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Are You Ready?

6/25/2014

Are You Ready?

Dear old and new friends,

    The Chinese holy man Chuang Tzu tells a parable about an Emperor who sent a fighting rooster to be trained by a famous old fighting master. After two months, a court envoy arrived asking, “Is the Emperor’s bird ready?” “No,” replied the white-haired trainer. “He is fiery, wants to fight every bird he sees, but he’s not ready…come back later.” Three months pass, again an envoy came asking, “The Emperor enquires: Is not his bird finally ready? The old master replied, “Not yet! If he hears another cock crow, he flares up and ruffles his feathers threatening, but he’s not ready. Come back later.”

    Four months pass and the envoy comes again saying, “The Emperor is growing impatient, isn’t his fighting cock ready?” “Almost ready,” answers the old trainer, “yet he still gets furiously angry around other roosters. No, he isn’t ready, come back in ten days.” Ten days later, the Emperor himself comes. The old cock trainer makes a profound bow before him as he demands, “Is my bird finally ready?” Arising from his deep bow, the old cock master smiles, “Yes, now he is ready. When another bird crows loudly he doesn’t blink and stands still as if made of stone. Now when he walks into the yard the other birds take one look at him and run.”

    Chuang Tzu’s parable reminds me of the words of President Roosevelt’s wife about the silent strength and courage the Emperor’s fighting cock obtained. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face…You (then) must do the thing you cannot do!” Whenever afraid, resist shying away from what is so frightening, and muster the courage to look what is feared directly in the face. Living in a country of reoccurring senseless gun violence asks the question: If you are unfortunately involved in the next massacre are you ready?

    Each week we hear of another horrendous shooting at a school or shopping mall. When as a nation we do nothing to stop or prevent this gun carnage, don’t we logically live in a country where anyone of us could be among the next victims? We must train ourselves to look that fear directly in the face again and again until we are ready. The United States doesn’t have more mentally disturbed citizens than other countries but it does permit the easy purchase of unlimited guns and ammunition. Countrywide gun violence and public killings creates dark anxiety about our personal and domestic security resulting in stores, aided by the gun industry’s propaganda, being busy selling guns to defend oneself and one’s home.

    When face to face with danger, instead of resorting to weapons or physical strength, Chuang Tzu teaches us to learn how to become inwardly strong and confident. Eleanor Roosevelt adds we should look whatever is frightening directly in the face again and again until we are ready to do the thing we think we cannot do.

Writing Priestly Your Grocery List

6/18/2014

Writing Priestly Your Grocery List

Dear old and new friends,

    When next you write out your grocery list do so with reverence to Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and magic. Thoth was the patron god of scribes who employed the gift of the gods, hieroglyphics, “sacred writing.” For each letter the scribes actually inscribed a picture-image—for example, a twisted rope was the scribe’s sign for our “H.” The twisted rope symbol underwent changes as it moved from Hebrew to Greek until around 114 C.E. (A.D.) it evolved into a capital “H” of the Roman alphabet. Reading this Haystack you are actually decoding old roman symbols for ancient image-pictures.

    None marvel at being able to write their name or a list of needed food stuffs, or consider it to be a priestly act or Thoth’s magic to make incomprehensible marks standing for milk, eggs and bologna. For commoners, such as you and me, to be able to write has taken a couple of millenniums. Before that in the ancient past that ability was exclusively that of priestly or royal scribes, then clergy, monks, and later a few nobility—but, of course, never the poor and peasants.

    We are a nation of immigrants. Except in rare cases our ancestors were unable to write or read, being mostly the poor and uneducated. My Irish great-grandfather, arriving here in 1840, signed his immigrant papers with an “X.” Mindful of your great or great-great immigrant grandparents who also made an “X” in place of their name, take time when you sign your name…and never quickly scribble it.

    A story is told about U.S. journalist Horace Greely who in 1841 was editor of the New York Tribune. Greely was notorious for his terrible handwriting, unreadable expect by a certain writer on the Tribune’s staff. One day while this man was out to lunch, two other staff members caught two pigeons off the office window ledge. Inking their claws they had them scamper back and forth crisscrossing a blank piece of paper. Then they took the piece of paper to the writer who translated Greely’s handwriting, telling him it was from Greely. He struggled through the illegible scratches, but was unable to decipher one paragraph. He took it to Greely, who after quickly scanning the page angrily shouted, “What the hell! Am I expected to also do your work? Go, I’ll rewrite the whole page!”

    Whenever you have to write your name, pause and do so as clearly and beautifully as you can, and with gratitude for your priestly ability to write. Today writing and reading are considered common for adults, but perhaps writing needs to be rethought. Of writing, Plato (400 B.C.) surprisingly said, “Cannot a man remember? This invention (of letters) will produce forgetfulness in the mind of those who learn to use it, because they will not exercise their memory! Plato continues, ‘the wise man will not write in ink.’”

