 The great American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born on May 25, 1803. How many of us remember him? his writings? his impact on the still-developing American Idea? This morning, while walking downstairs to awaken Rose of Sharon for school, I almost absentmindedly grabbed the book Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays and Journals from the bookshelf before proceeding with my happy task...
Later, after everyone had left for their schools, Michelle to teach in the Montessori Public School, the boys to their last few days in Middle School, and Rose to her last days as a fourth-grader, I sat down with Waldo... Here's a gem of a line from his essay The Over-Soul: "We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul." Advancing through my middle-years has me frequently pondering time... and this week, I decided to no longer refer to "time"... but rather, to Sacred Time... There is a difference... "Time" is what we "spend" as if comparable to an unlimited bank account: "this much" for sleep, "this much" for work, "this much" for family, "this much" for play, "this much" for TV, videos, and social media, "this much" for eating, "this much" for chores, "this much" for study, reading, or conversation, "this much" for sex, and sleep again... Oops, but then there must be time for parenting or planning or dating or dancing or running or bathing or whew! where does all the time go? Sacred Time isn't church, mosque, or temple time (although that can be included)... Sacred Time is the observation of tulips. Tulips hide out most of the time. We do not give them a second thought after they rise up in early spring, flower for a few precious days, collapse face forward into the soil, and then disappear once again. An avid gardener would notice, though... like how the mystic notices Sacred Time... The mystic knows there are twenty-four hours in a day... and "spending time" is the last thing in her mind... Every day of our lives we are gifted with 86,400 free tulips: bright flowering blossoms, specifically and exactly for our pleasure and delight! Now, you might be thinking, "What the hell would I do with 86,400 free tulips every day of my life?" But in point of fact, every day of our lives we have a treasury of 86,400 seconds given freely to us: not to spend, but to revel in! Sacred Time! (But, of course, there will be one last tulip for each one of us...) This last tulip points to the awakening of the mystic. Since there is absolutely nothing of greater value than this last tulip, the mystic rightly assumes "This could be the day!" And so she lives according to a new reckoning of time: every breath is as sacred as it is going to get! Every breath is of supreme importance! If I am not gifting my Sacred Time in loving, then I am out of whack! Adjusting our thinking away from "spending" to "gifting" is of out-of-this-world importance... Each of the dominators in our lives (politics, economics, religion, and culture) expect us to "buckle-up" and get to it (whatever it might be). The mystic, on the other hand, chuckles at the thought of "buckle-up", knowing that "un-buckling" is key. The dominators ain't driving us anywhere worth getting to! So get out of their fast car! Slow down and kiss more... kiss your baby... fall in love multiple times every day... adore every tulip... volunteer in a Soup Kitchen... don't "say your prayers": become a walking / breathing / loving prayer... read to children / listen to them read... lay down in a forest... join an intentional community that creates possibilities for you to both serve and relax... 86,400 free tulips every day of your life: give them all away through your loving-practice: you have enough time when you live in Sacred Time: enough time to become a living-mercy: it's all as simple as closing your eyes and opening them...The mystic knows, in her humble simplicity, that she is the summation of beauty: because she practices her freedom to become love... "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." -- Simone Weil
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 "Quotient": The number obtained by dividing one quantity by another... or so says The American Heritage Dictionary... and perhaps the little that we remember of basic math... "Paradise", of course, means different things to different people, but generally speaking, the idea of paradise is that which every human being hungers for: a welcome home, rest, safety, health, happiness, and the conviviality of family and friends... Hence, we have religion, philosophy, spirituality, and metaphysics (and one might very well add science, art, music, literature, poetry, gardening, etc.), each attempting to point the way...
