 Never Enough!
According to the NRA, the Supreme Court, and the Republican Party there can never be enough guns in the hands of citizens! Over four hundred million guns, and still not enough! Clearly, this is NOT about guns: rather, it is about the "conservative" commitment, in absolute terms, to the "right" of unlimited profits... I suppose that we can all thank "god" that most of the Republican Party, the Supreme Court, and the NRA are "christian"... I mean, just imagine how fucked up we would be if they weren't! So, here's to the next bunch of kids who will be shot in some school in Anywhere, U.S.A... Can't you just here Jesus saying, "I was shot and you sold more guns!" (Matthew 25)
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 The world is pregnant with God. -- Angela of Foligno
And, according to Meister Eckhart, "From all eternity, God lies on a maternity bed giving birth. The essence of God is birthing." I would think that these quotations would spark some sort of upheaval in your mind! Attitude, perspective, and intention are everything in the cultivation of a radically soulful life. If one adopts the mystic-insight that, indeed, the world is pregnant with God, then everything is pan-sacramental: a means of grace and wonder, and a meeting place of the soul with the Divine Consciousness... Every moment is a theophany: a showing of God. Every person and everything is a manifestation, a revelation, of Being and Love. This mystic-insight should compel a transformative rEvolution of consciousness and the "gentle" annihilation of the ego ("me, myself, and I" as the center of the universe")... As ego recedes, the divine nature of our soul-self (We and All are One), launches us into our sacred possibilities... If, in fact, the essence of God is birthing, then our daily perspective must likewise undergo a radical re-orientation. Our thoughts, words, and actions are sacred and are the primary means given to us to process-praxis Paradise upon this most precious blue Planet. By extension, all of our collective thoughts, words, and actions are as close to Paradise as we will ever be: in other words, everything now matters: everything hinges upon our renewed commitment to birth the Kind, the Just, and the Beautiful in all of our public policies and institutions... Every justification for the limitless expansion of predatory greed, exploitation, inequality, injustice, oppression, and violence is evidence of the seductive power of the Unholy Trinity (privilege, profits, and power)... In the delightful wonder of our divine pregnancy, we can choose to join together in the mystic-embrace of loving to give birth to Love Itself through the all of our everyday lives: with nothing any longer under the veil of some sort of sin or separation (dualism), everything is now Only One (non-dualism). Living the radical truth of becoming mothers of God (We are all meant to be mothers of God. -- Meister Eckhart), every step that we now take will be a lifting of this entire Planet onto the path of conscious evolution... We can choose to cultivate bliss, reverence, beauty, harmlessness, and kindness. Our mystic surrender and adoration is to the One Love Consciousness: the Oneness. Everything fits into the puzzle completed by active-compassion. Every old religious or political division and divide is bridged by the birthing of our intention to outdo Love in loving in a new, wild, and holy competition... Like that proposed by Jesus in his Beatitudes and Rumi in his poetry... this is the unleashed power of our possibilities!  Dorothy Day, Saint of the Gutter Beautiful, lived for nearly 50 years in various Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality: and many times, in addition to peeling potatoes, protesting war and any number of injustices. Through it all, her most frequent companion was a copy of a "Breviary" -- a prayer book most often used by monastics... She was not, though, a crazed Catholic conservative in which the imitation of the priesthood was thought to be the "mark" of holiness. Rather, her life experiences compelled a daily centering, through the darkness of faith, a surrender to love and the oftentimes seemingly distant possibility of a Divine Presence... War in the headlines should elicit a similar response in our lives... how else can we truly live, hope, and even survive as human beings?  You are the Universe in ecstatic motion. -- Rumi
I can't drink. Nevertheless, don't you think this might be a good time to get drunk: and then maybe stay drunk for the rest of the year? Pausing, I of course know that beer was not an aid to Rumi's enlightenment or in his prescription for times of struggle and suffering... So... I remember a quote that I included in my book, Resplendent in Rags, it is from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: We do not understand that life is paradise, for it suffices only to wish to understand it, and at once paradise would appear in front of us in all its beauty... (Fr. Zossima) This is something different from getting drunk... "It suffices only to wish to understand it"... In words both ardently political and spiritual: this means to be woke! Yeah, you conservative nuts: get woke! Instead of recognizing the loving spiral of spirit and life weaving through and about everyone and everything, both leaders and us drift aimlessly in the inevitable grief of apparent separation: constructing systems of privilege, profits, and power that exist only to rape, exploit, and dominate: rendering the masses, and now the entire Planet, twisting in the winds of fear and hopelessness: easy prey for charlatans of religion and politics: who are interested only in getting their small share of the Unholy Trinity... This wokeness is not at all about becoming a "liberal". Liberals are just as much slumbering beauties as are conservatives. I frequently wear a button on my coat that boldly states: "Jesus was a Liberal"... I wear it hoping for a bit of provocation: no one has yet made a comment! What I want to say is this: "This is just a tease! I don't think that Jesus was a liberal at all! Rather, I do think that he was the most radical man ever! I mean, have you ever read the Sermon on the Mount, or Matthew 25, or his claim that the kingdom of heaven is within all of us! Man, that dude was through and through radical!" Like Lao Tzu and his Tao Te Ching. Like Mahatma Gandhi and nonviolence. Like Dorothy Day and Catholic Worker Soup Kitchens, Houses of Hospitality, and Farms. Radical. Radical with genuine wokeness. