tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312866547368803352023-11-15T09:17:47.931-08:00A Labyrinth of ReflectionsA place to gather reflections along the journey we shareAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08924568488237983957noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131286654736880335.post-11324031844724473352015-05-05T19:27:00.002-07:002015-05-05T19:35:42.553-07:00Bar Room Mysticism<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m sitting still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
am a freshly fallen maple leaf resting at the edge of a deep blue lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one is talking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s day three of a five day silent retreat in the Bay Area and I am
growing desperate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mind has begun to
fold in on itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like there is this
uncharted region in my brain that got signed up for this retreat and now I’m
falling headlong into the emptiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
I thought would be a retreat to hone my meditation skills has turned out to be
my own personal black hole!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I opted for the vegetarian meals because I thought I might
be able to drop a couple of pounds on this retreat, but now my blood sugar is dangerously
low. The floors, the walls, and even the air in this old monastery drip with a
palpable mystic energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am open to the energy of the universe even
as my mind folds in on itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look
with a bit of desperation at the faces in the room, hoping that some smiling
soul will throw me a life line. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A woman
just got back from walking the labyrinth; she is glowing, her feet barely touch
the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A small group is gathered
around a giant singing bowl that moans as its handler caresses its rim with a
wooden mallet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The catholic nuns here
dress like the rest of us so they are a bit tough to spot when you really need
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daylight begins to recede.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel myself starting to snap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the mystics begin to make their way to
their private cells for the night, I start looking for a way out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I slip down the back stairs like some thief
in the night, hit the panic doors at the basement level and find my way to the parking
lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I jump into my old VW and drive as
fast as I can down to a local bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m sitting on a bar stool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am a fallen maple leaf at the edge a deep blue lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone is talking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
Everyone! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bar is pounding with the
energy of complex lives that seek some solace in the mixed drinks and the
company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martini in hand, my anxiety
begins to find its place back on the shelf where it belongs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The talking is like music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She struggles with a relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They argue over some work drama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They catch up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He talks about himself, and goes on and on
and on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The noise; it is mystical!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bar room chatter opens up like some
eternal landscape that stretches over the unchartered territory of the
collective soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is this
meditation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could this be what I was
seeking when I signed up for this week long silent retreat?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the noise the bursts free from life
itself?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In his book Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell talks about the way in
which Jesus gathers up people who clearly don’t have the aptitude for being
very religious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are fisher
folk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are people of the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are people down at the local bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, within their normal everyday lives, he
folds back that thin veil and reveals the very mystery of the holy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are taken aback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A widow sees that her struggle is a holy
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A disenfranchised day worker sees
he is valued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hooker finds some
respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They become the ones who follow
this wisdom teacher down the dusty path of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A band of bar room mystics. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone is talking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A band
of folks beginning to awaken to the very heart of the universe pulsing in what
the social elite could only classify as “their miserable little lives”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yep, down at the local bar they are abuzz
with the very heart of the mystery of life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am sitting still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
am a fallen leaf at the edge of a great and ancient sea.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why do I work my soul to the bone constructing a contrived mysticism
that feels especially holy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do I
spend so much energy immersing myself in an abstract reality that requires a
registration fee?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do I think the axis
of the holy encounter is centered in places set apart?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where along this religious journey did I lose
the ability to hear holiness in the everyday pulse of a bar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a self-professed progressive christian I think I might have
torn down an old dogmatic monastery only to erect another more sexy one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh to push myself out of the special places
and back into the mystical mundane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh
to look into the eyes of my daughter as she cries about another disappointment
and see all that is holy in that moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oh to hand my book back to the librarian and embrace the experience in a
way that stops time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh to hear in the
blues as the lament of the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh to
break bread around a table for four in the heart of downtown and know that this
is the holiest of meals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh to stare at the food in my CSA box and see
the very pulse of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh to sit
on my bar stool and know I am in the monastery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t need to pay for a mystical experience, I am a mystical
experience!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Christianity , the religion I have learned to love may have
let us all down by turning fishing village wisdom into an abstract theological
construct put to liturgical music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
want bar stool mysticism!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The challenge
