Word as Prayer

Sometimes, a word arrives as a prayer... it just comes, like, in the form of an inquiry lets say... and then to ponder that word, "contemplate" it (lit: con- "to, before" + temple- "to bring before the temple")

to see all the ways in which a word can be taken- to see the ways in which it is judged, "good" or "bad"

to go and learn how the word came into being, what its roots are, and where it might have changed meaning... the etymologies of words are very sacred things to me... like the DNA of language- etymologies carry meanings and sufferings and joyousness from the ages through to this very moment of my coming upon the word...

its in this way, a word is a prayer for me...

todays prayer for instance:

irreverent

How does God view irreverence?
can God himself be irreverent?
is it ok to be irreverent with God?
maybe God wants me to be play at being irreverent with Him, and most reverent with his children?

see? - just a word, and Prayer in the form of Inquiry comes and floods this Temple...

Century of the Self

"Modern psychology has a word that is used probably more than any other word in psychology, it is the word maladjusted. It is the ringing cry of modern child psychology, maladjusted. Now of course we all want to live the well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But as I move toward my conclusion I would like to say to you today in a very honest manner that there are some things in our society and some things in our world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and I call upon all men of good will to be maladjusted to these things until the good society is realized. I must honestly say to you that I never intend to adjust myself to racial segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions to take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. Never leave millions of God's children smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society."

~Martin Luther King, 1967

Im watching a series available at Google Video, The Century of the Self
its absolutely fascinating!

see the transcripts here, with links to each video on the respective pages:

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

this is what arrived...

...as the FIRST thing in my head upon waking up this morning...

"When you find yourself distressed over something, look to see what it is that you're holding in one of your hands...

Chances are its either a diploma or a receipt..."

these things just arrive...

Quote me on this

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

the Transition Town movement

YouTube - TRANSITION TOWNS: An Interview with Rob Hopkins

from transitionculture.org, the above interview transcript

Transition Towns - Wikipedia

Central to the Transition Town movement is the idea that a life without oil could in fact be far more enjoyable and fulfulling than the present "by shifting our mind-set we can actually recognise the coming post-cheap oil era as an opportunity rather than a threat, and design the future low carbon age to be thriving, resilient and abundant - somewhere much better to live than our current alienated consumer culture based on greed, war and the myth of perpetual growth."

(quote attributed to the Transition Town Westcliff website)

Added: (these two pages seem important to link here, they were hard for me to find on their homesite)

the official list:
Transition Towns/Cities/Di stricts

and the "mulling it over" list:
thinking hard

the company of those

"Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it"
~Vaclav Havel

"Trust those who seek the truth. Beware of those who have found it"
~Andre Gide

"Grant me the company of those who seek the truth. And God deliver me from those who have found it"
~Isaac Newton.

__________________

(edit added: oh dear, now that Ive been linked to, I had better clean up my act! The above quotes will show up with several entries each if searched in Google, however I should have qualified with "attributed to" before each of the authors mentioned- I dont have hard facts on them, however Ive known that Gide had said something to this effect for many years... prior to the advent of the internet even :)

also, it should be mentioned, these were gathered by me for a comment left on Will's blog, along with the statement: "My religion is Inquiry, my faith is in meeting the other in THIS moment, my worship is the Dialogue that ensues...")

a detailed history of the future

Marshall McLuhan- known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village".

"The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present...

Poets and artists live on frontiers. They have no feedback, only feedforward. They have no identities. They are probes..."

palin know africa continent

palin know africa continent

I try very very hard to look at the mirror of my own judgments of others

this one will be a challenge

Ive already failed at keeping anything political off of this blog :(

It felt really good, didnt it?

(Aug 2011 edit: note the date of this post: Obama was elected president of the US on this day)

is atonement the right word here?

it feels like that... it feels like as a human body, we made something a bit more right today...

bless that...

may Peace and Love be to all

Sobriety and Joy

in a forum thread called Sobriety and Joy, a Friend asked:

I have always thought that a relationship with God is a serious relationship, but ultimately a friendship. How do we balance the seriousness of God along with the joy of God? Is the only way we can truly enjoy the world is to spend it all the time in a state of constant serious prayer and meditation? It doesn't seem to me that that can be true. Does God really frown upon a lively conversation among friends, at a dance in the rain, or a bit of blues and rock and roll?

