May 16-A, 2023

White Egret 02/08/2014 Oil Paint Rendered — Lake Martin Swamp, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana
Everything spins according to 
the outcome we want to achieve.

It's the Rorschach applied to dreams
and life.
What do we see when we look?
At whatever we look at?
What do we see when we look again?

What do we want to see?
What do we want it to be?
What we look at.
What do we want it to be?

We write the script.
We control the narrative.
We say what's what
and it becomes so,
like that,
just what we say it is.

But, what is it beyond our spin?
What is it to itself?
According to its own spin?

People of color
carry the weight of the white people's spin.
White people cannot see people of color
apart from white people's spin.

White supremacists,
racists,
will never see people of color
as anything other 
than what the supremacists/racists
say they are.

Our biases show us how we see.

How do we get away from our biases
in order to see what we don't see
when we look with the spin of our biases
blinding our eyes?

I recommend highly distancing ourselves
from ourselves.
Meet everything we say with questions.
Don't take anything we say as the truth,
but as spin.

We spin everything.
We live in a spin show.
If we are going to see,
we have to see our looking for what it is,
our spinning for what it is.

Vet everything we say,
everything we believe,
everything we think...

Get to the bottom of what makes you think it is so!
Do not quit until you see your seeing for what it is--
A spin show.
Spinning everything
to support your biases,
to save yourself the trouble--
the pain--
of changing your mind
about all of the things you think are so
without thinking about what makes you think so.

Emptiness, you know.
As empty of thought and emotion
as the place between breaths.

Breathe in for a count of 5,
out for a count of 5,
pause between breaths for a count of 5.
Be empty like the pause between breaths.

Stillness.
Silence.
Listening.
Looking.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked
of everything you hear and see.
Saying the things that cry out to be said
of everything you hear and see and ask
of everything you hear and see.

This is a meditation on spin.
Getting to the bottom of you.

If it becomes too much,
return to your breathing.
In for 5,
out for 5,
pause for 5,
as many rounds as it takes 
to become calm and balanced,
working on getting to the bottom of you
and the world as you spin it,
hoping to just see,
just hear,
just know,
in order to just respond to what is happening
with what needs to be done,
without getting in the way
with spins and scripts and narratives,
spun, written, spoken with biases in charge,
in control,
in command.

We are taking ourselves back
one round of 5 breaths at a time.

Letting our biases take a walk
away from our life
for what remains to be lived of it.

–0–

If you are a subscriber and get the photo associated with each blog entry but not the text, the work-a-round suggested by sandync 28704 is to click on the date of the blog above the photograph and that should link you directly to the blog.

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters and five granddaughters within about twenty minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: