01

Returning to the silence
in a regular,
routine,
rhythmic kind of way,
establishes us in a practice
incorporating emptiness
and stillness,
along with the silence
in establishing
and maintaining a connection
with our original nature
and the virtues that are ours
from the beginning--
equipping us to meet
each day's deliveries
in the strengths
that are ours to use
doing what needs to be done
in each situation as it arises,
day by day.

We have what in takes in the gifts
that are ours to use,
but we have to take the time
to remember that
in order to avail ourselves of it,
and draw from it what we need
for the work of being who we are
within the context and circumstances 
of the day.

The right kind of silence,
stillness and emptiness
link us with the resources
and the resolve
for meeting what waits
along the way,
and serves as a wellspring
ever-flowing throughout our life.

–0–

02

We get to our original nature
by being clear about what is "me"
and what is "not me,"
what is our "primary mask,"
and what is our "antithetical mask,"
what is authentic about us
and what is affectation.

What is "just us,"
and what is "the me we wish we were"?

Our authentic self
is awash in our original nature,
and reeks of the virtues
that are ours from birth,
exhibiting "the face that was ours
before our grandparents were born."

Our authentic self
waits for us to relax ourselves
into all that "we always have been,
and what we will be."

Why the resistance? 
Why even any hesitation?

Relaxing is being natural.
And in itself alone,
adds years of congeniality 
and cordiality to our life.

Why wouldn't we go for that
the rest of the way?

It is the truest thing
there is about us.
Why would we run from that?

The Gateless Gate reminds us
that we are only a slight perspective shift
away!

–0–

01

The silent places call our name.
Speak to our hearts.
With a message from our soul.

Shh!
Listen!
Past sound
For what emerges,
appears,
arises
out of nowhere
to evoke our action
within the field of action
with the right deed
at the right time,
in the right place,
in the right way,
leaving us with the 
wonder of its passing,
and the longing
for its hoped-for return. 

–0–

02

The Wasteland meets Beulah Land,
as it always does,
at the edge of the coin.

It is perspective all the way down.
Now we see it,
now we don't.

We think it is like this,
and it turns out to be like that.

We know exactly what we need to know,
and we don't know what we need to know,
because we don't know what we know.

This sounds "foreign, an enigma, a veil,"
until you stop thinking about it,
and just see that it is so.

We argue about what's what
as though it matters what we say it is.

What size shoe do you wear?
I wear a 10.5 or an 11,
depending on the shoe.
Should we argue about which shoe size,
yours or mine,
is the right shoe size?

How is that different 
from arguing which religion,
including no religion at all,
is the right religion?

Or which political party
is the right political party?
Or which point of view 
is the right point of view?

My shoe size depends on the shoe!
I can't even be right about 
my shoe size!
Only the shoe knows for sure!

So, what am I doing arguing about anything?
What are you doing arguing about anything?
IT IS PERSPECTIVE ALL THE WAY DOWN!
And even that is a matter of perspective!

We find our own way,
knowing that our way actually finds us
if we let it,
and we have no business telling it
what it ought to be.

Our place is to listen,
to look,
and to go with what calls our name,
no matter what that might be.

Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss!"
He didn't say it would make us rich,
successful,
the envy of the world.

If money, success and the envy of others
are our bliss,
we are fooling ourselves
and missing the boat.
The boat to the farther shore.
And there is no farther shore.
And there is no boat.

There is only here and now
and what's next.
What flows from here and now.
What calls our name?
We have to be right about it.
Nothing matters more than that.

What we think is important
carries us to the Wasteland
or to Beulah Land.
They both are right here, right now,
depending on our perspective.

Everything depends on that.

–0–

03

Jesus did not say,
"Do what makes you happy!"

Jesus said,
"Do what is worth living for--
and die for what you believe in!"

He actually is quoted as saying,
"If you would be my friends,
pick up your cross daily,
and follow me."

He was going to die.
He was going to die
for what he believed in.

It had nothing to do with atonement,
forgiveness, redemption...
It had everything to do with integrity.

Jesus lived to be who he was
even if it killed him,
and he calls everybody to live like that.

