Edward Hays ~ Author, Artist & Storyteller
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Haystack Blog
  • Artwork
  • Novels
    • Pilate's Prisoner
  • Prayers
  • Stories
  • Spirituality
  • Advent & Christmas
  • Almanacs
  • Lent

Being Busy Strategically

10/31/2013

 

Being Busy Strategically

Picture
Dear old and new friends,

    An excellent spiritual Halloween exercise is to visit your future gravesite or any cemetery, and realistically ponder your death. But you don’t have to go to a cemetery to meditate on dying; just open your eyes to see the homes and front yards of your neighborhood decorated with spider webs, tombstones and grim skeletons. This Mortuary Mardi Gras called Halloween, with all its razzamatazz of masks and costumes, is our way of joking with our greatest fear—death! Instead of treating these fake skeletons comically, in turn let them become symbols of your future fate!

    Since childhood many of us have prayed, “Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.” These words were usually said thoughtlessly at the end of a longer prayer, so consider this tale.

        Thirty minutes from now you hear several loud knocks at
        your front door. Opening the door, you find old bony Death!
        Who of us wouldn’t say, “Oh, I am sorry Death, this isn’t a
        good time! Not this hour—or any hour today—for I must attend
        to unfinished business. I need to say an affectionate goodbye to
        loved ones and I’ve a pocketful of nagging unspoken apologies.
        Mr. Death, this really isn’t a convenient hour. Please come back
        at another time.” But as a sharp, chilling wind swirls up orange
        brown dead leaves around his bony legs, he smiles and beckons
        with a skinny skeletal finger: “Friend, that hour you’ve praying
        about for years and years, well this is it!”

    Unless you’re in hospice care, no convenient hour exists to die. When that fateful hour comes will we say, as did Queen Elizabeth I, “All my possessions for a moment more of time.”

    “Pray for us now and at the hour of our death” is a good prayer if it awakens you to get busy this very hour putting your affairs in order. It’s a beautiful prayer if it causes you to get busy making apologies to any you have wronged and also to invest each time you say “Goodbye” with all the love in your heart. The Prophet Mohammad wisely advised, “Die before you die.” Mohammad, along with history’s other great spiritual giants, knew dying wasn’t something you do at your last hour—it’s a way of life! It’s a lifestyle of dying to self to be available to others, dying to your own comfort so to comfort others, and of dying to old dogmatic beliefs so as to live new liberating ones.

    The mother of Goethe, the German poet and creator of Faust, replied to an invitation to a party, “I am sorry I can’t attend, I am busy dying!” Let Frau Goethe inspire you today to imitate her by being busy dying.

The Captivating Power of Your Surroundings

10/23/2013

 

The Captivating Power of Your Surroundings

Dear old and new friends,

     There’s an old saying we easily forget: “We shape our buildings and then they shape us!” It tells us that we unknowingly resemble our environments. Be it beauty or plainness, each is duplicated in those surrounded by them. Carl Jung said, “Every Roman was surrounded by slaves. The slave and his psychology flooded ancient Italy, and every Roman became inwardly, and of course unwittingly, a slave, because living constantly in the atmosphere of slaves, he became infected through the unconscious with the psychology. No one can shield himself from such an influence.” (Italics mine.) Seriously ponder his last sentence!

    Those ensnared deeply in poverty typically are accused of being just unwilling to work or lacking initiative. Yet it takes an Olympian effort for those who have grown up in ramshackle, trash-cluttered, dirty surroundings to prevail over the influences of their poverty. How different would be their prospects in life if they had been raised amidst order and the beautiful. Beauty is not a luxury; rather it is essential in every home, school, office and city because of its affect.

    To be surrounded by beauty does not require wealth, even the poorest can live in the beauty of creation. I recall years ago visiting a convent of women religious that I found to be bleakly devoid of beauty. Except for a lone crucifix, the severely bare rooms were as desolate as prison cells. I’m sure the sisters who lived there had been indoctrinated to believe their rooms reflected the spirit of poverty. Yet authentic Gospel poverty, like God, is never barren but rather as luxuriously rich as springtime creation.

    Whatever the denomination, examine the interior of your church with an honest critical eye to perceive how it shaping you and your religious beliefs. Do the stain glass windows that block any view of the local neighborhood and your environment proclaim your religion has little or nothing to do with the world and its activities?

    Most Roman Catholic churches, even brand new ones, have as their main focal point a large, realistic crucifix! For the past five hundred years the belief was that the source of redemption was the death of Jesus on the cross. Fifty years ago the Vatican Council declared that the source of our redemption wasn’t the crucifixion, but the Resurrection of Jesus! Should not the church declare a renovation of every parish church so it expressed and shaped the people in the hopeful, joyous victory of Easter instead of the agonizing and violent death of Good Friday?

    Protestant, Catholic or Muslim, we shape our worship spaces and then they shape us!

