Wayside Pulpit

The Advent of Nothing

I have been told they expected a king, someone like David I suppose. Yet, I am not so sure I believe what I have been told. Who knows what they expected, or even IF they expected anything.

What if they expected nothing? It would mean that individuals were doing what individuals have done throughout history; they were running around trying to live lives, put food on the table and procreate. No one even thought to wait for Jesus. If so, Jesus was unanticipated and unexpected--a messiah only in retrospect. Such a possibility of unexpecting turns Advent from a time of expectation of the known, desired and needed into a time of waiting for nothing at all.

Expectation is a lot like Disneyland; a place that both exists and does not. We believe in a dream and only when we visit in the heat of summer with screaming kids do we realize that the dream exists only in our heads. This realization can pull us one of two ways: either, we see the dream for the farce it is and embrace reality on its own terms, or we hold onto the dream, scream at the summer and hate the kids thinking they are what keeps us from the reality of the dream.

Expectation binds us to a vision of a nonexistent reality. An Advent that looks toward Jesus in the manger binds us to just that: Jesus in the manger. Maybe you want to be fastened tightly to your expectations, but how might your life be untied if you expected nothing this Advent?

Unconsciousness

The devils we carry with us are far worse than any devil that walks the streets. I carry one with me that really wishes I would die. This dying of which I speak is not a suicide ideation—I know that mind trip and this is not it. Thoughts of suicide, as I’ve known them, are much more gut wrenching and peace producing; they come from the desperation that death is better than “this.”

The blackness that seeps into all my corners is focused completely on self-destruction. It wants to destroy me. Though as I write that, knowing that there is no “I,” my mind cannot help but wonder who wants to destroy who. She is rabidly angry with my life. She resents all of my responsibilities. She hates my success. She does not want me to be without her, and as I move farther away from being her victim, the more angry she becomes. Today her venom was so spiteful, and the beatings so brutal that I actually prayed.

Tears come as I recall this day. There was a war, though I do not know if I lost, or if I simply made it through to the forest at the edge of the battlefield. Either way, as the sun set on the carnage, I realized the power of this piece of conditioning; I was able to watch it as the light flowed into night; I saw the wickedness and the spite in a way I’d never seen it before. I know the enemy better, but she is still me when the battle horns blow. See, when the dragons come to take me away, I cannot remember that I’m in a fairy tale, and that all I need to do to stop the story is to step-out, close the book, and walk down to the corner for some tea.

The Loss of the Book

I had a little black book in which I’ve been writing my research ideas. The book was only about 1/10th filled, but it contained a map of my progress over the past couple of months. There were diagrams, some outlines, and pieces pinned together with scratch-outs in-between. I took the book to class; it sat next to me whenever I read; we would find each other when a thought sprang during a late night shower. There was nothing irreplaceable within its pages—no thought was climate changing, but as a whole, the book was irreplaceable. The book was a traditional Moleskine with a nice place to write my name and give a dollar amount if found. I filled out neither. So, on Wednesday, when I left the book tucked up in a fold-out tray on a train, there was no hope for its recovery.

I have watched how attached I am to my thoughts. Knowledge of this attachment is nothing new, but the loss of the book has drawn it with three dimensions into my awareness. One of my hardest tasks is to turn my mind from my thoughts; it is the main process that keeps me from the moment and keeps me from center. It isn’t the thoughts of rainy days, bills to pay, or fear of an economic recession that grab and hold on tight. Rather, it is the thoughts of theories, new ways to read the biblical text, far flung theologies, and new ideas about preaching. Some part of what I call “I” is captivated by abstract thinking. It is this I that grieves for that little black book. A book that somehow legitimated “my” existence and said, “You go girl!”

Every Friday is a Good Day

It is the end of the fifth day. Jesus moves away from his disciples into a small clearing in the forest. The trees of Gethsemane surround him; the fading sun turning their twisted trunks into mythical monsters. He is afraid. He puts himself on the ground and crosses his legs—a foot on each thigh. His hands rest near his stomach—left cradled in right. With eyes slightly closed and cast down he sees the shadows of remaining sun travel across the ground. His breath is shallow. In and out it quickly moves; his diaphragm collapsing and expanding in a rhythmic pace. He watches. He pays attention. He slides into the conscious compassionate awareness that he knows so well. The space holds him. His heart opens and all is okay with the world.

