Journer: How do I start my spiritual journey in earnest?
Nez: Get up early in the morning.
Journer: Why?
Nez: My student* said, “To affect the quality of the day. . . .” Sleeping till the last minute will affect quite a different quality.
______
* Henry David Thoreau, Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition…, p. 67
image: J.S. Walters "Early Bird" www.pbase.com/jswaters/image/59293991
You have molten rock, and then all by itself, it transforms into a human mother caring for her child. That’s a rather astounding transformation. Of course, it takes four billion years. ~Brian Swimme, interview by Susan Bridle, “The Divinization of the Cosmos,” WIE magazine, Spring-Summer, 2001
Sounds like most anything is possible. ~jpc
O to be universally patient while never sitting on my hands. Namaste.
image: glassy ancestor of molten rock (obsidian) www.ufrsd.net/.../Geology/igrock/index.htm (pre-mother and child)
Taking a little poetic license, let me change the first word of an old hymn: “Gracious memories, how they linger, / How they ever flood my soul.” We reflect for at least three good reasons: to notch new gracious memories, to recall old ones, and to be awed with thanksgiving. ~jpc
Such is the stuff of the profound journey. Namaste.
image: the assassination of JFK that changed my journey
The most important qualities that make a great marriage develop in the marriage itself; they arise in the joint relationship and are not present in the individuals beforehand. A marriage is a new reality created by the covenant between two people. ~C. David Grant, A Theology of God’s Grace, p. 43
Covenant is that without which a strong marriage will not develop. Covenant keeps us in our marriage during hard times, giving us the possibility to really fall in love. ~jpc
O to have a bond that lets us be and become. Namaste.
image: LLC & JPC, 47 years ago
.jpg)
Martin Marty: “The problem,” says [Gabriel] Marcel, “is something that I could isolate.” “Problems,” he says, “have solutions or potential solutions.” Mysteries don’t. Mysteries have depths. Mysteries are unfathomable. . . . Marcel . . . says, “The problem stands outside me. Mystery, I’m inside it. Mystery, I can’t get distance on myself, or it or that other person.” ~“Bill Moyers Talks with Historian Martin E. Marty,” PBS, 8/17/07 http://tinyurl.com/29vmou via George Holcombe
He and Moyers are talking about children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, whom they see not as problems to solve but mysteries to awe. ~jpc
O sweet mystery. Namaste.
image: granddaughter Clara
[Message to my new grandchild:] We took Thomas [Berry] to lunch yesterday. Remember, he’s four months younger than Great Granddaddy Joe. He told us not to forget that “we live in a single, integral, and multiform universe, which is the Big Show we’re all part of, no matter what.” So, even though you and he are not as “productive” now, you are every bit as much a part of the Big Show as anyone or anything else. Production is not the ticket. Being is. Just be, baby. ~Dah Dah (jpc)
And being includes crying and laughing, dreaming and remembering. Namaste.
image: Great Granddaddy Joe (93) and Alec (few weeks)
Safety is the most unsafe spiritual path you can take. Safety keeps you numb and dead. People are caught by surprise when it is time to die. They have allowed themselves to live so little. ~Stephen Levine, “The Mindful Soul,” Handbook for the Soul, p. 50
“S/he who would save life will not find it. Only the living find life.” Or am I mixing up poetry here? ~jpc
Grace and peace in our unsafety. Namaste.
image: Higgs Field 3 by Jan-Henrik Andersen http://tinyurl.com/yv5ap6
Journer: How do I go about living authentically?
Nez: My student* said, “A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does.”
Journer: But what if I’m trapped in some little world?
Nez: Break out and find the love in what you do.
______
* Socrates character (Nick Nolte) in movie “Peaceful Warrior”
image: boy looks at Pakistan's capital Islamabad from special viewpoint, 7/31/07 (REUTERS/Adrees Latif)
History now judges that Bonhoeffer was acting with integrity as he helped plan the murder of Hitler and that Gandhi was acting with integrity when he disobeyed colonial law in India. Both were brave, clean, and reverent – especially reverent. But they broke “God’s” law and British law. And Gandhi’s wife thought he was irresponsible relative to the family, and he was – at least while in South Africa. Integrity is about discerning and doing “the will of God,” and nobody finally knows whether ‘twas done or not. ~jpc
Oh to climb a living oak rather than the tree of good and evil. Namaste.
image: Gandhi during the Salt March, March 1930 http://tinyurl.com/23t6pt
I remember sitting down in an airplane once and introducing myself to the guy in the next seat. He turned out to work for NASA as a Planetary Protection Officer. . . . His job involved making sure our spacecraft did nothing that could inadvertently alter the planets, moons, or asteroids on which they landed. . . . ~Bill McKibben, “Planet Protectors,” Orion magazine, Jul/Aug 2007 http://tinyurl.com/2dcyxa
Talk about comprehensive, futuric thinking. ~jpc
We’re all called to be Planetary Protection Officers on Earth. Namaste.