The cross in those days was not a trinket,
a tattoo,
a decoration,
a pendant,
graffiti,
or a lucky (as if) charm.
It was an instrument of death.
Period.
To pick up your cross was to die
in the service of what you believe in.

What is worth living for
is worth dying for.

What are you living for?
Will you die for it?
Doing it?
Being it?

Is money something to die for?

What is really yours to do?
To live for?
To die doing?

If we are going to be right about anything,
let it be that.

May we all die doing what is ours to do!
And may we do it all our life long!

–0–

01

Mature individuals 
are the salvation of the world.

We should make maturity--
not money--
the primary goal of life.

My paternal grandparents
(Sophie and Silas)
were the most mature people I knew
growing up,
and the list hasn't gotten much longer
over the full course of my life.

Everyone seems to be awash
in desire, ambition, fear and anxiety,
wanting this and not wanting that,
drama here, drama there,
drama, drama, everywhere...

Where are the rocks,
the anchors,
the foundations
and still points?

Who can bear well the pain of life?

Who can live without anger
and knee-jerk reactivity?

Where are the deep flowing rivers?
The safe harbors?
The oases,
sanctuaries,
refuges,
asylums,
havens?

We are lucky to have just one in our life.
What does it take to be one?
How do we become one?

It is a perspective shift
leading to a different way of seeing,
of evaluating,
of responding,
of being at one with ourselves
in accord with our original nature,
unmoved and unmovable
through flood,
earthquake,
wind and fire.

And well within our reach
if we are interested 
in making the effort.

We can practice being grown-up every day.

–0–

02

In what ways do you need
help with your life?

Reducing the noise,
complexity,
drama?

Finding the right kind of 
emptiness,
stillness,
silence?

Trusting yourself 
to your original nature
and the virtues that
distinguish you
and live within you
as the stone the builder rejects?

Knowing where to draw the lines?

Following the drift of your life?

Doing what the moment calls for?

Asking the questions that beg to be asked
and saying the things that cry out to be said?

Knowing what you know?

Doing what is yours to do?

How do the people closest to you
help you with these tasks?

How do they interfere with them
and make it difficult for you
to even remember what they are?

–0–

01

Knowing where we belong,
and what we belong to,
and where we have no business being--
and being right about it--
are important boundary markers
for our life journey.

Finding our life and living it
is also finding our place and staying with it.

Knowing what's what 
and what's called for
in each situation as it arises,
is knowing what our virtues are
and where they will be well-received,
and where they will be entirely unwelcome.
Is knowing who our people are,
and who they are not.

It is said that alcoholics
can spot one another in any crowd.
How do we know things like that?
How do we not-know it?
How can we fail to know what we know?

Instinct and intuition have to be nurtured,
honored, respected, trusted, utilized and relied on
all along the way.

We know more than we know we know.
We have to do a better job
of paying attention.

–0–

02

The key to balance and harmony
is living in accord
with our original nature,
serving and sharing the virtues/gifts/genius/daemon
that are ours from birth
in doing what needs to be done,
when, where, and how it needs to be done,
in each situation as it arises,
all our life long.

This is also called "doing what we love,"
and "following our bliss,"
even when we aren't in the mood
and there is nothing in it for us
beyond the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it.

This "flips the switch,"
"turns the light around,"
transforms our perspective
and is equivalent to
passing through the Gateless Gate
of the Tao/Zen tradition
(Zen is what happened
when Buddhism met Taoism,
and is far more Taoist than Buddhist)--
by changing our motivation/guidance/direction
from knowing and finding and serving
what we want,
to being and doing who we are.

And that changes everything.

This is religion without theology,
and truth without doctrine--
and we have to go no further
in validating its validity
than the right kind of emptiness
(The right kind being empty of everything,
all fear/desire/anxiety/duty,
like the space between breaths
when all you are aware of is breathing),
stillness and silence.

It is the foundation of enlightenment
(Which is merely knowing what's what
and what needs to be done about it,
in response to it,
moment by moment)
and the boat to the Farther Shore,
and the key to being here, now.

And I'm glad to be able to point the way
to the Way,
which is also the Way.
It only takes seeing
to see that it is so.
See?

