Shining Spirit

   Reza Aslan, educator and writer, recalls an old Sufi parable.  It goes like this:  Once four men were traveling together when they became very tired and very hungry.  They were from different countries and spoke very different languages.  In their hungry state, they tried to decide what to buy with the one coin they held in common.  The Persian wanted to spend the money on angur; the Turk, on uzum, the Arab on inab; and the Greek on some stafil.  Soon their wrangling turned to confusion and confusion to anger as each traveler tried to convince the others that his own solution was the best.  In the midst of their bickering, a stranger approached…a traveler, too, and a linguist by profession.  It took him only a moment to understand that they were all, in fact, asking for the same thing: grapes.

I believe one fundamental truth about life is that we all want basically the same thing.  Despite language, religion, culture, race, or gender our basic need is simple and similar.  Is it respect, love, acceptance, a sense of personal worth…?  Pick one, or name your own.  If only we could talk across and above our shouting and fear, we might find the more precious things we hold in common.   We might discover that we are more alike than we think.

  More than 7,000 light years away, filling the darkness of deep space with bursts of light and life, are the Pillars of Creation.  They are nebulae, vast collections of gases and dust which birth new stars in interstellar space.  In the mid-1990s, the marvelous Hubble Telescope photographed the two pillars, and it was breathtaking to imagine that our known solar system could be captured in one tiny finger, one little whispy protrusion on the edge of these mammoth engines of life.  Now, astronomers say, Hubble has gone back for a second look, and the photographs are as stunning as before.  To sit with these amazing pictures is to imagine the power and grandeur of creation, incredible colors, textures, the elements that swirl through everything that is.

But I wonder if the Pillars of Creation, for all their majesty and mystery, reveal any more about life than a golden leaf lightly resting on a moss-covered sidewalk?  For in my simple way of thinking, the golden leaf is of the same essence as that which bursts in brilliance 7,000 light years away.  Everything is related, and everything reveals wonder.  The Pillars of Creation cause us to gasp…and so does the exquisite golden leaf.

They line up each morning.  Instructor at the front of the line, students trailing behind.  They position themselves at one end of the take off area, students watching intently, eager to learn how to lift off and climb into the sky.  Now the instructor starts.  She moves slowly at first, as if to say, “see, this is the way to begin”, but then she increases speed and waddles down the path.  In a moment she spreads her wings and goes through a series of hopping motions, like she’s stepping on hot stones.  Flap, hop.  Flap, hop.  The two students watch in wonder and probably try to imagine their young wings catching the air.

So it goes recently at the flight school in my backyard, just behind the azaleas along the base of the cinder block wall in the upper section of the yard.

Then the fun really begins as the young doves try to copy the instructor’s example.  The first one begins to run on shaky legs, then comes the slight extension of the wings, next the hoping and flapping, and finally the crash and roll.  They look like the Gooney Birds I used to see on Midway Island in the Pacific Ocean.  If you’ve ever seen Gooney Birds land or take off, you know what I mean.  In flight, they are beautiful and graceful.  Landing and taking off is another matter entirely.

I’m proud of Mom or Pop instructor (can’t tell which) and the eager learners.  I hope the little ones master the art of flying soon because it’s too dangerous to be a grounded bird.  Too many predators looking for a quick meal.  For two days I’ve found the babies on the lower ground level and scooped them up in my hands to put them back onto the relative safety of their training ground.  This morning I could tell the young learners were making progress when one of them flew from the ground to the top of the black metal fence.  Brother or sister still hugged the earth, but maybe tomorrow will be its day.

I hope so.  Everybody needs to fly and feel the exhilaration of breaking barriers.

I have fallen in love with a car!  A car!

This hybrid beauty recently carried me, my wife, one large suitcase, assorted hand bags, a large cooler and a variety of other absolute necessities from Arizona to Texas in complete comfort at 52.4 miles per gallon.  My heart beats faster at the thought!  Bar graphs dance across the instrument panel depicting gas consumption while other fascinating gauges and dials announce electric battery capacity and all the things a driver needs to know while cruising along a broad Texas highway.  Not having driven a hybrid before, I read the manual and consulted friends who own one and got all the advice available to make the trip a good driving test.  One thing I learned quickly is that the car’s batteries recharge each time the driver eases off the accelerator or when the brake pedal is pushed to slow down or stop.  Sure enough, up goes the bar graph when my foot comes off the gas pedal and when actually coasting downhill at 70 mph the bar jumps to 100% fuel saving.  Pinch me…I must be dreaming!

Reliving these breathtaking moments after returning home to Arizona, it occurred to me that letting off the gas pedal has a personal application, too.  I’m certainly a poster boy for being busy and staying active, but once in a while I pay the price for pushing my own gas pedal too hard and too long.  Clearly there is value and benefit gained from easing off the gas…clearer perspective, renewed energy, rested spirit.  It’s okay to coast periodically…even to come to a complete stop.  Everyone’s battery needs recharging.

The principle applies to hybrids and humans.

Several years ago BBC broadcaster Michael Ford interviewed the remarkable Irish poet, John O’Donohue, whose name is known worldwide for his book Anam Cara.  Ford collected his thoughts about that special encounter in his own book, Spiritual Masters For All Seasons, and in that little volume he remembers O’Donohue’s thoughts about beauty.

“Beauty,” O’Donohue told him, “has become confused with glamour.  Glamour was a multibillion dollar industry that thrived on dislocating or unhousing people from their own bodies and transferring all the longing toward the perfection of image.  Glamour was insatiable because it lacked interiority.  Beauty was a more sophisticated and substantial presence with an eternal heart — a threshold place where the ideal and the real touched each other.  People on the bleakest frontiers of desolation, deprivation, and poverty were often sustained by small glimpses of beauty.”

Sometimes “small glimpses of beauty” is enough.  

I find glamour to be uninterestingly shallow, but the “birds of the air and the lilies of the field”, the downpour of rain in the desert, brilliant oranges and purples painted on the mountains just before the sun disappears, the clarity of stars in a dark sky…small glimpses of beauty.  That’s enough.

I’ve learned a lot on my own over the years.  I love to read, so books have fed my mind and tickled my imagination.  As an introverted person, I recognize the importance of quiet time once in awhile.  It’s in the quiet that my batteries are recharged and my strength renewed.  Today, though, I’m remembering conversations and feeling a rush of gratitude for friends and family who, through the years, have advised, encouraged, and helped me clarify life.

Sometimes, however, the best conversation is just sitting together without saying a word.  Can conversations of the spirit happen even when words aren’t uttered?  Can minds or hearts connect even in the lovely moments of simply sitting together, merely being in each other’s presence?  I think so.

I’ve taken quite a few photos of pathways over the years.  They seem to draw my attention and ignite my imagination.  One thing of interest is that I’ve never found two identical pathways.  Each is unique with its own invitation to adventure or reflection.  So it occurs to me that the basic reality of a pathway is that it leads somewhere.  That’s why it exists.  It is, indeed, an invitation to move from here to there, but also an offer to discover something new.  Beyond the fundamental purpose of a pathway common to all, each one is special and inviting in its own way.  Perhaps that’s the way it is in one’s spiritual journey.  Many of us are following chosen faith pathways that we hope will lead to discovery, but we are wise to recognize that, like spokes leading to the center of the wheel, spiritual pathways come from all directions and point us toward a common center.

The good news is that for the person who follows his or her chosen way, discovery waits just around the corner.