Edward Hays ~ Author, Artist & Storyteller
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March 25 ~ Fifth Week

3/25/2015

 
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March 25 ~ Fifth Week


Dear old and new friends,

     Agnostics and atheists, non-religious or religious, no one yet has escaped dying! This Haystack reflection is for all to ponder as we anticipate the events of Friday, April 3rd, that remembers the death of Jesus. Believers or doubters, we all need to think about that unavoidable event in life and the reality known to every backyard gardener that the beautiful pictures on the seed packets don’t come alive unless they die. Do garden seeds fear their death as we fear ours?

     More than a primal survival instinct our fear of dying is evident from our daily speech when we politely say, “Mary passed away today”—instead of “she died”! So common is this darkest fear of the inescapable that in the stone business a salesperson never speaks of tombstones, instead refers to them as “memorial stones or monuments.” Regardless what you want to call it, to each of us someday the “unspeakable” will come so we best wisely prepare for it by thinking about it seriously.

     Surprisingly the best preparation for a happy death is to become an expert lover who never tires of more unselfishly loving—more totally and sacrificially loving—regardless if married or not! Single, divorced, widowed or vowed religious, the wandering teacher of Galilee who died crucified on a cross calls everyone to wisely observe his one and only commandment: “Love God and each other.” Every act of love requires death of self; dying to the self’s powerful demands to be always right, first and in control. The need for the self to die is essential according to theologian Ilia Delio, “A self that is full of itself can never receive the love of another nor make a genuine movement towards the other.” Infallible is this ironclad rule of how to love.

     The legend that Adam, by sinning against God, ushered death into this world was the way the ancients tried to explain the existence of this dark horrifying fate of all life. Science has shown us that death and life appear together after evolution’s Big Bang as dying stars exploded outward in space all the raw ingredients of life. These star deaths were repeated over and over in the billions of years of evolution as galaxies appeared, and then our daystar, the sun, was born out of the clouds of various gasses and atomic hydrogen. The other planets in our solar system along with our planet Earth were gradually created from cosmic clouds in like fashion until, most amazingly, we humans became living Easters of long dead stars.

           Good Friday is the Great Valentine’s Day! Believers and unbelievers need to see the cross with all its suffering, pain and death not as a sacrifice-payment to redeem humanity from the punishment of its sins but rather as a cosmically gigantic act of love. The cross symbolizes the deeply profound cost of authentic loving and the sign of a willingness to go to extreme limits of genuine true affection and faithfulness. Even if it appeared God had abandoned him in his agonizing death, Jesus never once curses, asks why, or abandons God. The cross then is the ultimate sign of a love that knows no end. There is an old Russian expression that says you can tell the depth of belief of a woman or man by the way they make the sign of the cross.

March 18 ~ Fourth Week

3/18/2015

 
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March 18 ~ Fourth Week


Dear old and new friends, 

     The previous Haystack spoke of the millions of miles of space between stars as being empty…but that was an immense understatement! It was made for emphasis since it is estimated that 90% outer space is made up of invisible mysterious dark matter, swirling dark clouds of vortexes of enormous gravitational powers capable of consuming entire stars. I feel that whenever we can create personal empty times, spaces within our lives, they also are jam-packed with mysterious and creative energy.

     With this week we have reached the halfway point in our Spring Renaissance. That fact should be a call to disciplined effort to renew ourselves since the last part of any race or project is always the most difficult! Too easily we begin to hurry as the end approaches, often becoming careless instead of intensely focusing becoming renewed in all we do, especially in our loving.

     Living as we do in an over-scheduled lifestyle the question we frequently ask of ourselves is, “What time is it?” This Spring Renaissance reflection is an invitation to reform your concept of time that effortlessly becomes a cruel slave driver. In the 1870 Paris revolution the revolutionaries went about the city shooting the hands of public clocks! This strange vandalism of clocks as a demonic device of enslavement was around the beginning of clock-driven manufacturing. Today we can just as easily become slaves to all kinds of clocks; alarm clocks, wristwatches and the time clock at work strictly regulating our entire time and leisure.

     An old saying of Judaic mystical Hasidim is, “Where there is a clock, there is no soul!” Reflect on that wisdom the next time you enter private or communal prayer time. In your prayer see if unconsciously there is a timepiece that vampires the soul of your prayers. In churches in the late medieval days it was common for preachers about to deliver a sermon to place an hourglass on the pulpit both for him and those attending. Today’s version of that is slyly glancing at your wrist watch during a long boring sermon.

