Relax into the Now! Take care of the moment!

We are being carried along by forces quite beyond us.
Sit back.
Pay attention.
Be aware. 
Be present.
Enjoy the ride.
Saying the things that cry out to be said.
Asking the questions that beg to be asked.
Doing what is called for,
as it is called for,
in each situation as it arises.
No one could do more,
and that is all that is asked of us ever.

–0–

I spent the last seven years of my ministry participating in the creation/development of “the church as it ought to be.”

It was called simply, “The 9:20 Service,” because we met at 9:20 on Sunday morning–9:20 because that was late enough to allow the people who needed to sleep-in to feel like they had, and early enough to keep the 11:00 o’clock service undisturbed and in place.

It was started with a gift of $4,000 and a “See what you can do with this” from a person who didn’t understand why more people weren’t coming to the 11:oo o’clock service.

I gathered a group of six to eight people of “like mind” to think out seeing what we could do with it, and agreed to ask all of their unchurched friends, “What would it take to get you to a church service twice a month?”

The answers were wonderfully revealing: No sermons! No prayers, particularly prayers of confession! No bible! No hymns! No creeds or confessions of faith! No organ! No offerings! Etc.!

In other words: “No Church as it currently is!”

“Okay,” we said, and crafted a series of ads in the local paper, paid for with the $4,000, around the theme of “No Bible, No prayers, No hymns, No offerings, No kidding!” with the location, time and place for the first meeting.

We used some of the $4,ooo to hire musicians–local singer/songwriters and individuals/groups who were paid $100 a “gig” to play their kind of music with “no religious music allowed.” We had pianists doing their thing, cellists doing their thing (Solo Cello is super), blue grass quartets, doing their things (Wonder of wonders, this sometimes included Rhiannon Giddens–Laurelyn Dossett/Pole Cat Creek and Steep Canyon Rangers were part of our Saturday Night concerts, but that’s a story of its own). It was a truly magical time over a period of seven years.

The service opened and closed with ten minutes of music. Ten minutes of silence followed the opening act. A time for “community sharing followed that and I followed that with a loose arraignment of thoughts like those I post here. We were done within an hour to make way for the 11 o’clock service and that led me along the path of “re-thinking church,” which I am walking to this day, and beyond.

Which gets me to this: There is nothing to “being the church,” but. There is a catch. We can’t “be the church” and pay the bills. My salary was a significant bill. A building to meet in with heating and cooling, repairing and painting, etc. were significant bills.

The early church for the first 200 years or so didn’t worry about paying the bills. There were no bills. Organized religion came on the scene as a way to “save the world” with a catch, “Organized religion exists to pay the bills!”

It took two centuries for the priests to take over religion and sell eternity for the low, low price of tithes and offerings. And in that moment, the church as it had been, and needs to be, ceased to exist.

So, I’m rectifying that situation by throwing out theology, creeds, doctrine, the Bible, hymns, offerings, etc. and offering in their place the right kind of emptiness, stillness and silence (and music).

I carry in my shirt pocket a few business cards which I pass out to people I feel would be open to the idea they represent. They have a photograph on one side, with my name, my ClickASnap link and nine words: balance, harmony integrity, sincerity, spontaneity, vitality, emptiness, stillness, silence.

I tell the recipients that the card represents a three-fold meditative process. The image and the link are connections to the natural world, and they are a part of that world, and are to explore their own original nature and innate virtues/specialties/interests, the things that are natural and automatic with them, and they are to look through my images on line, and become sensitive to the scenes they walk through each day, looking for what catches their eye, and look closer, examine/explore fully meditatively what is there that attracts them, that connects with what is “in here,” within their own heart/soul/self.

And they are to do the same thing with the words–adding to the nine terms on the card their own words, like beauty, truth, justice, equality, etc. and meditate on the meaning these terms have for them and how they might adjust their living in order to serve/express/exhibit those words in their life.

In following these three avenues/paths of meditation/awareness, they will be opening themselves to themselves and to how their life needs to be lived to exhibit/express the truth of who they are in ways that are appropriate to each situation as it arises throughout the time left for living.