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us: the Way is spirit and life everywhere and within everything: there is no separation: this is philosophically called non-dualism. Instead of this and that, friend and enemy, me and you: there is, Only One, a Universe of ecstatic motion! We can, one minute from now, get woke! Jesus said and practiced the most wokeness imaginable: Love your neighbor exactly as you love yourself: who is your neighbor? Every single person and thing! Leave no one out or behind! Build the evidence of the Kingdom of Love right here, right now, on Planet Earth. Radical. Woke.  Force may subdue, but love gains. -- William Penn (1693)
In theory at least, Christians of the West, remembered and perhaps celebrated their remembrance of the "absurd" possibility of the resurrection of Jesus... Meanwhile, Christians of the East, remembered and celebrated that same "absurd" possibility a week later than those of the West... Unfortunately, though, Christians of both East and West, are wedded, as it were, not to the Radical Grace of Jesus, but instead to the necessity of both "force" and profit as the essential "gods" whom we worship in practice... If you are at all like me, you have found these recent weeks deeply disturbing: once again, Christians at war with Christians: so much like the Middle Ages... like both the First and Second World Wars... Bishops on every side blessing the "holy cause" of "subduing" enemies... Leave it to a "non-Christian" to write "conduct your triumph as a funeral" (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching) We might remember Jesus in a weird sort of way, like in "going to church", celebrating Christmas, and remembering Easter. But, who among us actually cares that Jesus had something to say about the way in which we are to live: in order to awaken to the One Reality of the kingdom of God is within you! And then our purpose: building that kingdom by righteous and radical action! So, as is plainly obvious, Russia is waging an unjust war, fundamentally, in pursuit of "profit". But let us not forget that, year- after-year, the United States is the world's "biggest" arms dealer: with few exceptions, if you've got the dough, we've got the bread. What is it that you want? Guns, planes, bombs, missiles, and the technology to perfect their use? You don't have enough dough? Well, no problem! We know how to get them into your hands, and just you never mind about the endless debt... Meanwhile, the kingdom of heaven is within you: this is the core reality that Jesus taught and lived. It is the brief manifesto of the real and only radical revolution there is. If you wish for a more detailed explanation, there is, of course, the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount... as there is the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel... you know, the part that says "I was hungry and you fed me"... Who needs more for this one life that you have? And then there is also the "emptiness" of the Gospel: practiced in contemplation, humility, obscurity, and the ever-present Tao-ness of the Incarnation... Mother-without-end... the poverty of active nonviolence... the silence of a waiting garden... the obscure soup kitchen and whatever task needs doing... We can protest. We can organize. We can vote. We can creatively challenge the idiocies as they come along. But, most importantly, we must not forget to live! We are not about building an uninhabitable kingdom! We are, instead, building the House of Love, forgetting the doors, locks, and keys: it is a House of Peace, for Every One...  Entitled to Reverence
When heart-nonviolence is gained, To live and love we will not be ashamed, To laugh and to sing will be our delight, Till by laughing and singing We come 'round right. From an old Shaker hymn Changing "true simplicity" to "heart-nonviolence" It doesn't take any effort at all to conclude that we are living in a very broken "system" -- I will not say "world" because "world" is Earth: Earth is only suffering because of our corrupt human-devised "systems", not because it is itself in any way corrupt. Earth is incredible: a wonderful, dynamic, and living work of art... And one could probably say instead, and be more accurate as well, a wonderful, dynamic, and living work of heart... A number of years ago, Sue Bender, wrote a lovely little book entitled Everyday Sacred... which is where I read the charming (and rEvolutionary) phrase entitled to reverence... This phrase is exactly what I mean when I write of a festival of nonviolence... When we can look at another (any) human being, with the perspective of entitled to reverence in mind, everything, absolutely everything, is compelled to change... this is both the secret and the power of nonviolence... The Christian emphasis upon Lent as a time of spiritual and physical fasting, penance, and a working-willingness to change one's mind and habits, have not, evidentially, changed much of anything. Perhaps we have even lost our ability to change? If that is the case, then we are truly doomed! I write, though, because I believe otherwise. I write because I believe, in spite of what seems evident, that we can change: indeed, that we will change! Perhaps Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin had our