Category: Main blog

Sunrise 

You can
die for it —
an idea,
or the world. People 

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound 

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But 

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought 

of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun 

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises 

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name? 

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it 

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire. 

~ Mary Oliver ~ 

(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)

Sometimes the most difficult thing to recognize is ourselves in the mirror of those around us, especially in those we find most challenging. This wonderful practice from Fr. Richard Rohr’s blog helps us consider these challenges and find ways to recognize ourselves in the mirrors that surround us.

Practice: Mirroring

Over the past year we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve looked for God’s image and likeness in many forms and places, perhaps some that surprised you: the natural world, human bodies and sexuality, poetry (from the Psalms to rap), justice, economics, politics (yes, spirituality includes politics), other faith traditions, even suffering and death.

Where do you find it hardest to recognize the divine image? Will you trust that this person or being is indwelled by God—who is Love? Because of wounding or ego’s resistance, they may not be actively saying “yes” to and growing in Love’s likeness. Yet they still have inherent dignity and are infinitely lovable. It takes practice to see what we’re not accustomed to seeing. I find it helpful to connect with the loving Source within myself and then expand that awareness to others. This is a contemplative practice.

Take some time to rest in God’s presence. Allow God’s loving, compassionate gaze to soften your heart. Notice any sensations in your body, if you feel tension or resistance, warmth or release. Send loving attention to each of those places. If you feel pain or sorrow, know that God is intimately present with suffering. You are not broken or damaged. As James Finley often says, “You are not what has happened to you. Only Love has the final word in who you are.”

Draw upon this Love in yourself. Be filled to overflowing with Love. Gradually turn your gaze outward, picturing people you know and strangers you’ve never met, faces around the world. Imagine Love gazing back at you from their eyes. Return their gazes with Love. God—who is Love—is with and in each of you.

“The only appropriate response is gratefulness.” I love this man’s beautiful and resilient emphasis on remembering gratitude, especially for those of us with privilege. And his emphasis on our responsibility to bless others by “[letting] the gratefulness overflow with blessings to those around [us].”

This seems like such a lovely way to start the new year – with a manifesto to “expect the end of the world” and “laugh”!

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front 

(second half) 

Ask the questions that have no answers. 
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. 
Say that your main crop is the forest 
that you did not plant, 
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested 
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. 
Put your faith in the two inches of humus 
that will build under the trees 
every thousand years. 

Listen to carrion — put your ear 
close, and hear the faint chattering 
of the songs that are to come. 
Expect the end of the world. Laugh. 
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful 
though you have considered all the facts. 
So long as women do not go cheap 
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy 
a woman satisfied to bear a child? 
Will this disturb the sleep 
of a woman near to giving birth? 

Go with your love to the fields. 
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head 
in her lap. Swear allegiance 
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos 
can predict the motions of your mind, 
lose it. Leave it as a sign 
to mark the false trail, the way 
you didn’t go.
Be like the fox 
who makes more tracks than necessary, 
some in the wrong direction. 
Practice resurrection.

~ Wendell Berry ~ (Collected Poems)  

Dearest friends on the path,

With the New Year and the return of the light, we have an opportunity to renew our hope and embrace new beginnings. There is much to be done in this new year and together we are truly making a difference. I send blessings to all of you with prayers that you will find the guidance, grace, support, and resilience you require to wake up every day with gratitude, compassion (for yourself and others), and passion to make a better world.

Here is an inspiring essay from Michael Meade on New Year’s potential:

“The Threshold Of Change”

Pondering New Year’s Eve,

With Michael Meade

On a mythic level, New Year’s Eve can be seen as a collective rite of passage, a ritual intended to mark the end of the old year and the celebratory start of a new period. All of life has a chance to begin again, as a timeless moment brings a renewal of time and with it a return of life’s hidden potentials. People instinctively kiss each other in that moment; friends hold each other close and even strangers hug one another as if to embrace the mystery of renewal and catch the spark of life beginning again.

As the first month of the New Year, January takes its name from Janus, the old Roman god of doorways and thresholds, who ruled over all transitions. Ancient depictions show Janus with two faces looking in opposite directions, representing past and future, the old and the new. Mythically, Janus was connected to chaos as well as renewal. The backward glance of the god looks all the way back to the primal chaos that existed before the formation of the world. Thus, in order for time to start over and a new year to begin, chaos has to be present.

To this day, New Year’s Eve can bring disorder and unruliness as wild parties, loud music and an abundance of spirits reflect the old idea that chaos must reign before any renewal can occur. Yet, besides the presence of chaos, a return to the beginning brings with it a renewal of all the potentials of life. Not simply the notion of a fresh start; but the deeper sense that what begins in chaos can lead to a greater sense of creativity and even a deeper sense of wisdom. 

There is no doubt that we live in chaotic and troubling times. The radical effects of climate change evidence that; the toxic levels of partisan politics and the rise of authoritarian figures also say that. The increase of bigotry, misogyny and self-serving ideologies all bespeak a chaos that has been loosed upon the world. Yet, amidst the chaos and collapse of one period, the next shape of life takes form. It does so, not after all the chaos is over; but as at New Year’s Eve, in the midst of it all.

The world renews itself all the time in the secrecy of forests, in the inner mysteries of quantum exchanges; but also in the hearts of those who commit fully to life. If people can remain open-minded and open hearted, whether it is the dark of the year or the darkest time of one’s life, renewal and recreation remain a possibility.

