Stuff and Joy

A person can accumulate a lot of stuff over a lifetime.  In preparation for moving, I'm spending a lot of time these days going through stuff, both at home and at work.  Among many reactions to the things I'm finding, two seem to come to the forefront.  

The first is - "Why in the world do I still have this?" The response to this is usually a quick heave into shredding, recycling, trash, yard sale, or donation pile.  Examples:  old college and seminary text books, cancelled checks (remember writing checks?), old bank statements, 3.5 floppy disks, photos of people I don't know, playbills, church bulletins, ticket stubs, and so much more.

The second reaction is - "Oh, I'm so glad I still have this!"  The response is usually to sit for a moment and remember someone or some place special in my life, then putting it aside to be packed.   Examples: just about anything my children created, family photos, little things that belonged to my parents, my great grandfather's pocket watch, things I will actually use, and not so much more.

The main difference between these two reactions is a question I learned to ask from reading a book about downsizing, Marie “KonMari” Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. The simple question is: Does it bring me joy?

It's a good question for all of us to ask about much of life - Does it bring me joy?  

    

Anything / Everything

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.  But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.  Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes.  All is a miracle.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ...Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

~Jesus

Look deep enough into anything 

and you will see everything.

The universe in a grain of sand.

Eternity in each fleeting moment.

A leaf holds the milky way.

Each breath the Wind of Creation.

The faintest sound the cosmic "ohm" -

an echo of the Eternal Voice,

"Let there be...!"

And it was good - very good!

Look deep enough into anything 

and you will see everything.

Look deep enough into your soul

and everything is a gift.

Musing on Jesus

Recently a Facebook Friend asked in a post, "What if Jesus had not been crucified? What would his life have been?  Would we even know of him today?  My friend's questions stirred my own imagination.

Who was Jesus?  I often muse about this. There was a flesh and blood person who lived two thousand years ago in the eastern Mediterranean region called Palestine. He was a baby who absorbed through his senses, learned, developed and grew, like all humans do.  He was a boy who played, got into mischief, tested his boundaries, and loved his parents.  He was young man who worked, studied, worshipped, dreamed, struggled and enjoyed life.   He had all of the life experiences that every human who has ever lived has had or will have.  His teachings of love, compassion, justice, forgiveness, and grace really aren't that exceptional when placed among the wide array of religious, philosophical, and moral traditions of his time and prior.  Like many prophets, priests, teachers, and shaman before him, he brought hope and transformation into the lives of people who encountered him.   He eventually died at the hands of imperial power because of his political and religious convictions, an end suffered by countless people through the ages.  Then his story took a dramatic turn into the world of mysticism, myth, belief, spiritualism and cult.  Eventually the story was institutionalized, appropriated and domesticated by the same empire that killed him.

Today, over two thousand years later, on the other side of the earth, in a culture that would be unrecognizable to Jesus, I sit and muse about who he was, and have dedicated my life's work to this musing.  Through it all Jesus' life, teachings, and story still bring hope and transformation in people's lives.  I think not so much so that we may believe he is God, but because he is so much like us.  For me, this means hope and transformation come through following the humanity of Jesus, more so than worshipping his divinity.