era in mind when he wrote "The time is close at hand when mankind will see that, precisely in virtue of its position in a cosmic evolution which it has become capable of discovering... it now stands biologically between the alternatives of suicide and worship." Suicide is the Russian invasion of Ukraine: along with every nation's misplaced faith in weapons of war as the means to self-preservation and peace. Every peace achieved by war is only temporary. There is always the next war... and the next... and the one after that... Suicide is the system of profit that grants privileges and power to weapons manufacturers and dealers. Suicide is the reverence for guns over and above the reverence for people... Worship, on the other hand, is the most human thing that any of us can do. Oh, to be sure, I'm not first thinking of the "worship of God". Rather, I am thinking of our natural inclination to revere the awesome beauty of Nature... our natural inclination to revere the children born of our love-making... and then, finally, our natural inclination to kneel, in fact or in mind, to the Divine Mystery within which we are all enveloped... It actually turns out that our natural inclinations are the heart and soul of the developed religions (however much they empower systems of violence). We are all natural mystics. We've all just forgotten, and have not been encouraged to practice the sacred, by the developed religions. An old Daoist mystic on some mountain in China would no doubt simply say, "Practice your natural inclinations every day. They will see you safely home. Which is where you want to go, right?" I would add the suggestion that you begin your day with a phrase that Pete Seeger used to sing, "well may the world be!" To be sure, a humble beginning to your every day, but somehow, it connects very nicely to each of our natural inclinations... This connection is key to any possible festival of nonviolence... "Well may the world be!" And if this connection is key, then it stands to reason that the open door is the realization that every single one of us is entitled to reverence...  St. Francis
The contrarian that I am, while it possible that most Christians will be fasting, etc. during Lent, I will be shifting my focus to festival. I mean, what with Christians (and, of course, others) killing each other in Ukraine (and elsewhere), festival might be more effective for prompting change and transformation than fasting... How about a festival of nations? Or a festival of disarmament? Or a festival of social and economic justice? Or a festival of black farmers? Seriously: Why not something unexpected and different? Is there anything more important than a general conversion to a festival of nonviolence? Don't our children deserve this grand possibility?  If anyone needs proof of the essential barbarism of Christianity, one need only consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Orthodox Christion versus Orthodox Christian. The ease with which Christians make war upon other Christians, whether with weapons of mass destruction, with AR-15's, or with handguns, only mirrors the vitriol of words: Christians pleading for rescue at the Southern border of the United States with Mexico, receive in response, denial, brutality, more vitriol, and "political" hate from fellow Christians...
President Obama noted on more than one occasion that the most segregated place in America were Churches on Sundays. Instead of the holy "competition" of "see how they love one another", the so-called leaders of the U.S. practice policies of separation and division, amplified by a "Supreme" Court and a rapacious media (which is near-universal, not "mainstream", and entirely motivated by profit). It cannot be said that we are better than that, nor that we deserve better. We have so completely aligned ourselves with the Unholy Trinity (Privilege, Profit, and Power) that we cannot even recognize the disgusting faces that look back upon us from our mirrors. The NRA has so successfully intimidated and controlled the Congress and Presidents, one after another, that here we are: drug-lord terrorists can (and do) purchase most of their weapons (legally) right here in the good 'ol USA... meanwhile, Congress and Presidents, one after another, as public policy, sell similar weapons to South-of-the-Border police and militaries, to fight the organized crime that we armed! Approved, of course, by both the "Supreme" Court and the sadly Christian "court" of public opinion. What does this, any of this, have to do with the "Little Portion"? Bearing only the white man's privilege (which, of course, is no small thing), but with no real money or power, I can only think. I can only pray. And I can only do the small work that is in front of me. I have no significant audience, so I can only write, really, for myself: as a practice of remembrance... In ancient days, Christian mystics would quietly remind one another of the most fundamental of the Christian mysteries... although it now borders upon heresy, it has yet made its way through the centuries to us, right now. Here it is (secretly though): God became human, that humans might become God... I glance out the window by my desk. The dogwood trees are still small. The ground is still white with snow. I yearn to walk in the garden, to feel the soil in my hands, and to begin again with the placing and spreading of seed that I might see an abundance of growing green, lovely flowers, and the slow ripening vegetables and fruit in the bushes and trees. That brief meander through my hopes for the coming spring, summer, and autumn is now out of reach for thousands of Ukrainians, refugee immigrants, and otherwise suffering sisters and brothers, in Christ... Christ is being bombed today. Christ is bleeding and in pain today. Christ is huddled in bushes hiding from the Border Patrol today. Christ is hungry and standing in a Soup Kitchen today. Christ is being raped today. Christ is losing the right to vote today. Christ is being told to speak only English today. Christ is in the desert weeping for the oceans today. Christ is wandering, homeless, broken, and without hope today. This is not hyperbole. Didn't the Master say, "Whatsoever you do to the least person among you, you do to me?" Didn't he say, "Love one another as I have loved you?" And didn't he also say, "Go and do likewise?" Will this be, after all is said and done, the last testament of the Christian: Those who do not know how to make love make war? Ah, but what do I know? I've never been what anyone would consider "normal". What hair I still have is long gray and turning white. I am a poet with fewer and fewer insights. And now my best prayers are a dark silence...  Not a Photo of Fr. Pierre de Chardin