The sounds come from the distance—horses, men, and the clinking of swords. Torchlight moves through the trees, and step by human step it replaces the looming darkness. He puts his palms together and moves them toward his chest—thumbs touching his heart. Jesus bows forward and then rights himself just as the light covers his head. He takes in one breath, feels it move through his body and he says,

“We are here to end suffering.
If ending suffering is more important than anything, we will end suffering.
If ending suffering is not more important than anything, we will not end suffering.
If I am suffering, it is because I am choosing something over ending suffering.
We are not here to create and cling to beliefs.
We are here to pay attention.
We are here to use everything in our experience to see how we cause ourselves to suffer; so we can drop that and end suffering”(1)

Sunset

I am discouraged.
A discouraged that makes tears run down.

Then I realize the feeling comes
from believing that all of this -
life, opinions, choices, jobs, critiques
really matter.

They don’t.

What matters is the music outside
wafting over the grass
voices sharing in a bit of laughter
the light of this computer
shining on my face
and knowing
that it will
all be
okay.

What Weighs Me Down

I was talking to a friend today and had a flash of realization. I really believe that the thinner I am, the smaller the number on the scale, the more loveable and competent I am. The inverse then is, if I weigh more or feel heavier then surely no one loves me and I am as worthless as a rock in a field.

I suppose I am not alone in this belief; the belief that weight and body shape define whether or not I have worth as a human. Still, I feel pretty alone and stuck in my head on this issue. The social conditioning about body image and weight has been so powerful in my life that I cannot imagine how it is not true. I know that it is simply a belief, but I cannot believe it is only a belief. It is as true as true gets.

My friend that I shared this with said, “Well, you can let that one go.” I immediately became defensive. It is so easy for someone on the outside to take a really thick socio-spiritual issue of someone else and just cast it away like an unwanted fish. If it were so easy to let go, trust me, I’d let it go. So much of the dissatisfaction of my life is rooted in the social conditioning I have in my head related to perceptions of my body, my weight and my beauty.

I don’t know how to let this go. Just like I really don’t know how to let go of many of my deeply held beliefs. I’ve seen a few evaporate into the nothingness that created them, but for the most part I’m still holding on pretty tight.

If I think about the two religions that touch me the most, Christianity and Zen, both are fundamentally about letting go of socially conditioned beliefs. This knowing about letting go is an open window; the knowledge that I can move beyond what society has programmed me to be. Yet, even with the window, I don’t know how to get the ideas that hold me to fly from the room.

Eden

I am a theoliterary Christian. I find spiritual meaning in the stories of the bible regardless of their questionable historical validity. However, I’ve never been much of a buyer-in of the Garden of Eden story. I guess I’ve never found anything in the story that has reached and grabbed my spiritual sensibilities.

There are many difficulties I have with the story. The main being that I don’t need a creation myth; science has given me more than enough ideas to chew on when it comes to how the universe began and how humanity populated the world. Also, the traditional Eden interpretation of humanity falling from grace is so imbedded between the lines, I’ve not been able to read the text a different way. Well, at least until yesterday.

In the story God says, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” The day we made the choice to live in a morally compartmentalized world is the day we died. Once society became based on right and wrong we lost the ability to live at center, to live embraced by god. Having to be a right way, compared to a wrong way, is why we are socialized. It is why we are molded to be what society says, rather than to be what we are.

What keeps us from God is all the junk we’ve been fed about how we should be. That junk is what was hung on the tree in the Garden of Eden. That junk is what humanity ate. God knew that once we created a knowledge of right and wrong there was no going back. We would be stuck in the cycle of trying to be a certain way, failing, beating ourselves up for it and then trying again. In this process we never find out who we are. We never find out who god is. Rather, we spin around and around hiding from ourselves and from the divine behind the sewed fig leaves of, “should,” “ought,” “don’t” and “can’t”

We never fell from grace, we fell into social conditioning.

Pearls of Wisdom

A number of days ago I went walking and found a purse lying in the grass. There was nothing in the purse but money, no identification, no credit cards, no lipstick. I put an ad in the paper for the purse. It read something like, “FOUND PURSE call to identify.” It has been almost a week. I’ve had lots of calls but no one has lost the right purse.

