Finding our way to The Way one situation at a time. I don't know how great it will be, but I expect it will be interesting, and I look forward to it going on past all reason because wonder is just that way. Are you coming or not?
Think of your idea of The Unforgivable Sin. Got it? Good. I don't have a single example, but multiple ones. Homosexuality, Being transgender, having had or performing an abortion, Rape, murder, ... it goes on and on for me.
And you? Where you are concerned (Because I have already done it, and do it repeatedly each time I hear MAGAites decry some immigrant misdoing) take your idea of The Unforgivable Sin in hand and lay it at the feet of the Prodigal Son's Father.
And don't be swayed by the protest, "But he repented and asked for forgiveness!" Because, if you read the text, the Father cuts short his son's memorized "confession," with, "Get out of here with your litany of remorse and contrition! That has no place here! You were lost and now you are found! You were dead, but now you are alive! Welcome to the joy of your Father!" (Or words to that effect).
The Father of the Prodigal Son puts to rest eternally the need to repent and the need for any redemption and atonement ever by anyone, no matter what. Which is exactly Jesus' point.
We are not bound by our sin! We are freed by our recognition of the true nature of the Father, who will not allow anything we do to stand between us and the full embrace of the truth of who we are and what we are to be about: seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, doing, being who we need to be in each situation as it arises in perceiving what's what and what is called for here, now, in doing what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, no matter what forever. No. Matter. What. Forever.
We are free from sin--as free as the Prodigal Son--through all that remains of time. Allow it to be so because it is so eternally.
DUCD Dune Walker? (About 1/3 the way up the first dune, casting a faint shadow to the left. She passed me some timebefore I took the picture. Duh. The Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley National Park, California
We have to wait some things out. Trump and the MAGA madness, for instance. Just think how long they waited to undo "Liberty and Justice for All"!!! They have been hating Truth!, Justice!, Freedom!, Equality! from the very beginning. That is 249 years. Anger, Hatred, Fear, Greed have been mostly underground all that time. Now it is bursting out all over everywhere. I do not foresee a quick return to human rights and privileges. The worst is yet to come. In the meantime, what? We have to shift into survival mode and find our way to finding a way through the madness of a world without moral bearings.
I am a big fan of Emptiness, Stillness, Silence (One thing not three), because dropping into the silence restores us to the Psychic foundation of all of life. The Psyche is the source of life and the ground of our being restored to life and wellbeing. Living water in a parched and withered waste land.
Being quiet returns us to the Source and to the Force of intuition, hope, purpose and direction. We are one with Jesus in his work of reviving, restoring, reforming the Judaism of his day. We have to realize the nature of that work and consciously, deliberately take our place in the long line of those who have shouldered the burden and put their shoulders to the Sisyphean task of rolling the rock up hill and down hill day after day in doing what is called for and what must be done no matter what because that is who we are and that is what is asked of us, here, now, forever.
Pamlico Sound Sunset — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina
What would be helpful, here, now? I think honest conversation straight from the heart means the most to me all of the time, but it is not easy to come by.
Where would you go to find it? It's mostly trite repetition where I live. Yesterday and the day before replayed today.
Truth seems to be what everyone says is true without much in the way of personal experience or individual reflection evident anywhere at all ever.
Ask people what they know is true and trustworthy out of their own experience and they will act like they have never thought about it.
Truth is mostly hearsay.
The truth of our own life is difficult to talk about. Too personal. Too painful. Better to stick with truisms and one-liners. Or say nothing at all.
Johnson Creek Fall — Beaufort County, South Carolina
If we didn't want anything, how would we know what to do? How do we know what is called for? What determines our action on the field of action? What guides our boat on its path through the sea?
It is possible to remove wanting from our life. Why would we do that? To know what is called for, and to do what needs to be done-- whether or not we want to to it, or want it to be done.
Live without wanting and see what happens. What impulses will direct our living with wanting out of the way? If we have no interest in the outcome, what will determine how we live?
Death Valley Photographers — Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, California
We find our way by asking the questions that beg to be asked and saying the things that cry out to be said. Reflection, realization and recognition lead the way. And we find our way to where we need to be, doing what is called for, day by day, all the way.
The answers reside in the questions that expose previous answers as the frauds they are ("Every answer is the step on the way to better questions"). And knowing what we need to know leads us to asking what we need to ask, and doing what we need to do, in each situation as it arises, all our life long.
What needs to be asked, known, seen, done here, now? That's all we need to know and do here, now, in every here, now that comes along. Being students of the moment makes us students for life. Moment to moment, all the way.
This image brings to mind the quote from Captain Jack Sparrow, "It's the pirate's life for me, Gibbs, I have no say in the matter, savvy?"
That speaks for me of cameras and photography. I had to be at this place above Death Valley almost twenty years ago. The things about which we "have no say in the matter," are the things we cherish and serve because we must. And those are the things that guide our boat on its path through the sea.
I fell in love with a 35mm single lens reflex camera in the mid-sixties and have belonged to photography ever since. That is a psychic phenomenon of life-transforming proportions, and is the basis of much that passes for religious practice, and belongs to the sphere of the God beyond theology.
The conflux of the two Gods, the God of theology and the God of psychic phenomenon, has been a source of confusion and bewilderment from the beginning of human life, with us trying to make sense of our life experience in the grip of the psychological forces of projection and superstition--representing a powerful blend and the source of emotions quite beyond our comprehension and control--which we disregard and dismiss to our own loss and dismay over the course of our life.
When Psyche wants to have a word with us, it would behove us to listen. If we have a dream that repeats itself it represents a Psychic urgency to have our attention, and we would be wise to sit with the dream to explore and reflect on until realization dawns.