I do not have a photo of the Jesuit scientist / philosopher, so I figured the above might do... Fr. Pierre wrote these lines in his meditation The Mass on The World: Now, Lord, through the consecration of the world the luminosity and fragrance which suffuse the universe take on for me the lineaments of a body and a face -- in you... Fr. Pierre was a "world mystic", in tune within the depths of his mind and heart with the evolutionary thrust of the Universe, of Consciousness, and of Life Itself to grow, to reach, to explore, and to strive "upward" into a deepening and growing self-awareness: up to and including the utter transformation of that which we identify as matter, mind, and soul into a Divine Unity: the personal trans-substantiated into Divinity Itself in a mutual in-dwelling... Fr. Pierre's mystic vision, compared to the "tiddly-wink" thought of, say, people like Putin and Trump, is hopeful to the "nth" degree... In other words, we are not meant for the very, incredibly, small-mindedness and soul-stultifying actions and words of either Trump or Putin. We are all worth so much more! Which brings me around to the question that I have in mind: what is it that you are reading now? I'm reading, once again, Fr. Pierre's Hymn of the Universe... and especially praying Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying, Yogananda's Whispers from Eternity, and Prayers of the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz... The point being, in the "little portion" way of life, we must do all that we can for the well-being of everyone and the entire Planet. Sometimes, it's little other than holding well-being in one's heart, sort of like a wave of blessing flowing out from your heart to touch in peace everyone and everything... other times it's getting arrested for civil disobedience in protesting for peace, justice, food, equality, water, and homes for everyone... What are you reading? What are you doing?  Dorothy Day with the United Farmworkers Union (Photo by Bob Fitch)
This photo of Dorothy Day by Bob Fitch is my very favorite of the Saint of the Gutter-Beautiful... and it perfectly captures what I call the side-street walking and life... Seriously, with the well-being of this entire precious blue Planet @ Risk, how is it that anyone can muster the where-with-all to be normal... to live as if nothing really matters? Or that you are powerless and little more than a victim... and so you decide to live invisible... If you watch FOX News you know nearly nothing of what is going on in the world: and maybe you live by the shrunken faith of the fundamentalist (whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, even atheist) that insists judgment (condemnation) is for "them"... or "that"... Or maybe you are simply choosing to be absent from responsibility, possibility, meaning, and purpose: obviously, many millions of people are doing just that... On the other hand, there is the other side of the street! There! There is the side-street meant for your walking and life! No one on this side-street is living a small life: oh, I may be a dishwasher and you a whatever, but going deeper, I dream because that's exactly what dreamers do... and I live and I work and I gather with other dreamers to organize something: maybe a soup kitchen, maybe a strike for living wages, maybe to defend immigrants or others @risk from the privileged systems of power... and more! And more! Side-street walking and life is always peopled with the most amazing folks ever: prophets and saints are here (and why not just take it another step and commit to how they identify Divinity-on-the-loose). Activists are here, like Dorothy, Nelson, Martin, Daniel, Dolores, Cesar, Vandana, Mohandas, and Wangari. Contemplatives are here, like Bruno, Cynthia, Bede, Andrew, and Matthew. All sorts of artists live and walk here as well, like Frida, Georgia, Allen, Gary, Gertrude, Leonard, Joan, and Ani. Bohemians, difference-makers, truck-drivers, educators, cooks, cosmologists and spiritual outsiders: like Jesus... Side-street walking and life unhesitatingly takes on the important (and interesting) questions, like how and why did Nothing give rise to Something and Everything nearly fourteen billion years ago? Is Spirit co-extensive with the Evolutionary thrusts of the Universe? Is the Universe self-aware and is consciousness the only Real Reality? These questions are, of course, supposed to be the discussions at our dinner tables! Listening to Marvin Gaye, we certainly add what's going on? Why is greed still the economic "system" of the world? Why haven't we already eaten the rich, the militaries, and the exploiting and oppressing corporations? Why are people still homeless and hungry? Spaceships, yachts, self-driving cars, and chronic-psychotic billionaires: if we're going to save one another and the world, we need everyone to do some side-street walking and living! Besides, the side-street is where the fun really starts... |
AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
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