Welcome to Life!

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. ~ an ancient Buddhist teaching

This morning an imaginative meme was shared by a friend on Facebook. It mused about living on a billions year old "spaceship" Earth that hurls through space while sustaining life as we know it.  It ended with, "Welcome to life! It's more exciting when you think on a larger scale."

Then I read the comments and was taken back by the mostly unimaginative cynicism that spewed out. At first these responses made me a little angry because I know my friend is an imaginative, thoughtful person who is on a faith journey open to potential and possibilities beyond static understandings of religion and science. My anger quickly became sadness for people whose imaginations are not open to the amazement of life.

Ultimately, I know I have to accept where these people are in their lives and realize they are not ready to imagine and entertain such thoughts and understandings of life. They just don't know that even cynicism has its own wonder.

Life is exciting and amazing on all scales, or it's not. We see it, or we don't. It isn't, until it is.  But when the moment comes, the universe opens up and we become participants in the wonder rather than observers.

Creation's Nightlight

Moon:

Super,

Blood,

Full,

Fingernail,

Moonshine,

New,

Blue,

Man in,

Man on,

Dark side of,

Crying for,

Howling at...(you can find some more here)

What is with our fascination with the moon? Maybe it's because we can actually see it, as opposed to the sun that we can only see just as it rises or sets - hence our fascination also with sunrises and sunsets, but I digress.

As we were recently reminded with the lunar eclipse, the moon does not have light of its own. Its illumination is reflected light of the sun. And this reflection is so bright that when it is full and passes in Earth's shadow (cast by the sun) the moon still has a glow, as we witnessed with the recent "blood" moon. 

The reflected light of the moon is comfortable, pleasing, intriguing, restful, whimsical, and harmless. Have you ever heard of anyone suffering from moon-burn or needing moon-screen? Have you ever seen a moon scorched field or had the moon beat down upon you? Of course not. This is because, according to the Bible,  the moon is the "lesser" of Earth's lights. The moon is Creation's nightlight, a comforting presence reminding us the Sun, our source of light and life, is still there, just on the other side of Earth.

“Even 

After 

All this time

The Sun never says to the Earth (and the Moon),

"You owe me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the whole sky.”

~ Hafiz

Signs Of The Times

They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them...Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.'

There is a street in our neighborhood that has signs, similar to the one above, posted where the street dissects a small lake. I've driven past and mused at these signs many times. Well, yesterday while taking that route to the Post Office, I was annoyed by a car stopped in the middle of the road, before realizing that a big fat duck waddled across the street between these signs, within the painted lines of the crosswalk. This has me wondering how many "signs" of the times are all around us that we muse upon as quaint, take for granted, and otherwise ignore.

Prophesies, parables, and predictions like the one above by Jesus, and found in numerous sacred texts,  are in many ways actually timeless - meaning they can be True in any age and context. However, as we look around our communities, our nation, and the world today there are signs that we live in times of disruption intended to deceive that have us off balance and anxious. These signs, as well as human history, are telling us something - disruptive deception leads to destruction.

The signs of our times are not quaint musings to be ignored. Just as sure as the fig tree yields its fruit and fat ducks cross the road, the chaos being sown in our world today may very well be a sign that the One Eternal Presence of Truth cannot be deceived by disruption. However, when signs are ignored, there are consequences.

To use another metaphor, perhaps we have used the "snooze" on the alarm enough and it's time to wake up.

"Before I built a wall..."

It seems appropriate today to share the iconic Robert Frost poem that gets at the truth of current craziness. Unfortunately the most often quoted line is the last one instead of the first one, missing the whole point of the poem by not reading the entire poem. Poetry and scripture are often treated similarly in that we think we know it from often quoted parts without taking in the whole story.

Mending Wall
BY ROBERT FROST

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

A Pic and A Prayer for A New Year

On this second day of a new year I offer you a photo and a prayer. The grainy photo is from this morning's pre-dawn sky, capturing Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter among clouds and palm fronds. (Mercury is somewhere behind the clouds below Jupiter )

Prayer for a New Year

God of time and space, 

known by many names 

sought through many traditions, 

as a new year begins we are reminded  

of the Eternal Presence. 

Beyond this moment and this place 

Spirit bonds all creation 

in a tapestry of interdependence, 

transcending vested interests and personal privilege.

Standing on the threshold of a new year 

may we forgive the discord, mistrust

and disappointment of our past, 

as we are forgiven, 

may we receive a grace-filled future 

of promise and potential that awaits 

nothing more or less than 

our open minds, our loving hearts, and our open arms

stretched out to one another and thus to God.