01
We are built for a certain way of life. Our integrity and our sincerity depend upon-- and therefore require-- our being aligned with, and living in accord with, the life that we are built to live, the life that waits on us to live it. We cannot live just any life, and fit, and belong, and mesh with the things that life calls for. You wouldn't want me to sing at your next wedding. The list is long of things I have no business doing. The same goes for you. How well do we fit the life we are living? How much do we belong there? The people we run with? The things we do in our spare time? What is it about us that is right for our life? What is it about us that is wrong for our life? What is it about our life that is right for us? What is it about our life that is wrong for us? How might we begin living in ways that increase what is right and decrease what is wrong about the "fit" between us and our life? Sit with the questions in the stillness and the silence. See what stirs to life there, what emerges, arises, occurs to you as realization and possibility. And see where it goes.
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02
Joseph Campbell said, "Where you stumble and fall, there lies the treasure." Jesus said, "The stone the builders reject becomes the chief cornerstone." Joseph and Jesus are saying the same thing. We have to mine the metaphors to get to the gold. "Where you stumble and fall." What trips you up? You are likely stumbling over "the stone the builders reject." "The builders" would be you. "The stone" would also be you. Shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best. NO! Telling ourselves what we want to hear is what we do best! NO! Refusing to examine our expectations and assumptions is what we do best! NO! Not seeing what we look at is what we do best! ...The list is long, and it all amounts to the same thing: We trip ourselves up every time we fall. We sabotage ourselves all of the time. But--we are only trying to get our attention. We start digging where we stumble and fall by asking the questions that beg to be asked, and saying the things that cry out to be said, and following all of the clues to the truth they reveal. Which will be the truth of who we are and also are. The truth of what we are doing to hide from, conceal, deny, ignore the truth of our original nature, and how we are failing/refusing to be true to ourselves within the present context and circumstances of our life. In becoming/being ourselves in ways that are commensurate with our circumstances (Balancing and harmonizing Yin and Yang endlessly, daily, throughout our life), we discover that the truth we live to deny is "the chief cornerstone" of the life that needs us to live it. And there we are. Needing to repeat the process the next time we trip over ourselves, stumble and fall, on our way to trusting ourselves to be who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are, no matter what, forever.
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03
The revelation is on-going, unending, everlasting: Who we are and who we are becoming. We are called forth by each situation as it arises, like the Cyclops calling forth the hero in Ulysses. Or the circumstances calling forth the Christ in Jesus. We undergo the baptism of new birth every time we dare to meet the day on the day's terms, seeking to find the way through the day without applying the formulas, the creeds, the dogmas, the doctrines, the maps, the rules, the procedures and processes guaranteed to produce results and provide the pleasure of smooth and easy without going to the trouble to see what we look at and know what's what and what needs to be done in response here and now-- no matter how similar this is to then and there, and who cares anyway. The old Taoists would remind us: "The path that can be discerned as a path is not a reliable path." And Jesus would say, "The spirit is like the wind that blows where it will." Calling us all to stand apart from our assumptions and expectations, plans and agendas, and step empty and unarmed into each moment, seeing/sensing what is happening and what is called for, and allowing our original nature, with its gifts/shtick/specialties/daemon/ virtues/penchants/knacks/abilities... to rise to the occasion with sincerity and spontaneity, surprising us with its the appropriateness of its presentation, and blessing all there with its timing and grace. What new thing is this? Where did it come from? “Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going; so deep is its measure" (Heraclitus). And we are capable of more than we are capable of fathoming, or believing. We only have to trust that it is so, and live so as to find what our limits actually are-- by stepping into each situation, and seeing what we can do there that needs to be done.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 