Mission San Diego de Alcala — San Diego, California
All churches everywhere are enigmas, revealing and concealing at the same time, being the truth that denies the truth, right and wrong simultaneously. We have to know what we are dealing with when we are dealing with the church. God and Not-God, here, now, all at once, all of the time.
We have to know what we are dealing with when we are dealing with the church (And everything else as well). Meister Eckart put the church in its place with this telling remark: "The final leave-taking is leaving God (the God of theology) for God (The Psyche, the Source, The Foundation of all things).
God is Psychic reality, not a spiritual being.
So when Jesus said, "The Father and I are one," and "When you have seen me you have seen the Father," he was talking about God as Psychic reality. Everybody else thought he was talking about the God of theology. We can see how that might confuse things from the start. However, once we have the "Rosetta Stone," and know how to see what we look at, it all falls into place, and we get it--and comes to life the words of the poet (T.S. Eliot in "Little Gidding") "We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time."
And so, we have to know how to see what we look at, and come awake in the emptiness, stillness, silence, as those who know what's what for the first time.
Zen Moon 04/11/2009 — Price Lake, Grandfather Mountain, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, NC
Blue seems to be my color of choice. The woman who owned the frame shop I used in my early days told me, "Jim, your photographs will never sell because there is too much blue in them." She was right, and there is still too much blue in them.
Taking photos that sell when it means not taking the ones we need to take because something within has a yen for the ones we take is to betray something within, and the is the wrongest thing to do ever.
We have to listen to ourselves and do what needs to be done in the service of what guides our boat on its path though the sea.
We are here to serve That Which Knows What's What And What Needs To Be Done About What Is Called For Here, Now, No Matter What Forever. Regardless of what's selling.
Sundown at Silver Lake — Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Ocracoke Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina
I’m thinking Psyche is something all life shares/has in common. All living things are one in this way. Consciousness is more or less aware of that connection. Emptiness/stillness/silence (one thing not three), or meditation/reflection, enhances/deepens/ expands that connection, and we work together in the service of what is called for here, now, for the mutual good of all concerned.
I think Native Americans and all indigenous people could teach us much along these lines, sensing, feeling, knowing when/what is Yes and when/what is No. With Wanting way down on the list of important things.
We want to have our way when we need to want to do what is called for no matter what it means for us personally. The personal and the corporate have to be re-thought. Whose good is served by the good we call good? Psyche has an idea of the good that is contrary to the good most of the world thinks of as good, and so the need to re-think “the Good,” and to re-orient ourselves in the service of “the Good,” which Psyche represents and would have us serve for the good of the whole.
What is good? What is not good? What makes us think so? How do we know? The culture has to take the lead in helping us consider and live in light of these questions.
The church could lead the way here. It would transform the church and the culture, which is the essence of the Counter Culture idea that never seemed to gather any momentum, but which is the core problem in the modern world.
Aligning ourselves with the Tao has always been the problem. The Buddha’s “Peaceful abiding here, now” has always been the key. Our work is realization, recognition, realignment with the Tao in all times and places. And we only want what we want, which is our way NOW.
It is up to us individually to be what we need to be in the time and place of our living and let nature take its course, as the Tao Te Ching advises and has advised through the ages.
Egret Ballet 05 — This series of six images was created at a rookery populated only by White Egrets on Avery Island, Louisiana in 1915
Wanting, particularly wanting my way NOW!, is the bane of all times. Those who know, know that what is called for here, now, is the most important thing any time, any place.
The Tao nails it: Doing the right thing in the right way at the right time in the right place. That is, doing the thing that is called for, here, now. Doing that the way it needs to be done is the solution to all of our problems, all of our suffering, all of our misery, angst, anguish throughout time. Jesus and the Buddha couldn't do better than that.
Do what is called for in the right spirit and the right frame of mind, and all will be well.
Owl Sees Owl — Barred Owl at the Bog Garden, Greensboro, North Carolina, 1912
Meister Eckhardt said, "The final leave-taking is leaving God for God." He meant leaving the God of theology for the God of Psychic dimensions. Dying is the only way of settling the argument between Orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism--between those who believe they know and those who know they know.
It's a ridiculous standoff between opposing points of view, but interpretation is everything, and the best we can do is to make our peace with ourselves in light of our degree of comfort with the alternatives that lie before us.
Sitting quietly before the alternatives and seeing which has a more compelling draw is my recommendation in that thinking about it gets us nowhere and being moved by the unknown mover is all we are left with.
I like the freedom from sin/salvation/forgiveness/redemption/atonement/doctrine/dogma and enjoy the felt-sense of guidance and direction, the wonder of inner peace stemming from knowing and doing what is called for in each situation as it arises, and the confirmation of the Buddha's discovery of "Peaceful abiding here, now."
Enjoying the option of personal authority is also a plus for me, and I find joy in knowing the satisfaction that comes from knowing and allowing nature to take its course from here to wherever we will be when we get there.
Egret Ballet 04 — This series of six images was created at a rookery populated only by White Egrets on Avery Island, Louisiana in 1915
Caring about the things we have no business caring about is the root of all of our problems today. It is about being right about our priorities, our ratios, and our duties.
Our duties need the most clarity. The "Thou Shalts and Shalt nots" can lead us in a merry chase if we take someone else's word regarding what's important and how do they know. My best advice here is "Don't care about what someone else tells you to care about--care about what YOU care about, and allow that to show what is important and what is not. Run periodic importance reviews to make sure we are aligned with our inner sense of what matters tells you. It is easy to drift away from what we know is important to us. So, we do Duty Checks from time to time to make sure what matters actually matters, and that we care about the things that truly need to be cared about.
Asking "Who says so?" and "How do they know?" Helps keep us synched to our own authority in all matters related to us and our sphere of legitimate concern.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 