image: brooch given to Pat Nixon in 1969 www.archives.gov/.../image_2_nixon.html
[W]e arise out of eternity, moment after moment to see into the absolute moment – Teilhard* regarded this as a great mystical event in the life of an individual, as well as in the human journey. . . . The whole journey is this moment – it’s not just the year 2000 – this moment is also the birth of the universe itself. ~Susan Bridle, WIE magazine (Spring-Summer, 2001) interview with Brian Swimme, “The Divinization of the Cosmos” (*de Chardin)
That’s very good to know, that we and the universe are birthed moment by moment. ~jpc
Happy Birthday, all . . . over and over and over, eternally. Namaste.
image: UCLA astronomer Matt Malkan able to observe the real thing as it appeared billions of years ago http://tinyurl.com/ynogjr
This [“kosmocentric perspective”] is what brings the sacred dimension of life into everyday awareness – when you realize your own experience of consciousness . . . is potentially the leading edge of the possible. ~Andrew Cohen, Quote of the Week, 7/30/07
Imagine, the cosmic journey depends on you and me and on our experience of consciousness – and what we decide – just as much as it depends on our DNA. ~jpc
My cosmos: then, now, and till it ends. Namaste.
image: logo for www.andrewcohen.org/teachings/art-of-ec.asp
I do not believe that anyone has the exclusive franchise on the truth. What we Jews have is a good approximation, for Jews, of how to get there. . . . When it comes to what I call the “heart stuff,” all approaches overlap. ~Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi www.havurahshirhadash.org/rebzalman.html
There is hope because all us humans have heart. Let’s appeal to that truth rather than dogma that often excludes. ~jpc
Truth is ours, beating within. Namaste.
image: visitor pays tribute at a monument in Canberra, Australian, containing the names of over 102,000 Australian service personnel who have died since the 19th century (4/25/07, REUTERS/You Witness News/Paul Felton)
Journer: What do you think of metaphysics?
Nez: My student* said, “I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.”
Journer: So you don’t think there’s another realm “out there” with a deity?
Nez: What about another realm “in here” with spirit?
______
* Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, p. 240
[I]n these periods we must not believe that the Spirit is far from us. . . . Our sighing in the depth of our souls . . . is . . . the work of the Spirit within us. . . . Just in this situation . . . where we are unable to experience any meaning in life . . . [and in] the moment where we feel separated . . . and condemned to despair, we are not left alone. . . . Spirit . . . witnesses to our spirit that we are the children of God. ~Tillich, “Witness of the Spirit,” Shaking of the Foundations, pp. 139-40
So, to all who know us well, when we sigh it’s not unfaith but the work of the spirit bringing us closer to hearing its witness. ~jpc
In our sighing we are also the children of spirit. Namaste.
image: Edvard Munch "Despair"
The theme of the movie “The Sea Inside” is the freedom to die with dignity. But the movie is all about “life.” Critic Phil Villarreal’s summary statement of the movie is spot-on: “The journey to death can be tremendously life-affirming.” Life’s funny that way, especially when we know the way the journey ends – funny in that spirit sustains and even fulfills us in our insurmountable challenge. ~jpc
A death to die is a story about a life to live. Namaste.
image: Javier Bardem as a quadriplegic in "The Sea Inside"; co-star Belen Rueda
The key to Jesus’ existence was his “extraordinary faith” in God. . . . We can . . . relate to [a] Jesus . . . like us in every way (Hebrews 4:15). [Jon] Sobrino traces Jesus’ human journey of faith . . . [and says] the Gospels talk about the growth in Jesus’ life and consciousness, his temptations, failures, “the rupture in his faith,” his “self-identity crisis,” his conversion, his surrender to God, his learned obedience, his agonies, his growth in faith up through his ultimate faith on the cross when he was abandoned. ~jpc, The Transparent Event: Post-modern Christ Images, p. 59
This is the history about Jesus I’m most interested in and can identify with, how he journeyed in faith in the spirit he called “Father.” If Jesus did not struggle and glory in his faith, then he’s not like us in every way – and the book of Hebrews is a lie. ~jpc
O to journey with spirit persons in their faith. Namaste.
[H]ow many of the world’s roughly billion Muslims are members of extremist groups[?] About 0.004 . . . but if this rose to 1 percent, it would be the world’s biggest army. ~Sinead Carew, “Small, Offbeat Trends Can Change the World,” [citing from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Tipping Point] reuters.com, 9/8/07
On this sixth anniversary of 9/11, the global community is not dealing well with this trend. And we surely can’t do away with all 0.004 percent, much less 1 percent. How do we create a counter trend – for everybody’s good? ~jpc
. . . As if we are all responsible for the global community. Namaste.
image: “horse of a different color” http://tinyurl.com/2vjz26 by preschoolers in Galax, VA (this may not be the counter trend needed)
I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further. So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. . . . There is much that one cannot “affirm” and “accept,” but first one must say “yes” where one really can. ~Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, quoted in Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, Christine M. Bochen, via Koshin
Rejecting another’s faith is hardly what faith is about. Accepting another who has a different faith can be a clue to faith. ~jpc
O to do the truth. Namaste.
image: logo for www.interfaithstudies.org
Journer: Do you believe God has a name?