One might summarize all of the above with study, practice, effort, concentration, contemplation, and experiment. The heart hungers for paradise... while the mind sees positioning: and "positioning" gives birth to the Unholy Trinity of Privilege, Profit, and Power. Midway between the hungry heart and the positioning mind are the techniques of religion and spirituality (I mean, why shouldn't someone make a living teaching technique?) Well... Today, the big seller is "mindfulness" ... Buddhist mindfulness, Yogic mindfulness, Taoist mindfulness, Educators mindfulness, Christian mindfulness, Nurses mindfulness, etc. etc... And opposing / rejecting this "New Age fallacy of mindfulness" are the Fundamentalists. Fundamentalists might be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. They too recognize an opportunity when they see one... Why not? But! If we divide all of this "quantity" with the simple practice of awe: dividing and dividing all the way down to the barest of essentials: where would we be then? Here it is: tonight, and every night, while we are asleep, around a million folks will die in their sleep. Every night. Around a million folks! [Okay. I'll admit it. The Paradise Quotient, Pt. 1 was chalk-full of quotations to whet your spiritual appetite... but, almost, beside the point.] So, here's the Paradise Quotient: when you wake up in the morning, tap your chest: are you still alive? If you have a partner, is she / he still alive? Are the people with whom you are closest still alive? Yes! Then, hot damn! Holy moly! Wow! Say it: I'm still alive! All of happiness is rooted in the awesome gift of breath! Because you breathe, good is possible! Because you breathe, you can celebrate the moments of your life! This is mindfulness: and it is free! Because you are likely busy with your work, home, and creativity, you might just WOW! once every hour: I'm alive! When you begin to celebrate your breath, frequently through the course of your day, a deepening spirituality will awaken within you: there are millions -- billions -- of other human beings alive and breathing as you are, indeed, you / we are all sharing in the same air that this Sacred Planet is freely gifting us: Holy Moly! Gifting us! When our WOW! becomes gratitude and praise, a graciousness will inevitably take seed in our heart-mind: graciousness precedes everything that is good: happiness, health, rest, conviviality and on into justice, equality, and peace... all are rooted in our renewed appreciation for the gift of our breath! Because we graciously receive the gift of breath, we just might reach the threshold of happiness -- and at that very same time, we understand that our happiness is intimately connected to the happiness (or the lack of) of every other person with whom we are sharing our breath... and so we commit to a sacred activism in pursuit of the essentials for everyone: home, safety, rest, food, health, happiness, and conviviality with family and friends (which also means, of course, the regeneration and protection of this precious blue Planet)... The time that we have, the number of breaths that we will take in our life, are precious... and in the long run, way too few... but with a steady hot damn I'm still alive! we have another day, another hour, or perhaps just one more minute, to do what we should have been doing all along: Oh very Dear One! I am so very thankful for having had the chance to know You and to love You! Perhaps we'll "just" kiss for our last minute... maybe we'll join a demonstration for equality for women for our last hour... maybe, just maybe, we'll all say WOW! at the very same moment, with the very same breath, and in awe watch the rising of Paradise within us and all around us... leaving no one out and nothing behind... This wouldn't be a blog by me without another quotation. Here's Meister Eckhart: "Each creature points you toward God and new birth and toward seeing the world as God sees it Transparently! Thus all things become nothing but God." Paradise, right? Hot Damn! [Note: There is nothing that arises from nothing... Insight rises from insight... insights make their way around the Planet... I am indebted to All of my mentors and teachers (aren't we all?)... Especially to Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, St. Francis, St. Hildegard, Matthew Fox, Yogananda, Ellen Grace O'Brian, Andrew Harvey, Bede Griffiths, Leonard Cohen, Sadhguru, and Sri Ramakrishna from among many others...] "In the superficial course of our existences, there is a difference between seeing and thinking, understanding and loving, giving and receiving, growing and shrinking, living and dying. But what will happen to all these oppositions when their diversity is revealed in Omega as the infinitely varied operation of the same universal contact?" -- Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"God has arranged all things in the world in consideration of everything else." -- St. Hildegard of Bingen "The whole penetrates each of its parts; it is one universe; God conceived it as a unique living being..." -- Fr. M.D. Chenu "Divinity is aimed at humanity." -- St. Hildegard of Bingen "Einstein has taught us... that Matter and Energy are convertible: ... Matter is condensed Energy. We must now discover in practice that this Energy or this Force is a Consciousness and that Matter, it too, is a form of consciousness, as the mind is a form of consciousness..." -- Satprem "The universe does not seem to exist without a perceiver of that universe." -- Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D. "Consciousness is the foundation of all being." -- Amit Goswami, Ph.D. "Every quantum is known to be intrinsically connected with every other quantum, and every organism with other organisms in the biosphere." -- Ervin Laszlo "Each creature points you toward God and toward new birth and toward seeing the world as God sees it Transparently! Thus all things become nothing but God." -- Meister Eckhart |
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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