     “I am just wasting my time” is a deceptive and misleading statement for it is impossible for you or me to own or possess time. More accurately, we are loaned time for an indefinite period. The ancient Aztecs of Mexico perceived this reality, and from them we have this most beautiful and thoughtful soul-stirring prayer to God. It might be the nightly prayer a husband and wife recite together, even in a shorter version, which could have powerful implications.

     Oh, only for so short a while you
     have loaned us to each other,
     because we take form in your act of drawing us,
     and we take life in your painting us,
     and we breathe in your singing us.

     But only for so short a while
     have you loaned us to each other.
     Because even a drawing cut in obsidian fades,
     and the green feathers, the crown feathers,
     of the Quetzal bird lose their color,
     and even the sounds of the waterfall
     die out in the dry season.


     So, we too, because only for a short while
     have you loaned us to each other.


     The words of British author Donald Nicholl’s echo this Aztec prayer about the true ownership of time, “Hurrying is actually a form of violence exercised upon God’s time in order to make it ‘my time.’” Rushing through life at an ever-quickening speed has become a common misfortune in our culture that not only desires more and more, but want it faster and faster. Hurrying/rushing is a deadly lethal habit; whether you are hurrying while you are eating, driving, talking or since, it is a habit, when praying. Spring Renaissance is reform and renewal time, so take to task your bad time habits.

     The cure for the demonic addiction of hurrying is paradoxically the opposite—slowing down. Efforts at slowing down will be penitential, and you will find it painful to put a strict diet on your daily schedule. Planning ahead will be required to create small islands of time before departures and arrivals as a buffer for the unexpected. When eating and you become aware that you are hurrying, stop for a moment and take a deep breath; then return to eating the meal only now slowly, and as you do savor the food.

     Practice seeing the time on any clock or watch as a mysterious and wonderful gift, and view it with reverence ever mindful it is a love gift from your Beloved. Surrounded by a breathtaking world of wonders never “kill” time, enjoy where you are and who you are. If you find you have “time on your hands,” use that surprise gift of unexpected time to enjoy life.


                   ~ For those with old Catholic Lenten Backgrounds ~

     If you are really an old (about a thousand years) Catholic then you know why the Easter Bunny brings gifts of eggs. In the Middle Ages fasting and abstaining in Lent was really severe, especially for public penitents who had to not only fast and do penance but also had to walk barefoot all Lent, sleep on the ground or bed of straw and were not allowed to bathe or cut their hair. For everyone else, fasting meant only one meal a day and forbidden was flesh meat, milk, cheese, butter and eggs. When Lent was over the once forbidden eggs became a big treat for Easter that were delivered by the ancient fertility symbol of the rabbit. 

     Fasting, now a minor part of Lent, is a universal spiritual practice that is ancient and common to other religions such as Islam which commemorates Ramadan, a month long fast that is total from sunrise to sunset. But instead of fasting consider doing the reverse—eating! Spring Renaissance eating is “eating your shadow,” which in the Japanese martial arts means facing your dark side that others do not see, known as “eating bitter.” Also we typically deny the ugly harshness of life and turn our backs on what is unpleasant in ourselves and our society. Instead, turn forward and honestly face the evil or unpleasant realities of human behavior, even if doing so will leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

     Face honestly the enormous and criminal disparity of wealth that exists in America. Don’t patriotically close your eyes to a Congress that appears more concerned about political control and votes than being compassionate for the poor and unemployed. And don’t excuse yourself, pretending blindness to the evils of poverty surrounding wherever you live.

     And in conclusion reflect that another way to “eat bitter” is not to personally indulge, either privately or publicly, in the “poor suffering me” of self-pity.

March 11 ~ Third Week

3/11/2015

 
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March 11 ~ Third Week

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Dear old and new friends,

     Easter Rabbit believers are looking forward to his visit in only a couple of weeks. He along with Santa, fairies of lost teeth and hidden treasures, dancing Leprechauns and other impossible wonders, delight the young inhabitants of the world who believe in fantasy. Uncouthly they soon become victims of child abuse; around the age of seven to nine, even three (with sophisticated parents), their belief in fantasy and the unimaginable evaporates. It can be the education by some “wise” kid or a slow evolving skepticism and doubt that the once unbelievable could actually exist in this harsh nitty-gritty world evaporates. 