Homogenized Spirituality

10/16/2013

 

Homogenized Spirituality

Dear old and new friends,

    You don’t have to go to Washington, D.C., to see them. They are in your city, every small town and standing starkly alone in the countryside. I am referring to foreign embassies called churches or synagogues. Officially, an embassy is the residence of another country’s ambassador and is a place of refuge for that country’s citizens. These embassies can be as grand as miniature gothic cathedrals or as simple as oblong, metal buildings identified by steeples atop their roofs.

    Every steeple rising above the rooftops of the stores, businesses and homes of our secular world points skyward to that world or higher power the embassy represents. International law grants to embassies the “right of asylum” to those seeking protection from local authorities. Churches once also did the same by granting “sanctuary,” place of refuge inside them for anyone threatened by public injustice or private vengeance. In medieval times hanging from the outside walls of some churches were large iron rings that granted “sanctuary” to those who grabbed hold of them when unable to get physically inside the church. Churches today grant refuge from a troubled world where some come weekly and others only on festive holidays. These otherworldly yet common structures also symbolized the Wall of Separation between the secular and the sacred worlds.

    The Teacher of Galilee announced Great News: There is no wall between the worldly and the holy—they are simultaneously one. He continuously taught: “The Kingdom, the Age, the Presence of God is now here in your midst.” For his first followers this incredible Good News was easier to embrace than it is for us today who identify ourselves as Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics or Baptists, instead of as his followers.  

    For two millenniums the Kingdom has been “churchified,” so for anything today to be holy it must be totally other than what is worldly. Yet the Teacher said, “Friends, the world is homogenized! God’s Presence is no longer restricted to within the Temple, it’s everywhere and in everyone! No longer are religious rituals required to transform the profane into the holy for every human act is holy.” His early followers strove to live a homogenized spirituality finding their work, meals, loving and bodily pleasures to be holy. So let the next church you see ask you, “Are you a fan, devotee, believer…or a follower of the Teacher of Galilee?”

    Believers worship the Teacher. Followers try to live in that homogenized world he announced. Test repeatedly who you are by asking yourself on a bustlingly noisy street corner if you feel God’s presence? Do your senses distinguish the world around you to be so saturated with the Divine Mystery that it feels the same as being in church? If you do, rejoice because you are one of his homogeneous followers.

The Most Horrible Punishment Turned Inside-Out

10/9/2013

 

The Most Horrible Punishment Turned Inside-Out

Picture
Dear old and new friends,

    To achieve success in any activity or sport it’s only logical you would make more progress when supported by a small group or team. Yet, illogically, this isn’t the case, at least so says psychologist K. Andrews Ericsson of Florida State University.

    He says a deliberate practice in solitude without any partner or teammate is the key to achieving transcendent skill in any area! If you desire to excel in any activity he advises that you will do best by practicing that ability alone! That last word, “alone,” is frightening to most of us Americans, and for good reasons. The prison system’s most dreaded punishment is solitary confinement! Parents used a softer form called “Time Out,” which is a punishment for disobedient children who are sent to their room to be alone in silence.

    We live in an electronic communication age where solitude seems almost impossible. Even those who live alone, don’t! Their solitary life can be filled with all-pervasive television, relentless e-mails and numerous telephone calls. Prehistorically we are communal people, yet unless we learn to create private space apart from others we risk becoming superficial. We must be courageous if we are to disconnect and “turn off” our communicating gadgets to “turn on” our inner-life and find the riches of stillness.

   Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph, the motion-picture camera, a battery for an electric car and the electric light bulb, had 1,093 U.S. patents in his name. Amazingly, this great inventive genius worked and lived in silence! He lost his hearing as a child through an accident and as an adult when doctors told him they could cure his deafness—he refused! He preferred dwelling in the silence of his creative laboratory in his head to hearing the noisy surrounding world.

    Even if you can hear, creating your own silent Edison laboratory takes courage to deliberately separate yourself from others. It requires discipline to silence your machines, regardless how entertaining or newsy, and to daily practice the art of silent solitude for twenty to thirty minutes. Upon being at ease spending time on your Island of Solitary Confinement, create more of them. Use the time driving to create rolling tranquility by turning off the radio and your iPhone so solutions to various problems can bubble up from deep within you.

    When next you must work on some problem go into your own Edison silent laboratory, recalling his well-known words, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

The Answer to the Primal Question

10/2/2013

 

The Answer to the Primal Question

Dear old and new friends,

    Around the age of ten, often uncles, aunts or other adults ask, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” We had no idea at that age and so shrugged our shoulders or made up some answer. In a few short years, however, we began seriously asking ourselves that same question and looked for role models to imitate. It typically takes almost a lifetime to discover that the answer is when I’ve grown up I’m going to start growing down! That journey of descending back to being little instead of big is more difficult than ascending Mount Everest. Most of us lack the courage to grow downward fearing we’ll appear foolish or senile, so others whom we might emulate are rare!