And, in so doing, they will be being the church as it ought to be, without the hymns, doctrine, theology, etc. And they will be creating/discovering their own symbols which will serve them as guides on their path through the sea of life and being. Which is all we need to find what we need to do what needs to be done. Which is all that can be asked of any of us ever.

–0–

We live to see/hear/know/do.
A life grounded in,
flowing from,
returning to
emptiness, stillness and silence
has the best chance 
of seeing/hearing/knowing what's what
and doing what needs to be done about it
in each situation as it arises
no matter what
all our life long.

A life grounded in fear/greed/hatred
has no chance at all 
of seeing/hearing/knowing anything
beyond what it wants 
and doing whatever it takes
to have its way.

–0–

Stability,
dependability,
reliability,
trustworthiness
are foundational elements
for the creation
and maintenance
of balance and harmony.

Balance and harmony
are fundamental
for integrity, 
sincerity,
spontaneity. 

Living on the edge
of uncertainty
generates anxiety
and keeps us from settling into
a safe and secure pattern of life.

Enter fascism and its love for
knocking things over
and burning things down,
and you get a sense of the absurdity
of life under fascist rule.

What percentage of the Russian population
can count on running water,
natural gas
and regular garbage pickup?

How's their balance and harmony?

Fascism is threatened to its core
by balance and harmony.
It survives by not allowing anyone
the privilege of relaxing into 
a comfortable routine.

Americans don't have a clue
about what they are asking for
in a Trump run autocracy.

How can educated people 
be so f-ing stupid?
By allowing their fear, hatred, desire/greed
direct their living
and ruin their life.

Deliver us all from wanting more
than we have any use for!
Ever and always!
Amen!

–0–

How many "Y's" constitute our life?
How many more will there be?
I don't know how you "do it,"
but here is another possibility to consider:

Empty yourself of all thoughts and emotions,
memories and judgments.
Stand at the fork as empty as the space between breaths.
And without thinking,
without resorting to reason and logic,
without "doing it" as Spock would "do it,"
wait in the emptiness, stillness and silence,
until you find yourself walking,
without having decided/chosen to walk,
to the right,
or to the left,
or turning around and walking back the way you came.

It will be better than flipping a coin twice.

Or, perhaps, just different.

–0–

Our imagination is a mirror
reflecting us to us. 

What are the themes running through
your imagination's wanderings,
which are not actually wanderings at all,
but recurring stories
to reaffirm,
entrench,
solidify
the patterns that are ingrained
in your mind's worn path of rumination?

Sex addicts think like sex addicts.
Fascists think like fascists.
Preachers think like preachers.
...
You think like you.
I think like me.

All we have to do is think about our thinking
to realize who we are
and know what matters most to us.

Then we think about what we think about that,
and what we need to do to change
the nature of our life--
or to maintain it just as it is,
if it suits our fancy just fine.

But from now on, 
we won't be kidding ourselves
about ourselves.
We will be being ourselves,
full bore all the way.

The question then becomes
"Are we being who the situations/circumstances
of our life need us to be?

Or, are we escaping the situations/circumstances
of our life with endless fantasies
about how we wish things were
and what we want things to be?

And how we might go about aligning ourselves
with the life that needs us to live it?

Do we care about the life that needs us to live it?
About being "the obedient servants"
of the life we are built/born to live?

Aligned with the Tao, the Flow,
the Source of life and being?

Or do we just want to be left alone
with our pornographic images,
our fantasies about endless wealth
or world domination?

–0–

People kill themselves
and other people
because they don't like the way
things are going.

Why don't they just change their mind
about what is important?

Changing our mind about what is important
is the solution 
to all of our problems today.
Every day.

The right kind of meditation practice
is about changing our mind about what is important.

Sitting in emptiness, stillness and silence
is a shift in emphasis
regarding what is important.

Allowing things to arise of their own accord
is so different
from forcing our will for the world upon the world.

"Thy will not mine be done,"
when the "thy" is simply the drift of circumstances,
the flow of life,
what needs to happen here/now,
and getting out of the way
in order that what needs to happen
is allowed to happen,
is the grounding foundation
of all that is meet and right.

