Add a Glisten

When the ripe fruit falls

its sweetness distils and trickles away into
the veins of the earth.

When fulfilled people die

the essential oil of their experience enters

the veins of living space, and adds a glisten

to the atom, to the body of immortal chaos....

~D.H. Lawrence, from “When the Ripe Fruit Falls,” The Complete Poems..., pp. 504-05

This poem was read at the last rites of our colleague Iris Boivin many years ago and is fitting to be read at the passing rites of any fulfilled part of creation: especially now for Zachary May, our colleague who lived his 26 years to the hilt and blessed others with his iron courage and joyous heart. ~jpc

O to add a glisten to creation. Namaste.

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image: "Fruit ... on the Rainforest Floor," photographic print by Jason Edwards, www.art.com

Strange Joy

[This joy of God] does not deny the distress where it is, but finds God in the midst of it, indeed precisely there; ...it looks death in the face, yet finds life in death itself. We are concerned with this joy which has overcome. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom, p. 458

This strange joy “alone is worth believing,” Dietrich further wrote. He seems to have been found by it and made witness to it, even as he was hanged. ~jpc

Joy comes in the morning . . . noon or night. Namaste.

image: "Joy," photographic print by Tanya Weliky, www.art.com

She's Telling Us

I have come to terms with the future.
From this day onward I will walk
easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill
no living things. Live in harmony with
all creatures. I will restore the earth
where I am. Use no more of its resources
than I need. And listen, listen to what
it is telling me.

~M.J. Slim Hooey, Earth Prayers, p. 109

What she’s telling us is bigger than her mass, deeper than her resources, and wiser than her humans. Most of all, Earth is telling us to stick with her ‘cause she’s got universe and numinous connections. ~jpc

Listening time. Namaste.

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image: "Radical Amazement" (2008) by Ellen Howie

Three Possibilities

In the presence of their relativities men [sic] seem to have three possibilities: they can become nihilists and consistent skeptics who affirm that nothing can be relied upon; or they can flee to the authority of some relative position, affirming that a church or philosophy, or a value, like that of life for the self, is absolute; or they can accept their relativities with faith in the infinite Absolute to whom all their relative views, values and duties are subject ... [whereby] they will not become dogmatists unwilling to seek out what other men have seen and heard of that same ... [infinite Absolute] they have fragmentarily known. ~H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, p. 238

Whether nihilists and skeptics, absolutists, or faithfuls, we live in the relativities of the infinite Absolute, equally ... ~jpc

... turning fragmentary knowledge to faith. Namaste.

image: false-color enhanced map of the coastline of Guinea-Bissau http://tinyurl.com/44x55m

Inborn Thou

[T]he inborn Thou is realised in each relation and consummated in none. It is consummated only in the direct relation with the Thou that by its nature cannot become It. ~Martin Buber, in The Jewish Heritage, p. 177

An “it” can become for us a “thou” in any relation we have: with a person, a dog, a mountain, or the numinous. Thou is inborn in all. Neither “I” nor “it,” Thou is related to all – in a way we are absolutely sure of but know little about. ~jpc

Inborn Thou is here, now. Namaste.

image: Martin Buber http://tinyurl.com/mw4ta

We Remember Audrey

Audrey Ayres, spirit colleague from Naperville, Illinois, was active in the Ecumenical Institute/Institute of Cultural Affairs for over 33 years as a volunteer consultant, concentrating her work with the Fifth City Preschool. Joe was her devoted husband for 62 years.

A memorial service will be held at a later date. Memorial gifts may be sent to the Fith City Preschool, 3411 West 5th Avenue, Chicago, IL 60624.

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image: Audrey, who loved life and flowers, during a trip with Joe to Alaska in 1994 (from son Peter)

We Are Sustained

In constant evolution,
everything appearing permanent
proves temporary,
waxing and waning,
morphing into some fresh mien of providence.

Such high and ultimate truth we cannot control
but only ride at its will and refrain from ego-lust
to confine such a wild and magnificent beast
within the corral of any religion or philosophy.

~Harold Slater, musing on Psalm 97

Especially during the hectic times, when we are more confounded than usual on this wild and magnificent journey, we sometimes get a glimpse of truth that comes as providence. ~jpc

We are sustained . . . and give hardy thanks. Namaste.

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image: Safari Park, near Tel Aviv (photo: David Silverman/Getty Images at nytimes.com http://tinyurl.com/6xa5h2)

Sunday Dialogue CIV

Journer: What is the place of pleasure in our lives?

Nez: My student* said, “We are born for meaning, not pleasure, unless it is pleasure that is steeped in meaning.”

Journer: So real pleasure is more than pleasure as advertised?

