Month: April 2012

Walking right beside us

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In Italy, today –  the Monday after Easter Sunday – is known as La Pasquetta (“Little Easter”) or Lunedì dell’Angelo (“The Monday of the Angel”). Ir is a day for relaxing outside, for going for a walk and having a picnic. It probably has it roots in ancient Spring festivals, when people would gather outdoors to celebrate. It was a day when a journey, a walk, or even a drive in the car had to be made. The religious meaning given to it, at least as it was explained to me, was to remember the journey made by Jesus’ two disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter Day.

These two disciples set out on Sunday for the village of Emmaus, a walk of a few days. As they were going along, Jesus joined them. They did not recognize him. They were replaying the events of the past – the days of the Crucifixion – and were worrying about what was to happen to them. Their concerns and chatter, their fear-driven desire to run away, did not allow them recognize that God was actually walking with them. In this way, they are just like us, caught in worries about the past, or running away or basing our view of the future on fears. Like us, we often fail to recognize the richness of our life lies in the present moment, when all we can experience is right with us. Often, to be fully alive, all we have to do is see what is being offered to us, right in this moment, rather than thinking our joy lies somewhere else, sometime else. It is sad if we are so focused on getting to a destination, we do not notice what is right beside us now.

The present moment
contains past and future.
The secret of transformation,
is in the way we handle this very moment.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Understanding Our Mind

More on eyes being opened.

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The present moment, like the spotted owl or the sea turtle, has become an endangered species. Yet more and more I find that dwelling in the present moment, in the face of everything that would call us out of it, is our highest spiritual discipline. More boldly, I would say that our very presentness is our salvation; the present moment, entered into fully, is our gateway to eternal life.

Philip Simmons,  Learning to Fall

Contemplation is related to art, to worship, to charity: all these reach out by intuition and self-dedication into the realms that transcend the material conduct of everyday life. Or rather, in the midst of ordinary life itself they seek and find a new and transcendent meaning. And by this meaning, they transfigure the whole of life.

Thomas Merton.

Allowing ourselves be surprised …

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In this poem e.e Cummings pushes  the English language in an attempt to capture the life he feels, so much so that the words almost seem to have difficulty fitting in. He sees the vibrancy of growth and life all around in nature and expresses this in lines which rush from one  into the next. The last two lines well express the richness that we feel when we start to pay greater attention to all the things which surround us each day.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e.cummings

Sunday Quote: Joy

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If you start looking at life with joy,

sadness starts disappearing.

You cannot have heaven and hell together,

you can have only one.

It is your choice.

Osho

Trusting even when we cannot see

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Both winter and spring are part of what’s true as are summer and autumn in their turn. In welcoming awakening’s seasonal transformations, we discover a greater truth that shows us a new way of trusting the very change that we once thought a problem. Awakening has its ebbs and flows. People get discouraged when nothing seems to be happening in their spiritual life. But because something isn’t apparent in our conscious awareness doesn’t mean that it’s not happening at all. When the field appears fallow, we can learn to trust what’s going on underground, in the dark, invisible to us. In fact, it’s essential that along with the lightning comes the quiet dark, when radiant bursts are taken in and made part of the whole. To agree to all the seasons and tides of awakening means that we are always walking the Way: while there are times we won’t understand, there are no detours, no causes for disappointment. Thouhg sometimes obscured by clouds, there is only the rising dawn, long and slow, that we walk within. 

Joan Sutherland, Seasons of Awakening

A quiet day…taking time to rest ….

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In the traditional Christian understanding, this Saturday – between Good Friday and Easter –  is the day of growth and hope hidden deep in our existence, despite  all evidence to the contrary. It is a day for patience and quiet reflection. And indeed, despite all the work we do, and our best efforts, much of life remains unresolved, incomplete, frustrating and un-reconciled. We do not see all the answers or why some things are as they are. That is why days which encourage us to be silent and to wait – to get used to this in-between state –  are useful. They balance the desire of the mind to know everything and to be in control.

It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.

Thomas Moore