Joseph Campbell has a wonderful meditation
on Carl Jung's term "Active Imagination,"
where he says,
"If  you take in some traditional image proposed to you by your own religious tradition, or your own society's religious lore, proposing it to yourself for active imagination, without any strict game rules defining the sort of thoughts you must bear in mind in relation to it, letting your own psyche enjoy and develop it (carrying you away into thoughts and images that arise spontaneously, of their own accord--JD), you may find yourself running into imageries, experiences, and amplifications that do not fit into the patterns of the tradition in which you have been trained. What are you going to do about that? Are you going to let yourself go, following your own activated imagination? Or, are you going to cut the run short at some critical point?"

Are we going to go with what needs to happen,
or stick with someone's idea of what is supposed to happen?
Are we going to trust ourselves to the inner thrust of our life,
or impose our will and wants on the world around us,
killing ourselves or someone else
when things don't go our way?

–0–

The joy for me is found
walking/driving through the world,
eating in the world,
being here/now in the quiet of early morning,
but not so much in the grind of heavy traffic.

I would enjoy a chat with Henry David Thoreau
and Black Elk and Chief Seattle...
and being close to water...

Away from crowds of any kind,
and noise,
and complexity,
drama,
trauma...

I enjoy the pleasure of my own company
in any setting
that doesn't include bores
(Winston Churchill said,
"A bore is someone who robs us of our solitude
without providing us with companionship").

And too many people talk
without having anything to say.
If you find me stuck in a reunion of any kind,
rescue me with an invitation to the desert bar.

I am re-reading Joseph Campbell's Thou Art That,
and finding forgotten delights on practically 
every page.

And I am reminded again that seeing is a function
of how we look, that what we see is a reflection 
of how we see, and that we cannot get away from 
how we see in order to see anything without tampering 
with it, shaping it, "reading things into it,"
in significant ways.

So the observer tampers with what is observed
in the process/act of observing it.
And we cannot see/know anything
apart from our projections/assumptions/conjectures
about it.

How we perceive the world colors what we perceive
about the world,
and we have no idea what we are talking about
when we say anything.
Knowing that requires us to take everything we say
"with a grain of salt."

Keep a salt shaker handy at all times,
for what you say 
and for what others say to you.

–0–

Jesus is the archetypal human being,
doing the right thing,
at the right time 
in the right place and way,
time after time.

So was Betty White,
Helen Wolfe,
Iris Dement,
Dolly Parton
and thousands more
through the ages.

And we all have shown 
flashes and sparks of Jesus
here and there
over the course of our life,
doing things exactly as they
needed to be done.

Rising to the occasion,
surprising everyone
including ourselves.

The surgery center
where my cataract surgery was done
is filled with people being Jesus,
with a team of people
who know what their job is 
and do it as it needs to be done
in the way it needs to be done every day.

When we live our life as it needs us to live it,
we are Jesus incarnated then and there.
Jesus couldn't do better.

Are you soaking up 
what I'm pouring out here?

Being Jesus is as easy
as doing what's called for
in the moment unfolding before us,
with nothing in it for us,
beyond the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it,
knowing no one could do it better.

We all could do it 
in each situation as it arises,
if we came into the moment
out of the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

It's automatic, instantaneous, 
natural.

It's the flow of life and being
in time and place, here and now.

Spontaneous, unplanned, unthought.

Even turtles do it.
And sea urchins.
Butterflies and apple trees...

And you,
and me.

–0–

The anesthesiologist, the nurses and the surgeon
who took care of my cataract surgery
did their jobs better than Jesus could have done them,
and the same thing applies to all the other
medical staff in the surgery center,
and to all the people everywhere
who are caring for people.

It is the Jesus thing, 
and all of us are capable of being Jesus
in the way we treat other people.
There is nothing to it.
Caring treatment happens all the time.

Jesus is among us in those who care for one another.
It is never any more complicated than that.

Surgery went fine. 
I have a plastic protector taped over my eye,
and can't get it wet for a week.
Try taking a shower without getting an eye wet.
So it's come down to the dreary details,
and when it's done it will be done,
and the new will have come
and the old will have passed away
and then we do the other eye
and repeat the process.

