Edward Hays ~ Author, Artist & Storyteller
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How Are You Going to Respond?

6/24/2015

 

How Are You Going to Respond?


Dear old and new friends,

     Last week Pope Francis issued his new sweeping teaching document on the environment and climate change. In it he dynamically called for each person's ecological conversion to break with "our exploitation and selfishness." This historic papal teaching proclaims that it is our global duty for each of us to personally act to alter the present path of the on-going ecological disaster. For this week's reflection I am recycling for your consideration my January 21, 2015 Haystack that dealt with our personal response to our present environmental crisis.

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     Religious scholar Dr. William Dinges has written, “Humans are deeply implicated in the massive ecological destruction we are seeing…we can’t continue to think and act as if we are ecologically segregated from the rest of creation.” I agree with him, and the issue is how do we respond to climate change, global warming or the pollution of the air, water and the earth? Typically we blame this crisis on pollution created by big industry, giant power plants and “other” car owners. But in our participatory interconnected universe there are no neutral observers; we are either co-creators or co-destroyers! Today it is important to remember that first great commandment of childhood, “You made the mess…you clean it up.” 

     The moon landing in 1969 radically changed our perception of our Planet Earth. When photographed from space we saw the Earth as a bluish-green globe devoid of border lines separating countries and peoples. It appeared as a living entity floating in space instead of an inert object of matter. Since 1984 quantum theologians have proposed we consider the world as God’s body! Now along with the Corpus Christi—the Body of Christ—we had to reverence the Corpus Dei—the Body of God, a sacramental reality to handle with holy care. 

     Ecology, once a scientific concern, must be seen today as a spiritual issue that requires we begin to live a new ethics of our morality. Quantum physics today proclaims what mystics in all religions have said when it teachers that at the microscopic level all creation, all life, is dynamically connected. The major sin of our time say quantum theologians is speciesism—the human assumption that we are the ultimate life form under God and are entitled to lord it over the rest of creation.  

     As individuals we feel powerless to heal our pollution-sick planet. The global size of the problem causes us to mown, “How can I, a lone individual, reverse the rapidly increasing shrinkage of the polar ice caps or clean up the pollution of our rivers? Even while feeling impotent, we have a moral, ethical and spiritual responsibility to be personally involved in correcting climate change and the pollution of the air, water and earth. To begin this holy work we need make an act of faith: we are not impotent. Because each personal action to rescue our planet, while appearing small and ineffective, is connected with countless millions of other such actions as part of a global web of ecological salvation. 

     You can begin this new vocation by acknowledging that each act of recycling is spiritual and sacramental. Each time you perform the simple act of turning off an unnecessary electric light, say “Amen” (aware we use this word to conclude prayers and sacred actions) to remind you that saving electricity is a spiritual prayer-action. Each time you pick up a piece a trash from the street or recycle a newspaper or plastic item, say “Amen.” By such holy actions of saving God’s Body we are saving our own for we and all the Earth are intimately united as one. 

     Be politically involved in the salvation of the Earth by voting for candidates who promise to promote strict ecological legislation. Most important is praying daily for your beautiful and poisonously-polluted Earth, which really is praying for yourself!

The Joys of Tripping

6/17/2015

 

The Joys of Tripping


Dear old and new friends,

     Taking a trip, be it a short excursion across town or a longer one by plane, train or car, needs along with some advance planning and budgeting a secret success formula. Vacation trips are much anticipated as future good times, yet regardless how well they are planned often they turn out to be anything but happy.

     Trip thieves that steal a good time are all those circumstances beyond our control— canceled flights or lost luggage, expensive car engine repairs requiring days of delay, sickness, being in a four-car highway collision or simply getting lost, and the ultimate thief, rain which upon reaching the place of your vacation it does almost continuously. Many Europeans call vacations “holidays,” a twin to a holy day, and to have a happy, holy vacation requires desire and a formula. If you are taking a trip to Yellowstone National Park or only traveling across town, let your trip begin with this possible departure ritual: After backing out of your garage, pause briefly to look at your home with loving appreciation for all the gifts of life you have received within it. Secondly, hold an “intention” that was Emerson’s I believe, who said, “When you leave home for a short walk or a long trip, always leave it as if you will never return! Such a double-barrel departure provides a unique quality to your trip.

