November 08, 2021

01

We all draw water from the same well.
The water I'm talking about
is the creative source of life and being.
And ideas,
realizations,
imagination,
connections,
inspiration,
zeal,
enthusiasm,
insight,
know-how,
awareness.
instinct,
intuition,
premonitions
and all the rest
of That Which Truly Matters.

The source is the origin of all things.
Where everything comes from.
Where everything we see when we look around
came from.

The wellspring of living water
flows through us all.
We are afloat
on a spiritual sea,
swimming in a spiritual ocean.
Buoyed up and carried long by spiritual currents.

We are the children--the offspring--of an invisible world.

You might think we would do more
to enhance and sustain our connections
with the ever-present source of life and being.

I wonder why we don't.

Don't you?

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02

What was Jesus' political solution?
The Buddha's?
Gandhi's?
The Continental Congress'?

The political solution does not exist,
and is not possible
because the solution
requires us to work out the answer
to Rodney King's 
"Why can't we just get along?"

How does Fascism co-exist with Democracy?
What is the political solution there?

Politics is the art of the impossible
in that it attempts to negotiate
mutually exclusive ends.
Abortion.
Civil Rights.
Equal Rights.
Etc.

People have hard (and fast) feelings
about all of the issues
that divide and separate us
into different sides,
and no matter what the law says,
enforcement is another matter entirely. 

Racial segregation has been illegal
in the United States
(And how united has that ever been?)
for nearly 70 years 
and inequality is as real today
as it was 70 years ago,
or I completely misread
the controversy over Critical Race Theory.

There is no political solution
to force people to "just get along."
Kindness, compassion, generosity, etc.,
cannot be compelled.
No one can be made to grow up.
Although all of us grow up against our will.
some of us refuse to move in the matter,
and that is the blockage in the arterty
of democracy.

So, what to do?
Keep going!
Keep living toward
Justice! Freedom! Equality! Truth!
Anyway! Nevertheless! Even So!

In practical terms,
this means voting for the Democrat candidate
in all elections great and small,
no matter what,
forever.

It means supporting Democrat candidates
and the causes of democracy,
and taking up those causes in our life,
calling out injustice and inequality
wherever it appears,
and refusing to be silent and compliant
in the presence of the Fascist tide
apparently sweeping over the land.

It means standing for what the flag stands for.
It means doing the work of democracy
in supporting the ideals of democracy
in our life and in the life of our community,
by drawing the lines that need to be drawn,
Voting and encouraging voter registration
and access to the polls in every election.

We can't assume that democracy will take care of itself.
We have to tend the flames of justice, freedom, equality, truth
for as long as we are alive.

We continue the Revolution the Founders began.
The fight for "liberty and justice for all,"
for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,"
is ongoing and eternal,
and we all must take our turn in pushing 
the nation toward the good the Founders served
and passed on to us--
knowing that each generation 
could be the last generation
to serve the American dream,
and living so as to be certain
it will not happen on our watch.

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03

We live to maintain our alignment
with the spiritual flow of life and being.

We do this by being aware of our balance and harmony,
understanding the gyroscope function
of our original nature,
and doing the work of 
harmonizing our original nature
with the time and place,
context and circumstances,
of our living 
in each situation as it arises
over the full course of our life.

This is called being true to ourselves
within the conditions that govern our living
from day-to-day.

This is the legacy of Jesus of Nazareth,
and of all of those like him
throughout the ages of human existence.

Jesus called it "bearing our cross,"
living between two worlds--
the world of what our spirit/soul/mind requires
and the world of what our environment allows.

The work may well lead to an actual cross,
and it will certainly lead to 
a number of metaphorical crosses,
whereupon we "die" and are "resurrected,"
to "die" again and be "resurrected" again
all our life long.

Every spiritually-attuned person
experiences this death/resurrection motif
in their work to live with a foot in each world,
to walk two paths at the same time--
being true to themselves
while remaining in touch with the world
of their physical existence.

It is the work that will
"fill (our) hearts brim-full,
and break them, too"
(William Alexander Percy).

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