Simple Living...

     'Tis a gift to be simple / 'Tis a gift to be free / 'Tis a gift to come down to where we ought to be... (Shaker Hymn)

The New English Bible has the first Beatitude like this: How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of heaven is theirs...

​Neil Douglas-Klotz has the first Beatitude (in a deep reflection on the Aramaic of Jesus) begin like this: Happy and aligned with the One are those who find their home in the breathing; to them belong the inner kingdom and queendom of heaven...

George M. Lamsa's translation (based on the Ancient Eastern Text) has it like this: Blessed are the humble, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...

And the Shakers probably come the closest to the sacred intention of the Mind of Jesus with their hymn: 'Tis a gift to be simple / 'Tis a gift to be free / 'Tis a gift to come down to where we ought to be...

​I know that this observation, made during the continuing pandemic, is increasingly obvious: Those of us blessed to be loved and home with our family are lucky indeed! In its essence, the idea of heaven is the only too human dream of home, love, and the freakily stunning gift of being wanted... for an always... Everything, in precious fact, does boil down to our access to this condition / way of life / human hunger / mystic quest of home: that Divine Place wherein we have nothing to prove! Yipee! Yahoo! We are finally good enough! Now we can finally relax into the miracle of it all... 

The miracle of being good enough is such a wonderful gift! To love! To be loved! I went from a life situation in which it was always evident, that no matter what I did, no matter how hard that I tried, I would never be good enough... I had founded a Soup Kitchen, shelters, free heath care clinic, jobs program, work co-op, summer camps for kids, and more... but to my Board of Directors, as they would always make clear, I could never be good enough... Finally, after thirty years of bruising battles, I swallowed what little pride I had remaining...  

But at my lowest point (here's a miracle story if there ever was one), while playing Santa Claus and trying my best to share in the kids' happiness: it was then... after handing out gifts to a couple hundred farm worker kids, and as I jumped off the stage, I muttered to myself, "This is all I want to do. I just want to love." A few minutes later, as I was driving home (to the North Pole, of course), I muttered the prayer that completely destroyed and re-created me: "I want to live. I want to love. God, I need a miracle!"

​"To come down to where I ought to be..." And there was Michelle, my friend... Surprise! I was good enough for her! And (as we used to say on the Chinatown streets when something great happened): Holy Shit! Yeshua bar Alaha, in his Wisdom Teachings of the Beatitudes, did not set up another pass or fail system: not a goodness hierarchy: and certainly not a looming judgment: rather, he taught a way into elevating our consciousness, a way of tuning in to the secret, simple living, path of the Universe...

​Home: a place of always welcome, always good enough, always wanted, and always safe! Whew! What a hoot this is! Jesus dances on the water: Krishna plays his flute: Radha sings: the Buddha laughs: and the Mother hugs everyone: simple living is our gentle surrender into the breath of one moment at a time: this breath, maybe bliss: this breath, damn, the water pipe broke: this breath, a call from a dear friend: this breath, the dog vomits and who wants to see what she got into? Yep. I'm home. I'm embracing my new simple life. I wash the dishes, fix lunch for my virtual teacher and my virtual kids, walk the dogs, write my blog, maybe start a poem, walk the dogs again... and note that last winter twelve swans over-wintered here in River Falls, while this year, fifteen swans are here... it's cold, but maybe, just maybe, this is heaven...