     The driver or a travel companion also might recite aloud these words of John Steinbeck, “...we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” Paradoxically this is equally true of life; we don’t so much live a life as we are lived by our life. Likewise, both life and a trip are adventures of the unexpected, of the often astonishingly unanticipated, and even miraculous, when experiencing a near-miss accident or finding healing in a life-threatening illness! To add some mystical mischief to your trip, peer behind the commonplace and under the mundane you encounter with a detective’s diligence for clues of the responsible Culprit Creator.

     Our eyes are so easily blindfolded by repetition, so in order to see the old and familiar, or the new and different, strive to see with Adam’s Eden-new eyes. Every café or diner along the way offers your taste buds the prospect of new tangs and flavors, even if you find them not as good as your home cooking. But if you’re only comfortable with the familiar, why let a trip take you to anything unfamiliar?

     God wishes that your trip and your life will be enjoyable. Being able to control our thoughts of how we react to any un-pleasantries on those journeys, we do not have to be victims of circumstances! Trips and life are accomplished waltz-like as we move from here to there. I was told that as an infant my dad would sing “The Sidewalks of New York” as he cradled me in his arms while waltzing around.

          East side, West side,
          All around the town,
          The tots sang 'Ring-a-Rosie',
          'London Bridge is falling down!
          Boys and girls together,
          Me and Mamie O'Rorke,
          Tripped the light fantastic
          On the sidewalks of New York.

Awesome Dawn

6/10/2015

 

Awesome Dawn


Dear old and new friends, 

                                                       Spiritual Principle:

          Strive to experience God in different places and at different times in our lives.

     Dawn, the first appearance of light in the morning (from Middle English daunen--meaning "daybreak") for those awake at that hour is usually greeted with more of a yawn than awe. Our daystar's yellow orb appears to us earthlings as small viewed at its great distance from us, yet is so gigantic it could contain one million earths! Behind its golden beauty is hidden a gargantuan nuclear exploding sky-furnace of around 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit emitting more energy in one single second than humans have used in all of history. However, it doesn't cause us to have goose bumps!

     Goose bumps are the body's reaction in which the muscles around our hair follicles contract when we are faced with what is fearful or causes awe. An experience of awe unfortunately we associate with mystics, which we are not. We encounter the common in our daily lives not the supernatural! The word "awesome" today is commonly used, especially by the young. Just the other day a waitress said it to me when I told her I thought my pizza was delicious. Psychologists say of us that are awe-deprived. This unique poverty causes the diminishment of humanity as people become more individualistic with restricted identities, divorced from others, and blind to beauty.

     Awe is associated with worship, as when Isaiah in the temple beholds God's splendor being encircled by flaming-winged angels exclaiming, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. All the heaven is filled with his glory!" Their awesome proclamation is well known to those familiar with hearing it as a chant in the Roman Liturgy of the Mass. Was this awe-inspiring vision originally placed in the Liturgy as a call to those attending to feel a sense of awe at what was about to happen, instead of as a signal to kneel down? Besides worship, awe is created by dancing, music, art and small and large group-uniting rituals and the most common events of life…for those with eyes to see.

     All of us need to develop a hunger and taste for awe, even for societal reasons! Recent studies have shown those who frequently experience wonder or awe are more socially involved, active in promoting justice and equality, more generous to public programs and aid to the less fortunate! To build up awe and wonder, first desire to experience the awesome and practice simple, short rituals such as:

        At your first sip of your morning coffee say, "Awesome," and then pause to truly savor           the invigorating brew of your coffee.

        Looking upon a lake or ocean, or looking up at the night sky crowded with the vastness           of stars and unseen but existing galaxies, say, "Awesome," then allow that feeling to             make you smaller, more humble and in communion with all that exists.

        You are in a hurry and have a green light, say, "Awesome," then be grateful that this             traffic light will help you be on time for your appointment.

        After a good bowel movement or relief of a headache, say "Awesome," then rejoice and         be grateful that you are experiencing God in natural and healing ways in your life.

