the new album with this song.  Imagine him in some kind of conversation with God about his impending, yet unidentified death (I think this is part of what is going on...he is 77).  I appreciate lines like the following:

And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

...you can also listen from this link, if you like:

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He will never have the freedom
To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

He wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeat

A cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn’t what I want him to complete

I want to make him certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision

That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
That is to SAY what I have told him
To repeat

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow

Going home
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

-- Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas

Here is another great one from the new CD.

Marriage & Forgiveness

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

-- Ruth Bell Graham

Dance With the Devil

At one point or another or until we learn not to, we want to dance with the Devil as much as we think we can get away with.  At these times, we want what he's selling...until we see more clearly what it is (or isn't).

And it seems, we have to learn in very personal ways that he is the Father of Lies.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

-- Matt 5:3

Makes you wonder about what it is that the 'poor in spirit' have which will qualify them to rule in God's kingdom.  In our kingdom, the poor in spirit are condescended to, even frowned upon.  They don't have 'what it takes'.  ...to lead, to be a visionary, to be a hard-charger, to be a mover-and-shaker, etc...to rule really, a kingdom.

But, as seems typical in God's order of things, these folks will end up being the 'rulers'...perhaps because of something they learned when they were 'poor'.  I wonder when that will be, what that will look like.

What do you think characterizes the 'poor in spirit'?  Why do you suppose that in God's economy 'theirs is the kingdom of heaven'?

Thoughts on Getting Dumped

Another entry from Bob Goff...from Donald Miller's blog:

"I was in college and thought I wanted to be a forest ranger and later, a surfer. Then I got my first “dear Bob” letter from someone I really cared for who didn’t want to date a forest ranger or a surfer any more.

I’ve learned that God sometimes allows us to find ourselves in a place where we want something so bad that we can’t see past it...read on."

One of the blessings of poverty (being poor, not being 'rich', etc.) is the built-in 'No' in life.

Too bad we don't often see it that way.  But, I still suspect it is true; there is 'no' built into the regular life of those without much means.  And while not always the case, those who "can't" seem blessed with something that those who "can" often don't have.  It is hard to describe, but you do know when you see it. For example, the thorough enjoyment of something out of the ordinary, genuine gratitude for gifts from others, a simpleness (peace) that pervades one's existence with the direct and experiential knowledge that all goodness comes from God.

...and I'm really impressed by those who don't have to, but still say 'No' to things in life.  It confirms that they believe in something more than their money.

Not Quickly

Most good things don't come quickly.

You've got to walk a ways before you can learn to really appreciate and enjoy the goodness in things.  ...along the beach, through the woods, into life.

Awwww!

Click pic for more 'Awwww!'

Christ Is Risen

Christ is risen!
We give thanks for the gift of Easter
       that runs beyond our explanations,
              beyond our categories of reason,
       even more, beyond the sinking sense of our own lives.
We know about the powers of death,
                     powers that persist among us,
                     powers that drive us from you, and
                            from our neighbor, and
                            from our best selves.
We know about the powers of fear and greed and anxiety,
                            and brutality and certitude.
                     powers before which we are helpless.

And then you...you at dawn, unquenched,
              you in the darkness,
              you on Saturday,
              you who breaks the world to joy.
Yours is the kingdom...not the kingdom of death,
Yours is the power... not the power of death.
Yours is the glory... not the glory of deathl
       Yours... You... and we give thanks
              for the newness of life beyond our achieving.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

-- Walter Brueggeman

Lent's Birth - Resurrection Sunday

Paula said if you did this all the way, it may prove to be the very antidote you've been seeking.

Conversion means being liberated by God's grace so that we can at last follow the intimate spiritual aspirations that have long been unheeded, neglected, or frustrated.  It is the beginning of the journey towards a fulfillment, a journey powered by the spiritual quest but one which profoundly influences and transforms every sphere of human activity and experience.

-- Michael Casey

I have loved the recalibration this year's Lent has born in me.  Not that I'm all better or have become someone else.  But, I have been recalibrated to what makes me alive to who I really am.  And, I am grateful for it.

A few final thoughts from the wonderful little book I've referenced throughout this season:

Just as Jesus humbly bore his cross through the winding streets of Jerulsalem, I must be willing to carry the burden of myself as I am. Instead of fantasizing about my special gifts or fine character, I must lay aside self-importance. I must stop catering to my own whims, putting my own needs before the needs of others, or taking my own righteousness as a given. I must learn to see myself as I am: neither too high or too low.
...

