03

What symbols are living symbols for you?
Which ones bring you to life?
Ground you?
Open you to the moment,
and to the wonder of life,
the mysterium tremendum,
the awe inspiring mystery,
at the heart of being alive?

What symbols enable you to face anything?
Serve as a guide through dark times?
A beacon calling us past waves crashing on the rocks
and heaving amid the howling wind
on the wine dark sea?

What symbols do you turn to
when there is no place else to turn?
What symbols are at the heart of your life?

Start with these symbols
and search them for the metaphors they represent.
What are the metaphors behind each symbol?
What are the meanings you attach to each metaphor?

One of my favorite symbols is a ceramic egg,
about six inches high and eight inches in diameter.
a section of the shell has broken away,
and a scaly foot of a baby dragon
has come out of the egg
into the light of day.

I have used this egg as a teaching metaphor
for Easter Morning sermons,
as a different kind of Easter Egg,
with the theme, 
"The new life in Christ
will eat your old life alive!"
Using the text from Luke 9:24,
"Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, 
but whoever loses their life for that which is greater than they are
will save it."

What will we lose our life (Metaphorically speaking) for?
What are we willing to go to hell (Metaphorically speaking) for?

Our symbols take us to the truth of who we are.
To the truth of what our life is.

Ask the questions your favorite symbols beg to be asked.
See what they really have to say.

–0–

02

Our symptoms,
tics,
neuroses,
psychoses,
loss of purpose,
lack of enthusiasm for life,
ennui,
poor posture
and lousy disposition
are all attributable 
to the sorry quality 
of our relationship
with ourselves in general
and with our Original Nature in particular.

Our lot is not going to improve
until we realign ourselves with ourselves,
and live in accord with our nature.

This does not mean doing whatever we want.
It means doing what is ours to do
whether we want to or not.

"What is ours to do"
is not something someone assigns us.
It is not what parents,
society,
culture
or our desire to succeed and excel
impose upon us.
It is what is ours to do
from before we were born.

You could call it destiny,
but that sounds like achieving something.
It is more on the order 
of simply being who we are--
doing what needs us to do it
the way we alone are capable of doing it.
Living our life the way only we can live it.
Whether anything comes of it or not.

The stream flowing to the sea
is fulfilling its destiny
by being what it is,
doing what it does
the way it would do it
in each situation as it arises.

Be the stream.
Flow to the sea.
It has never been
more difficult than that.
Never will be.

–0–

01

Waking up is growing up,
growing up is waking up.
Everyone has a blind side
keeping them immature and unseeing.

If you are not laughing at yourself,
you are not growing up.
If the tone of your laughter is mean
and vindictive,
you are not growing up.

The quality and degree of our laughter
is a signature sign
of the quality and degree of our maturity
and wakefulness.

Seeing is laughing.
Dancing.
Celebrating.
Crying.
Mourning.
Dying.

Laughter and sorrow
have an antiphonal relationship
with each other,
singing the song of life
to each other
through the ages.
Best friends forever.

Life and death.
Death and resurrection.
It never gets old.
We never outgrow it.
We welcome it again,
and step into the day.

02

People have been missing the point forever.
Thinking they/we are the point,
and that everything here is
for our benefit and enjoyment--
to "fill the earth and subdue it,"
party hardy
and pass a good time.

We plop out of the womb
figuring the angles,
calculating our chances,
contriving,
conning
scheming,
planning...
always with an agenda in hand
and an angle in mind.

God can't get us out of his mind.
His day revolves around us,
who is in and who is out,
keeping score,
writing everything down in the Book of Life
(So he won't forget?).

We are the point.
And, thinking that, 
we miss the point.

How much silence can you take
before you have to find something 
to relieve your boredom,
which is concealing something much worse:
Realization.

In the silence,
we catch the scent of emptiness
stirring in the darkness,
and must lose ourselves
in the noise of our lives
to avoid the truth of nothing.

We are afraid there is nothing there.

That comes with missing the point.

And that gets us to where we are:
Needing to face the truth of nothing to it,
of the Void
and the Abyss,
in order to find our way
to "the still point of the turning world"
(T.S. Eliot).
And know the Other within
whom we do not know
(Carl Jung),
and discover our place
as the Moved to the Mover,
the Seeker to the Knower,
and begin again,
this time in right relationship
with the Heart of Life and Being.

01

"Live with sincerity,
in the service of your original nature,
and follow your heart."