    Yet in late middle age we unconsciously begin this essential descent when to our embarrassment a movie, a song or some stirring event moves us to where our eyes brim over with tears. A small child on the contrary cries openly and loudly without shame, and usually the tears disappear miraculously in minutes. As a mature adult we attempt to suppress tears at times like weddings and even the funeral of someone we love. Mature persons are expected to have mastery over their emotions…both sorrow and joy. Society expects sophistication.

    Several are the difficulties of growing down. As a grown up person you are expected to be serious and somber which overrules the rowdiness of a child’s noisy joy. Adults are big and self-reliant, while children are little and dependent, and usually the least important in a crowd. To grow down is the essential life task of each of us. The Teacher was asked, “How does one enter the kingdom?” He didn’t say by keeping all the commandments or going to church, but rather replied, “Unless you become as little children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven!” True saints are not sophisticated!

    So if you desire to “grow down,” become a student of Silence in whose solitary quiet classroom you learn to forget yourself and become unimportant, cease being restless or worrying what others think of you. In brief: you learn to be free! Surprisingly, children are presented to us as role models who by their uninhibited tears, hilariously joyful laugher and happy playing, experience God without knowing it!

    Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who spent thirty years in silent solitude, was said to wildly run out to meet every person he saw coming, bow down, then with open arms gleefully cry out, “Oh, my brother, my sister, my joy!”