That renunciation of my former way of life causes suffering, both for me and for those who love me but who are incapable of understanding the journey I am on. No matter how I'd like to avoid that stark reality, what I sign up for when I accept the faith is the quiet bearing of pain. Some of the worst of it has to do with the total restructuring of the person I've come to identify as myself.
...

Genuine transformation requires obedience to a power greater than myself.
...

Despite my predilection toward a strictly private relationship with God, I see that we do not and cannot meet him totally on our own. I realize that I am accompanied on this difficult spiritual journey not only by my living brothers and sisters in Christ but also by countless generations of believers who have already made the transition from earthly existence to the "land of likeness" -- the heavenly home that Jesus went to prepare for us. No longer merely an individual, I have been engrafted into the Body of Christ.
...

Our only way of thanking him is to offer back what he has so generously given:   our consecrated selves. We are made to bring peace to the war-torn, sustenance to the starving, hope to the desperate, love to the despised and the alone, and the good news of salvation to the ignorant and the cynical.
...

This task sounds daunting...so he reminds us of who he made us to be:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain that cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. (Mt 5:14-16)

Humility is what allows us to take on this magnificent mission without trembling.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Amen.  We are re-born.

Another Slanted Morning

It is another slanted morning.  And, when I saw it, my heart rose a bit in anticipation.  I have come to love sunlight from the side, as it slants in on things, making both high-lights and shadow simultaneously..  Add in some heavenly breeze and the world seems to just tingle with dancing motion.  And, the secret of its beauty seems to be that it does so without calling attention to itself.  It just whispers faintly, "do you know what I know?"  I think it is a beauty that knows it source, so it has no need to advertise or flaunt itself.  It just is...reflecting its reflecting on the One who makes it all move and shine.

Whew...about all you can do is breathe it in; slowly, deeply, wonderfully.

As I do this, something settles in me.  I rediscover that I am a part of all of this, that I have a part in all of this.  And, when I assume this same position -- reflecting God like the rest of his creation -- a strange thing happens, I come alive.

I love it when truth sneaks up on you in ways like this.  It taps you gently on the shoulder and offers you something didn't expect, from the side, as it slants itself into your budding awareness.

The Outrageous

If you’ve lost the capacity to be outraged by what’s outrageous, you’re dead. Somebody ought to come and haul you off.

-- Wendell Berry

Are we outraged by anything any more? We are shocked by so little. We feed on things that should shock as if it were a normal diet. Not unlike the Hunger Games, we make nearly everything entertainment and become callous to what is deeply wrong. Like this day represents in the spiritual calendar, we view it largely as just one more day to get something done or with which to amuse ourselves.

We ought to be hauled off...I'd say, to the dessert until we can see things for the way they really are again...what is good and what isn't.

Learning from Silence

The great secret of monastic life, which on the surface looks like total withdrawal from human society, is that years of solitude, silence, and prayer, if they are undergone in the right spirit, lead to an expanded heart. Thomas Merton says, "Father, I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I may learn from it the word of your peace and the word of your mercy and the word of your gentleness to the world: and that through me perhaps your word of peace may make itself heard where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it for a long time."

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

2 of the Beauty in my Life

 

Few of Us Would

If it were up to us to judge who deserved forgiveness and who did not, few of us would forgive at all. Instead, we'd cherish our self-righteous rage, nurture our towering anger, and soon find ourselves on the road to self-destruction or mayhem. We cannot be trusted to pick and choose whom we will forgive. And, so, as folders of Christ, we are enjoined to forgive without measure.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Come Healing

O gather up the brokenness
And bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vow

The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb

Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

O see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart

O troubled dust concealing
An undivided love
The Heart beneath is teaching
To the broken Heart above

O let the heavens falter
And let the earth proclaim:
Come healing of the Altar
Come healing of the Name

O longing of the branches
To lift the little bud
O longing of the arteries
To purify the blood

O let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb

-- Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas

Dismals Canyon & Orange Beach

One of three places in the world with Dismalites!

It occurs to me now that going to the woods
Without knowing any of the many names
Of its inhabitants
Must be about as interesting as going
To a beautiful library
Without knowing how to read.

How hard have we worked to acquire
Our fresh ignorance?

-- Linford Detweiler

Anonymous

There is something deceptively awful about being anonymous.  

It looks awesome from a distance.  It feels great, in terms of what it makes you believe you can get away with.  It allows you to be someone different than who you really are.

