Shining Spirit

The Thunderbird Trail in the Tucson Mountains sounds like a challenging and exciting stroll through the desert, but actually it’s rather tame.  The rocky path climbs slightly from the trail head, then levels out in a smooth opening where you have to make a choice…this way or that way…the Thunderbird or the Sweetwater.  Thunderbird sounded much more glamorous on that brilliant morning, so to the right.  Sweetwater another time.

Most trails in the mountains surrounding Tucson offer spectacular vistas.  The desert really can be astonishing, especially when the shadows are just right and the mountains glow in the breaking sun.  Up a slight climb.  Down across a very rocky basin.  Around a gentle curve between meadows of sugaro giants, now a bend to the left….wait a minute.  The marked trail winds off to the right.  Did I miss a sign?  What’s this little path curling into a patch of unfriendly cholla?   And that’s when I found it.

Standing in front of this black hole in the mountain offered me another choice.  Do I peek in, maybe even step inside?  But it’s so dark and who knows what might be living in there.  Mountain lions and temperamental javelinas populate our desert, not to mention rattlesnakes waking in the warm spring sun, and I’m not equipped to come face to face with any of them.  Just a peek.

In summary, it was dark!  Very dark!  So I decided to rest on a large stone near the entry and recall some of the articles and books I’ve read about “dark places”.   Not cellars or my bedroom at night when I was a little boy, but the dark places that we all carry around with us day after day.  Deep internal darkness is the source of so much of the pain that we endure each day.  And, like the yawning cave just off the Thunderbird Trail, the darkness calls to us and invites us into places we’d rather not visit.  Old wounds.  Betrayals or failures.  Bad decisions and broken dreams.  Those things feed and fester in the darkness, and they never let us go.   Unless.  Unless they are revisited and relinquished.  No, it’s not easy.  In fact, it can be scary and painful, but dark places don’t deserve the right to direct our lives.

I’m actually glad I made the wrong turn early in the hike.  The dark cave would have remained hidden in the background, always there but always just around the corner.  I plan to go back soon and sit on the rock again.  No, I’m not going to explore the black tunnel, but just looking into it is a place to begin.  It’s a start.

Ok!  I got it!

I have a theory.  It goes like this.  When something unexpectedly interesting happens in my life, I take notice.  If or when that same thing is replicated or reinforced a short time later, I think about it and wonder about similarities.  When the third similar experience knocks on my door, I pay closer attention and reflect more deeply.  “What’s going on here?”  Finally, when the fourth visitor comes with the same message, I decide that I’d better sit down and connect the dots.

Ok!  I got it!

A couple of months ago, well into pondering some personal questions about my own spirituality, I paused for a moment in the fine book I was reading and wondered about the topic on the page.  It was a description of the Desert Fathers and Mothers who, in the third to sixth centuries, decided that the wildness of the desert was the place they would find a fresh, deeper connection with the Sacred.  I filed that somewhere on the backside of my brain.

A few weeks later I received a gift from a friend.  I’m not sure he knew anything about my wandering and searching, but as an act of friendship he presented me with a book for my library.  It was “In God’s Holy Light: Wisdom From The Desert Monastics.”  What an interesting coincidence.

About 10 days later, at a Monday morning meeting of like-minded pilgrims discussing and probing their faith, the group leader asked if I had ever heard of a rather good book that just might shed some light on my walk.  Anxious for any thoughtful insights, I welcomed the title:  “The Solace of the Fierce Landscapes:  Exploring Desert and Mountain Spiritualities”.  That’s puzzling.  The desert again?  Ok.

Two days ago, in the crowded dairy section of the supermarket near my home, I noticed a person who looked familiar from a distance.  When she turned around, it was, indeed, my friend I had not seen in months.  She recognized me.  We hugged and began the easy path into conversation.  “How are you?”  “What have you been doing?”  To which she answered, “I’ve just come from a wonderful retreat day with a group of people who are exploring their spiritual lives.”  “Wonderful”, I said, “what was the topic or approach for the day?”  “Oh, it was a remarkable look at the desert fathers and mothers and how they went into the wilderness to encounter God.”  “Desert?  Did you say desert?”  I felt like sitting down on the edge of the yogurt cabinet.  What’s going on?

In the order of appearance:  my own casual, unexpected brush with the desert seekers; the gift from my friend; a recommendation from the group leader; and the chance meeting with my old friend in the market.  All unplanned.  Each one linked to the other.  A common invitation?

As I write these words today, I feel some level of purposeful confirmation and I happily observe that I live in Arizona, which happens to be in the midst of the Sonoran Desert.

Ok!  I got it!