This old adage from 
the Age of the Taoists
sounds helpful
until it is read
in light of those stating:

"We grow up against our will."

"The last leave-taking
is leaving ourselves for ourselves."

"If you meet the Buddha on the road,
kill him."

"That which you seek
lies far back in the darkest corner
of the cave
you most don't want to enter."

"It took the Cyclops
to bring the hero
out in Ulysses."

"The only thing standing
between us and the treasure we seek
is us."

"The people who don't take the time
to appreciate,
honor,
and dance with
the contradictions
aren't worth talking to."

"The slippery slope,
the dangerous path,
the razor's edge
require us to pick up our cross daily,
dying to ourselves again and again,
and bearing the pain of the journey joyfully
all the way to the end of the line."

And the ultimate contrary
of them all:

"The Path that is discernible
is not a reliable Path."

It is called The Hero's Journey
for a reason.

Realization comes with a price,
paid only by those
who can laugh
shout "YEA!"
and participate wholeheartedly
in the wonder of it all,
seeing the incongruities
and dichotomies,
as antiphonies--
and joining in round after round,
all their life long.

03

We pretend it is going to last forever.
We do not look at the score.
We do not look at the clock.
We do not wonder "How much LOOONNNGGEEERRR
as though we need it to be done, NOW!

Our full attention is on the moment,
this moment,
the time and place of our living.
The moment that never ends,
but flows,
uninterrupted into the next moment,
and the one following,
on and on...

Though we will step out of the action,
the moment of our stepping out
will continue without end
through all of time
and beyond. 

The universe can disappear
into a Black Hole,
but the moment of its disappearing
goes on and on...

Our place in this "great scheme of things,"
is to shine as brightly as we can
for as long as possible,
bringing ourselves forth
as a blessing and a grace
on all of the times and places 
of our living.

Offering the gifts,
genius,
daemon,
spirit,
virtues,
character,
vitality,
energy
and life
that came with us from the womb
to the contexts and circumstances
of each situation that comes our way
over the full course of our life,
in ways that respond appropriately
to what is being called for--
"Without hope,
without witness,
without reward"
(Steven Moffat in "Doctor Who"),
as an expression/incarnation
of our Original Nature
because that is what we are born to do,
and it would be such  a shame not to do it.

We discover who we are 
in the act of standing up to meet the moment,
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
spontaneously,
improvisational, 
naturally doing what needs to be done
as only we can do it,
surprising ourselves by showing everyone
how much more to us than meets the eye.

We begin living that way
by daring to not know what we are doing,
and being curious about everything,
playing at being who we are
as we reveal ourselves to ourselves
to our continuing amazement,
all our life long. 

–0–

02

"Freedom's just another word
for nothing left to lose..."
I don't know if Kris Kristofferson 
knew what he was saying
when he wrote these words
(To "Me and Bobby Magee"),
or if he was just rhyming words,
but.
He is spot on.

We aren't free until
we aren't afraid of loosing anything.
Until we are free from trying/hoping
to gain anything.

Freedom is having nothing to hold onto.
Freedom is letting everything go.
Standing at "the still point"
(T.S. Eliot)
of that place,
there is nothing anyone (or anything)
can do to us.
We are grounded there in a way
that nothing can touch us.
Nothing can knock us off that spot.

We are the adamantine Buddha
seated under the Bo tree,
unmoved and unmovable,
at one with ourselves
and free to do what is necessary
to be what is needed
in each situation as it arises
all our life long,
unafraid of anything.

At that place, 
we are our own authority
in determining what we do,
unafraid of going to hell even,
so confident we are in our own ability
to know what needs us to do it,
and free to follow our own sense of direction,
content to live with any outcome
no matter what it may be.

How do we get there?
We are never more than 
a simple shift in perspective
from here to there.
We are going to die.
There is nothing to gain or to lose.
All we have is who we are.
And what is that if we do not
live so as to express who we are
in each situation as it arises
all our life long?

Why hold anything back?
What are we saving it for?

–0–

01

Extremes not only beget extremes,
they also become increasingly extreme over time.
Knowing when to stop and stopping
would be ideal,
but.

Diets go over into anorexia like that (snaps fingers),
and anorexia spins off into bulimia,
and knowing when to stop doesn't mean stopping.

Having someone explain the danger of excessive
devotion to a cause
doesn't immunize us against extremism.