The big city, a road-trip, Las Vegas all beg anonymity.

It's not that these things should never be experienced. But life without a community is not life and it feeds all the wrong things in us.  It does not hold us accountable to the better parts of who we are.  A town.  A family.  A frequented barbershop.  A church.  A circle of good friends.  All stain us in some way, but all can also root us to who we are...by giving us identity, sharedness, forgiveness, humanity.

We should be wary of the wiles of being anonymous.

Bluegrass Legend Earl Scruggs Has Died

Earl could play 11 notes in one second!

Like the music or not (I kinda do!), you have to admire the perfection of such skill and the story of a man's life that shapes it.

Through Giving

It is through giving that we receive, and it is through dying that we are born to eternal life.

-- St. Francis of Assisi


 Giving and dying...not necessarily natural instincts. Ones that we have to choose. Ones that we have to learn to choose.

And, ones that are probably easier to imagine in theory than in practice. In other words, where specifically do I need to give today? Where and how do I need to die to today?

How Far

You'd be surprised how far the smallest steps can take you.

I am.  ...in both directions, good and bad.

Undefended Self

Solitude brings us face to face with a person who fills us with dismay: our naked and unadorned self. Instead of the self-sufficient, goal-directed, accomplished human being we've learned to secretly admire, we are suddenly revealed as a weak, dependent, fearful creature who much of the time uses others to fulfill desperate needs. If we have prided ourselves on the maturity of our faith, solitude twitches back the curtain on self-deception. The experience can be devastating.

Today, spend an hour in solitude: no phone, no e-mail, no TV, and no interacting with another human being, live or electronic. If you are already accustomed to living by yourself, think about he ways in which you defend yourself against loneliness. Do you rely on the TV to keep you company? Do you spend a lot of time calling friends? Do you feel compelled to socialize often? Ask God to show you what you'd prefer not to see: your undefended self. Then ask God to strengthen and sustain you.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

We continue this week in the fifth week of Lent. I'm still reading this powerful set of practices and prayers...and continue to be provoked at how well defended I have made myself. And, I am missing a lot in my paltry efforts.

Compassion

The Rule of St. Benedict enshrines hospitality as a primary Christian duty because the world is full of stranded people who ache for the smallest sign that someone cares enough to be inconvenienced for their sakes. It might help if we realize that what people need has more to do with compassion than solutions to their problems. We might experience less guilty frustration at our inability to 'help' someone and more inclination to simply be there for them, however briefly, as they struggle on with this difficult life.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

I am finding myself increasingly separated by this book, in a good way. Challenged to move beyond the intriguing nature of the ideas to the actions they compel. I have not been able to do it yet, to the degree that I would like. And, I feel the both the Accuser and the Caller near me. May God grant me the capacity to follow his calling however I can presently do so.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry

Me

I spoke sharply to my wife yesterday because of something she said that made me feel a certain way.  As we separated in silent anger, I discovered a sentence floating through my mind...something about her not having interest in me, in how I am feeling these days.  The fact was, however, that she had stopped by specifically to see me.

• "Do you know how hard I am working or what I give up to help you?"
• "Why am I the one who always has to be flexible and join in what you are doing?"

• "When is the last time you asked me how I was doing?"

• "Why doesn't anyone call me?"

• "...it seems like people don't really care, or even want to know about me.  Nobody really has time...for me.  Everyone is too busy thinking about themselves ...."

Each of us has personal versions of questions like this, don't we?  At times they lay low, staying submerged under our denial or even our effort to keep them tamped down.  At other times, they shoot out of the smallest cracks in our shells with surprising velocity and at unanticipated moments.  What is going on?  What is reflected in these sentences...especially when they are no more true than the one I was settling on above?

I woke up with questions like this today...but I realize I've been perfecting them for a while now...justifying the integrity of them by keeping track of certain things that support them (and leaving the ones that don't aside).  They are obviously self-centered.  They obviously reflect something I have discovered that I am holding on to, that requires something of others to take care of...me.  But, such sentences do point to something. ...and therefore they are useful to acknowledge.  I have learned (the hard way) to pay attention to them when I can.

As I tried to do this, I realized that (among other things) my sense of personal worth has become in need of validation.  So, I was accusing the world (and my wife) in order to gets its attention.  But, do I really need to be validated?  Well...yes.  I do.  But, by her?  Or, by you?  No.