    Edward Hays


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

    Picture

    The Haystack


    Archives

    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012


    Categories

    All
    4th Of July
    Acedia
    Adam
    Advent
    Advertising
    Advice
    Affection
    Agape
    Agnostics
    Alleluia
    All Hallows Eve
    All Saints
    All Souls Day
    Alms
    Alone
    Alzheimer’s
    Amish
    Anger
    Anno Domino
    Apocalyptic
    Apostles' Creed
    April Fools
    Arrows
    Ashes
    Ash Wednesday
    Atheist
    Authenticity
    Awe
    Axe Handle
    Aztec Prayer
    Beauty
    Begging
    Belief
    Beliefs
    Believe
    Bethlehem
    Big Bang
    Blessing
    Blind Faith
    Bog
    Bondage
    Book Of Proverbs
    Born Again
    Boss
    Boundaries
    Brevity
    Broken Heart
    Bug
    Bull's-eye
    Bullying
    Carnival Of Grief
    Catalyst
    Caveman
    Celts
    Change
    Chaos
    Chardin
    Charity
    Cheating
    Child-Heart
    Chinese New Year
    Christmas
    Church
    Climate Change
    Clocks
    Coach Jesus
    Cold
    Commercialism
    Compassion
    Competition
    Conflict
    Congress
    Congress Of Fools
    Conscience
    Consumerism
    Cooking Food
    Cosmic Evolution
    Cosmic Prayers
    Cosmos
    Costumes
    Courage
    Cousins
    Cq
    Creation
    Creativity
    Cross
    Crucified Christ
    Crucifix
    Cupid
    Dalai Lama
    Dancing
    Daredevil
    Daring
    Dearly Beloved
    Death
    Debts
    Decisions
    Dementia
    Denial
    Depression
    Dieting Problems
    Disciples
    Discipline Of Listening
    Discovery Of Fire
    Disease
    Disobeying
    Disobeying Religious Laws
    Disruptive
    Divine Mystery
    Divine Presence
    Doctor
    Dogs
    Doomsday
    Doubt
    Dying
    Earth
    Easter
    Easter People
    Ecology
    Economy
    Ed's Funeral Homily
    Ed's Memorial Card
    Elderly
    Emancipation
    Emmanuel
    Emmaus
    Empathy
    Enjoyment Of Life
    Enslaved
    Entombed
    Environment
    Envy
    Eq
    Equality
    Eros
    Erotic Attraction
    Eroticism
    Escape
    Eternity
    Euthanasia
    Evil
    Evil Eye
    Excellence
    Expectations
    Explorer
    Eyesight
    Faith
    Family
    Fear
    Fear Not
    Fear Of Loss
    Fences
    Flu
    Flying Off The Handle
    Fools
    Forever
    Forgetfulness
    Forgiveness
    Freedom
    Free Will
    Friendship
    Frustration
    Funeral Homily
    Galaxy
    Galilean Teacher
    Gandhi
    Genealogy
    Generosity
    Gift Of Ears
    Gift Of Tongues
    Gimmick
    Giving
    Godlike
    God Of Love
    God Within
    Good Better Best
    Good Friday
    Grain Of Salt
    Gratitude
    Growing Down
    Grudges
    Gullible
    Gut Feeling
    Habit
    Halloween
    Hallucinations
    Happiness
    Happy New Year
    Harassment
    Haystack
    Haywire
    Healing
    Health
    Hearing
    Heart
    Heartache
    Heaven
    Helen Keller
    Holiday
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Thursday
    Home
    Homesickness
    Homogenized Spirituality
    Homosexuality
    Honest
    Hope
    Hunger
    Hunters And Gatherers
    Hurrying
    Hyacinths
    Hypnotic
    Iceburg Spirituality
    Icon
    Ill Will
    Immigrant
    Imprisoning Habits
    Incarnation
    Infallibility
    Influenza
    Injustice
    Inspiration
    Interruptions
    Intoxicating
    Iq
    Ireland
    Islam
    Jealousy
    Jesus
    Jesus The Challenger
    Jingo
    Job
    John The Baptist
    Joy
    Joy As Gratitude
    Judge
    July 4th
    Justice
    Karl Barth
    Karl Marx
    Kindergarten
    Kindness
    Kingdom
    King Solomon
    Kkk
    Kowtow
    Last Supper
    Learning To Unlearn
    Lent
    Letters
    Letting Go
    Liberation
    Listening
    Live
    Loneliness
    Lonely
    Loony Rabbi
    Lord's Prayer
    Lottery Rule
    Lottery Winner
    Love
    Love Of Self
    Lover
    Mad Delusions
    Mad Messiah
    Madness
    Mantra
    Manure/dung
    Mark Twain
    Marriage
    Martin Luther King
    Mascara
    Masks
    Meditate
    Memories
    Mennonite
    Merry
    Mindfulness
    Miracle
    Miraculous
    Mirages
    Misbehavior
    Mohandas Gandhi
    Money
    Moon
    Mother As Teacher
    Multiverse
    Mystic Merriment
    Naked
    Natural Creed
    Natural Disasters
    Near-sighted
    Needle
    Neighborhood
    Newness
    New Wine
    New Year
    No Littering
    Nonbelievers
    Nostalgia
    Obituary
    Olympic Games
    Olympics
    Open Minded
    Oppressor
    Our Father
    Out Of The Woods
    Overweight
    Pain
    Palestinian
    Parable
    Paradise
    Passion
    Peace
    Penance
    Pentecost
    Pious
    Play
    Playfulness
    Poison
    Possessions
    Poverty Of Spirit
    Prairie Spirituality
    Pray
    Prayer
    Precrastination
    Prejudices
    Pretending
    Primitive Tendencies
    Purpose
    Pyromaniac
    Quantum
    Question
    Quiet
    Reality
    Reconciled
    Recycling
    Religious Experience
    Religious Garb
    Renaissance
    Reputation
    Resurrection
    Revolution
    Rich And Poor
    Risen Christ
    Ritual
    Robert Frost
    Robin Williams
    Robot
    Rumi
    Sainthood
    Saline Savior
    Salt Of The Earth
    Samurai
    Sanctuary
    Santa Claus
    Scapegoat
    Self-deceit
    Sensuality
    Shiite
    Shinto Monks
    Signs
    Silence
    Sinning
    Slavery
    Smile
    Solar System
    Solitary Confinement
    Solitude
    Solstice
    Soul
    Souvenir
    Space
    Spark Of Madness
    Speech
    Spirit
    Spirit Of The Holy
    Spiritual Renewal
    Sports
    Spring
    Spring Renaissance
    St. Benedict
    St. Nicholas
    Stories
    Stranger
    Strength
    Struggles
    Submissive
    Suffering
    Suffering As A Toy
    Summer Solstice
    Sunni
    Sunrise
    Sunset
    Symbols
    Sympathy
    Tale
    Tears
    Technology
    Television
    Temporary Insanity
    Thanksgiving
    Thank You
    The Last Psalm
    Thinking & Acting
    Thirst
    Thomas Edison
    Thoughts Equal Deeds
    Time
    Touch
    Trash
    Traveling
    Trick-or-treat
    Trip
    Trust
    Truth
    Truthfulness
    Unbelievers
    Unethical Behavior
    Unhappiness
    Universe
    Untruth
    Vacation
    Vaccination
    Valentine's Day
    Valentine's Gift
    Valley Of The Blind
    Vatican
    Violent Behavior
    Virus
    Visionary
    Visiting
    Vow Of Poverty
    War
    Wastefulness
    Way Of The Cross
    Wealthy
    Wellness
    Whimsical Spirituality
    Winter Solstice
    Wishes
    Women
    Wonder
    Woods
    Work
    Wrestling With God
    Writing
    Zealot
    Zen
    Zeus


    RSS Feed


Home

Blog


Biography

Stories & Parables


Contemporary Spirituality

Pilate's Prisoner


Daily Almanacs

Novels


​Lent

Prayers & Psalms
Christmas & Advent

​Artwork

Copyright © 2023 Thomas Turkle. All rights reserved.