Human beings are not totally stupid. No matter how much we bomb and murder to destroy it, religion lives and has lived, certainly since we find red ochre used as the sign of eternal life tens of thousands of years ago…since the carving of fertility virgins, or the vision of the Holy Spirit, since the dance of Shiva began, since it was declared: “There is but one God and His name is Allah, Eloi, Brahm, the Tao, Life.” All is mystery and to recognize mystery is simply to recognize your stupidity, your ignorance, your ego—and above all, that you are alive and something is still expected of you.
William Boast
On This Day…
St. Clotilda (474-545): wife of Clovis, king of the Franks, mother of Clodmir, Childebert and Clotaire!
The hawk plumped and fluffed its tail in a puddle made by the sprinklers. Then it shook itself and hopped to one side, a little into the sprinkler spray and fluffed again. Then it looked at and through us and around us.
After an eternal moment, an iPod, ear-phoned man with a dog walked across the street. The dog saw the hawk. The hawk flew away. The man beheld nothing.
The hawk—a burning bush. I carried that hawk and the feeling of attentive eternity through the rest of the work day, as God sparkled in every person I met and some even brought pearls…while the “stuff” was background.
I don’t have to wait until I discover God-portals hidden in the back of a wardrobe in a room I’m not supposed to enter. God-portals are everywhere. At every moment there are openings to direct experience of the fathomless Spirit that is beyond the Vedas….
Behold!
Ben Leichtling
On This Day…
Anniversary of the Christuman Ordination of Ben Leichtling
Thomas Hardy born 1840 in England, died 1928: novelist, poet
Works: Jude the Obscure, Far From the Madding Crowd, Return of the Native
Quotes: “It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.” “Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”
So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and behold this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” He made a conscious decision to turn aside to look. To marvel is to become filled with surprise, wonder or amazed curiosity. To take the time to see is the clear path to encountering a marvelous sight. Objectifying the landscape dumbs down the marvelous into the mundane. Everything is labeled and fixed in space. I remember the message of the book, Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain, that the key to drawing was not in the dexterity of the hands or even in the possession of an artistic gene but in learning to see. Learning to get past the stereotypical objectification that “It is a bush and all bushes have branches,” therefore, no need to stop to look. To stop to see is in opposition to the jaded mind-set, the daily grind, the unappreciated moment. Somehow, we must coach ourselves as Moses did and say to ourselves, “I must turn aside now to see.”
Benjamin Martin
A New Song
If I am to sing with hallowed sounds that move through my far reaches,
it will only be to the extent I am made new.
The new reaches beyond what others have sung unto times
measured into holy breaths that burst into growth and leap into joy.
An unbounded focus of spirit intoned upon this place, this time, this body of mine,
must find its own voice, its own song.
Oh sing, my God through me that I might exalt what lies hidden within me.
So brief my days.
So eternal my joy.
Oh sing, my God, through me a gloria of life drawn to me;
a gloria of life drawn from me --a new song sung unto the Lord with joy. Amen.
Benjamin Martin
Walt Whitman born 1819 in New York, died 1892: poet, essayist, journalist
Works: Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric
Quotes: “And your very flesh shall be a great poem.” “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” “Re-examine all that you have been told --- dismiss that which insults your soul.”
There is an old fable about a traveler on the Mongolian steppes who was surprised by a rampaging tiger. This traveler ran for his life, but the beast kept gaining on him. Finally, in desperation, the traveler leapt into a dried up well, but this alas, roused a dragon sleeping at the bottom of it. As the traveler fell, he was alert enough to grab onto a single, slim branch growing from a crack in the bricks. There he clung for his life—tiger above him roaring, dragon below snapping its jaws. His arms grew tired and he knew it was only a matter of time before the tiger swiped at him from above or he fell to his death below. Yet, he held on. And he was even beginning to hope for a way out when he noticed two mice—one black and one white gnawing away at either side of the tender branch he clung to. Surely, he would die soon. Then a glint of sunlight fell on the wall of the well. The traveler’s eyes widened. There on a leaf of the branch were drops of honey. He felt a rush of joy and with the few moments he had left, he calmly stretched out his tongue and tasted the precious sweetness.
Teri Martin
Countee Cullen born 1903 in New York City, died 1946: Harlem Renaissance poet
Works: The Harlem Renaissance, Caroling Dusk, My Soul’s High Song
Quotes: “So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, and wait and tend our agonizing seeds.” “I have a rendezvous with life.” “Your love to me was like an unread book.”