–0–

03

It comes down to seeing what's what
and doing what needs to be done about it
with our original nature
and the virtues that came packed in our DNA.

Seeing what's what is the tricky part.

We only know what we think we know,
which is a sprawling collection
of assumptions, presumptions, inferences, projections,
conjectures, surmises, fancies, suspicions,
theories, suppositions, extrapolations
and hearsay--
with only the vaguest kind of connection
with What Is To Be Known.

S. I. Hayakawa popularized Alfred Korzybski's
work in General Semantics,
and brought into focus the questions
that beg to be asked
about everything we think we know--
and never caught the attention
of the Adam's and Eve's among us,
within us,
on their way to certainty, conviction
and self-assurance
regarding the absolute correctness and value
of our personal opinions.

And here we are,
Fascists and Woke
relentlessly attacking one another's point of view
without ruthlessly (Or even absent-mindedly)
examining our own.

What makes us think the way we think
is the way to think?
How did we come to think the way we think?
Who do we think knows more than we do
about what we think?
How do we know they know what they are talking about?
How much of what we know hangs on the 
conviction and personality of who told us what we know?
Etc.

Seeing what's what is the tricky part.

–0–

01

What are you doing
when you lose all track of time,
and it could be yesterday
or tomorrow,
and you aren't sure of the month?

You need to do more of that.

And, if you don't know
what I'm talking about,
you need to completely revamp
your relationship with yourself
and with your life,
take up the practice
of the right kind of emptiness
(The emptiness between breaths
when you are concentrating 
on your breathing),
stillness
and silence,
and follow your inclinations
and impulses more often.

–0–

02

Living at the mercy of our 
curiosity,
intrigued by the incongruous,
the out-of-place,
the incompatible,
the strange,
obtuse,
opaque,
foreign,
an enigma,
a veil--
yet, somehow, attractive,
inviting,
engaging,
compelling,
fascinating...
is our hope
and our salvation.

–0–

01

"We are who we always have been,"
said Carl Jung.
"And who we will be."

It's a declaration discounting
the value of free will,
and dismissing the prospect of progress
and human development.

But it affirms the resilience 
of the rhizome,
and speaks of the hope
that we might yet find and be who we are,
in the old Taoist sense
of being true to our original nature,
and to the virtues/daemon/genius/gifts/etc.
that are built into our DNA--
realizing the perfection that is pre-existant
in the genome of each of us,
lying latent, waiting for the right combination
of external stimuli 
to call it to life
and enable our response to the time and place
of our living
that is just right,
exactly what is needed,
then, there and how.

If only we get out of the way
and assist its coming forth,
the way the Buddha and Jesus,
Socrates and Gandhi (etc.) did 
in meeting the times that were theirs to meet. 

We determine the meaning of Jung's statement
in our own case
by the way we live our life out
in the time left for living. 

–0–

02

Jesus said, "Look for those 
who can hear what you have to say,
and don't waste your time with 
those who cannot."

Those who can hear what we have to say
are those who already know the truth of it
before we begin to talk.

Resonance is the path to enlightenment--
which is never more than seeing
what is right in front of us.

But it flows naturally
from person to person, 
and from person to place
and to time.

It cannot be artificially produced
or created.
It is either there or not.
When you "don't feel it,"
move on.

You are looking for where you belong,
for what you belong to,
and that is a resonance thing,
not a "sales-pitch thing."

When you do not resonate
with the person talking,
or with what the person has to say,
move on.

Resonance is as much when and where
as it is what.

We can resonate with something 
at a particular time and place
in our life,
and not resonate with the same thing
at a different time and place.

It all comes down to the chance 
of pace and timing.

We are ready for different things
at different times and places in our life.

And we "can't hurry the river."
We have to wait for the time to be right
before we can hear what is being said
and know what to do about it.

And so, "the circumambulation of the self"
(Carl Jung's term for "individuation,"
another Carl Jung term
for becoming who we are)
takes a lifetime of walking around
our original nature
in an ever narrowing spiral
as we get closer to being who we are,
but we cannot rush it
in a straight line fashion.