Nez: Real pleasure flows out of meaning, like seeing a scan of your newest grandson before you meet him.

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* Jacob Needleman, A Little Book on Love

Liberation of All

[Y]ou cannot be reconciled with one who has his boot on your neck to keep you in the gutter. To be reconciled you must stand up right to look the other in the eye. Black theology and religion seek the liberation of all, oppressor and oppressed, black and white together – as we accomplished it in South Africa ... for freedom is indivisible. ~Desmond Tutu, “Black Theology Seeks the Liberation of All,” washingtonpost.com, 5/6/08

Good theology, philosophy, and ethics seek the liberation of all. I deeply respect the way Gandhi, MLK, and Tutu have gone about it: resolute, their bodies on the line, but with a genuine bow toward the oppressor. They have catalyzed historical change. ~jpc

Liberation is holistic. Namaste.

image: Kendra K. Davis' "Artichokes" painting is beyond Marxist images of liberation http://tinyurl.com/6xc4d5

Voice Under All

being to timelessness as it’s to time,
love did no more begin than love will end:

where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim

love is the air the ocean and the land....

love is the voice under all silences....

~e.e. cummings, Selected Poems, p. 71

The poet is one who “pulls us into the very complex center of life.”* Not even silence is that center, but the soft and loud voice of love. ~jpc

Long live love! Namaste.

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* note: Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, p. 115

image: "Beneath the Unseen Silence" by John McCormick

"Harvest Time"

The song I know as “Harvest Time” is attached. Ed Reames said it reminded him of the tag to the reflection below: “Turn matter into spirit.” (words and tune http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/s/o/n/songreap.htm) ~jpc

image: Brother Van Orsdel, a Methodist circuit rider, took the song by Wm. A. Spencer across Montana and the region.

Purpose of Human Existence

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 326

When was the last time you kindled a light in the darkness and affected the unconscious? A host of religious and evolutionists have. ~jpc

Turn matter into spirit. Namaste.

image: "The Cry" by Danny Shorkend www.dannyshorkend.com/myart.php

When I Rise and Fall

When I rise up
let me rise up joyful
like a bird

When I fall
let me fall without regret
like a leaf

~Wendell Berry, Earth Prayers, p. 367

Nature takes care of and grows up humans. ~jpc

We are part of nature. Namaste.

image: a falling sweetgum leaf by Anna Hess kitenet.net/~anna/recentpaint.html

Contemplative and Activist

[Bonhoeffer] was both a contemplative and an activist..., who showed, as Thomas Merton later did, that you really can’t be one without becoming the other. ~Jim Wallis, Foreword, A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. vii

Contemplation without action ... action without contemplation: either way, like a vehicle with one good wheel. ~jpc

What will it take to grow up many more effective humans? Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/3mh76h

The Heart of Matter

Within every being and every event there was a progressive expansion of a mysterious inner clarity which transfigured them.... The Diaphany of the heart of a glowing Universe as I have experienced it through contact with the Earth – the Divine radiating from the depths of a blazing Matter. ~Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter, p. 16

This is the witness of one who was at one with the heart of creation in his mundane living, in this same universe we live in. ~jpc

It does have a heart. Namaste.

image: "Slow Burn," Mark A. Chapman http://tinyurl.com/49aes7

Sunday Dialogue CIII

Journer: Do you think we need a new Reformation?

Nez: My student* said, “reformation is a permanent movement.”

Journer: But why not a new set of 95 theses on a symbolic church door somewhere, like in Vatican City?

Nez: Reforming spirit is hammering on every door of creation every day.

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* H. Richard Niebuhr, “Reformation: Continuing Imperative,” Christian Century 77 (1960): 250, via Lonnie Kliever

image: "The Power of Spirit: and Its Relationship to the World of All Living Things," by Tadashi Hayakawa http://tinyurl.com/45pgqs

Emerging Paradigm

There is a way of seeing Christianity that makes persuasive and compelling sense of life in the broadest sense – a way of seeing reality and our lives in relationship to what is real.... [This] “emerging paradigm” has been developing for over a hundred years. ~Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pp. xi-xii

Borg and a host of others have been on a mission to present the heart of reality, from their faith perspective, in our worldview so that we can respond with our full being, including our intellect. ~jpc

We no longer have any excuses. Namaste.

image: Jenny Holzer http://tinyurl.com/45a2pq

Beyond the Symbols

Joseph [Campbell] taught me to see beyond the symbols to the riches they represent. Those who cannot see beyond the symbols, he remarked, are “like diners going into a restaurant and eating the menu,” rather than the meal it describes. ~Diane K. Osbon, introduction to Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, p. 9

My mentor threw the Bible on the chapel floor to make his point: that book is a symbol, not the feast. ~jpc

