You cannot get there.
You can only BE there.
Eckhart Tolle
I'm listening
but I don't know
if what I hear is silence
or God.
I'm listening
but I can't tell
if I hear the plane of emptiness echoing
or a keen consciousness
that at the ends of the universe
deciphers and watches me.
I only know that I walk like someone
who is beheld, beloved and known.
And because of this
I put into my every movement
Solemnity and Risk.
Sophia De Mello Breyner Andresen
(Portugal)
The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain one person.
Cszlaw Milosz
Poetry should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
John Keats
Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.
Marianne Moore
God comes to us disguised as our own lives.
Richard Rohr
Look for the leverage points. Everything else is just friction.
Harold Edgerton
Suffering is a necessary sensation that impels a creature to leave its present state and move on to the next one.
Rav Michael Laitman
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Greetings!
Well, here it is-holiday time. Family time. A time to see if you've grown enough spiritually to be more reflective than reflexive when your buttons are pushed...at the airport, on the highway, at the dinner table.
Even though we're about to feast like we haven't all year, this holiday really has a 40 days in the desert ring to it. It's full of tests for us...how grounded and reasonable can you remain when you're exposed to someone else's politics that are opposite your own? What strategies do you have for dealing with siblings who don't really GET you and who may still treat you like you're 12 years old? How will all your spiritual practice get translated into real terms when people ask you what you've been up to all year?
One thing I've learned is that the only way I can create the kinds of conversations I want to have with people is to GO FIRST and share something personal and meaningful about my own life... then actually inquire into the life of the one I'm with, ask a question that really takes us somewhere. Think of a few questions you wish people might ask you and ask those questions.
What is apt to happen if you don't create conversations of consequence are conversations of default that are not nourishing, inspiring or forward-moving. These days ahead are great opportunities for light-bearing. Share what has inspired you. Take home some good news stories. Feed the hearts and minds of those you love. Give thanks by giving hope. Be the synapse that connects the poles and makes sense of the paradox.
We are at war. And yet look at the abundance we are steeped in. The physicist Niels Bohr said,"Opposite a false statement is a true statement, but opposite a profound truth is another profound truth." This is the world we live in, troubled though it is. Before I turn you over to the poets who help us make sense of things, I want to say thank you for being in my circle, for giving me a reason to think these thoughts and get them out into the world.
So much of who I am is because of who YOU are. I never forget that and I am ever grateful. Thanksgiving is everyday for me. To the north, the south, the east, the west...I turn facing you, my candle burning, my mind on fire, my heart in the throes of adoration and love. What I can't say is so much more real that what I can say. I hope you feel me there in the chasm of silence, taking your hand, urging you on, thanking you for the ways you've moved me forward....
Happy days!
Love, Jan
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A good poem to read at the dinner table...
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is.
-W. S. Merwin
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The Dark and the Light of It
A friend from North Carolina emailed to tell me that her church, the Myers Park Baptist Church (Charlotte, NC) was officially disfellowshipped from the North Carolina Baptist Convention for being open about welcoming and affirming all people, including gays and lesbians. They had appealed to the convention with a ton of heart- warming letters and stories explaining the deep value that gays and lesbians brought to the community, but they were disowned anyway and disconnected from the mothership.
While that is its own tragedy and travesty--a flashback to the Dark Ages when "religion" ruled the world--it is an opportunity, as well. It has been an occasion for people to stand up and be counted, an occasion for coming out, an occasion for leaders to surface where they might not have, had the doors remained open.
And it is also bringing people to 2 important websites, where skilled scholars approach scripture with a mind toward inclusivity, justice and human rights.
http://www.hrc.org/scripture/
http://www.jewishmosaic.org/
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Ok, that's all...Happy Holidays!
Jan
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