We grow into being ourselves 
over the full course of our life.
Nobody--not Carl Jung and not Jesus--
can speed things up for us.

We hear and see in our own time,
in our own way,
waiting to resonate with 
what is being said and done,
that we might wake up 
and come to our senses.

In the meantime,
we keep walking,
keep listening,
keep looking,
waiting for something 
to "catch our eye,"
or to "strike a cord" with us
that we have always known to be so,
waiting to see/hear it
to realize what is forever so.

–0–

03

The sin of Adam and Eve
had nothing to do with eating forbidden fruit
(Give me a break!),
and everything to do with looking for a better deal--
and being more than willing to sacrifice 
their integrity
to find/have it.

THAT is the propensity present in
every one of us
that prevents us from seeing what's what
and doing what needs to be done about it.

"What's in it for us?"
cuts us off from our original nature
(Think "original nature,"
not "original sin"!),
and delivers us to the Wasteland of Our Discontent.

The profit motive is the only sin.

We find our way back to Eden
by "dying" to our own wishes and desires
for more than we have any business having,
and living with filial devotion and liege loyalty to 
our original nature,
and fealty to the virtues/gifts/genius/daemon/etc.
that came with us from the womb
("The face that was ours before we were born"),
and living to serve and to share 
what we have to give
in doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done,
because it needs to be done,
with nothing in it for us
beyond the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it.

Living like that saves the world.

That's what Jesus came to say.

He also said, "Do it daily and pass it along!"

–0–

04

Taking the Sermon on the Mount,
the Parable of the Prodigal,
the Parable of the Good Samaritan
and the bit in Matthew 25
about "Inasmuch as you have done it--
and failed to do it--
to one of the least of my brothers 
and sisters, 
you have done it, and failed to do it, unto me,"
as the summation of what Jesus had to say,
we can summarize it even further in this:

"You--YOU--are the neighbor! Be one!"

The Buddha said the same thing. 
And Gandhi. 
And Hafiz. 
And Rumi. and the prophets, and Eddy Cantor…

It is the final solution.

–0–

01

Integrity requires
that we live to be who we are.

That we live aligned with that which is
deepest, truest, best about us--
serving and sharing the virtues,
genius,
daemon,
spirit,
shtick,
gifts,
etc.
that came with us from the womb.

That we are right about what is important
and live in ways that express it,
exhibit it,
honor it,
revere it
with devotion and loyalty
in all of our coming and going.

In order to do this,
and live in this way,
we have to reduce the noise,
complexity
and drama
in our life,
and increase the emptiness, 
stillness
and silence.

Developing and maintaining 
our relationship with what matters most
and with who we are,
and getting the two together
within the context and circumstances of our life
in each situation as it arises,
day by day.

It is never any more difficult than this,
and this requires intention,
attention,
awareness
and focus.

Comprising the work
of being an original human being.

–0–

02

Our original nature is packed 
with just what we need
to meet the moment as it arises,
and do what needs to be done
when, where and how it needs to be done
for no reason other than it needs to be done.

How long has it been 
since you did that?
Using only the virtues 
that came with you from the womb?

Just you.
Just as you are.
As one thus come.
Without motive.
Without agenda.
Without plan.
Without design.
With nothing to gain.

How long has it been?

What are you waiting for?

–0–

03

Pay attention to the things you do
for no reason,
without thinking about it,
or being able to explain,
defend,
justify,
excuse it
on rational,
understandable,
grounds.

Where did the motive for that come from?
What was the origin of the action?
Spontaneous,
automatic,
natural,
instinctive,
intuitive
responses to our environment
come straight from our psyche/soul.

From the source of who we are
and who we are asked to be.

From the heart of life and being.

At the very bottom of it all,
we know what we are doing.
We know what needs to be done.
We know when and where and how to do it.

But something gets in the way.

Call it "The Profit Motive."

We live in the service of the gain,
the benefit,
the profit,
the advantage...

What's in it for us?

Ask somebody what they want,
and it is always the same thing
for everybody:
"MY WAY NOW!"

What does wanting know?

Billionaires have no reason for not having
"MY WAY NOW!"
How many of them are happy,
well-grounded,
content and at peace with themselves and their life?

