Tag: Inspiration
PARKING LOT DRAMA
I’m sitting in the car on a sunny afternoon, waiting for my wife or a daughter to emerge from the supermarket.
I watch a young woman pace nervously (am I being redundant), then climb on the trunk to look around or perhaps be seen by someone. She repeats this several times.
Finally, I break the ice, offer to make a phone call or help in some other way. She laughs and declines the offer.
“I’m waiting for some guy,” she says.
Oh, yes, I should have known. I think of all the other times I was waiting for some girl or woman. We know it’s a common scene.
And then he pulls up, much older than I’d expected. He goes to the driver-side window, waves a coat-hanger, and goes to work.
So it wasn’t just some guy, after all. So much for the romance that usually accompanies the story. Unless that happened somewhere down the road once she got going.
ENDLESS PRAIRIE
As a child, we could listen to the grandfathers and uncles talk about the good old days and their friends on the farms they left behind. Those conversations have been lost but remain a part of my heritage, my shaping — I have renounced those things, but return with a sense of ambivalence, that something more is lost — that there is no direction or depth in the changes.
The prairie was endless for the Amerindian, who lived securely within its radiance of circles, rippling harmonies, its ecologies — man, four-legged brothers, and spirits. Then the white man broke this, with straight lines: plows and axes. Like a bottle, the endless prairie was broken; its essence oozed away, like a bleeding wound. In breaking the tall grassed prairie, the white man created a new one — a desert of desolate spaces he could not understand, replenish, or be replenished by. He was depleting that which he came to find, forever. The history we consider is blazed by changes — turmoil, revolts, new kingdoms overriding the old; the Israeli history of ancient tentacles — it is not a history of land and people eternal, but rather a history of decay, of individual men or, at best, their generations as the whole thing changes in directions no one can foresee — the concept of PROGRESS with its central OGRE . . . the hidden desires to somehow make static or permanent the very creations of the destruction, which must obviously fail. In this new prairie the automobile was created and perfected — a means for fleeing, for destroying the COMMON UNITY of persons living through necessity in some kind of harmonic chord with the land (even the pioneers who broke the prairie and its Indian harmonies, had at least the peasants’ sense of the value of earth to man — they knew the traces of tribe in themselves and could still revere Mother Earth) — but with AUTO the prairie could be leveled even more — consider the vertical element that had been eliminated when BUFFALO were exterminated! enclaves of community become vulnerable, to escape as well as invasion — The Endless Prairie we have now can be broken. Pilgrimage made. The mind freed. We have our options, to fly away, or to enter inner circles. Either way, to become Indians (of America or Asia — both have ways). To focus, not upon the flatness, but on the hidden paths appearing in the Small Things.
As I used to chant: Hari Om Prasad!
FEEL GOOD OR SIMPLY FALAFEL?
I can understand the temptation to sell religion as a matter of improving yourself, whether it’s self-esteem or self-worth or, well, treasures on Earth (the “name it and claim it” version of praying). Churches have by and large shifted from emphasizing damnation versus eternal salvation, and in sweetening the message, have also seen attendance plummet. Along the way, they’ve lost much of what makes them unique as faith communities, as well. Still, as I center down on Sunday morning into the silence of our worship, I hear all the traffic on the highway outside the meetinghouse and wonder just where everyone’s racing to. For many, I know, it’s the mall, as if that has anything they really desperately need that much one day of the week, much less life everlastingly.
I hear a similar message in many of the yoga enthusiasts, who preach the heightened self glories emerging from the practice, and once again, I sense something else is missing.
What it comes down to, essentially, is whether one’s being self-centered or selfless in one’s focus. The selfless version, I’ll argue, demands a faith community – a circle of kindred souls who are committed to helping one another along the way, including listening to their perceptions of our own efforts, pro and con.
The role of a teacher – whether a guru or a pastor or a minister or elder – is also important, as well as the circle of discipline that individual submits to.
The self-centered version, in contrast, needs no one else – or many just an audience.
As I ponder the nearly empty churches on Sunday morning – and other places of worship on Friday night or Saturday – I’m left wondering just what is being fed to the spiritually hungry or what invitation is being issued to the wider world. It’s not a matter of shaping our message to popular marketing, but of being true to an alternative way of living.
And, as I see it, that demands a circle of faith – not just a solitary individual. As Jesus said, where two or three are gathered. For starters. Or a bit of what I experienced living in the ashram.
Let me add, it’s anything but easy. Far from it.
SPEAKING OF TYRANNY
They warn of Big Government and of organized labor while they strive to strip the people’s powers in favor of Big Business. How conveniently they forget the wisdom of any balance of powers or the tyranny, especially, inherent in globalization as it’s emerging.
One World Government, they warn, while paving the way for One World Corporation. In effect, it’s all or none of us. Either way, it’s scary.
I learned to view political systems and society itself from the bottom-up. Jesus said something about it in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Maybe it’s just a matter of viewing the bigger picture or remembering the promise of Jubilee (Leviticus 25). Ultimately, each of us equally responsible, and equally equipped, to work together. But there’s always a price to pay.
