 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...
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 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...  If the root-of-the-root-of-the-root of that which is Real is an Infinite Consciousness of Being (or better, of "Becoming"), then it necessarily follows that I (we) need to shift from an egoic-ness (ego-mess) into a radical identification with soul or spirit. It is quite impossible, regardless of our every effort, to reconcile soul or spirit with any form of cruelty or advantage over others... indeed, as the mystics have always taught, "There are no others"... The spoken language of Jesus, Aramaic, is an open door to a depth and complexity of mind that cannot be rendered, "word-for-word", into English. Reading and studying the Aramaic words of Jesus as rendered by a modern mystic, Neil Douglas-Klotz, should simply be required reading for everyone pursuing a deepening of one's "spiritual life"... So too, familiarity with the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, the Song of Songs, the Tao Te Ching, the poetry of Rumi, and the words of folks like St. Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, and St. Francis of Assisi should likewise be very familiar to our minds and our hands... Love one another as you love yourself is the seminal essence of Jesus' teachings. Love one another: not like yourself, and not as much as yourself: but love others as your "other self"... This is precisely why Sister Thea said that she had no desire to "reconcile" with anything destructive... and yet, "destructive" is the unrestrained egoism that is everywhere in our so-called "modern world"... Ego always relates to everyone and everything from the perspective of "advantage". On the other hand, there is the humble practice of "tossing glitter" into one's mind... Oh, I'm not pulling your leg or any other body part with something either silly or trite. This "glitter tossing" is serious business: it's unlearning nearly everything one has either been taught or dumping all of the interpretations that we have given to the troubling events of our lives... and then, re-learning the really important things: like how to cook a pot of soup, how to walk a couple of miles every day, how to experience a deep satisfaction with living, how to sit, how to stand, how to happily get dirt under your fingernails, how to walk barefoot, how to dash about in the rain, oh and how to kiss as if your life depended upon it... All of this is "glitter tossing" for your mind... Because we have acquired "religion" instead of having learned the "art of living" we're about as fucked up as fucked up can be. Stupid is contagious (even more so than any pandemic). Justifications for every system of privilege, profit, and power undergird nations, corporations, religions, and individual persons... Needless to say, but there is a better way... there are alternatives! I can change my mind and create a brand-new way of life! I can practice the deep things of the ancient ones and so re-discover the well-springs of both grace and beauty! I can open and open further to the loving that is always in the steady-state of becoming... This is simply the Natural Way we have forgotten... but, it's not too late to enter upon the Path of Remembrance: which is always forward looking and rising... Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. -- Jeremiah 6: 16 There is only one way in which the tide flows: the way of ever-increasing unification... -- Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin  With a four-day massive headache in tow, what does a contemplative do?
As for me, I stumble out to my desk and pull from the shelf the February issue of Vanity Fair. (Nearly a year ago now, I received an offer in the mail for what I mistakenly thought was for the Atlantic: a magazine I had occasionally thought of subscribing to... Vanity Fair showed up with AOC on the cover... well, "This isn't so bad," I said to myself...) So, I have the current issue in hand. I read the cover article about Priyanka... turning the page... there is Hugh Jackman as The Music Man... And then I am crying over how beautiful we human beings can be... Of all things, crying Vanity Fair tears... There is a line in the Hugh Jackman article that especially caught my eye. Here it is (out of context): Watching people try to cope with avoiding connecting. You get it, right? This is the beast that's loose in our hearts and in the world. This "avoidance of essential connectivity" is, first of all, the problem of the contemplative: if not us, who? If not now, when? Connectivity is exactly how the world, all life, and the Universe work! Connectivity is the Quantum World 101. Connectivity is the heart and soul of the spiritual life as well. For whom do you pray? Whom do you love? For whom do you offer the free gift of your breathing? At its most fundamental level, contemplation is never about you. It is always about the other... And