MacKenzie Scott is the only one I can think of.

The rest are all are striving to not pay taxes
and to gain more of the advantages,
and to be wealthier than anyone else
in the Group of the Rich and Lost.

The Wasteland is home to them all.

So, don't have to know what you are doing.
Don't have to be smart.
Don't have to be contriving some outcome.

Live to see what you do next.
What you do now.
Without having to have anything
come from it.

"Just because."
"For no reason."
"Just as we are."
"As one thus come."
Fresh from the womb.
Innocent as a lamb.
Doing just what needs to be done.
Without knowing why.
Or caring about it.

Why not?

–0–

04

We have to devote ourselves
to a practice that brings us forth
if we want to see.

I no sooner say that
than you begin to think,
"What would that be?"
Stop it.
You will never think of it.

If we want to see,
we have to move beyond 
the boundaries of thinking.

Look around.
Everything you see
is the result of thinking.
THIS is what thinking can do.
THIS is all thinking can do.
The best thinking realizes
thinking isn't the way,
and stops thinking.

When we stop thinking,
we open ourselves
to that which is beyond thinking.

The world beyond thinking is the world
we call "The Unconscious,"
because we are not conscious of it.

It is the world the ancient peoples
called "The Invisible World,"
because they could not see it
using their eyes.
But, they could see it using 
the eyes of their heart.

The Invisible World is the foundation,
the ground,
the source
of the Visible World.

We are to live in this world
of visible, concrete, normal,
apparent reality,
as extensions,
expressions,
evidence
of that world of invisible,
intangible, 
immaterial,
unapparent reality.

The good ideas come from nowhere.
The bad ideas come from
the rejection of the good ideas.
From having a better idea.

Our story is the story 
of the Garden of Eden.
The Story of the Better Idea.

It has never worked out so well,
but that doesn't stop us,
or even slow us down.
We know what it takes.
We know where True Value is found.
It is always More Of What Has Never Been Enough!

And no one can talk us out of it!
So, here we are.
Having to devote ourselves 
to a practice that will bring us forth
in order that we might see.
And we can't think it up.

We have to empty ourselves 
of all fear/desire (even the desire to be empty)/
anger/hatred/jealously/duty-dharma/etc.,
and wait in the stillness 
and the silence
to see what arises/emerges/appears
out of nowhere
to call us, inspire us, compel us
to take up the practice that brings us forth.

"Darkness within darkness--
the gateway to mystery"
(Lao Tzu).

That's the Gateless Gate he's talking about.

–0–

01

A life worth living 
is the life we are here for. 
Where do we find it?
It is best to let the life find us!

Like "the wand chooses the wizard,"
our life chooses us.

Where have we said "No,"
is the question.
What are we saying "No," to right now?

And where have we said, "Yes, but"?
And what are we saying, "Yes, but" to right now?

We are "spread too thin,"
as the old saying goes.
We are living too many lives at once.
We are in a spin
with too much to do
and not enough time in which to get it done,
and none to even visit the Loo.

So what to do?

Work stopping into our schedule!
Take up the practice of
the right kind of emptiness,
stillness
and silence,
and turn off,
tune out,
shut down
every day
for as often 
and as long as we can bear it,
until we begin to look forward to it,
and then increase the regularity
and the time spent
being quiet.

–0–

02

Alex Carrel said that 
we are the sculptor and we are the stone.

That being the case,
what do we need preachers for?
Or gurus?
Or mentors?
When do we call in Obi-wan Kenobi?
Or tell Yoda a thing or two?

When does anyone in that group
ever quit asking questions?
Or examining themselves?

If you said, "Never!",
you're making my point for me
and I can go sit by the fire,
and look out the window.

(We see everything,
looking out the window)

Point is, we are our own critic.
Our own guide.
The pilot of our own boat
on its path through the sea.

Who guides the birds
on their path through the sky?
The birds find their own way
to where they are going!
If a bird can do it,
we can, too!

If we keep the two commndments
of the Way:
Ask all the questions that beg to be asked!
Say all the things that cry out to be said!

That is all there is to it!

No one ever lived in accord with the Tao
without doing those two things
every step along the Way.

