That's what we're all about, right?? Maturation, accepting adult responsibility,taking care of business...how many of us are in the business, in some form of helping ourselves,our children,our spouses and others we meet to step up to the plate, to make the most of ourselves...sounds good, right?? Well, there are times when I really don't want to do any of that, where I resent having to be an adult, I resent the unending burdens, obligations and responsibilities that life brings...I complain "when can I go to the beach?" I do have to admit that I gave up complaining for Lent, which was an amazing experience of clearing out jammed up stuff. But just to be clear, it will be a long time before I am nominated for sainthood.
It is in this spirit of juggling,which most of us are mastering as the art of getting through the day, that I feel moved to share the following story which appeared one day on my Day-at-a-Time Little Zen Calendar. It is not attributed to any one in particular, and is simply called Zen Story. If I were a truly responsible adult, I would know exactly which day it was, but all I know is that it appeared some time in April 2011.I'm sharing it because I laughed right out loud when I read it, appreciating the deep humanity in it for all of us.I thought it was particularly poignant because of the Lenten season, Easter and Passover, which are almost completely behind us, and which require both a LOT of deep (physical,emotionaland spiritual) housecleaning, and which call us to rise up out of our deadening old ruts, to be freed from the small, tight places that cramp and enslave us.
"A man seeking help went to see the Buddha. He told him he was a farmer. "I like farming," the man said, "but sometimes it doesn't rain enough, and sometimes it rains too much. One year we nearly starved." The Buddha listened.
"I like my wife," the man said, "but sometimes she nags too much, then I get tired of her...We have kids too. Good kids, but sometimes they don't show enough respect, and..." the man went on like this.
After the man finished, the Buddha sat, thought, then said, "I'm sorry, I can't help you."
"What? Why not?" said the man, astonished. The Buddha went on to explain that everyone has problems. In fact, he said, we all have eighty-three problems, and he enumerated them, from birth to death, but as he talked the man grew more and more furious until he questioned the very premise of the Buddha's teaching.
"Well," the Buddha finally said, "I may be able to help you with the eighty-fourth problem."
"The eighty-fourth problem? What's that?"
"The problem of wanting to not have any problems."
Personally, I am beginning to think that certain kinds of problems are around to plague us just for the entertainment value,to prevent boredom and allow intellectual stimulation. The responsible ones say our problems are growing edges, so we can rise above our limitations and be more fully ourselves...but we know about those responsible ones, don't we...and where's the beach? Rev.Susan
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
The Easter Season
Easter is my favorite holiday in the Christian year. For me, it is one of the most accesible and relevant celebrations; I see it in the new flowers of spring, in the buds on the trees, in the expressions of joyful expectancy on my children's faces as they search for hidden eggs.
Describing it, however, is another matter. "Well," I tell my four year-old. "After Jesus died, he rose from the dead...."
It's just this line that finds many spiritual people not wanting to be religious--and not just from confusion! Allow me to offer one interesting interpretation of the Easter message.
Yesterday, my husband made bread. He woke early and kneaded the dough for ten minutes. We left the house for a few hours for church and he placed the dough in warm (but not on) oven, to rise. When we returned home, he went to check on the dough while I played outside with the children.
"Kids!" he cried happily from the kitchen. "Come see this! The dough has risen!"
Well, it had risen indeed. The enormous bowl was bulging with a massive round of dough, twice the size it had been when he placed it there a few hours before. Whereas the initial bit of dough could have fed ten people, this dough could feed thirty. The effects of the dough rising were expansive, abundant, evident, and exciting.
What is this thing that rises from the dead, not merely a person from a story that some of us do not believe in, and others of us do not understand, but the spirit of that dough overflowing?
For me, it is love. Love rises. You may begin with a small handful and come to find that with care it has grown to many times its size. This is the message of Easter, the gift of the Easter season, and to me also, the heart of the Christian path. Love cannot be killed; it cannot be kept in a tomb or a grave or locked down. It does not diminsh itself or anything around it. If kindness can feed ten people, Love can feed a hundred. It is the principle of abundance, a law of multiplication that ensures Love always wins, always prospers, always rises up. How wonderful when we get a chance to be amazed by it, as my children were yesterday, looking into the bowl to see the truth of our lives present before us: love grows. It grows because it is love and it simply cannot do anything else! --Rev. Sam Wilde
Describing it, however, is another matter. "Well," I tell my four year-old. "After Jesus died, he rose from the dead...."