LAST ACT
BEING LED BY A PILLAR OF FIRE
Quakers love the image of Light. What we observe, though, is not the light itself but rather the objects it reveals, at least within the visible portion of the spectrum. Sources of light – a star, a fire, the flash of a strobe – may be somewhat different, but the lingering afterimage when we close our eyes suggests the perception may be in large part a reaction within ourselves – and not just some intense chemical or physical transformation in the originating body.
This time of year, I begin regarding fire again – we rely on a wood stove to heat part of our house, and the upcoming holidays bring out an array of candles, seriously beginning with the Advent wreath. I’m mesmerized by the flames of a wood fire – the movement of flames and coals takes on its own pathway, no matter what you predict; their flickering dances, and the warmth is, well, captivating, especially in the midnight hours when I come home from the office. Stars, too, are more pronounced in the lengthened nights and sharpened air.
These are reminders, too, of those times in our lives when we’re on fire or given new direction – swept up in new love, the arrival of a baby, religious enthusiasm, a social cause – as well as those times when we sense contentment and comfort. We need both.
In the end, there’s something mysterious about fire, especially. Fire, after all, is a gift to humanity, as endless myths attest. As such, it demands care on our part. I think, too, of the flight of Israelites from captivity in Egypt, how they were responding to a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day as they were led into the desert and out of bondage – what a contrast those images offer! Was the cloud dark and stormy, or even glowing from within or against the sun? To be liberated, by following both cooling moisture and drying flames – to be guided toward our true destination, and be comforted along the way. Mind the Light, then, as we go, toward a new Bethlehem, perchance.
RIGHT-BRAIN ACTION FROM THE LEFT
Back during the presidential election cycle, I remarked on the failure of the left to apply right-brain thinking to the message. Fortunately, as the season unfolded, a few savvy managers got it right.
Now, as things calm down, I should note one fine practitioner of the weaving the emotional and reasoned lines together: Charles P. Pierce, with his daily blog for Esquire. Yes, he’s acerbic, caustic, witty, righteous, and very well informed, driving news home – major stories most newspapers are tiptoeing around, if they mention them at all. The Tea Party seems to think it has a lock on criticizing Washington, without realizing how much of the current mess comes from their side of the aisle. Now for the corrective blast. And how!
In a short space, Pierce delivers all the content of a good lecture with none of the preachy sermon. He’s delightfully entertaining and uplifting, for the good-hearted believers, or highly annoying, for the philistines and heathens.
Now, back to cranking out bumper stickers.
Amen and hallelujah.
DRESSING FOR LOGISTICS
It didn’t take very long for my philosophy class in college to realize our professor was wearing the same outfit all the time – suit coat, tie, pants, and Hush Puppies. We wondered about the white shirt, his socks, and underwear, and presumed he was changing those. The second semester, he did the same thing, but with a different outfit. (This was the same teacher whose final the previous year had a single question, “Why?” – which led most students to write profusely in their blue books, hoping to somehow hit the answer by accident. A succinct “Why not?” turned out to be the B+ answer, while “Because” earned the A.) Maybe he was just too lost in thought to be concerned about attire. On the other hand, some in the class repeated rumors that he had a girlfriend in Sweden and was spending most of his income on long-distance bills. (Why not?)
When I’m grabbing the same set of clothes for, say, the third day in a row while getting ready to dash off to the office, that recollection flits through my mind. Sometimes the thought connects with the concept of Plain dress, too, and how we’ve made things more complicated by switching to the less tightly defined “simplicity.” For old Quakers, the question of “What will I wear today?” was much easier than it is for us.
Of course, Plain dress was also a uniform – a symbol of belonging, and belonging to a cause, at that. There are all kinds of uniforms, and not just for the military – mail carriers, retail clerks, priests, mechanics, utility workers, many of them today wearing embossed T-shirts. You know what to expect from them.
There are many reasons I’m not suggesting we return to Plain dress. For one thing, such a move would have to express a unified community; otherwise, we would just appear to be quirky along the lines of my philosophy prof. In addition, putting the focus on the outward appearance ignores what exists within. Still, such a move would be a public rejection of the fashion industry. And it was said that Friends who had taken up Plain dress became more aware of individuals at the fringes of society – and more responsive to their needs.
As for the philosophy prof, I guess the biggest lesson he taught me was the importance of questions in the logic of life. The dressing’s purely secondary.
GOING PUBLIC
Writers and artists who work alone may know the feeling. It might even fit composers, playwrights, and screenwriters. A piece looks quite different in manuscript or the studio than it does in a small-press journal or small gallery. It looks different, again, in galley proofs for correction or an exhibition. And it’s altogether different in full-length book publication or a major museum.
We could even consider all of the varied emotions that accompany these stages.
When the published novel’s in my hand, I’m not even sure I’d recognize its having any commonality with the manuscript or drafts all those steps earlier.
I suspect the experience for performers – especially those in groups – goes another direction. The rehearsals build a teamwork that’s carried forward to an audience. Could there even be occasions when the finished result is less satisfactory than some points beforehand?
We talk about a creative process, but I’m left acknowledging there are many.