That is all the advice and guidance
anyone needs for the Journey,
and everybody discovers it
for themselves right out of the gate
(That's the Gateless Gate I'm speaking of--
and they discover that, too).

–0–

01

The old Alchemists had a slogan,
"One book opens another."
We might think of it as
"This leads to that."

It is important to look for the clues
in seeking to find our path
and follow it "in accord with the Tao,
the Way, The Path.

What does where we are
on our own personal path
seem to be suggesting,
implying,
intimating
as a natural next step?

Move in that direction
and see what happens.

Milton Erickson (Not the educator,
the hypno-therapist) said that
when he was 10 years old,
a strange horse wandered into his yard,
and his father told him to take the horse home.
Milton climbed on the horse's back
and kept him from stopping to eat grass.
The horse took himself home.

Your path is a strange horse.
You will never think your path forward
at any point along the way.
Just don't allow yourself to be distracted
and let the path take you where 
it wants you to go.

–0–

02

What we all are seeking
is how to deal successfully
with what comes our way--
with what our life has brought us--
with our life as it is 
here and now.

We are all looking for 
how to live with what we have 
to live with,
day in and day out,
all our life long.

Denial and entertainment
can only take us so far.
Everything dries up and blows away
after a while.

What can spark us eternally?
What can keep the fire going
day after day,
forever?

Boredom is our bane.
We have to do it again.
Sisyphus has nothing on us!
We have to get up
and start pushing some boulder
again today every day.

Every. Damn. Day.

The things we hate are the things we hate
and they are always there.
Laughing at us.

All of our diversions and distractions
become part of the things we hate,
and we hate the things 
we used to use to escape from
the things we hate.

Sex, drugs and alcohol don't 
do it for us anymore!
Then what???

Oh, SHIT!!!
WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE???

All the little lambs wake up
sooner or later
as night begins to fall,
baahhhing for mama.

Well.

It is never too late
to find what we are looking for.

The Gateless Gate is everywhere,
waiting for us to walk through
by shifting our perspective,
changing our mind,
and seeing,
finally,
what's what
and what needs to be done about it,
with it,
with the virtues/gifts/genius/daemon
that are ours to serve at last,
and share,
in the time left for living.

–0–

03

The Wasteland is the polar opposite of Beulah Land.
We live in one or the other,
or at the still point between the two.

"The still point of the turning world"
(TS Eliot)
is the vantage point,
the viewpoint,
the fulcrum,
the place of seeing--
of seeing our seeing,
and laughing at the absurdity
of ever thinking we see.

"Is it this way or that way?"
Or neither?
Or both?
Or more?

The answer is "It all depends,"
and "Wait and see,"
because "it" is transforming,
shifting, changing, metamorphosisizing
as we watch.

If we both, we all, 
look at the same thing
and see what we look at,
we will see something different--
because of who is doing the looking/seeing.

What we "see"
is an abstraction,
a projection,
an elaboration,
an extension,
of "what is there."

We add to/subtract from
what we look at,
and it "means" something different
to everyone who looks, seeing, thinking they see.

The important thing--
the only thing that matters--
is what we do about it,
because of it,
in response to it.

How we live around it,
because of it.

What becomes of us and our life
in relationship with it.

What we see is meaningless,
no matter what we say about it,
until/unless it impacts our life
in some way,
for better or for worse.

What do we do about it?

Seeing what's what is doing what 
needs to be done about it.

What is called for?
What is it asking for?
What does it require of us?
Demand of us?

How do we respond?

We look and see the Wasteland.
We look and see Beulah Land.
We look and see how our seeing
impacts/transforms/determines/defines
our living, our being,
and take matters into our own hands
at the still point of the turning world
in living toward our understanding of,
our vision of,
what is necessary here and now.

Our perception of what we look at,
of what we see,
transforms us and the world around us,
and shifts as our seeing shifts
in looking at an optical illusion.

External reality is an optical illusion.
So is internal reality.
It is all "in process,"
in motion,
becoming something else as we watch.

We have the power of perception,
which is the power of seeing our seeing
and deciding what to do about it.