Consciously or unconsciously, we stand on the threshold of time turning over and can assist the world to begin again and thereby tap the unseen potentials of life and love and the magic of change.

May the threshold of the New Year open before you in ways that reveal the hidden potentials of life and increasing ways to live in truth and contribute beauty and meaning to the world.

Today was an intense day. The family and I spent the day in the Peace and Justice Memorial and Museum and the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, as part of our Civil Rights tour.

On sacred ground you walk through hanging, rusty, metal rectangular boxes – hundreds of them – each representing a county or parish of states in which lynchings have occurred and each with names engraved of those thousands of our beloved siblings who lost their lives to this terrorist tactic. It is hugely painful, yet cleansing to participate in this recognition and repentance of our sins.

We are deeply moved and reminded of the love and beauty and hope that so many have worked and suffered for – I took this picture of a small tree with a nest cuddled in its branches and just putting out some new buds in the shadow of the memorial as a reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is the intrinsic hope, beauty, and renewal of life that we in the north celebrate at this time of year.

I was also reminded of this poem of remembrance from an indigenous poet:

From Writer Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo is a poet and musician, and a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has published seven books of poetry, including: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and She Had Some Horses. Among Joy’s honors and recognitions are the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Joy now resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Dear friends,

Please enjoy this beautiful Irish music and photos celebrating the longest night of the year in our Northern hemisphere.

In harmony and beauty,

Wakil David

From Richard Rohr’s blog on the Center for Action and Contemplation site.

Mirabai Starr writes in her book God of Love [One of my favorite books in the world – Wakil]:

The unifying theme in [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] is that God loves us unconditionally. . . . A hadith [saying] of the Prophet Muhammad expresses the unconditional love of God: Allah says, “Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you” (Hadith Qudsi).

The great Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan [1882–1927] placed special emphasis on the sacred phrase Ishq Allah Ma’bud Allah, which he translated as “God is Love, Lover, and Beloved.” [1] In Love, Human and Divine, Inayat Khan writes, “The Sufis say that the reason of the whole creation is that the perfect Being wished to know Himself, and did so by awakening the love of His nature and creating out of it His object of love, which is beauty.”. . .

This love dance is not some rarified state reserved for long-dead saints and the occasional living master. We do not have to go insane with longing. Few of us will relinquish the last traces of ego and walk away from our life in the world. [But] we can feed the fire of divine love by cultivating simple practices that expand our hearts and raise our consciousness, such as meditation and chanting, reciting ancient prayers or conversing with the Beloved, in silence or in lifting up our voices, in solitude or in community. “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” says Rumi. [2]

Avideh Shashaani describes prayer within Islam as “a state of presence where the soul is in communion with God. ”Ablutions—ceremonial washing—are ways to open heart, mind, and body to God’s love:

By washing the face with water we put aside the five senses that are engaged with the world; the washing of the hands signifies giving to the world what belongs to the world; wetting the head means putting all thoughts aside, and wetting the feet means redirecting our steps from the world to God. It is after we have cleansed ourselves of our interactions with the world that we are able to stand before God and declare our intention to enter the heart and walk on the straight path that leads to the Divine presence. [3]

[1] Inayat Khan, A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1914), 29.

[2] Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Monkfish Book Publishing: 2012), 60-61,136-137.

[3] Avideh Shashaani, “An Islamic Perspective onTransgression: Oneness,” “Transgression,” Oneing, vol. 2, no. 1 (CAC Publications: 2014), 25.

I find myself more and more often sitting with my brothers and sisters who are sinking into despair and who ask me why they should continue to care, continue to hope, continue to even get up each morning.

I understand this place, and I honor it and believe we have to be willing to feel that grief.

Yet there is indeed hope.

Today I wanted to share a song from Charlie Murphy with Jami Sieber and the Pat Wright Total Experience Gospel Choir as a reminder that “no one can hold back the dawn…”

And to give us all something to grab onto and to which we can lend our hearts and hands and voices to be the light in the world, and to help usher in the new world here is an inspiring piece by Naomi Klein on the Green New Deal.

Dear brothers and sisters – let’s make this happen!

The Game-Changing Promise of a Green New Deal

Beloved friends,

Perhaps the hardest practice in these distracting times is to simply breathe and remember presence. There is much work to be done, yet we need to be willing to accept where we stand and forgive ourselves when we fall or feel we may have fallen short.

We distract ourselves in our pain. We distract ourselves because we just can’t hear another story of injustice, fear, and horror. We use our toys, our media, our mind-numbing day to day routines, drugs, alcohol, or just not managing to get up in the morning. It is easy to understand why. 

In the end the solution lies in the courageous parting of the veils; the willingness to engage despite the pain; the conviction that although the work we do can seem futile and not nearly enough, it is like the intrinsic hope of the seeds floating on the autumn winds, the salmon fighting up the stream to die, the pieces of onion, garlic, and potato we push into the cold, wet soil. If we can allow ourselves space to simply be with whatever is present in this moment, we may step into the next moment a little lighter and with a bit more grace and compassion for ourselves and the rest of creation.

Here are some poems that speak well to this idea:

Forget about enlightenment.
Sit down wherever you are
And listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You are already more and less
Than whatever you can know.
Breathe out,
Touch in,
Let go.

By John Welwood

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early)