Hearing someone advise us
to "Live toward the center!"
doesn't enable healthy limits.

Vulnerability to being "carried away"
seems to be a human characteristic.
We cannot be trusted to know
where and when to draw the line,
and to draw it.

How often have we heard/said it?
"We are our own worst enemy!"
"No one can save us from ourselves!"
"It's all up to us!"
"Our safety is our responsibility!"

And we remain a threat to ourselves and others,
walking through our life,
waiting for something to trigger
our Excessive Response Mechanism,
and propel us into action.

Which underscores the danger
of Russian interference in our elections,
and manipulative language exploiting
our tendency to be emotionally hooked
into an ideologically based reactive 
way of living.

We are this close (crosses fingers) to being
swept up and away at all times.
Knowing it and being alert to it,
sensitive to, 
and aware of,
the ease with which language 
inflames and engulfs us,
may be our best defense
against the extremes,
and our best chance
of remaining grounded in the center.

04

Our life does not happen accidentally,
while we are in pursuit of our dreams.
It isn't what occurs while we are doing something else.
Something more fun.

Our life is the intentional production
of the mutual collaboration
between the conscious 
and unconscious
aspects of ourselves.

We are two selves:
Conscious
and Unconscious
(We call it the Unconscious because 
the conscious side of us
is not conscious of it,
which makes dealing with it
a full-time operation
requiring our complete attention,
total devotion
and faithful allegiance).

When the old Chinese mystics talked of the Tao,
they were talking about the Unconscious self.
And being in accord with the Tao
was held to be the key to balance and harmony,
stability,
character,
wisdom
and peace.

It still is.

Our Conscious self is good for knowing
how to do something,
relying on intellect,
logic
and reason
to come up with the best,
most efficient,
way of getting things done.

But.
On its own, it has no idea of what to do.
Consciously, we know what we want
and don't want,
what we like and don't like,
what is pleasing
what is displeasing,
but we have no notion 
of what we should want,
or of what we have no business
even thinking about.

Our Unconscious self is good 
for what, when and where,
and has a knack for knowing
what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

When our Conscious and Unconscious selves
are communing with each other,
in full accord,
and on the same page,
our life has a radiance about it
and a flow to it,
that cannot be fabricated
in some other way.

Our duality is dancing
in a manner that declares our unity,
which is something to be relished
and enjoyed
as the purest expression
of the experience 
of being alive.

–0–

03

Notice what catches your eye,
and look closer.
Move toward that which moves you.
Pay attention to the things 
you are quick to dismiss,
discount,
disregard,
ignore,
and stop doing that.

The Most Important Things
are the cornerstones the builder dismisses,
discounts,
disregards,
ignores.

"Nothing good comes from Nazareth!"

The pearl of great price
lies in the bin of costume jewelry
waiting for one who sees
to take notice
and look closer.

Our destiny hangs in the balance,
dangling by the finest thread.
Our name is called 
by the faintest whisper.
The first test is the hardest:
Will we see what we look at?
Will we hear what is being said?

Nothing of consequence
is the key to everything that follows.
The path that leads to awakening
and enlightenment
begins with the silliest choices.
Our future life hinges on--
and takes shape around--
our being open to the offerings
of the present moment,
and willing to trust directions
from the unlikeliest of guides.

Having expectations,
strong opinions
and harsh judgments--
being impatient,
insistent
and hard to please--
increase the internal noise level,
and make it difficult 
to recognize the grace at work
in our circumstances,
or to allow impromptu shifts
toward uncertain outcomes.

We are always forgetting
that we did not intend to be
where we are,
or plan any of the steps
that led us here.
The future will be an extension of the past
in this regard,
and we can rely
on knowledge beyond reason,
logic
and intellect
to pilot our boat 
on its path through the sea.

Those gifts are well-qualified to deal with How,
But.
What,
When,
and Where
are within the purview 
of more than words can say.

Choosing the gifts and the giver
puts us in the position 
of the moved in response to the mover.
Recognizing what is asked of us
and responding in ways
appropriate to the occasion
are all that is asked of us
in each situation as it arises.

All our life long.

–0–

02

We have to know what moves us
and allow ourselves to be moved by it--
to be owned by it--
to belong to it--
to be possessed,
seized, 
dominated and controlled
by the things that move us--
moved against our will--
"Without hope,
without witness,
without reward"
(Steven Moffat)--
to live in the service of,
with filial devotion
and liege loyalty to,
that which moves us!