    A few weeks ago I read about a man who decided to identify several essential ideas that he would turn into practices everyday.  Each day, perhaps in the evening, he would reflect on these items and ask himself “was I aware of them during the day?” and “did I address each one in some practical way?”  He held himself accountable.

Sounded like a good idea, so I thought about my own list, coming to rest on the number 5.  I chose five emphases that are particularly important to me at this moment in my life, and, with a measure of humility and the assumption that you might be interested, I share them with you.  Each day, I promised myself, I will remember these five things and I will make every attempt to move them from ideas in my mind to actions in my experience.  Then, just before turning out the bedside lamp at night, I will ask myself “did you really do them?”

Be Kind – Kindness is such a simple thing.  It comes through as a smile, paying attention to someone, listening, simply acknowledging another person as valuable and important.  Being kind can be done in a quick moment or over a cup of coffee with a friend.  At least once in my day, I want to be kind.

Do Good – Turn the kindness into a specific act.  Opportunities flood my life everyday when I can do good without prior plan or scheduled event on my calendar.  They pop up.  They whiz by unnoticed most of the time, so I have to be better attuned to the moment.  At least once in my day, I want to do good in some specific way.

Learn Something – I find great pleasure in learning something new.  Just when I think I know it all, along comes some other insight or piece of wisdom or revealed truth.  I don’t want to be like so many people who have closed the door on learning, seemingly satisfied with what they have stored in their mental file cabinets.   At least sometime during my day, I want to learn something new.

Remember – I’ve lived a long time and I have lots of things to remember.  Some of them aren’t worth the effort, but some are special.  They remind me of glorious moments of joy, times when I’ve messed up big time but still survived, very important people who have influenced and touched my life deeply.  I have more to remember than I have days left on this earth, so it’s important to reconnect with yesterday.  At least once each day, I want to walk back down the road of memory.

Reflect – I love to reflect anyway, so this one isn’t hard at all.  It seems so important for me to integrate and synthesize experiences, to look for deeper meanings, to more and more see the wholeness instead of the parts.  Everything is connected in some way, so when I reflect I invite all the diversity, the individual elements, the pieces of my life to sit down for a quiet conversation.  They usually show up.  At least once in my day, I want to thoughtfully and patiently reflect.

So, there you have it.  My plan is working fine so far.  I feel good about doing it.  But, I’m not proposing the adventure to everyone, certainly not the number nor the identity of the essential elements.  Maybe it’s not what you would choose to do.  That’s fine, too.  Just thought you might like to know.

May the night come in silver slippers on the satin floor,

overcoming my eyes, all my senses with a delicate caress,

softly singing a love song

that is vaguely familiar and peacefully consoling.

May I surrender all resistance,

lay aside the toys of the day

and rest my head on her lap

while she blows out the candle

and creates the sacred darkness of sleep.

May I live on the edge of my presumed reality…connected to all in ways that trust and respect, mindful of each moment as glimpses of mystery.

May I relinquish my need to live the drama alone…solitary, intentionally independent, self absorbed.

May I engage, without fear or regret, in a conversation with life in order to discover meaning beyond my own self-imposed limitations.

May I welcome my own non-self so that I can discover the meaning of self in relation to all that exists.

May I imagine more than I calculate, dream more than I define, love with greater sincerity, and hope through the darkness.

May I live, dangerously and joyfully, on the edge of my presumed reality.

     Ever looked at your hand closely?  I mean, closely!

I’ve carried mine around for almost 75 years but I can’t say that I’ve spent much time examining the contours and the valleys.  But, the other day when I opened my daily meditation book and sought out the day’s focus, here’s what it said:  Find a quiet place, relax, and spend 30 minutes focusing intently on your own hand.  What do you see…really see?  What stories does it tell you?  What do you learn about yourself from spending the time focusing on your own hand?

So I tried it…a little uncomfortably at first…seemed like a rather strange thing to do.  But as I sat in the quiet, I practiced the discipline of focusing, and here are a few observations: the gold wedding band that was put on my finger 55 years ago used to be etched in a lined pattern.  Now there is no trace of etching, only a smooth surface that has gotten that way through lots of adventures and lots of days.  I remember what it used to look like, but I think I like it better this way.   Then there’s the skin, once supple and strong, now thin and scarred in places, spotted with what my mother used to call “age spots”.

I asked my doctor recently why my hands bruise much more easily than they did 25 years ago.  He started his answer, like every answer to all my health questions, with:  “Well, at your age…”

Today is Ash Wednesday, a very special day in the Christian tradition, and I’ve just returned from an evening church service where the minister took us one by one, made the sign of the cross on our foreheads with ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday palm branches, looked each of us in the eye and declared:  “From dust you have come, and to dust you will return.”  Life is full of signs and messages reminding me of mortality, and the truth of the minister’s words is visible in weathered hands.  But I found myself smiling at my hands as I finished the meditation exercise.  They have held so many things over the years…and now they hold memories that make me laugh and sigh.