We cherish the symbols, but, ever so much more, the truth they point to. Namaste.

image: "Eating the Menu," by Richard Cody www.flickr.com/photos/rcody/159769674/

Strong as Its Spirit

[This dug up Torah from a grave at Auschwitz] is a very concrete, tactile ... remembrance – of what people, some of whom [Nazis] did it in the name of Christ, did to people who were Jewish.... [This restored holy book] enables us to be prepared to prevent that from happening again.... The Nazis really thought they had wiped Jews off the face of the earth, and Judaism. Here we are taking the ultimate symbol of hope and of Judaism and rededicating it.... And we’ll take it to Auschwitz. You can’t beat that. ~a Lutheran Pastor and Jewish Rabbi speaking in “From Auschwitz, a Torah as Strong as Its Spirit,” by James Barron, nytimes.com, 4/30/08

Symbols for a new future, born out of evil from the past, raise consciousness. ~jpc

Let us never forget. We rededicate ourselves to living and let live. Namaste.

image: Running with the Sefer Torah http://tinyurl.com/4qlcls

Me Is We

One can accurately speak of the “autonomy” of an individual only by incorporating a sense of the dynamic web of relationships that are constitutive for that being at a given moment. ~Charlene Spretnak http://www.realitysandwich.com/next_buddha_will_be_a_collective (meaty), via Bill Salmon

The “Lone Cowboy sense of autonomy” is out, according to Spretnak. We are a “dynamic web of relationships.” We are our relationships. “Me” is “We.” ~jpc

“We” is not only the emerging trend but is eternal reality. Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/5xsr6e

At Least One Adult

If a child is to keep alive his [sic] inborn sense of wonder..., he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.... [I]t is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seed that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. ~Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonder, pp. 55-6

What child/children am I keeping alive? Namaste.

image: "Good Father" photo by Rarindra Prakarsa (Jakarta) http://tinyurl.com/46ad69

Presence of God

When young people today are appalled upon learning the young women and children are being “traffick-ed” in modern sexual and economic slavery, or that death has become a social disease in this world because of grotesquely unequal access to health care and life-saving drugs, or that their favorite shoes and outfits were made in oppressive sweatshops, or that the equivalent of the Asian tsunami death toll happens in Africa every month, or that class and race and gender still determine one’s share of life even in America – when they learn of these things and are appalled, it shows that God is still alive in them. ~Jim Wallis, The Great Awakening, p. 60, via Karen Bueno

The strange presence of God often appears when we cry over the injustice in our world. ~jpc

Injustice is always calling. Namaste.

image: "The Agony of Gaia" billboard, Frankfort, by Jeff Chapman-Crane (photographed by James Archambeault) http://tinyurl.com/3j2zsa (look closely)

Sunday Dialogue CII

Journer: How do we know God exists?

Nez: My student* said, “There is only one proof that the Eternal exists: faith in it.”

Journer: What does “faith in it” look like?

Nez: Believing the eternal lives in your heart, and loving along with it as a mother does.
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* Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, p. 84

image: http://tinyurl.com/5j3pz2

Interiority

Is there nothing but physical stuff in the universe? Or is there some sort of interiority? We’re not talking about ghosts and goblins and souls and all that kind of stuff. Just: Is there interiority? Is there an inside to the universe? And if there is interiority, then that is where consciousness resides. You can’t see it, but it’s real.... [C]onsciousness can’t be reduced to matter.... I don’t talk about consciousness. I talk about interiority.... There is a degree of non-determined interiority. It’s simply there. You can’t dismiss it. ~Ken Wilber from “You Are the River: An Interview with Ken Wilber,” by Steve Paulson, salon.com, 4/28/08, via George Holcombe

Interiority is the heart of the universe and consciousness. ~jpc

It’s real. It’s simply there. You can’t dismiss it. Live out of it. Namaste.

image: "Vision of Woman," Judy B. Dales, quiltmaker www.judydales.com/

My Country First

Is this a time of real hope and change? ...[W]e used to say in Canada, when I was a youth,* something like this: “My country first, not in things economic or material, but in the service of humankind, in the ways of the spirit. Someday, if there is ever to be peace and goodwill and equality around the world, some country must show the way, take the initiative, and I would claim that honor for my country: the honor of paying the cost, of showing the care, of forgetting itself to build a New Earth.” ~Nancy Grow, EarthRise reflection, 4/22/08

Idealism is not just for youth. Namaste.

image: "I love my Country" (poem about India) rhonaldmoses.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E55EDA3...

* note: “As I remember, something like this statement came from a magazine published by the Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT), a teenage group in all the Protestant churches in Canada.” ~N.G.

