I will bury you….

The princess felt the pea through countless mattresses, the Great Wall and the Pyramids reached heights unforeseen on the broken backs of slave labor, but a princess she remained and mighty they still are so does the curse of what lies beneath forever haunt what remains in sight?

Is the princess no less royal for her super-sensitive back and silliness, or the feats of ancient civilizations any less inspired and magnificent because untold numbers died unwillingly in their creation?

I write about the past, fleeting moments made real only by memory, and others read my tales and stories about baggage and trauma and regret and scarred lives, and they  reach out impulsively with sorrowful souls for some kind of emotional connection, but why?

Am I less perfect, less human, in need of more or different mattresses because of what I share? Is my coming into this creation and being present today any less grand because I arrive at the now through a terrible series of moments in my past?

At what point, then, do we forgive ourselves and others for the sins of yesterday(s) and permit them and ourselves to live out the shared miracles of our lives?

If we say, ‘He got what he deserved’ or ‘what she did was unforgiveable’ then do we say the same about ourselves by default?

As I approach next week’s interview I return to my past and the choices I made and those made for me by others and I see now that they matter, and yet that they are irrelevant also. I am now and here, not there and then, and never will I be again at the same point in time in precisely the same way, so I remember the past but only that – I choose to be here not in spite of my past, or because of it, but because I simply am….here. Now.

Related media that inspired this reflection:

Come out come out
No use in hiding
Come now come now
Can you not see?
There's no place here
What were you expecting
Not room for both
Just room for me
So you will lay your arms down
Yes I will call this home


Away away
You have been banished
Your land is gone
And given me
And here I will spread my wings
Yes I will call this home


What's this you say
You feel a right to remain
Then stay and I will bury you
What's that you say
Your father's spirit still lives in this place
I will silence you


Here's the hitch
Your horse is leaving
Don't miss your boat
It's leaving now
And as you go I will spread my wings
Yes I will call this home


I have no time to justify to you
Fool you're blind, move aside for me
All I can say to you my new neighbor
Is you must move on or I will bury you


Now as I rest my feet by this fire
Those hands once warmed here
I have retired them
I can breathe my own air
I can sleep more soundly
Upon these poor souls
I'll build heaven and call it home
'Cause you're all dead now


I live with my justice
I live with my greedy need
I live with no mercy
I live with my frenzied feeding
I live with my hatred
I live with my jealousy
I live with the notion
That I don't need anyone but me


Don't drink the water
Don't drink the water
There's blood in the water
Don't drink the water

Technorati Tags: Courage,reflection,inspiration

High Hopes

What motivates us to trod the same road so many times, or even more central to the question, why do we think a different approach or a change in life situation will lead us to a new and improved solution to our problems?
Unless we embrace true conversion of heart how we move forward, why we move forward (should we move forward) means little in that we covertly desire a return to what we know and what is familiar.
Pathways to the familiar are too easy to find if we don’t struggle to re-evaluate why we want to reach a particular destination and what we hope to achieve by arriving in a worn out state.
I’m reminded of the video High Hopes by Pink Floyd. Video and links below.

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun
Along the long road and on down to the causeway
Do they still LIVE there by the cut
There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder
Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed up world
****
Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river
The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river
Forever and ever

Technorati Tags: inspiration,courage,meditation

What is courage?

Every now and then I stumble upon entries from other blogs, or words of wisdom shared in conversation, or inspiration from some other source, that help me define what courage is. 

If you go back through the years of entries in this blog (and if you're ambitious its 3,000 + comments) you'll see I try to define courage often, inspire it in others, reflect on it, increase it in my daily practice, and otherwise search for a greater meaning behind the word. 

I have some inklings in my brain as to why I am fascinated with this word and its meaning (though I've never been brave enough to definitively state my motivations) but I did find a passage the other night in 1 John, 5:18 that struck me with its clarity and purpose.

So if our question is 'what is courage?,' here is John's response:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.

What is courage then? Perfect love. 

What a brilliantly phrased definition. I am fascinated by the implications for how we love as humans if  you reflect on the idea of perfect love. Are we talking about agape? Eros? A form of Philia? Storge? In all these ways of loving a perfect love can exist, without fear of punishment, free to soar with the greatest intentions and celebrate the highest values, creating in all those it touches true courage to live a bold life of peace and harmony.

When we say with sincerity, 'I wish for peace,' or 'I'll think of you often,' or 'I'll pray for  you,' are we truly saying, 'I love you?'

In this sense, courage has little to do with actual fear. The idea that courage is not the absence of fear but doing the right thing even when afraid is perhaps better understood as a measure of conviction, not courage? For if we possess the greatest conviction in a scenario where others may feel fear, then we will not fear. In that instance it remains possible for us to love perfectly. If our conviction falters some so that fear creeps into our hearts and doubt into our minds, then even if we do our duty or perform our task, we do so without full conviction, but rather with enough conviction. And so while in that moment we may be capable of love, we are not capable of perfect love.