I Loved the question. I find myself singing a little less rock and roll these days, playing my guitar nearly as much, but dancing in the rain a lot more, and conversation with friends is generally dependent on their tolerance to my "seriousness"...

I replied there in the forum this way:

"How do we balance the seriousness of God along with the joy of God?"

I find a chuckle here, in reading this... the words came into my head immediately: "take the Joy of God Seriously!"

what is the Joy of God?

is a joy that I may be feeling the Joy of God?

what is the discernment there?

for me, if its about greed, lust, envy, then yes, it is self-centered joy and not God centered Joy - easy...

the moment I catch myself in the pursuit of greed/lust/envy based activities, Im faced with a choice, if I really am looking: 'do I continue this because its the easier thing to do, or do I look again, and discern for myself and God, the reasons why I would pursue this activity?'

for me, the moment I give it space, and Look, with sincerity in my heart, then I see that I AM in the Joy of God... this life, lived, is the Joy of God... this life lived in greed and lust and envy, is a life lived in the joy of "having" the joy of "getting" the joy of "obtaining" - that can easily be seen as self-centered activity, ambition... based on "more- more- more" ... that celebrates this life as if it were full of scarcity and lack- did God give us a world of scarcity and lack? Look at a starving child in a third world country, and it would appear so ... look at the greed that keeps that child from getting food, so that others can have "more", and there is the scarcity, there is the lack, there is the envy... is my playing a rock and roll song contributing to that? maybe so! maybe not...

am I looking to have an answer, so that I can continue to play the rock and roll songs? or do I really want to find out the truth of this?

see? there is God's Joy- finding out the Truth of abundance and scarcity... THAT is the Joy! the Truth of that... if you see that playing your music and going to parties is contributing to a child starving somewhere, then what? if you see it DIRECTLY, that it does or it does not, then what?

what will you do to see it directly?

will the opinion that I give here, be of any meaning or help, to your seeing it directly, and finding Gods Joy?

In the US, we are coming up on the Holidays... will I abstain from taking a meal on Thanksgiving, in solidarity with a starving child? will my statement mean anything to anyone but me? will the starving child feel this? THERE is God in the starving child, and THERE is God in everyone around the table! does a political statement make a difference to any of them? or to God? Is there another kind of statement?

If I sing a Christmas Carole, "Joy to the World" - and if the next song sung is "White Christmas" - or "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - have I swung over from "good" to "bad" in such an instant, by such a participation? do the children in the room, who have yet to learn the meaning of Christmas, care? what does it mean to their parents, that I sing with them? that I pick up my guitar, and play along with the singing? is God in the words more than the voice? more than the notes?

stay in these questions, I say...

what value is my opinion, until you see directly, what is God's Joy? Until you come to know directly, how Love acts in the world, any ideas from others will lead you away from God... opinions, history lessons, theologies, they are all outward things... God is inward, go there... Look there- Be with Him there... and then, the other answers will come, without need of "doing" or struggle or conflict... action then will be pure- will be of Love, and not self...

the Joy of God, seriously

a spate of haiku

all wisdom falls down
into its own cleverness
haiku from here on


________



five, seven and five
wild imaginings at bay
I bless the constraint!


________



about this word "wild"
does it slip off of your tongue?
leave it for the grave!


________


how do you do that!?
"I refuse to hide my joy!"
passion of the muse


________



a spate of haiku
from the midst of such doings
untethered repose

The mirror of saying Yes!

James reminded us today of this from our friend Meister Eckhart:

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

This has been most relevant for me this past week- Ive been seeing it again- this thing that J. Krishnamurti would say over and over, "relationship is a mirror"...

and so Ive been seeing this more and more with each passing day- that even the tiniest event or the most horrid, is a mirror to who or what I am... the eyes that see and measure, are the eyes that are in THIS head- they are the filter through which THIS being perceives ...

so, when I sit in conversation with a friend, and a hypocrisy comes from what appears as his mouth- perhaps a comfortable 'middle class' hypocrisy, such as when one minute he will be speaking about how I need to do more to enhance his life or his finances (I stay in a room in his house) and then the VERY NEXT minute he is telling me that he is preparing to spend four grand on a drum set, that he already sold away once since Ive known him at an $1800 loss ... but the $30 that he gave me to get some food for myself must not become a "habit"...

yes, I see the mirror of that- Truly I do...