     The Islamic mystics teach that the saying, "Aa-ah," after anything sensually delightful is actually pronouncing another one of God's holy names! However, “Ah" and "Awesome" are Siamese Twin words joined at the hip, ecstatic outbursts of utter delight at being in the Presence of the Source of Wonder, even if you don't have any goose bumps.

A Religious Experience at Your Fingertips

6/3/2015

 

A Religious Experience at Your Fingertips


Dear old and new friends,

     Instead of thinking like a seventeenth century woman or man, think, live and pray like someone of the twenty-first century, and you will have an unbelievable experience! Four hundred years ago at sunrise as the sun rose over the eastern horizon people prayed, ate their breakfast and began their day. At sunset as the sun sunk below the western horizon church bells rang calling farm laborers from the fields back inside the city walls for supper and rest. Both sunrise and sunset were then and remain today pillars of stability and of our vocabulary, even if they don’t exist in reality!


                 (Stop reading this Haystack reflection…your doorbell just rang!)

     “Yes, Officer, how can I help you?” you say, opening your front door to a policeman       standing there.          

     “Excuse me, but do you know how fast you were going?”

     “What are you mean, sir? I wasn’t even in my car; I was sitting at my computer right here in my home. I wasn’t going anywhere!”

      “I clocked you going 67,000 miles an hour! Where were you going in such a great hurry?”


     Like the person in that mini-parable, at this moment you and all of us are traveling 67,000 miles an hour as Earth orbits the sun; that is unless you are an old fashioned flat world believer. And as a speed demon you also are spinning around as an inhabitant on Earth as it rotates on its axis at 915 miles an hour (speed measured at The Kennedy Space Center; your rotation speed will vary depending on the latitude of where you live). Fasten your safety belt; as an earthling belonging to our sun’s family of planets inside the spiral Milky Way Galaxy we are hurling outward into space at 1.4 million miles an hour being pulled towards an unknown destination in the direction of (and perhaps beyond) the star constellation Hydra.

     As you attempt to grapple with these incomprehensive speeds without the fake effects of Hollywood’s glowing heavenly mystical clouds, you are having a religious experience! Be forewarned: accepting these estimated speeds, or even that the earth moves, could make you a heretic! That is it you were alive in 1600.

     On June 22, 1633, Galileo was condemned by the Roman Inquisition as being vehemently suspect of heresy because his teachings contradicted Holy Scripture. Also because he believed the sun was not the center of the world and that it didn’t move from east to west but rather it was the world that moved.

     Galileo escaped the fiery fate of Giordano Bruno, the monk philosopher who supported the Copernican theory along with other false ideas. He was declared in 1600 a heretic and was burned at the stake in Rome. The Polish scholar Nicholas Copernicus died before he was declared a heretic in 1616, but not before releasing his teaching that the sun, not Earth, was the center of the universe. Galileo avoided a fiery death by humbly denying his findings and submitting to being “suspect” of heresy. He agreed for the rest of his life to be silent, and live under house arrest, and died that way in 1642.


Once heretical, here now three prayers for a twenty-first century cosmic believer.

A Middle of the Night Prayer


Awake in the darkness of outer space,
restless now in this night, soon to end,
westward revolving as Earth rolls on
pulled to our Great Star magically.
I feel none of this laying still in my bed.

I believe but don’t feel Earth’s spinning
towards our light and life generous Star,
full of promises of a newer, better day
like Eden’s first hydrogen explosive dawn.


Morning Appearance of Our Day Star

Blindingly your laser-like golden light
erases night’s darkness of space.
You, our favorite star of our Galaxy’s
more than two billion sun blazing stars,
are one star calling us to today’s work.

Once you were worshiped as god of gods.
We salute you, healing Sun Sacrament
of life and light, clock of day and night.
You our sky icon of the Source of All Life.


Nightly Disappearance of Our Day Star

This day is done; its work and toil are over.
Earth fades away in the turquoise twilight;
as the cosmic curtain silently rises we turn
outward to behold a dark sea of silver stars
from which, as dust, once we have come.

Glittering diamond lights of cremated stars
millenniums dead, your light still lives on in us,
and some of night sky’s other sun-stars.
One with Earth may I spin asleep in peace,
westward confident of a new day of promise.


    Edward Hays


    Picture
    Haysian haphazard thoughts on the
    invisible and visible mysteries of life.

    Picture

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