What we do because of what we see
identifies us, defines us, brings us forth,
and we become what is important to us
by clarifying what is important
by the way we respond to life events--
by the way we respond to how we see,
interpret, understand, explain, exegete
life events. 

How we live in the world is a reflection of
the way we view the world.
And we determine that by the way
we see our seeing
and choose what to do about it.

And how easily we laugh at the very idea
of knowing what we are doing!

–0–

04

Christians think Jesus died for them, 
to secure their forgiveness 
and get them to heaven 
if they believe he did.

I think that Jesus died for himself 
and the sake of his own integrity 
and that he calls his follows 
to do the same—
to die for what they think is worth living for.

And so his, "If you are coming with me,
pick up your own cross every day,
and live like you mean it,
no matter what!"

Puts a new light on things.
Or, "Turns the light around."

And would give the Christian church
an entirely different orientation,
focus,
direction,
intention,
mission
and reason for being.

Not believing,
but doing.

And not doing what they are told to do,
but doing what they know needs to be done--
doing what they know needs them to do it,
with the virtues, gifts, daemon, genius
that came with them from the womb.

Doing the right thing--
the thing they know to be right--
in the right way,
at the right time,
in the right place,
in each situation as it arises,
all their life long,
for nothing more than the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it. 

That is understanding the old, old story
in a brand new way.

And asks us all to answer for ourselves,
"What is worth living for?"
And, "Are you willing to die for it?"

Puts everything in a different light.
And transforms the world.

A religion that does that
is a religion worth our time.

–0–

01

We get up and do it again.

Enthusiasm for the task
flows from the way we view the task.

What did Sisyphus tell himself every day?

The trick is to not allow the day
and what we have to do in it
to divorce us/cut us off from ourselves.

It is the quality of our relationship
with ourselves
that keeps us in the flow of our life
regardless of the nature of the flow
at any point.

At one with ourselves--
with our original nature
and the virtues/genius/daemon/shtick
that are ours from the start--
enables us to meet the day
looking for the adventure
tucked away in the most unapparent places.

We have our own reasons for meeting the day!
There we find exactly what we need
to bring us forth some more again!

Our virtues/etc. are latent within,
and depend upon our external circumstances
to call them out and develop them 
to their full potential.

We are not here to drink beer on the beach,
or to fritter away our time 
with whatever our favorite pastime has to offer.
Our stuff needs a context to shine--
and we can't tell what that is
until we step into something that demands
what we have to give,
even though we might not know we have it
until we see ourselves in action,
wondering where this came from. 

We meet ourselves in what greets us
when we get out of bed.
Every day is an opportunity to discover
more than we knew yesterday.

We are the adventure we seek,
and we carry ourselves with us
wherever we go!

–0–

02

It is important to have something
that keeps you going.
Everybody has enough of it 
sooner or later,
and passes without a whimper
into that good night.

Everybody dies in their own time--
except for the people who die before their time.
Who die in mid-stride,
with cookies in the oven 
and crumbs on the plate,
doing what needs to be done
with a long string of things 
that need just what they have to offer
stretching out in front of them forever
(Though even they would eventualy
have enough of it
and let what's going go).

We all should be able to live to the point
of letting it go when it is time to go,
and not be forced to live beyond that point.

Jesus and Socrates,
like so many others,
died before their time 
and we all were robbed 
of what might have been our future
with their loss.

We all were robbed of the life
we might have had
because theirs were cut short.

School shooters
and mass murderers,
drunk drivers
and airplane crashes--
or wars coming along
and plagues and pandemics, etc--
wreck the world without ceasing.

We could be excused for grieving
every day
the loss of the day that might have been
with those who aren't there
because they died out of time.

We all stand at the Wailing Wall of History,
bereft and abandoned by the mindless meandering
of time and chance that "happen to us all."

And step into our lives each day,
"anyway, nevertheless, even so,"
to make what we can of it,
to do what we can with it,
in the time that is ours to live
to serve and share the virtues/gifts/daemon/genius
that are ours to express and exhibit
while we still can,
as long as we are able.

May we not quit until we are done!
Around the world!
For always and ever!
Amen! May it be so!

–0–