And I get to spend time with Jesus throughout it.
The good along with the bad. 

–0–

"God's will" is an interesting concept,
and it applies to everything that
"Amazing coincidence" would cover as well.

It also opens the way to the Grande Paradox of Life:
Everything is coincidental and nothing is.
Everything is a matter of chance and nothing is.

We walk two paths at the same time
and live with a foot in two worlds at once.
We are the bridge between transcendent reality
(Also called "The Mystery" [or "The Great Mystery"],
or "The Tao," or "The Totality," or "God,")
and personal experience
(Birth defects, accidents, wars, earthquakes, etc.),
as we try to put the experience of transcendent reality
together with the idea of ALS with the idea of "a loving God,"
for example.

And, as we look back over our life,
with all of the wrong turns,
dead ends,
disappointments,
wins and losses,
etc.
it appears that there is a thread
of cause and effect running through
all the events and experiences
that lead us to conclude
"everything worked together to bring me right here
right now,"
and "If that had not happened, 
that wouldn't have,
and that wouldn't have..."
and here I am!"

It all had to be just what it was 
to produce here/now.
And that looks like a plan,
and that implies a planner,
and "Anything can happen,
but nothing can go wrong."

But if something else had happened,
at the end, looking back, 
we would say, "Nothing can go wrong."

Yet, in truth, the end of the dinosaurs 
was quite wrong for the dinosaurs, etc.
And slavery and the genocide of indigenous people
was/is the highest form of wrong there is--
no matter what a distant outcome might be.

This is the thing about outcomes:
they never end.
Cause and effect is a false phrase
because the effects become causes
with more effects,
and things spin out in a good/bad/evil
blend so that nothing accurate can be said
about anything when everything is taken into account.

Things "just are,"
and they are good and bad and evil
depending on our point of view
throughout time.

Point of view/perspective/impression/judgment
is no way to evaluate/designate good/bad/evil
Good/bad/evil is always good for whom?
Bad for whom? Evil for whom? When? How?

Things just are
and whether they are good or not
depends on the narrow outcome we are using
to make the estimation.
Looked at from our point of view,
it appears to be "a miracle" 
that things worked out as they did.
Looked at from other points of view
(That of Native Americans, or African Americans, say),
and the outcome has a different value attached.

And "God's will" is impossible to declare
because it all is still being "worked out,"
and there is no end to the configuration 
of possibilities,
and no results are ever complete and final.

It is all process in the making,
chaos creating chaos
when looked at from far-enough away,
like galaxies being born
and black holes devouring other galaxies
eternally and forever. Amen.

–0–

Worldviews have to change over the course of our life.
We cannot see how we have always seen,
and certainly not how our ancestors have have seen,
and not even as the people we spend most of our time with see,
and expect to be able to see
what we are looking at
and comprehend what it means
and know what is called for
and do what needs to be done in response
here/now
from one situation to the next
all our life long.

We have to develop our ability to see our seeing early on,
and to ask the right questions in response:
How do I know that the way I see is the way to see?
How many different ways of seeing are there?
How does the way I see keep me from seeing?
What makes me think that the way I say things are
is the way things are?
How often have I changed my mind about what is important?
How often have the people around me changed their mind
about anything?
Who are the people I/We disagree with most vehemently?
What can they show me about what I am not seeing?
What would happen if I adopted as a basic principle,
"All people are entitled to their own point of view"?
And began to exemplify it by talking to other people 
about how they see things?
And why that way and not some other way instead?
And probing/exploring how some way they see
clashes with other ways they see--
and do the same thing with me and the way I see?
And allowing one question to lead to another
all my life long
no matter where it takes me
or what it means for the way I live my life?

–0–

I am going to have cataract surgery on my right eye tomorrow, and that may impact my writing schedule, which may mean that I write later tomorrow, or, maybe not at all. My absence should be only one day at the most, and then again in two weeks when we go for my left eye. In the meantime, fare well, question everything, “see” you soon, and better than ever!