It's just this line that finds many spiritual people not wanting to be religious--and not just from confusion! Allow me to offer one interesting interpretation of the Easter message.
Yesterday, my husband made bread. He woke early and kneaded the dough for ten minutes. We left the house for a few hours for church and he placed the dough in warm (but not on) oven, to rise. When we returned home, he went to check on the dough while I played outside with the children.
"Kids!" he cried happily from the kitchen. "Come see this! The dough has risen!"
Well, it had risen indeed. The enormous bowl was bulging with a massive round of dough, twice the size it had been when he placed it there a few hours before. Whereas the initial bit of dough could have fed ten people, this dough could feed thirty. The effects of the dough rising were expansive, abundant, evident, and exciting.
What is this thing that rises from the dead, not merely a person from a story that some of us do not believe in, and others of us do not understand, but the spirit of that dough overflowing?
For me, it is love. Love rises. You may begin with a small handful and come to find that with care it has grown to many times its size. This is the message of Easter, the gift of the Easter season, and to me also, the heart of the Christian path. Love cannot be killed; it cannot be kept in a tomb or a grave or locked down. It does not diminsh itself or anything around it. If kindness can feed ten people, Love can feed a hundred. It is the principle of abundance, a law of multiplication that ensures Love always wins, always prospers, always rises up. How wonderful when we get a chance to be amazed by it, as my children were yesterday, looking into the bowl to see the truth of our lives present before us: love grows. It grows because it is love and it simply cannot do anything else! --Rev. Sam Wilde
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Life in the Moment is Sublime; let's not miss the point.
As a spiritual counselor for hospice patients, I never know what I will encounter when entering a new patient’s room. In the case of Jane, as she began talking, I immediately asked permission to take some notes, (something I had never done prior) and quickly grabbed a pen from my bag.
Though she could not even open her eyes, she spoke in haiku as if I had come for the purpose of receiving a teaching. These are the words as she spoke them, “As the Cancer grows, the fear gets less, because my love grows. Love of everything: birds, water, children, light. Just take a walk outside, in the fall, you’ll see. Life in the moment is sublime, this is the point we miss.”
Being with the dying is a rare opportunity. It paradoxically offers the invitation to truly live – and to live rightly; to fully embrace the presence of heart and mind to love everything: the birds, water, children and light. And, simultaneously to let go of what stands in the way of our being present for life - to let go of what keeps us small and fearful. For me some of these include short-sightedness, judgment, fatigue, the “not good enough” story, or “don’t have time.”
Jane passed away three days after I received this teaching from her. Near death, not fully alert and releasing her grasp on all she loved in the world, she uttered an arresting invitation - one that life is continually offering each of us: to pass through the flames of fear, doubt, resignation into the rising phoenix of awareness and unbounded love. Steven Levine puts it in this question: “How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die?”
May the coming of spring bring us each to the awareness that “Life in the moment is sublime.”
Let’s not miss the point.
Rev. Katherine Silvan
Though she could not even open her eyes, she spoke in haiku as if I had come for the purpose of receiving a teaching. These are the words as she spoke them, “As the Cancer grows, the fear gets less, because my love grows. Love of everything: birds, water, children, light. Just take a walk outside, in the fall, you’ll see. Life in the moment is sublime, this is the point we miss.”
Being with the dying is a rare opportunity. It paradoxically offers the invitation to truly live – and to live rightly; to fully embrace the presence of heart and mind to love everything: the birds, water, children and light. And, simultaneously to let go of what stands in the way of our being present for life - to let go of what keeps us small and fearful. For me some of these include short-sightedness, judgment, fatigue, the “not good enough” story, or “don’t have time.”
Jane passed away three days after I received this teaching from her. Near death, not fully alert and releasing her grasp on all she loved in the world, she uttered an arresting invitation - one that life is continually offering each of us: to pass through the flames of fear, doubt, resignation into the rising phoenix of awareness and unbounded love. Steven Levine puts it in this question: “How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die?”
May the coming of spring bring us each to the awareness that “Life in the moment is sublime.”
Let’s not miss the point.
Rev. Katherine Silvan
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