07
It is important to know the difference between trusting your luck and pushing your luck. It has been my experience that I can count on "invisible means of support" (Bill Moyers) whenever I venture forth in the service of what needs to be done. But to try to use that support to serve my own purposes, benefit, gain, advantage would be to betray the foundational alliance between me and the transcendent reality that keeps shining through in unexpected ways to nurture my faith in its existence and in my own work in this dimension. I am here to say what is so in word and deed, and keep saying it until I die. And I take to what is mine to do as well as anyone I have ever known. It is an absolute joy and delight to take up my Sisyphean task of rolling the rock up the hill and follow it down the hill to roll it back up the hill. It is my life and I love it so. I did it for forty and a half years in the ministry "of word and sacrament," with people asking me, "Why don't you talk to us about things we can understand?" Sisyphus would be proud of me. I was faithful to the rock all the way, and even after. This is testimony to my continued labor at the work of rolling the rock. As I remain faithful to the task that is my dharma to perform, I can trust myself to the transcendent function of the work to energize me with enthusiasm for what is mine to do by breaking into my life to astound and amaze me from time to time-- but to push my luck in trying to further my own cause in any way would be a violation of the sacred ties that bind me to the transcendent and the transcendent to me. My place is to be true to my work, and to be content with doing what is mine to do. And I am beyond contented. I relish my relationship with the rock, and delight in what I get to do every day. Anyone who thinks that there has to be more to it than that doesn't comprehend the wonder of doing what is theirs to do-- or somehow won't let the wonder of it be enough. I wouldn't abandon my rock for anything they would find to be more valuable than rolling a rock through time. Find your rock and roll it, I say. That's all the luck anyone needs!
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06
So What? Who cares? Why Try? What difference will it make? What good will it do? Are questions that never occur to those who are engrossed in doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, the way it needs to be done because it needs to be done in each situation as it arises. Doing what needs to be done whether it does any good or not is the most that can be done in any situation, and there is no reason to not do that much ever. Doing what needs to be done, moment-by-moment, in each situation as it arises-- anyway, nevertheless, even so-- is an existential pledge to life and being. It is our essential commitment to one another and all sentient beings. It's the least we can do-- and high time we did it.
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05
The cup of suffering is the cup of salvation, the bread of affliction is the bread of life. We have to take the Eucharist into ourselves. We become the bread. We become the cup. We sacrifice ourselves on the cross of our own opposites, dying to all that we have held to be important-- to our idea of God and the doctrines and theology of the church (Any church, any religion), to our ideas of how things are and ought to be-- and rising to new life in the service of our original nature, incarnating/integrating the transcendent realities of balance, harmony and flow with the immanent realities of here and now circumstances and situations of life in the world. Doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done where it needs to be done the way it needs to be done because it needs to be done with no attachment to the outcome and nothing in it for us and nothing to gain or lose, just being what is called for for the sake of being what is called for, moment-by-moment in each situation as it arises eternally and forever in an Eternal Now that never ends.
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04
Joseph Campbell said, "If you're not interested in making things well, then you are not-- even in the most elementary sense-- an artist." "Making things well" does not mean making them perfect. Perfection is a steady state incapable of being made better. Making things well leaves the door open to future improvements, alterations, transformations, growth and development. The artists themselves are changing! We work on ourselves every time we sit still, wondering, imagining, reflecting... We, ourselves, are never finished! We are continuing to improve, evolve, expand, deepen... But doing each day well, each thing in each day well, is part of that evolution, that growth, that development involved with meeting the day and being who we are in it as best we can moment-by-moment every day.
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03
No one can help you with your perspective, with your attitude, with your outlook, with your point of view, with the way you think, with the way you see things, with the way you evaluate things, with the way you interpret things, with the way you respond to things... You are on your own with all of this. Which makes you responsible for all of it. Which means you need to be more consciously aware of it than you are-- thinking about your thinking, seeing your seeing, attending your responses, evaluating your reactions, and your assumptions, your presumptions, your inferences and conclusions-- and asking all of the questions that beg to be asked in light of all that you are aware of being generated internally in response to the external world. Do not assume you know what you are doing. Make inquiries. Launch investigations. Find the line between what you know and what you do not know. Stop living like you know what you do not know. People will notice the difference that makes in your life immediately. So will you.
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02
Calculation, orchestration, choreography, contrivance and control replace the spontaneous expression of the impulse of our nature in responding to the situation as it unfolds before us. Then, we act with something other than what is called for by the need of the moment in mind, and follow a path of ulterior motives in forcing things on the moment that are not of the moment, by creating artificial "concerns," and generating inorganic responses in the service of illegitimate ends-- disrupting the balance, harmony and flow of life, and making an irredeemable mess of things, pouring over, spilling out, wreaking havoc for years in all directions, because we imposed our will for the situation upon the situation at hand.
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01
Follow the impulse of your nature in seeing what is happening, knowing what is called for in response and answering the six questions of life moment-to-moment in each situation as it arises, one situation after another, day-by-day your entire life long. WHO? -- That would be you. WHAT? -- Needs to be done? WHERE? -- Here! WHEN? -- Now! WHY? -- Because it needs to be done! HOW? -- The way it needs to be done! Do what needs to be done without attachment to the outcome, without purpose beyond doing what needs to be done, without seeking, expecting, even thinking about personal gain/benefit/advantage, and when it is done, leave it behind and step into the next moment where you repeat the entire process, following the flow of life from moment to moment, situation to situation, doing what needs to be done all the way. Eating, naps, and time for reflection and contemplation, etc. need to be done in their time throughout each day. Your personal needs get equal time with all other needs. But the drama and the glory, the tragedy and the fascination of the 10,000 things have no place in the day, any day. Off you go! The day awaits!