    Plato has a message, even if 2400 years old, for those who know how to write—exercise your memory!

Disruptive God Wind

6/11/2014

Disruptive God Wind

Dear old and new friends,

    In the Midwest this is tornado season when roaring, twisting dark-funnel prairie winds uproot and destroy structures requiring that they be rebuilt. A Kansas tornado is a mirror image of the Divine disruptive Spirit. To be vibrantly alive, every religious community, church and person needs an occasional visit by a holy tornado! As my friend the scripture scholar Roger Karban says of Pentecost, “The Spirit’s arrival upon the apostles was accompanied by wind, fire and noise – each one of a disruptive element!”

    Insightful is his use of “disruptive” to describe the Spirit of God. When next in your marriage, family or church disturbing dissent appears, recall Karban’s use of “disruptive” for a visit by the Holy Spirit. This will not be easy since religion, music, art and poetry are based on symbols. The ancient image of God’s Spirit is a peaceful white dove, and such a serene symbol is hardly an image of heated conflict and noisy disturbance. Still, the word “disruption” can also mean a rupture, a coming apart, an opening—for something new to appear.

    Lovers, after heated arguments followed by glacier silence, finally are reconciled…often with the flame of love actually burning with greater passion! In a similar way, groups who resolve dissent after struggling to reach a communal consensus grow more cohesive. Never desire your friendship or family, large or small, be that of uninterrupted peace since that describes death!

    Large families called churches and small families called homes are ever-evolving. All evolution involves pain, suffering and death. Turmoil is an evolutionary element of all life. Instead of attempting to smother the disruptive trouble, help it run its full fiery course by patiently listening to all voices, finding validity in each until reaching a peaceful resolution. In life, imitate art which loves to play with disturbing disorder and entertains chaotic clutter in order to create new, dynamic rearrangement of previous forms.

    A mighty Mongol fleet sailing to invade Japan in 1281 was destroyed at sea by a monstrous hurricane the Japanese named God Wind (kami: God + kaze: wind = Kamikaze). Toward the end of World War II in desperation the loosing Japanese used suicidal planes whose pilots took their name from the Kamikaze.

    When next the noisy fiery winds of dissent sweep across your home or church, welcome the Holy Kamikaze, trust that the God Wind has swept into your life to recreate anew what has become stale and out of date.

Trash and the Secret of the Yo-Yo

6/4/2014

Trash and the Secret of the Yo-Yo

Dear old and new friends,

    Everyday, Americans fill over 63,000 garbage trucks with their waste. In the average American’s lifetime we will personally throw away trash 600 times our weight which amounts to about 90,000 pounds at the end of life! Fortunately, when we die our trash isn’t buried along with us as it would require a massive grave.

    As a nation we have a tradition of wastefulness. Previous generations of Americans thought the bounty of this vast country was unlimited and so lavishly wasted its resources. You and I continue that tradition. Yet it is wrongful…for we should never waste food, water, energy, money and especially time, which always seems limitless unless you are in Hospice. This avoidance of wasting time may be one of our ingrained American Puritan traits, “Never be idle; always be productive.”

    Regardless the source, we detest being idle, wasting long empty hours in doctor’s waiting rooms or in airports due to cancelled flights. We throw away precious time watching junk television or going to an unpleasant event just to fulfill a social obligation. However, the wise ones know the secret of how to waste time fruitfully. The French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in his book, The Little Prince, shared that secret, “It is only the time we ‘waste’ with our friends that counts.”

    Friends, regardless if you have a week or forty years of life left—squander time with friends! Become reckless as a prodigal frittering away countless hours of time in the company of loved ones. Friendships begin with attraction and anticipation that result in investing large amounts of affection since the love feels strong enough to last forever, only for it to disintegrate and die. This fills the heart with the emptiness of loss. About such downcast loss the poet Longfellow spoke prophetically in his “Evangeline”:

            Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted,
            If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters returning
            Back to their springs, like the rain shall fill them full of refreshment;
            That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

    Longfellow was correct. Love is akin to a Chinese toy invented in 1000 (B.C.) BCE. Two ivory disks were connected by a peg around which was wound a silk cord resulting in the Yo-Yo! Love is divine! Similar to a Yo-Yo, your affection flies outward from your heart to another’s. If not welcomed, its silken sacred cord always recycles it back in greater abundance to your heart.

Are You Ready?

Are You Ready?

Writing Priestly Your Grocery List

Writing Priestly Your Grocery List

Disruptive God Wind

Disruptive God Wind

Trash and the Secret of the Yo-Yo

Trash and the Secret of the Yo-Yo

Edward Hays

The Haystack

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