So, the question remains, what is going on inside me?  What I really need is to stop and reconsider the forces at work in me right now that allow me to translate the validation I do need from requiring that others come through for me...to make me feel better about myself.  I have noticed, over time, that it is the inability (or, more likely, the unwillingness) to stop doing everything I have ended up doing to feel good about myself and ask the question, what validates me?  You?  What I do?  ...what or who does validate me, then?

This blog has well-traveled answers to these questions.  ...so, it isn't the answer that is elusive; it is the slow and subtle shift in where I seek the answer.  And, I need to stop...to be still in order to re-discover my true source of being.  Even while immersed in truth and good ideas, to not stop is harmful to my being...and hurtful to those around me.  I am, at times, surprised that this is still necessary, but I suspect I am not changed by ideas nearly as much as I am changed by the habits of stopping all the activity that can so undetectably infiltrate my life and relating with those ideas to God and those around me in very personal ways.  After all, they are not ideas or activities, they are people with whom I need to actually relate.

Busy

For many of us, there's actually a pretty strong correlation between how busy we are and how important we feel.

-- Laura Vanderkam

And every once in a while we run into the reality of this...usually through our anger.  How do we forget things like beginning-with-the-end-in-mind so easily?

There is something at work in our busy-ness that we often do not readily recognize, because it gives us a false sense of self, of who we are.  We transplant our identity from our being to our doing.  And, sometimes we polish our self-importance by fostering a deep sense that we are needed in so many ways (therefore, we have to stay really busy).

If you're not convinced, take away things that keep you busy and watch what happens to how you feel about yourself.

Begin Again with the End in Mind

Perhaps I can only regain my patience, especially in the face of loss (experience or created), when I re-acquaint myself with my destination.

In other words, I need to begin again...with the end in mind.

Here's a great little, related story example from Donald Miller's blog.

It is ironic how much our sense of our destination is a part of what we can endure (how may 'out there' affects by 'right here').  And, for the runner in all of us, note this admonition (the 5th one down).

We're not the first ones who've discovered how 'the end' can influence what we do next...especially when we need to do it again:

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

-- Philippians 3:14

Be Patient

In some ways, anger can be an absence of patience.

Why would we be impatient?  When am I impatient?  I think I am impatient when I feel like I can't afford to be...patient.  And, those times seems to be when I feel I have too much to lose...so I need to make something happen, now.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Anger's Acid

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

-- Mark Twain


 ...I wonder how our tendencies towards anger are related to our lack of tranquility.

Tranquility

Tranquility in the face of danger speaks to purity of heart.  The God-centered soul is calm in a way the self-centered soul can never be.  Years of prayerful self-discipline truly manifest their efficacy when catastrophe strikes.  Like wildflower seeds that do not sprout until they have been razed in forest fires, the virtues instilled by the contemplative life come into their own when everyone else is fleeing for their lives.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Along the Road

Doesn't Mean It Is So

Just because someone accuses you of something, doesn't mean it is so.

...but before we go with that too quickly, we likely also need to acknowledge it doesn't mean it isn't so either.

We do seem to live in an age where offending someone is taboo and when we are accused of something we might start from the default that it is true and that we shouldn't have done it.  But it takes some thought, some consideration, some evaluation, and some conversation to determine the truth of something.  I'm afraid the ease of our lives has softened the muscles of the analysis and consideration that is needed to engage meaningfully with ourselves and others.

Veils

We pity Muslim women for wearing veils, yet almost every face in this country is veiled by suspicion and fear.

-- Wendell Berry

Why is this? How have we ended up this way? Is the answer related to the artificial habits of engagement we have learned to accept as normal?

Entertainment Society

We often feel mentally tired and believe that distraction will give us a break. In the book referenced below, Paula Huston talks about the importance of the mind and what refreshment for it can look like.

The desert dwellers believed that our souls need proper nourishment -- spiritual food -- in order to achieve clear spiritual vision. Jesus often withdrew into the desert or the mountaintops at night in order to rejuvenate his soul through prayer.

25 years ago Neil Postman wrote an analysis of the way that television was reshaping our view of the world.  The problem was that TV had come to dominate the culture, which meant that almost all our experiences were now coming to us as entertainment rather than in the form of serious intellectual, moral, or spiritual questions.

When we watch TV, all we have to do is make a simple, childish choice:  is this interesting or boring?  If it fails to pass the test, we just flip the channel and move on.  It's not surprising that even newscasters have succumbed to the entertainment trend:  unless they over-stimulate us or lead us into the escapist fantasies we've come to expect, why would we watch them?