Share your thoughts or ideas, please! 

Out of fear

I've written a few lines today that have all revolved around the 'why' of my actions - why I do what I do, what I think, etc., and I think I've found something to meditate on later today; why does acting out of fear so often lead to behaving wrongly?

It's a line from Nehemiah 7, where the question is why do we act out of fear to sin? Whether you believe in sin or not, fear drives us to do so many foolish things and if you've been a reader of my blog you know that fear is an emotion that I've long tried to understand, think on, and write about.

Why do you fear? How does your fear express itself? What is it that you fear - and I don't mean spiders, or snakes, but what about them do you truly fear? A phobia is like fear, but different, that's why I make that distinction....

Charity

I just finished up a couple of chapters in Deuteronomy looking for some meditation inspiration for later on and I think what struck me most is this idea of charity. If you are familiar with that book of the Bible, you'll know it's full of community and religious laws regarding cleanliness (ritual and otherwise) and right behavior, but charity is one of the underlying values present in almost every dictum.

In these tough times of recession and fear and bankruptcy it is nice to see charity surviving.

How have I been charitable today? Financial? Physical? Mental? Spiritual? Emotional?

Havoc part 2

Thank you to those that left comments regarding their beliefs on fate and future. Last night while meditating on the meaning of the two phrases my mind centered on a shared point: that justice will out. Regardless of the nature of what confronts us, what challenges us, attacks us, maybe even defeats us, justice will come if we stay true to right ideas and right morals and values.

I don't know that I'm putting forward some idea of 'what goes around comes around,' but rather that justice centers upon not what happens to those that persecute, but how we handle ourselves when faced with injustice. If we remain faithful to our just values and beliefs the persecution we face is in name only and injustice exists only in the corporeal. 

Justice remains with us in mind and spirit if we have the strength to persevere. 

Cry havoc!

'Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, that these foul deeds might stink above the earth with carrion men groaning for burial.' ~ Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 1. 

I've had this sentence stuck in my craw for some days now and I've been gnawing on it diligently, with tired determination, pondering its stubbornness. 

True, I saw it at first for only a moment as it flashed across my screen, but since it's taken up unpleasant residence in my mind and mouth, bitter and chewy, like so much lemon rind ground to a mealy paste and slathered over my gums.

An irritant of the highest order, second only to George W.B., but its message remains elusive no matter how long my mouth and mind work it over.

It resonated all the more when I read this passage from Acts 20 today:

'I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock.'

Some sort of fear, perhaps? Regret? An omen? A portent of darker days? Some sort of hiraedd? I don't know, but wish I did. 

I don't necessarily believe in fate, but rather something closer to wyrd (pronounced 'weird'). It's an old Anglo-Saxon concept that has reflections in the Catholic understanding of time and God. Concepts like wyrd helped create understanding of a linear perspective of time, even though true wyrd is more like a web than a line. 

Think about it like this: If wyrd is like a spider web, there are may parts, and although a fly lands on one small sub sect of the web, its actions vibrate and impact the entire web's existence, telling the spider that dinner has (maybe) arrived. The fly is not doomed, not yet. Certainly, its wyrd is grim (chances are it's a goner) but still, the fate of the spider and the fly depend on how well the insects react, move, interpret sensory data and so on. Wyrd is the web of our lives, the situations we find ourselves in, the choices we have to make, the past influencing us here in the present, and how what we do influences the future.

Wyrd is like one of those Celtic drawings you see of interlaced knots that are really only one strand wound irrevocably round itself. If you imagine your life like one of those drawings, a giant road that you walk on, then whenever we come to a knot in the pattern (a fork in the road, a choice in the present) we have the chance to impact the direction we travel and perhaps even untangle the knot (make straight the path) to ease our travel. So, the next time we come to a similar situation (crossroads in our life) or find ourselves right back where we started, we'll have an easier time figuring out which way to go and perhaps even accepting the outcome of our decisions.

So, wyrd is a concept that means while what will happen to us in the end is known (after all, the web is a predetermined shape), how we get there is of our own making. We can face our situations how we choose, with what values and beliefs and character we possess, and make the best of every opportunity. 

Maybe these messages, from Caesar and Acts, are meditations on how well we confront adversity? One the avenger of the betrayed (Antony spoke the lines), the other with courage enough to leave the flock with the weapons he provided, trusting them to fight off the wolves (Paul was speaking to his disciples for the last time before leaving Asia for Jerusalem)? Maybe it is a meditation on how good must always struggle, or that even those with the best intentions may be led astray?

What are your thoughts?