is how to get there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I just spend
time on a bar stool will I really see the wonder that surrounds me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I just spend my time in the monastery,
will I miss the mystery held within the mundane? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I need both?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
I need the eyes and ears I can develop in silent meditation to be the awareness
I bring to the mundane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a fallen maple leaf resting ever so gently within a vast sea of
noise down at the local bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can feel
the vibration of it all and my soul is rested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Restored, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I make my way back to
the monastery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ominous gates are
locked shut for the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not wanting
to sleep in my VW bus, I push the little stained button on the gate but hear
nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fifteen very long minutes
later, an old security guard unlocks the gates of paradise and lets me in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he smells the alcohol on my
breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He locks the gate behind us and
I can feel him watching me wander up the hill, back into the beloved community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a mystic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a mystic who needs the panic door in
order to find myself in this world of ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How about you?<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08924568488237983957noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131286654736880335.post-52716784680017516332015-03-27T08:36:00.001-07:002015-03-27T08:36:30.300-07:00Soul beneath the soil – A Celebration of Earth Day<div class="MsoNormal">
My daughter runs a small farm in Vermont. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In early spring, even while the snow is still
on the ground, her rickety old front porch turns into a plant nursery as big
wooden planks are attached to the walls so flats of vegetable starts can find
their place in the sun. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tenderly she
presses seeds into the soil of each small container.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With time and patience, each cup cradles a
longing for bountiful harvest. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each seed,
a gift of life that will, within the dance of sun and soil, take root and offer
its fruit to nourish her world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you
pay attention, it is a moment filled with the essence of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is however, a lot of pressure to get things
going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A good quick start will stock the
roadside farm stand, fill CSA boxes for delivery, and create the bounty needed
to survive as last year’s canned goods run thin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a mountain of pressure to
hurry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, before she places the vegetable
starts, she pauses and takes a deep breath of time to write some words of
longing, words of hope, words of trust, onto each wooden plank that will hold
each start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Words that are a thanksgiving
for the relationship that is about to unfold. Poetic words that will linger
beneath each small plant start soon to rest on a wooden plank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those words…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are the soul beneath the soil. These are simple words that entrust one life to another. I believe this is a way to construct meaning
for our time. It is the speaking of
language that binds us to the very gift of life wherever we find it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I was growing up, I would stand in some
big church and speak words that were crafted to construct a metaphysical world
that seemed so distant from the one in which I lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Words to connect me to some heavenly homeland.
Today, my daughter scratches language beneath the very soil that nourishes her
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the soul beneath the
soil.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My guess is, that Jesus was probably doing something similar
until organized religion got in the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He spoke a poetic language written beneath the lives of the famer, the beggar,
the widow, the fisherfolk, the wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And yet, to this day, church people continue to use a strange and
distant theological code language that provides some assurance that we have
mastered a world beyond our own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was Jesus
really describing a metaphysical world, or helping us understand the one in
which we live? With the growing realization of our deep and abiding
interconnectedness to the natural world, religion might do well to construct a poetry
of the soul that can help us find ourselves within the wonder, the pain, the
grace and the mystery of the life that we live; To find our soul beneath the
soil.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
When the seedlings grow strong enough to enter the furrowed
rows of rich soil on my daughter’s farm, those heavy planks get thrown behind
the garage until next year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the next
long cold winter, the words will slowly dissolve beneath the falling snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come spring, a new poem will find its way
onto a wooden plank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The circle of life
will fulfill its promise and my daughter will pause to mark her family’s place
within the dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the language of
the soul that each of us writes beneath the gift of life.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08924568488237983957noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131286654736880335.post-23569415404978106712014-11-12T19:08:00.003-08:002014-11-12T19:08:32.501-08:00Why the project at AltSpirit gives me hope<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s face it. Like
so many, I have been struggling with the way religion works in my life. I have slipped beyond taking anything in my
own religious heritage as some absolute to which I must pay homage. I have come to grips with historical
criticism and am happy living with a Jesus whose legacy was inflated by an
enthusiastic early church. I chuckle at
the antiquated creedal language and dogmatic formulas that have so much
continued cache. I buy into the whole
social construct idea and am happy thinking about the way humanity seeks to
create meaning within their contextual setting.
But, what to do with all this religious energy that still courses
through my veins?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
AltSpirit feels like a place for me. It feels like religion is still an important
part of my life, but it’s more like a kind of conversation than a
destination. I love being in a
relationship with others that seek some greater meaning in their life and are
fine integrating the wisdom of their religious tradition with the actual
experience of life they are having.
Here, there is room to just be open and honest and inquisitive without
the fear that you are going to piss off the person sitting next to you in the
pew. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you are just exploring AltSpirit. I hope you find some comfort in a place where
you can ponder all the wonder and mystery that seems to swirl in every life and
that the conversation and resources here might be a helpful partner along the
way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Enjoy <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dan<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08924568488237983957noreply@blogger.com0