     The Spring Renaissance’s good news is that we’re born into an unimaginable, fantastical place! Childhood fantasy’s enchanted world was our kindergarten for living today and being aware of where you are and of the surrounding wondrous neighborhood. You live on planet Earth circling around our daystar, the sun, 93 million miles away. If you desired to take a trip to the sun (the largest object in 25 trillion miles of nearby galactic space) driving at 55 miles an hour it would take you 193 years!




     
             




     Buckle your fantasy safety belt. If you wanted to drive to the sun’s closest star in the galaxy, Alpha Centauri (a cluster of three stars), at 55 miles an hour the journey would take you 52 million years! As for enjoying the scenery as you drive, there’s nothing, just emptiness. Now put on your awe-shock helmet: If our local neighborhood of our solar system of the sun and nine planets was put inside a coffee cup in Kansas City, our Milky Way galaxy with its 300 to 400 billion stars would be the size of North America. And our galaxy is but one of an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe!

     Is class over yet? It’s barely begun! The space between our daystar the sun and Alpha Centauri is empty, as is the space between all the other billions of stars. John Davidson said in 1989 that declaring space is empty is grossly misleading; it is more correct to use the term “creative vacuum.” Today, scholars believe this “empty” space and the vastness of all outer space is a massive whirlpool of raw potential life forces, unknown fields of energy. But this vacant vastness is essential to planetary existence as a cooling down space for interaction between stars.

     Our cosmos needs massive amounts of empty space…and we, too, need empty space and time! However, remember we fear, even dread, emptiness and so fill it with music, chatter, noise and ever-present television. To cure your fear of emptiness seek out an uninhabited church; go in and sit in the holy hollow silence so this creative vacuum can calm and replenish you. Other cures include the practice of meditation, common old fashioned fishing devoid of noise or sitting on your front or back porch doing nothing but being entertained (and inner-trained) by the fertile purposelessness of nothing. I know personally that this isn’t easy, yet like for the cosmos it is essential.

     A renaissance evening prayer after a hard day at work might be to go outside and look up at the stars…and become a child again. Have awe-filled fun imagining the unbelievable, impossible distances between the stars and the fantastic size of our ever evolving cosmos.


                  ~ For those with old Catholic Lenten backgrounds ~

     The previous reflection started with childhood fantasy. So I want to return to what was important as a child. The main part of the old Lent for children was the penance of “giving up” something we liked, and this attitude of denial endured into adulthood. I can remember as a young boy that on our kitchen table in Lent was a large Mason jar in which we put gifts of candy we had given up for the 40 days of Lent. That candy jar became our Lenten gauge since as the candy level rose higher and higher we knew Easter was getting closer, and at noon on Holy Saturday (which was the end of Lent in those olden days) we could eat the candy. 

     Everyone was expected to do penance in Lent, to endure some discomfort or pain for God. Lenten penances were how you made restitution or satisfaction for past sins now, instead of when after you died. Some gave up playing card games while others gave up beer or, even harder, smoking. To understand the concept of penance you need a medieval mind since scholars treated forgiveness of sin from a four point civil legal aspect: remorse, confession, absolution and finally satisfaction. In this feudal legal system justice required satisfaction or restitution for your sins. Early confessional penance/restitutions were very harsh: a year of fasting, going on far distant pilgrimages, and even celibacy. Later reforms in the act of confession reduced penances to saying prayers.  

     It is humorous to imagine the healer Jesus saying to a cripple, “Your sins are forgiven, throw away your crutch, and for your penance go and say three Hail Mary’s and….” We need to find wholesome replacements for those old penances in our Spring Renaissance since denial is a powerful and useful spiritual tool for growth. 

     Penances are typically forms of denial. Possible Renaissance penances could be when finding ourselves in a group where everyone is putting down someone who is absent, we deny ourselves participating in the discussion or we try to change the subject. When we find ourselves making an unfounded assumption in our mind about someone else or judging another’s status or value by how he or she are dressed or act, call an instant recess of that courtroom in our head.

March 4 ~ Second Week

3/4/2015

 
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March 4 ~ Second Week

Dear old and new friends,

     Evil and the endless flow of sufferings from it appears to be increasing in our world…or is it that television news can now bring the world’s hideous evil sufferings into our very homes that we are more aware of them? We sit as helpless spectators before the bloody slaughter of innocent children, women and elderly, and a host of other human miseries.