In the spirit of the old alchemical formula,
"One book opens another,"
the thing(s) that move(s) us
will move us to the thing(s) that move(s) us,
and we will be carried all our life long
from one thing to another
on an adventure that never ends.

This is the Hero's Journey.

Don't be a sissy.

–0–

01

Our idea of God is not God.

This is the foundational realization.

We can never get beyond our idea of God to God.

In order to approach God,
we must abandon our idea of God.

Theology has to go.

Meister Echart said,
"The final leave-taking 
is leaving God for God."

Our idea of who we are is not who we are.

The final leave-taking
is leaving ourselves for ourselves.

We become God.
God becomes us.

And that's that.

In the end, we are all one.

All of our divisions are false divisions.

All of our dichotomies are false dichotomies.

All of our dualities are false dualities.

Our idea of reality is not reality.

It is all a joke we play on ourselves.

It all ends in laughter.

That never ends.

02

Here we are.
Caught up in a pandemic,
at the mercy of a crazy (As in certifiably insane) President
and a GOP majority in the Senate,
aiding and abetting his every move,
with the world as we know it
going to hell as we watch,
and nothing more effective to offer
than protest marches
and rants on social media.

The situation has exposed our lack of a foundation--
the absence of a source of guidance and direction,
comfort and confidence,
security and stability,
balance and harmony...

We are in free fall
with nowhere to turn
and nothing to orient us
or assist us in finding our bearings,
in order to make our way through a wasteland
of lost hope
and demolished dreams
to a better perspective,
and a more trustworthy life.

Joseph Campbell would say
there is nothing wrong with us
that finding a valid myth to live by
won't fix.

He would also tell us not to look for someone
to tell us what our grounding myth is.
His two guidelines for discovering our myth are these:

"Where you stumble and fall, 
there lies the treasure."

"That which you seek
lies far to the rear,
in the darkest corner
of the cave you most 
don't want to enter."

He would likely add,
"The treasure you seek 
is nothing other than the self
you also are."

Free-falling is a symptom 
of being alienated from ourselves, 
out-of-sync with our heart's true purposes,
out of accord with the Tao
of our own spirit
and clueless as to who we also are
and what we are called (by ourselves)
to do with our life.

We have lost the way,
wandered away from the path,
and need to get back on track,
together with ourselves and our life.

The prescribed ritual for accomplishing
this return to ourselves/our life,
to find our myth and live it,
is to stop/look/listen.

To sit down,
be still,
and wait in the silence
"for the mud to settle
and the water to clear,"
and attend what arises/occurs to us/comes to mind there.

The silence connects us with the source
of our own Original Nature--
which is where we find all we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done
in the wasteland 
of lost hope
and demolished dreams.

But.
It takes doing it
to know it is so.
And it takes trusting ourselves 
to the inclination/urge-to-action
that occurs to us in the silence.

We do not think our way to a myth worthy of us.
We live our way there.
By looking/listening within--
by looking/listening to our body
and what it is revealing to us.
And by working with our nighttime dreams
and our flights of fantasy,
to discover what we are saying to ourselves,
hoping that we will pay attention,
and follow where we are being led.

–0–

01

With us:

Which will be the last to go?
Joy or sorrow?
Jocularity or despair?
Laughter or wailing?

Why one and not the other?

They are only a perspective shift apart.

Jovial or deathly serious depends upon what?

What leads us to see the way we see?
To ascribe meaning the way we ascribe meaning?
To say "This!" and not "That!"?

What stands between us
and "The icy winds howling up from the Void"?

What is our solace and our comfort?
Our source of resolve and resiliency?

The way we see things
keeps us going.
Or stops us from taking another step.

What governs the way we see things?

How will we approach 
"The end of the line"?

01

If you are like everyone else,
you take the wrong things too seriously,
and the right things not seriously at all.

Growing up is learning to see with right seeing,
and to live accordingly.

All of our problems
that we live seeking to solve
fall into one, or more, of these categories
(Which have been identified as the source
of all ills
since the beginning of thinking people):
Fear
Desire
Duty.

We all are as we are
because we are afraid of something,
because we desire something,
because we think we ought to do something,
or be someone else.

We suffer from Inappropriate Assessment Syndrome.
It is a deficiency afflicting the entire species.
And is probably entirely responsible 
for having us where we are today--
by driving us incessantly to be somewhere else.
Having something else.
Doing something else.