...what would we be free from?  Misperception, melodrama, falsehood, artificiality, superficiality, and self-indulgent egoism -- everything the entertainment industry depends upon to hold our attention.  

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

She calls this the artificial invigoration of the mind and something that we very easily become addicted to and shares some vivid examples of how far short our cultural forms of distraction fall from what we really need.

Creative

It’s very hard to be creative when you don’t need to be.

-- Penelope Trunk

For Sure

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

-- Mark Twain

Farther Along

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by

Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves em’ both
We’re all cast-aways in need of ropes
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen

Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home

So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that will unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
And wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright

Chorus

Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on

Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levee and my bluff
Let the flood wash me

And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the son of god is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing Lord, come soon

-- Josh Garrels

Feed on Goodness

Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness.

-- St. Bernard of Clarivaux

Do Nothing

Do Nothing for Lent and Be Grateful.

For many of us, doing nothing can be even harder than the everything we try to do.  Do we try so hard because we can reinforce the belief that for all of our failures at least we are wearing ourselves out by trying?

...doing nothing might reveal a few things to us.

Luxury

We tend to live in very luxurious times, especially relative to much of human history.  Things like running water, hot water on demand, private toilets...not to mention foods and clothing and entertainment; with variety more than we can even describe.

What do you think are some of the costs of such luxuries?  Are there ways that we 'pay' for this, that we don’t realize?

• Ever notice how you feel or act when we can’t have these things...and right when we want them?
• What is happening when we are bored even with these things and just ‘want something else’?
• What is going on when we feel a bother to thank God for them?

After going ‘without’ such things, how much more do we enjoy them when we can have them (...immensely more...than when they are just 'expected', right?)?

Does luxury promote ingratitude?

Does luxury reduce our fear (reverence) for God...by sedating our sense of need of him?

Intemperance

An intemperate lifestyle, which uses up resources we do not have, is not sustainable and ultimately leads to some form of interior disintegration.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Intemperance:  lack of moderation or due restraint.  Restraint has become quite unfashionable.  The point seems strong and recognizable that lack of restraint is using something that we don't really have...or have a right to do.

 For our society, this is a hard habit to break.  ...and I am a part of it.

Habit

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.

-- Erasmus

It seems to me that acknowledging this is part of how we become free from things that strangle us.  And, it takes a while...to get things pounded out of us.  For new habits to be formed within us.

When I think about things in my life years ago, versus things in my life now, I notice that a process was underway the whole time.  As much as I pleaded with God to solve for certain things within me in the moment, he did so in a way and at a pace that provided for substantive change -- a truly new habit, one that I didn't even realize I was praying for.

Stranglehold of our Desires

In a beautifully ironic way, the power of ascetical disciplines, meant to loosen the stranglehold of our desires, is not limited to showing us where we are weak and prone to sin. It does not even end at teaching us self-control. By giving us the opportunity to genuinely value what we would otherwise take for granted, asceticism also has the power to enliven authentic gratitude and wonder.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Authentic gratitude and wonder. Gratitude and wonder. Gratitude. Wonder.

What a partnership of words...and of ideas.  They are seemingly so inter-twined.  Ever find yourself in a conspicuous lack of these...gratitude and wonder?  I have.  The irony is that I so often think that it is the lack of struggle and suffering, of choosing hard habits, that will lead more directly to such things.  The experience of life, however, seems to reinforce that it is the chosenness of the harder things in life (me choosing them, they choosing me) that bring me close again to things like gratitude and wonder.

Makes me wonder whether this, among other disciplines, is what is involved in pilgrimage.

The Way

I watched a movie last night called, The Way.  It is a film about a journey a man ends up taking when he learns of the untimely death of his son.  A powerful depiction of what happens on a pilgrimage (a chosen one or not).  I would say that it embodies some of what Huston describes here. 

And, it gets me thinking about the idea of 'pilgrimage' -- the role it has played throughout history for man in search of something.  Where am I, on my pilgrimage?  Do I see my experience with life in this way?  I would say, yes.  At least at the moment.  Though there have many seasons where I actually had very little idea what was really going on...times when I have been submerged in the stranglehold of my desires.

And, partly to continue towards freedom from strangling things, partly because of what seems to be a timeless and inherently human desire...I am interested in taking on a pilgrimage of The Way of St. James type, before all is said and done.