Our hands hold more than we realize…much more.

Stones –

They come from the earth.

They all share the same composition.

They all have color and shape.

Together, they all share a common purpose.

And no two are exactly alike.

Stones can teach us a lot.  Perhaps we should ask them about life instead of throwing them at each other.

Sometimes a sentence jumps off the page, demanding attention and reaction.  So it was yesterday with this line from the New Testament letter called Philippians, supposed to be written by Paul, and here translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message:

“My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality.”

So many people are writing today about the slow demise of the institutional church, and with good reason.  The latest poll figures confirm that the ground is changing under the structure, and that those who care should take serious note.  My simple suggestion is that those of us associated with the changing church need to have “deep roots in reality”.

Paul was a very practical man as an entrepreneur of the early Jesus movement.  He may have had a mystical moment from time to time, but for the most part he faced the realities of establishing, encouraging, and nurturing little Jesus communities in hostile territories.  He admits that his “prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality”.  So should ours.

Faith based in the realities of the 21st century is urgent because sometimes we in the institution base our work in Fantasy…”God will provide even if we don’t”; in History…”we can make it like it used to be when times were happier”; in Dishonesty…”don’t worry, everything is wonderful and our future is secure”; and even in Arrogance…”we alone are responsible; we can chart the course ourselves”.

Here’s what is often heard from non-reality based faith:

“We don’t have time (or need) to discern; we can decide!”   Or, “Once we attract people, we can hold onto them forever”.  Or, “We can have better programs if we try harder.”  Or, “The more we do, the better we are.”  Or, “If we build it (do it, try it), they will come.”  Or, “Just get  people into leadership roles…they will stay until they drop.”

Those statements are simply not reality anymore.  They are based on wishful thinking and poor logic.

I like the way Paul brings this thought to a conclusion.  “So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well.  Learn to love appropriately.  You need to use your head and test your feelings so that love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush.”

Time to face and invest in reality.

The smiling flowers make me reflect for a moment on a question many people have asked.  Indeed, where is God?  No matter what your religious persuasion might be, the nature, character, and “presence” of God have puzzled humankind for as long as we have identified a sacred “Other”.  Conventional religious teaching, what I remember from Sunday School, answers the question of “where” by saying:  Look up!  God is “up there”, with “up there” being heaven, a location beyond the clouds and beyond human sight.  “God is in his heavens, and all’s right with the world.” (Gender issues aside, apparently you have to look up when you smile at God.)

But the flowers in this photograph seemed to be smiling in all directions.  Beautiful flower faces are pointing up and down, here and there, and toward all points on the compass.  Could it be that smiling at God is not restricted to one place or even one perception?  Could it be that the presence of the Sacred is everywhere…in and through reality as we know it?  I like to think that no matter where I look, into the good and into the not-so-good moments, I can “see” that which I call God.  The Presence is radically present.

So, like the flowers, smile at life in all directions.  God will see it.

Taking this picture was quite a feat!  I approached very slowly, studying the angles, looking for just the right sun reflection. Then I knelt in front of this beautiful face and stayed motionless until my legs were crying “enough”.  At just the right moment, nose to nose with those piercing eyes, “click” and it was done.  What an amazing face!

Okay, now the real story.  Not long ago, while walking through Tucson’s wonderful Sonoran Desert Museum with my wife, she stopped in front of a canvas poster at the entryway to the outdoor park.   “Look at that beautiful creature”, she said, and I turned to find myself face to face with this stunning image.  Poster, yes.  I took a picture of a picture.  I admit it, and I would give credit to the real photographer if I knew a name, and I would ask that person “how did you feel, what did you think when your eyes met?”  What a thrilling and thoughtful moment that must have been.

I wonder what goes through the brain of an animal like this one as she looks into human eyes?  Impossible to know, yes.  But I can tell you what runs through mine.  A sense of sadness.  A wave of anger.  And I want to say “I’m sorry, beautiful friend, that you and I are not companions on this earth.  I’m sorry that you are prey to my power, an ornament for my sport, an object to control, a nuisance in my land development project.  I’m sorry that your world is shrinking and your children are hungry because my concrete world is expanding, my progress is your problem.  I don’t think this is the way it’s supposed to be.”   I shudder to think that someday the poster may be all that’s left.  Surely this is not the way it was meant to be.

Ask the eyes.