The Bane of Neanderthal 
was being quite content to be where they were.

Without fear, 
desire
or duty,
we would be completely at peace
with ourselves just as we are,
and with our circumstances just as they are.

Which would not be good for the economy.

–0–

02

Dolly Parton is a current manifestation/embodiment/incarnation
of the Christ among us.
Dolly does Dolly the way Jesus would do Dolly
if we were playing charades. 
And Dolly does Jesus the way only Dolly
can do Jesus--
which is what each of us is asked to do:
be Jesus, or the Buddha, or Dolly Parton
the way only we can do them.

We are asked to do them the way they would do them.
By being completely ourselves,
the way they were completely themselves.

The road opens up at this point,
branches off,
and we could go in 360 directions
(Yes, even back in the way we came,
because by now it would be new),
all of them equally interesting,
and all of the leading to the same destination:
The full realization and expression of ourselves in our life.
That is where we are all going.
There is nothing more to ask, 
or want,
or seek,
or desire
than that.

Dolly's on it.
So was Jesus.

But, back to where I'm going to go with this.
Playing. 
Playing is the most important thing.
Playfulness.
Full investment in the game.
Total commitment to the game.
Complete awareness of the truth
that we are all playing the game.

Most of us (After R.D. Laing)
are playing the game of not playing a game.
We are serious.
What we do is serious.
Playing is what we do 
when we take a break
from what we are doing.
To accuse us of playing
is to accuse us of playing around
and not giving our best effort,
of slacking off
and not trying.

Here, we are in need of Paul Watzlawick's observation,
"The situation is hopeless, 
but not serious."

The more serious we are
the more immersed we are
in the game we are playing
(of not playing a game).

It is all a game.

"There is only the dance"
(T.S. Eliot).
Dance/game, same thing.

But. 
Here's the thing.
We have to play the game 
with our whole heart.
We have to know what we are doing,
and do it completely,
wholly,
as if it were real!

It is as if we were actors playing the part
of ourselves in a movie about us.
We don't win the Oscar
without being completely who we are!
Even though it is "just a movie,"
"just a game."

And, comes to mind the Grantland Rice quote,
"It matters not that you win or lose,
but how you play the game."

–0–

03

My friend, John Payne, died on August 26 from complications due to Alzheimer’s. He was 77 years old. John was a fellow Presbyterian (USA) minister, whom I met in 1984. John and I were within “coffee distance” when he was in Nettleton, Mississippi and I was in Amory, Mississippi, and again when I was in Batesville, Mississippi and he was in Nesbit, Mississippi.

John was a member of Mensa, but did not want it known, because, he said, “Then they will expect me to be smart.” He had a lot to say about “being smart.”

“Being smart gets a lot of hype, but between being smart and being lucky, take being lucky.”

“Being smart doesn’t know which person to marry, or when to take no for an answer, or what to do when you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

“Being smart doesn’t help a bit when you have to grow up some more again, and do what you don’t want to do even though it is clearly what needs to be done.”

“Being smart is not as reliable a guide to knowing what to do when as being silent and listening to the source of your own nature, and sensing what resonates with you, and following the drift of your own heart and soul.”

“We all drink from the same well when it comes to instinct and intuition, and that is a different kind of knowing than the kind that comes from being smart.”

“Being smart is no indication of our capacity for being kind–and being kind saves the world.”

The world was a better place with John Payne in it, and I am glad he will always be with me–because as Jim Hollis likes to say, “Death doesn’t end a relationship any more than divorce ends a marriage.”

–0–

04

We are never more than a slight perspective shift away
from the realization of the wonder and awe
of the mysterium at the heart of existence.

Joseph Campbell was fond of recommending
that we draw a frame around any scene,
or object,
or person,
and sit in its presence,
as one might contemplate
an optical illusion,
until the shift happens
and we are moved to amazement
at the astounding realization
that there is something,
and not nothing!
And we are present to know it,
honor it,
relish it,
rejoice in it,
and hold it as venerable and sacred forever!

From that moment,
we will never be able to look at anything
the way we once looked at everything.
The world will have shifted in its orbit.
Nothing will be what it was.
And we will be startlingly transformed for life.

And live as an agent of the mysterium 
at the source,
origin,
foundation
of all that is
for as long as we shall live--
and perhaps beyond,
who knows?