What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Saddam has been hanged.

My sister, ten years younger than I and “the healthiest person in the world,” was recently incapacitated with some strange affliction that could be a stroke or…they don’t know what. She’s holed up in bed, doped with codeine, hardly able to move.

Katrina
Tsunamis
Accidents
Illness

“Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Poet Mary Oliver said it so well and…no one in this crazy culture seems to pay attention.

Even though I know that until a person is ready, until a person begins to question their own foolishness, they don’t concern themselves with who they are, with what this life is all about, to “the one thing that must not be forgotten,” (as Sufi poet and mystic Rumi put it).

Even though I know that, the one thing that makes me cry out, the one thing that makes me beat my head against the wall in dismay is: “how can people not see? how can people not question what they are doing?”

See what?

"Mortal man, how long will you…set your heart on trifles and run after lies?" (Psalm 4: 2)


See that our life is more that our triviality, our entertainment, our security, our pleasure and entertainment, our success, even more than our family and friends, even more than ethics, morality, principles, giving back, ending poverty and disease, even more than bodily life itself.


So, if it’s not those things, what is it? If we only begin to ask this question, there is hope. And there are answers… or rather, once we are living the answer the questions disappear.

What’s there when everything else is dismissed, put away, when everything else is gone? And, rest assured, it will all at some point, be gone. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I can’t give you the answer because anything I say will also not be “It”. Anything I say will be yet another effort to define, pin down, create an answer the mind will try to turn into The Answer, will try to turn into an idol. It’s about looking beyond, or underneath, all the idols, all the Answers, all the Solutions (our latest best Solution for everything is, of course, science and technology) – clearing them away, emptying the mind of its fascinations. Listening to the “empty space.” Becoming the “empty space.”


I had the extreme good fortune of having had intense, migraine-like headaches for several years. When they struck I couldn’t think. I had to let go of all my thoughts because they made the pain worse. And yet, nothing was lost. Not even the thoughts were lost, at least not the parts that were worth anything. They came back to me, re-organized, truer, more whole, and healthier than when they had been “my” thoughts, “my” agendas. In some important sense they were no longer "mine" but came from Higher Consciousness, the Consciousness we all hold in common.

"Silence speaks, the contemplatives say. But really, I think, silence sorts. An ordering instinct sends people into the hush where the voice can be heard."
-Patricia Hampl, excerpted from Virgin Time, thanks to the Speaking of Faith website.


It’s in the realm of paradox (or as we say these days, “irony”) that these matters cannot be described with words, yet they must be spoken of. They can’t be described with words because our words of description try to capture and define them. And what we are referring to cannot be captured, cannot be pinned down because these things are of the realm of the unlimited– the “kingdom of God.” And, it is this we seek. It is only here, in the state empty of our own mental gyrations, where we find safety, unconditional love, wisdom, fullness.

"for thou alone, o Lord, makest me live unafraid." (Psalm 4:8)

There are times when, trying my dandiest to accomplish “whatever,” I come to the end of my resources. I fall into confusion, fear, frustration. I’m sure you know what I mean. When this happens, if I “take refuge” in the reality of my situation, in the “not-knowing,” and stop the mental churning, I suddenly feel more secure, even comfortable in a dynamic way. I’ve put my dilemma in the hands of “the Beyond.” From there I wait…for something to shift. And it does. Sometimes I realize I must give up my agenda. Sometimes things just seem to work out. In either case I am willing to listen, and that makes all the difference.

All our struggling and churning is, finally, unnecessary–although I'll acknowledge that we probably have to go through the stage of thinking it is, in order to finally "surrender"… and find out it isn't. Surrender has become a bad word in our American and Western vocabulary. Our egos want to be captain of the ship and we mistakenly associate surrender to God with surrender to oppressive parents, priests, teachers or political forces. We think it is "giving up" or "resignation." It is neither. It comes from recognizing that we, as ego, simply do not understand the Big Picture enough to make wise decisions–even with our smarts and our science. It is what Job discovered when the "voice from the whirlwind" reminded him that, as wise as he thought he was, he did not truly understand "the foundations of the earth." Job, finally overwhelmed by the power and majesty of God, realizing that he had spoken in "words without knowledge," replies, "I have spoken of great things which I have not understood, things too wonderful for me to know….Therefore I melt away."

Islam means "submission" to God, to Allah. Could it be that Islam has something to teach us? I'm not talking about Islamic extremists, of course, but the heart of Islam. Islamic societies are built around their relationship with God.

In our pluralistic society it is not possible or even desirable to single out one religion but it might be possible to honor the commonality at the heart of them all. This is what is sometimes called "The Perennial Philosophy" or "Perennial Wisdom." Aldous Huxley wrote a book, The Perennial Philosophy, in which he identified the common experience and insights at the mystical heart of the world's religions and assembled quotes supporting his observations. When I read the book I understood immediately what he was describing because in my own search I had studied within several spiritual traditions and had intuitively sensed the convergence. In 2006 I founded Two Wings Spirit in Minneapolis to teach the Perennial Philosophy. If you are interested in further information you can visit the website: www.twowingsspirit.org also, read Huxley's book.