Friday, February 27, 2015

A slave to intensity...

After today's funeral - a loving and quiet tribute to a gentle and creative
woman - I find myself caught in melancholia. No biggie, but those feelings are a clue: the wisdom of the wounds insight, right? When you feel like running away to hide, DO THE OPPOSITE! Made me think of one of my favorite poems:
The Time Before Death
Friend? hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think... and think... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time
            before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten --
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the
          City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next
life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest
that does all the work.

Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

Kabir

Two highlights of the liturgy: Dianne and Carlton's take on "Balm in Gilead" and playing Bill Evans' "Peace Piece" with Carlton. Pure heaven...

NOTE: When I am tired and sad - filled with grief and weariness - I can let the "soul vampires" slip into my vulnerable personal space. This is ALWAYS a mistake and I can feel my heart being sucked away while it is happening, but in that tired state, I don't have the fortitude to cry out: STOP. It happened again after today's truly tender funeral - and afterwards I was having what my AA friends call a "pity party." So, I took a wee nap and then my dog assaulted me because she needed attention. And guess what: when a crazy, needy dog is wrestling with you on your bed - chewing on your arm and begging for attention - there isn't much time or space to feel sorry for yourself. So, like my mentor in ministry used to say about his soul vampires: F***em if that can't take a joke. 

Life is better now - and I think it is time for steak!

No comments:

an oblique sense of gratitude...

This year's journey into and through Lent has simultaneously been simple and complex: simple in that I haven't given much time or ...