Yet, through all the calls I’ve had some really interesting conversations. Julie had her purse stolen in broad daylight and it contained the last letter she received from her husband in Iraq before he was killed. Then there was Jim, calling for his wife who left her purse in the bathroom of a local department store. She was on her way to take her new engagement ring to be sized. Today I talked to Mary who had her purse taken from her car. The wallet contained the only baby pictures she had of her now grown children. So many stories; so many people clinging to the hope that I might have found the one thing that contains the last, the only, the most important of something.

As I’ve talked to each person I’ve felt their disappointment when I’ve told them that the purse I have isn’t the one they’re looking for. I can relate to the attachment that causes pain when that which is loved is gone. There are no words for that pain, except maybe, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Even then, these words only empathize, they do not heal.

What heals the pain of attachment? I can think of nothing. Granted, it moves and changes as each moment goes into the next. Yet, I can still recall the heartsick feeling from years ago when I gave away a number of my favorite books. I thought I could let go by taking them to a local library sale, but even now I still wish they were on my shelves. I think of those close to me that have died. I recall friends and lovers that have moved out of my life. I picture the objects that I’ve lost or had stolen. With all of these, with each twist of mind, I can feel the pull of the attachment that still binds.

I think many of us wear pearls of grief around our necks. Sometimes they weigh us down. Sometimes they just remind us of the living we’ve done. But for me, as I finger them at my throat, I know they take me away from the present moment. They remove me from what I have now – the beauty, the possibility, the perfectness of today.

I haven’t figured out how to take them off, and maybe removing them isn’t the answer. Perhaps, like most things, it isn’t so much about the pearls, but rather my relationship to them.

God in All the Strange Places

I have returned from spending a week at a Zen monastery. The Zen Monastery Peace Center is in Murphy’s California and is involved in many aspects of transforming lives around the world. The retreat that I attended was based on the book by Cheri Huber titled, “There is Nothing Wrong with You.”

The environment was so different than “out in the world,” that it was difficult to adjust for the first couple of days. We didn’t talk. We didn’t make eye contact. We ate in silence. We meditated. I walked for hours a day sometimes. There were three workshops a day where we worked on developing skills to deal with the conditioning that haunts each and everyone of us.

I had an experience the last night where I was finally able to see the world from Center. It was an experience that I cannot describe. I think I can’t describe it because it wasn’t an intellectual experience and it wasn’t an emotional experience. It was an un-experience, which is what made it so powerful. I looked up at the stars and I saw something I had never seen before, I saw myself. There were no bounds of social conditioning, there was simply nothing. Which means, in the same breath, there was everything.

One thing I can tell you though, I got god in the experience. Really got “it.” I knew unequivocally that god was not without, god was within, while at the same time knowing that there was no out and there was no in. Everything was god.

What a trip.

Awareness

I sat talking yesterday at lunch with a friend. In the midst of our conversation a medium sized bumble bee joined our table. The creature buzzed over the water glasses, the cup of lemon grass tea and then seemed to tread air between us. I watched my fear rise. I have nasty reactions to bee stings and when I see a bee, any bee, my mind latches on to the last bee sting, the last time I felt the pain and the swelling. Then last time becomes this time – what the bee might do, what the bee could do. Soon, all I see is the bee and what in fact it will most certainly do if I don’t swat it away or move myself to a different location.

I watched this all go on inside my head and did nothing, I just observed the process. Though it took a huge effort I turned my awareness, even with the bee floating in our midst, back to the friend, the conversation. In the turning I realized how much my anxiety is caused simply by the focus of my attention. It is not caused by the content; by the bee, the snotty waitress or the salad missing the sliced beets. Any experience that I have that is uncomfortable is only uncomfortable because I pay attention to that which is causing the state I call uncomfortable.

I’ve been meditating for about six years. Six years of sitting down on a meditation cushion twice a day. Six years giving an hour of time to silence and simply watching my breath. Honestly, in these six years not much has changed in my life except for the fact that I meditate. I am no less high-strung and no more relaxed. However, every once in awhile a flash of insight will hit the pages of my life and I’ll say, “Ah, hah!” It will be an insight that I know would not have found me without my mediation practice.

Meditation has both increased my awareness of the world and at the same time has taught me how to turn my attention. I knew the first part. Meditation has made me more aware, but I didn’t see the second part until the bee flew into lunch yesterday. I never realized that I could watch what was wanted rather than what was given to me. If I can watch the breath instead of the thoughts when I meditate, then I can turn my attention, even while not meditating, to anything I choose. The “Ah, hah!” was this: I can choose not to be a victim of my own mind.