I can't sleep…
Once we get the human part down, “stop slamming doors” and start loving rocks…
Get the ordinary human thing down, and you will have all the spirituality that you can handle.
– Richard Rohr, Adapted from Contemplation in Action
Notes: Quote – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: “Isaac” by Natalya Karavay
The eyes pan the green carpet of the unmarked plots at the Spring Grove Cemetery. Geese feed silently, showing their respect. The Police station is to my left. The Public Library in front. And there’s four miles of track ahead.
I slow my pace.
The eyes are drawn to the flock of Canada Geese. It’s a large flock, fifty or so.
The eyes spot a difference. I’m awed at how the eyes can hone in so quickly on “what’s off.” I begin to hum the Sesame Street jingle: “One of these things (is Not like the others).” (Your mind works in mysterious ways, friend. Wow.)
She’s limping, badly. Her children, late season goslings, furry now, trail behind her. Their necks are all down, pecking at seeds, the grass.
It’s been a week now and the image remains fresh.
Was it a car that hit her? Or was it a scar from fleeing from the clutches of a predator? A hunter’s bullet grazing her webbed foot? Or was she simply born lame? There’s no emergency room for repair. No splint or cast to heal. No morphine to cut the edge. She limps. She lives. She protects her family.
And it’s Sunday. And your morning sermon doesn’t come from the inside of a Church, or from a person of Cloth, but from a Book. This Agnostic is deep into his readings of Thomas Moore and his teachings of creating a personal religion. It’s as if he opened this chapter speaking to me: Continue reading “Running. With a Mystical Moment.”
Those who are proud of what they create, and who help others through it, should count themselves lucky, for this is the seed that grows the vine that traces the path that takes each of us on a spiritual journey with no end or resting place, a journey that can only be guided by the faith and can only lead to the flood of light at the final interruption of our life’s journey. Our hands and minds, legs and mouths, eyes and ears, arms and feet were all made with purpose, and though you may never find that exact purpose, it is your obligation to yourself and God to search for it, and to search endlessly for a perfection that, though you will never achieve it, you must seek. This is faith. This is spirituality.
— Scott Avett, “My Search For Truth”
Notes:
And here’s links to 3 more excerpts from Sam Harris’ new book that hit nerve endings:
Photograph Source: YourEyesBlazeOut via Taffynikte
This Believer of Convenience warily tiptoed into Sam Harris’ new book titled Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. I’m a 1/3 of the way in. He’s managed to settle under my skin, burrowing into my consciousness. I’m deeply ambivalent about the message. The polarity of my emotions is stark – it’s as if I’m split in two. I drift in and out of darkness and I find myself empty in my quiet moments of contemplation. I’m certain that this wasn’t Sam’s objective with his Guide. Yet I find it impossible to disagree with certain messages, such as yesterday’s post titled Carpe Momento. And another this morning which I’m sharing below. I’m leaning heavily on F. Scott Fitzgerald to function: “The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function” – – as I need to function, I need to function. Here’s Sam Harris with another one of his “pow, right in the kisser” messages to me:
Continue reading “Lurching. Lurching. Lurching.”