Ecstatic nature of love

This past weekend at the KUMC – a Methodist church in Pennsylvania, we had been partnering with in the Dominican Republic. Wonderfully inspiring to be working with these folks, who are very committed to helping the poor, but the model of their work in the past had been charitable, relief, versus sustainable – i.e., assisting the poor, building houses, but ultimately it doesn’t address the real deep seated issues of lack of poverty, at best it is a bandaid, though sometimes a bandaid is needed.  I was very please and impressed that they could put aside their evangelical and very Christian approach for a moment, to focus on the dynamics of the issues. I put aside my aversion to evangelical religions, and between the two points, there was a meeting of the minds and spirit

It was good to see this and having to articulate my spirituality.  My spirituality is rather simple – even for a complicated kind of guy – be kind, do good works in the world, and approach your life and what you do with love. If that is Christian, Quaker, Buddhist, Sufi, or otherwise –marvelous – but god is too big to put in the box of religion. If I understand the concept of god.  My spirituality is that all life — plants, animals, even annoying mosquitoes, and fascists all have spirit.  In the Quaker sense, to see god in every creature.

I have often hanged my tarnished halo on the Zen-Quaker hat rack. Zen Buddhism, probably the closest to how I think about this god/ spirituality thing. There is no god. There is only this moment. This moment is life. As Krishanmurti says. “Question your truths.”  Religion is for the lazy, spirituality for those willing to challenge all of their assumptions and stand naked before their truth.  It is too easy to be fed pablum, nostrums, and prepackaged truths. I like the reminder at the Zen monastery, the ordinary rock in the place of the Buddha. A rock has Buddha nature. A rock is Buddha.  Buddha is the rock. Throw that through the window of your assumptions!

Lovely folk at the church, I enjoyed their warm and generous hospitality, and I appreciate how our very different approaches to spirituality have come to a meeting.  The meeting is attending and helping the poorest of the poor. Though neither I nor anyone else has much of an idea what Jesus said, I imagine, if he was good guy, like they say he was  – he would say — Be kind to each other and help the poor. If people kept that as their main understanding of Christianity, Islam, or any other religion — I would be happy.

Interesting, this morning, working on drawings the liberation of faith and humanity drawings, that I have been working on for awhile. This morning a Muslim woman with her breast exposed, and her chador and hair flying in the wind. It is symbolic of all the people of the Muslim world embracing freedom in the light of the Arabic spring. I fear that we humans are too primitive to handle spirituality.  True spirituality, stripped away from our gods, stripped clean of theology, stripped clean of our prayers, of our childish notions of heaven and hell, and stood naked with our questions and fear.  True spirituality. Where we are naked and alone, looking to the skies, cloaked only in our wonderment and awe, breathing, awake, listening with our whole being to the whisper of the wind, feeling the erotic thrill of a warm spring rain, and breathing fully the enigma of being.

Spirituality – god? theology? being? No, it is simply, being present, attentive to breathing. Conscious. Awake.

And in this wakeful state, if we also can care for others less fortunate, beautiful. But let it come, not out of our narcissism, but out of our passion for being radically alive.  Radically present to the moment.

{ 0 comments }