Nez: Whatever name you give “God” is “God’s” name – for you.
Journer: What if he’s a false God?
Nez: Most of them are. And why do you keep using the word “he”? Your “God” may be too small.
_____
image: Nihal Mazloum brooch with calligraphy: "In the name of God, the Lenient, the Merciful"
Martin Marty: Soul is not a pilot on a ship. Soul is not a thing. Soul . . . is the integrated, vital power of any organic body open to possibility and future. ~“Bill Moyers Talks with Historian Martin E. Marty,” PBS, 8/17/07, http://tinyurl.com/29vmou, via George Holcombe
How big is your soul, meaning how open are you to possibility and the future? Would you say your soul is bigger or smaller these days? ~jpc
O to be soulful. Namaste.
image: "Waves Over Yin and Yang" http://tinyurl.com/39vnsg
That picture of a lonely blue marble in the great black void seemed designed to shock us into seeing . . . [a]n oasis we should protect at all costs. Well, so much for that idea. It didn’t take, not really – we’ve done more to damage the planet in the decades since that picture appeared than in all the time beforehand. . . . ~Bill McKibben, “Planet Protectors,” Orion magazine, Jul/Aug 2007 issue http://tinyurl.com/2dcyxa
The image is still working on us. It’s too powerful a truth not to explode all human-centered, culture-centered, religion-centered operating images – but it will take a while because the universe seems to mosey along. ~jpc
How can we help the blue marble out? Namaste.
With Einstein, we always knew where he stood in relation to “God” – it was shorthand for the mystery and rationality of nature, the touchstones of the scientific experience. Cosmic mystery, Einstein said, is the most beautiful experience we can have, “the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” ~Dennis Overbye, “What’s in a Name? Parsing the ‘God Particle,’ the Ultimate Metaphor,” nytimes.com, 8/7/07, via Ida Forbis
Though I’m not wowed by all of Einstein’s metaphors, I do believe he bowed to that mysterious power at the heart of creation. ~jpc
O to bow to “the unknown unknown” that makes itself known or not. Namaste.
image: “Easter Moon,” John Eastwood, 2005 https:/.../product_overview.shopscript
During chapel service at our last Sunday of the State Defense Force Class, most everyone was making comments on this theme: we may not all be religious, but we are certainly spiritual. The group was quite diverse – charismatic, Baptist, Methodist, Jewish, etc. Someone said, “We’re not here to promote any brand of religion, we’re here to share in the Spirit.” . . . And they’ve never heard of the daily “Spirit Journey” reflections. I think we’re tapping into a universal feeling. ~Jerome Hunter
Thank you, Jerome. What you report is the trend, but miles to go before we sleep. ~jpc
We are one in spirit. Namaste.
image: Jules Olitski, “Night and Light,” Jacobson Howard Gallery http://tinyurl.com/2qubyk
. . . This is what I call profound facilitation, putting persons in touch with spirit: “consciousness of consciousness of consciousness” is helping to facilitate the union between them and the power that journeys them. Is this not our vocation? ~jpc e-mail to Australian colleague
Fundamental urges of creation facilitate such union. “It’s good to be apart of this dynamic” is an understatement. ~jpc
O to be thus used. Namaste.
image: Guatemala's Fire Volcano or "Volcan de Fuego" erupts in Guatemala, 8/9/07. You Witness News (REUTERS)/Santiago Billy Prem
Journer: What is “grace” all about?
Nez: My student* said, “Man [sic] is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”
Journer: What does “glue” mean here?
Nez: There is for us one creation, one universe, one galaxy, one planet. No matter how much it all feels like it’s coming apart – including our own broken lives – it’s all being reunited moment by moment.
______
* Eugene O’Neill, “The Great God Brown,” Nine Plays by Eugene O’Neill, p. 370
image: beach in Qingdao (east China) 7/28/07. REUTERS/China Daily
[Referring to new book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light:] “In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss,” she [Mother Teresa] wrote in 1959, “of God not wanting me – of God not being God – of God not existing.” According to the book, this inner turmoil, known by only a handful of her closest colleagues, lasted until her death in 1997. . . . “If I ever become a saint,” she wrote, “I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’” ~James Martin, “A Saint’s Dark Night,” nytimes.com, 8/29/07, via Priscilla Wilson
Knowing that she was one who served “God” and “God’s” creation out of faith rather than surety makes her faith all the more profound. ~jpc
O to be faithful in the darkness. Namaste.
image: Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta (Doubleday), due out September 2007