Passive Receptacles

From an interview published by The Sun Magazine:

Fearnside: It seems that we’ve been separated from our local communities by radio, television, and now the Internet. Because these forces come from outside the communities, they often don’t reflect the communities’ values. How can we stay plugged in to information and yet preserve our local connections?

Berry: I don’t know. There’s not much you can do, unless you want to disconnect yourself from those electronic gadgets. I pretty much do. Tanya and I haven’t had a television for a long time; people used to give tv sets to our children, because they felt sorry for us. I think we were given three over the years. I listen to the radio some. I don’t have a computer, and I almost never see a movie. To me this isolation is necessary. It keeps my language available to me in a way that I don’t think it would be if I were full of that public information all the time.

Fearnside: My wife and I enjoy watching movies on dvd, but we find that most mass-media offerings aren’t worth our time.

Berry: To make yourself a passive receptacle for information, or whatever anybody wants to pour into you, is a bad idea. To be informed used to be a meaningful experience; it meant “to be formed from within.” But information now is just a bunch of disconnected data or entertainment and, as such, may be worthless, perhaps harmful. As T.S. Eliot wrote a long time ago, information is different from knowledge, and it has nothing at all to do with wisdom.

-- Wendell Berry

There are several things to consider here, including our formation.  I think our society says that you need this outside information to be informed, implying even 'to be formed well' (we might even call it something like 'being educated').  But, what if, like in many things, this is simply a lie that perpetuates our problems.  What if we need less of the outside and more of the 'formed from within'  to be who we really need to be?  ...so that we don't become passive receptacles.

What We Focus On

The desert dwellers' original impetus to flee civilization for the uninhabited wastelands rose out of the insight that it is far easier to focus on what is good, true, and beautiful when we are not being constantly distracted by temptations toward overeating, over-shopping, and escapist forms of recreation. Though the rampant consumerism of our time was still more than 1,500 years away when the Desert Father movement began, the great cities of the ancient Middle East were filled to overflowing with rich foods, and wines, exotics spices, and perfumes, gold and jewels, flamboyant silks, and a thousand other temptations toward gluttony, lust, avarice, and envy.

And that combination, the Desert Fathers knew, quickly leads towards chronic sadness arising from disappointed expectations, or to covetousness and the violent anger that can spring up when strong desires are thwarted. One monk put it, "I have this reason for putting aside pleasure--that I might cut off the pretext for growing angry. For I know that anger constantly fights for pleasure and clouds the mind with passion that drives away knowledge."

...we need to actively resist the pressure to mindlessly consume what we don't need, to covet what we can't afford, or to go into debt for the sake of fleeting and distracting pleasures.

-- Paula Huston, simplifying THE SOUL

Sit down. Be quiet. Stay Away...

Simplify. How does one do it these days?

This week I am reading from two sources, one Paula Huston and another Wendell Berry.  I find a strange dance underway between what I assume to be two strangers to each other.  Each, however, calling us away from the economies that now so dominate our lives.  

i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

-- Wendell Berry

I become increasingly convinced that we must choose to create space in our lives. It too rarely will choose for us. But we are feeding on something unhealthy by staying in the panic-ed pace of our lives. Doing more is not being more. In fact, it is probably 'being' less. Look for the things that compel us towards hyper-activity; even at the so-called spiritual things that do so. What is really driving that?

Take time...and create some space.  Simplify.

The Dance Toward God

I was raised to believe that the quality of a man’s life would greatly increase, not with the gain of status or success, not by his heart’s knowing romance or by prosperity in industry or academia, but by his nearness to God. It confuses me that Christian living is not more simple. The gospel, the very good news, is simple, but this is a gate; the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsom labor. God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like the birds, dress him like the flowers, and befriend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last. Most believers on the path have found that life is constructed specifically and brilliantly to squeeze a man into association with the owner heaven. It is a struggle, with labor pains and thorny landscape, bloody hands and sweaty brow, head in hands, moments of severe loneliness and questioning, moments of ache and desire. All this leads to God. God is not merely the reason behind existence, nor the curer of ills and confusion. Matter and thought are a canvas on which God paints; a painting with tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward God. And the dance is not so graceful as we might think. For a while we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. He lowers His head, whispers soft and confident, “You will dance to the beat of ‘Amazing Grace’ or you will not dance at all.” So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a taxing dance to learn.

But once learned, don’t we glide. And don’t we sway. And don’t we bury our head in His chest. And don’t we love to dance.

-- Donald Miller


 This passage was an excerpt from Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, which was later reissued as Through Painted Deserts.