Meaning of the Resurrection

The miracle of Resurrection calls for an openness to confess the reality of the darkness within us and around us, admitting our role and responsibility in refusing to eradicate the suffering in our world. Then, when we stand honestly before the reality of our evil ... [o]nly then are we able to apprehend the relationship between the Resurrection and the presence of war, racism, global warming and terrorism in our world. For then, we shall also be able to discern the light of the Resurrection in our hearts and in our world. ~Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, “Another Way of Living,” washingtonpost.com, 4/27/08

Patriarch Bartholomew talks about the meaning of resurrection for each human child of the earth community, not just those of the Christian community. ~jpc

May we all see the light, over and over. Namaste.

image: "As the Veil Lifts," Merrill Peterson http://tinyurl.com/ytp9xj

The Great Adventure

Yikes! Who wants to be in a state of uninterrupted bliss when children are starving? ...[T]he passionately engaged part of us and the calm, unruffled [sage-self] both have their place.... Our warrior-self must keep the action moving, must do what is right, take a stand, get involved ... while our deeper self stays still.... The warrior acts responsibly, while the sage remembers life is a great mystery, a great adventure story, not just an endless burdensome battle. ~Bo Lazoff, “A Little Good News,” Spring 2008, p. 2, via LLC

The great adventure demands we be our warrior-self and sage-self at the same time, lest we be blown away by this-worldly battle or other-worldly bliss. ~jpc

Bliss only happens in the great adventure. Namaste.

image www.shiningsungardenworks.com/.../magnets.html

Beloved Earth Community

The concept of a “Beloved Community” was developed by American pragmatic philosopher Charles Peirce, and further by Hegelian Idealist Josiah Royce. It was also employed by radical social critic Randolph Bourne and black Civil Rights leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King. ~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beloved_community

I would add Thomas Berry to the list, and though he did not use the phrase “Beloved Earth Community” as a play on the others above, his vocation and entire works express it, making him one of the most spiritual persons I know. ~jpc

A person who says s/he loves spirit and does not love the whole Earth community has a way to go on the spiritual journey. Namaste.

image: Vancouver Mosaic Eagle Totem Flickr - Wendy Tanner via http://tinyurl.com/5zb239

"In the Beginning Was the Word"

St. Augustine once made a rather strong statement (which he later qualifies), saying “That which is called the Christian religion existed among the ancients and never did not exist from the beginning of the human race ... (De Vera Religione [One True Religion], 10). ~Thomas Merton, “A Note to the Reader,” The Way of Chuang Tzu, p. 10

What difference would it make to believe that the crux of religion has always “existed and never did not exist”? Chuang Tzu* seems to say it makes all the difference. ~jpc

Eternal truth: we are all one in spirit. Namaste.

* note: “Chuang Tzu” (4th-3rd centuries, BCE) also being printed “Zhuangzi”

image: "Tree of Life" wall tapestry by Jen Delyth http://www.art.com/

Sunday Dialogue CI

Journer: My dictionary says “destiny” is “a predetermined course of events.”

Nez: My student* said, “Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice.”

Journer: But choice is not really predetermined.

Nez: Right, not if it’s free.

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* William Jennings Bryan, from speech “America’s Mission,” Washington, D.C., 2/22/1899

image: "Currituck Light stairs #1" by Frank Tozier www.art.com

Primal Image of Wonder

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life. ~Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonder, p. 54

Thomas Berry’s “meadow experience” was his indestructible gift of wonder as a boy that has guided his life journey. ~jpc

Primal images of wonder are crucial to our journeys. Namaste.

image: ojaipartick photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojaipatrick/

Colliding Galaxies

Astronomers observe only one out of a million galaxies in the nearby universe in the act of colliding. ~“Hubble Telescope Captures Crashing Galaxies,”* reuters.com, 4/25/08

There are hundreds of millions of galaxies in our universe alone and each galaxy has upward to a trillion stars, including one very special to us: our Sun. There’s a lot more going on in our universe than human activity and emotions on our small planet. ~jpc

Hubble, thanks for giving us some perspective down here. Namaste.

image: this galaxy cluster part of the Great Wall of clusters and superclusters, the largest known structure in the universe (by REUTERS/NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team)

What Time Is It?

There is a time for putting together
And another time for taking apart.

~Chuang Tzu, “Metamorphosis,” The Way of Chuang Tzu, Thomas Merton

I am appalled at the vicious “taking apart” of the USA Presidential candidates by individuals and groups, especially on the Internet (a worldwide instrument for putting together or taking apart). All three candidates are made out to be poor choices, hardly worthy of leading our country. ~jpc

This is the time for affirming and putting together. Namaste.

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image: hvhe1 (Hennie van Heerden) http://www.flickr.com/photos/hvhe1/2372021946/