     There’s a story about Jesus returning to earth and going about doing good as he had done before. He is quickly arrested by the Inquisition and thrown in a dungeon cell. The old Grand Inquisitor comes to his cell and accuses Jesus of his many crimes through his gift of freedom to humanity. He condemns the prisoner for giving false hope to the poor by declaring their liberation from oppression. The Grand Inquisitor tells him that this time “they” won’t again let him spread his wickedness. The sinister interrogator stops and waits for some response from the prisoner, but Jesus remains silent. It was clear that the prisoner had listened intently yet he wasn’t going to say anything…and the Inquisitor desired some kind of response! Instead, the prisoner silently approached the old man and softly kissed him on his bloodless, aged lips. That was his answer! 

     This story from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky affirms the teaching of Jesus that the only appropriate response to evil, domestic or international, is love! Critical in our Spring Renaissance is the awareness that the opposite of love is not hate. Love’s counterpart is indifference; being apathetic, detached and removed. If in your neighborhood a child is kidnapped to be indentured as a sex slave or exploited laborer it would bring outrage and action. When the same event happens on the other side of the world, we feel sorry but remain uninvolved.

     Our Spring Renaissance reminds us that when we choose to live at the radical depth of our subatomic quantum self, each of us is inseparable from the rest of humanity and from creation, our planet and the universe. Almost two thousand years before Einstein in the 1920’s coined the word “quantum” for the bits or waves of energy perceived at the subatomic level that connect us all together, Jesus perceived that reality when he said, “Whatever you do to one another, even the least among you, you do to me!” When you live at that level of inner depth, “them” becomes “us.” So it is then us, you and I, who at age seven slaves away at a workbench in some dirty workshop. And whenever we dare live at that inner depth where our “I” becomes a collective “we” then we are the ones killed by drive-by shootings or are raped, robbed and imprisoned…and not them.

     The Brothers Karamazov tells another story of an argument between Ivan, who is an atheist, with a believer, Alyosha. Ivan quotes example after example of horrible human suffering, ending with the anguish of innocent children. Then Ivan says to God, “I most respectfully return to you my entrance ticket to your Heaven!” Yes, who wants to share eternity with a God who allows the sexual abuse of children, domestic violence, murder and sadistic bullying? But all good things have a shadow side! Free will’s dark shadow is that humans can abuse that gift resulting in immense suffering such as the inconceivable evil of the Holocaust.

     Our Spring Renaissance presents to each of us an evolutionary challenge to freely choose to live at the inner depth of the quantum theory…or not!

                ~ For those with old Catholic Lenten backgrounds ~

     Catholic churches are filled with violence and horrible suffering! Their walls are lined with fourteen picture/images of the horrible physical abuse of Jesus, his shaming and disgrace, his crucifixion on the cross and finally the sorrowful grief of his burial. Most churches also must have in a prominent place a large, often life size, image of Jesus nailed to a cross. Crucifixion was adopted by Rome from the Persians as the most agonizing way to die.

     The Stations of the Cross are composed of 14 different images-stations and originated at the time of the Crusades where knights and ordinary people walked through Jerusalem’s streets stopping at different places along the tortuous journey of Jesus and his cross to Calvary. This crusader devotion spread to Europe so that in the 14th and 15th centuries there were stops/stations for prayer spread across the countryside, making it a sort of pilgrimage of the cross. Next the fourteen stations were all placed inside a single church with the space between the stations radically condensed. A traditional Lenten devotion is for a group or an individual to make the Way of the Cross.

     In this pious devotion the suffering and death of Jesus of Nazareth are remembered and become a source for reflection…and guilt! Unfortunately, often the reason for the cross is preached that it was made necessary by our sins, that we and our sins are responsible for the death of Jesus on the cross. While actually the crucifixion was a sign of infallible and faithful love…but we will return to that later in our Spring Renaissance.

     The Stations of the Cross of the Living Christ could be a Spring Renaissance prayer for your own home as you watch the news! Television news presents living Stations of Christ’s agony and passion of the Cross with its images of war zones, senseless murders, those suffering droughts and famines, victims of natural disasters, children and the elderly lacking proper care and food, and plagues and epidemics. Each living tragedy is usually filmed at the very site at which it happened and can be a Station in your Stations of the Cross. Begin by consciously living at that deep inner level of the quantum reality so as to share in the suffering.

                                    Then possibly use this silent ritual:

                     Breath in the pain and agony of a scene as you slowly trace
                          the sign of the cross on your heart with your thumb.

     Each Station can be a Holy Communion of the Cross. Be prepared for these electronic Stations of the Cross that, unlike the static ones in church, will be instantaneous!


    Edward Hays


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    Haysian haphazard thoughts on the
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