eventually, it is the explosive realization that there is no other! With ego smashed to smitherines, there only remains, the bliss of connectivity... This there is no other is the open door to radical connectivity: this precious blue Planet is our Home (we will regenerate and protect it)... connected there is only One Mystical Body! (Again, it is never you, it is always us): war, nah. Who needs it? Racism, sexism, exploitation, injustice, greed, starvation, oppression? We definitely do not need any more of all that crap, do we? Connectivity nonviolently unravels all the myth-structures of patriarchy: who needs the Unholy Trinity of privilege, profits, and power? Connectivity is the end of every fear-based story that we are told to keep us in line and paying our dues... after all, isn't freedom free-ingly free? Jesus said "I was hungry and you fed me" precisely as the centerpiece of the kingdom because, in the absence of fear, there is way more than enough food for everyone! (Remember the story of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes in Matthew's Gospel.) Connectivity is, as Dorothy Day would add, the action or root principle of compassion... Connectivity is the really real: compassion is the bridge that swings, sings, or dances us into the mystical realm of all the miracles that are the everyday possible... Finally, with a four-day massive headache in tow, what does a contemplative do? Unwaveringly unveils the working truth: he / she / I am a shattering of broken pieces held together by the sweet gold of being loved, and then loving as best, moment-by-moment, he / she / I am able... And do you know what the contemplative heart-mind unwaveringly adds? That is always good enough! And the Spirit works in the mind-heart as Surrender and as Adoration... good stuff, indeed!  If you are not giving attention to science and that quantum and real spirituality stuff, then what the hell are you doing? -- Not Albert Einstein
Physicist and philosopher, Amit Goswami, Ph.D., has summarized a few of the mysteries of the quantum world: + A quantum object (for example, an electron) can be at more than one place at the same time -- the wave property. + A quantum object cannot be said to manifest in ordinary space-time reality until we observe it as a particle -- collapse of the wave. + A quantum object ceases to exist here and simultaneously appears in existence over there; we cannot say it went through the intervening space -- the quantum jump. + A manifestation of one quantum object, caused by our observation, simultaneously influences its correlated twin object -- no matter how far apart they are -- quantum action-at-a-distance. Energy, entanglement, holograms, relational interaction, evolution depends upon communication within living systems, fractals, symmetry, holon: these are just a few of the word-ideas that have opened doors to the quantum world: to our essential nature and that of the Universe! Hindus have long held that Shakti is the energy-dance that fills the entire Universe, through and through! Jesus as Mystic-Shaman tuned into that energy-dance and taught It: the kingdom of heaven is within you! And then along came the Sufis who taught it possible to hear that movement-whirl and said "listen...hu...hu..." "Entanglement" and "interdependence" likewise point to what Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn introduced a number of years ago as core to his insight and teaching: inter-being... sort of like the invisibility of gravity and gravitational fields... They are everywhere: the invisible, but no less "real" than anything in the visible world, gooey-stuff that makes everything work... and electromagnetic fields that organize everything from atoms to galaxies... All of this "science" and super-weirdness is the invitation that we received upon our birth... Religion, as often as not, is a truckload of hooey: seemingly with cruelty, hypocrisy, privilege, profit, and power as general operating procedures. Ah, but on the other hand, there is spiritual practice: something very much as natural and good as breathing... here, listening is central to practice: every moment might bring a revelation, an insight, an opening, or a certain hearing... We give attention to the small, even to the minute... Creation is the theophany, the "showing", of the Oneness... The simplest of ideas might become the holy ground of sacred intention: like, causing no harm or as little harm as possible as perhaps the best place to start... We have been invited to a Thanksgiving Feast: and we have a Gathering Table that we call Earth... Earth is Our Mother, ready, willing, and able to Birth Paradise... (This is an ancient but still an ever-ready truth). Isn't it about time to ask of one another, "What are those things that are preventing the Birth of Paradise?" Paradise Possibilitarians: if not now, when? If not us, who? |
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
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