IF and only IF the request is coming from God... if its God asking me to do more, or to make do with less so that I can sit with my friend without judgment- then I can see that it is MY objection to God, that will contain this same hypocrisy...

this is a subtle and tricky thing to see, and only comes when I cease to measure, and simply ask God what it is that "I am" - "who is looking, God?" - "why am I measuring at all?" ...

but when it is shown that this measurement lives in ME, and NOT my friend, then yes, "thank you" is the only prayer...

thank you thank you thank you!

Internet Enthusiasm

Im taking the title of this post from the very root of the word enthusiasm, one of my favorite etymologies: en- in + theos- God... to be in God (or to find God within?)

you see, my idea of what makes a deep and inspiring theological treatise, comes from blog and forum posts... the "off the cuff" responses to some daily event or to another posters lookings is so much more filled with "Light" to me, than any well thought out defense or apology created in academic surrounds...

Is this a harsh statement?
perhaps it is - and as I type this very line of this post, I am resolved to reexamine it...

so let me just get to my intent in starting this thought - its to point you to this forum post, by punkrainbow (the keeper of the blog "Love Keeping The World Turning") which just epitomizes what Im speaking about ...its a must read

Actually, the entire thread is quite a testament to this terrific Friends Forum in which it arises - there is so much there to look at, admire, be inspired by and struggle with - these sorts of threads found in the odd internet forum are an amazing kind of literature in their own right... I think we need to find some way to appreciate them more profoundly than we do... some forum threads deserve to be set apart from the background in which they arise, and find a new publication for preservation of the heart and the insight that embodies them...

"Building Bridges"

I drive past this single lane bridge on the way to the Quaker Meeting that I attend - it goes over a river that runs alongside the road for a good part of that distance... it looks like the sort of bridge thats a private bridge, that is, it doesnt look like its town or state owned... but that someone had to contract privately to put it there- so he or she could get to their property, no doubt... I pondered for a moment, how unusual such an undertaking is for most folks ... not a lot of people have the phrase "my bridge" in their personal daily vocabulary... but these folks would... I mean, not a lot of folks have "my barn" or "my horse" or "my tractor" either ... but "my bridge" seems exceptionally unusual... this person actually went and "built a bridge"... not over a garden fountain, or a mowing path over the spring creek that runs through the back yard - but a real live drive-the-car-over-me bridge... thats pretty cool, really...

of course, I asked myself about "building bridges" in the metaphorical sense on the rest of the drive home... do I build bridges? is that what I do, from and with the spirituality that I find here *points to chest*?

not so much...
no - I dont - really...

Im much much more likely, to be the guy who will slosh across the river whether theres a bridge there or not- just so I can know intimately what it is that separates us... I will go through any cold, wet, deep tumult of a river, to find out the truth of you and me... this is what I do...

I tend to leave behind folks that way, on the side where I came from... they are more wishing I had found a way to bridge the course... and I tend to frighten the folks who Ive come to meet on the "other" side - the wet and muddy clothes they find me in are none too appealing for them to invite me up onto the porch, let alone to a table for warm tea...

but... I know something about the divide... Ill have to say that... a bridge may have been easier- but tends to take too long, and cost more than many folks can afford - either in their taxes, or out of pocket... I need to know sooner than that... I need to meet you sooner than that... excuse the dripping please, but my love of humanity would not let me wait...

gravity is good

Timothy Travis just posted a great bit of looking on his blog, and I just have to give it a big recommend here- please give it a read:

gravity...
"I don't usually spend a lot of time accounting for gravity in my decision making. I go through my life doing this or that without wondering whether gravity is going to work. When I wad up a piece of paper and throw it across the room toward the wastebasket I don't have a plan "B" in mind, a plan for what I will do just in case that ball of paper goes up rather than down.

My faith is not like that..."

For me, its something about how I use the word "surrender" ... I will write some more about this a bit later... for now, go give gravity... your attention...