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Your Appointment

10/29/2014

Your Appointment

Dear old and new friends,

To introduce our reflection for this week that celebrates Halloween on Friday, the 31st of October, I turned to E.E. Cummings ungrammatical poem about Buffalo Bill.

“Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlike that
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death”

You and I, like Buffalo Bill, have an appointment with Mister Death. He seems to be everywhere and could tap anyone of us on the shoulder and say smiling, “Excuse me.” Funerals have nothing in common with this Friday’s Halloween except for the presence of Mister Death. Halloweens are playfully cheery and fun, while funerals are sad and mournful occasions. Both Halloween and roller coasters were originally designed to scare and frighten us “to death,” but only roller coasters can still produce that first purpose of fright while Halloween Friday’s frolicking fun festival only entertains us.

Mister Death is your invisible passenger seated next to you when that roller coaster takes its sudden, lethal, breath-taking 200 foot plunge. He is invisibility seated next to you at every dangerous racecar event. We find Mister Death’s presence both thrilling and spine chillingly fearful. Our society has accomplished an amazing feat of cultural denial of death while day and night the news media plunges us into murders, school shootings, death by starvation, disease and war massacres. Perhaps we might be more conscious of Mister Death if we found him offering various ways to die in our Yellow Pages. Check your local directory for Death under several listing:

Mr. Sudden Unexpected Death Ms. Lingering Slow Death

Mr. Lonely All-Alone Death Ms. Guilt Nagging Death

Mr. Fear-Filled Death                            Ms. Dementia Alzheimer Death

Mr. Stroke Brain Death                         Ms. Physically Paralyzed Death

Mr. Angry Bitter Death Ms. Teenage Early Death

Mr. Violent Brutal Death Ms. Serene Peaceful Death

Regardless who comes calling, Death has an appointment with each of us that we hope will be cancelled…or at least postponed until a later date.

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A Good Day to Escape

10/22/2014

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A Good Day to Escape

Dear old and new friends,

Living in Leavenworth, Kansas with its three prisons—state, federal and a maximum military facility—we are familiar with “prison breaks” when some inmate creatively finds a way to escape. October is an ideal time for your prison break!

Yes, “your” since each one of us came forth from our mother’s womb into a prison that isolated and separated us from one another, from creation and the rest of the cosmos. We are incarcerated in the prison of the Self with its inborn sense of separateness that divides us from all other life. Albert Einstein in a 1950 speech in New York City said, “A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. One experiences oneself…as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of one’s consciousness…. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison.” Yet freedom is never cheap, so we resist the hard labor of escaping, of tunneling our way out to freedom. Einstein rightly calls it a “task,” and in that same speech he tells us how to gain our freedom, “…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

A good religion is one of an evolution of consciousness, a constantly expanding of the circle of connection to others and to creation. A really good religion encourages that we become a faithful permanent escapee since the “self” always catches runaways and brings them back prison. Einstein spoke of ever-widening the circle of compassion or love as the heart of our escape plan. Whenever we encircle in a uniting love those who “appear” different by skin color, politics or religion, paradoxically we discover more clearly our true self as one with the cosmos. Einstein spoke of embracing “the whole of nature in its beauty,” which is why earlier I said October is an ideal time to escape.

The peak of autumn season is when tree tops turn into beautiful golden orange and scarlet clouds, and provide us a wonderful exercise in escaping. Upon seeing a flaming golden tree, pause and say with intensity, “How beautiful are we!” This identifying oneself with a beautiful artwork of creation instead of being simply an admiring observer is to break free! To continue escaping use it frequently and expand your escape-expressions to include peoples of other races and creatures tame and wild.

Your identity also is imprisoned—sadly shrunken—by old fashion tribalism since by its nature it excludes non-tribal others. Religion is a very powerful form of tribalism. Beliefs, dogmas and worship rituals unconsciously create frequently a regrettable spiritual superiority over those with different beliefs and forms of worship.

There is only one true religion—Love. And lovers are inescapable permanent escapees.

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Fellow Israelites

10/15/2014

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Fellow Israelites

Dear old and new friends,

    This Friday, the 17th, is the Jewish Feast of Simchat Torah where the Scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures are held high and danced about in the congregation to joyous songs of young and old to express the contentment of having God’s word. We Christians sadly are too sedate to dance jubilantly with our scriptures, even if we are also Israelites. This title “Israelite” is a combination of three Hebrew words in Genesis 32:23-32 meaning, “Someone who wrestles with God.” It originally referred to Jacob who at the river Jabbok wrestled all night with God (in respect for the sacred name the wrestler is called an angel.) Their sweaty wrestling match lasted until at dawn, exhausted, they stop. While neither was the victor, the mystery wrestler changed Jacob’s name to “Israel.”

    We Christians are also legitimately Israelites for we too have wrestled with God!

    We wrestle with God over the Sunday obligation to go to church or not…and when the    match ended, no winner was proclaimed.
    We struggle with the number of children we can have without abstaining from sex…we’ve wrestled mightily with God but no winner is announced.
    After wrestling with God over whether to say yes to our sexual urges, our passionate desires…no umpire declares a winner.
    Striving to be faithful to the non-violence of Jesus we’ve wrestled whether to be for or against war and capital punishment…and no victor is proclaimed!
    After a long life having been diagnosed with brain cancer and given six months to live I’m told my last days will be very painful. So God why can’t I myself speed up my eventual death by dying today? No answer!

    As children we never wrestled with God but obediently did what we were told that God wanted. Yet even in these first tussles God was silent, and we began testing the boundaries others had set for us. Teenage years meant increased brawling matches with God, and by adulthood some even questioned the point of wrestling while wondering if even a God existed with whom to struggle?

    We were taught God was almighty, but if so why in our wrestling matches wasn’t God declared the winner with an ear-shattering roar of thunder? When we were exhausted after hours struggling with God over what was the morally right thing to do, why did the heavens remain silent? Why? Because God is a lover, not an autocratic tyrant who insists that it’s either “My way or the highway!”

    Out of that immeasurable love we were gifted with unlimited and unrestrained freedom to choose since God doesn’t desire robot lovers. Besides, each situation is exceptional, and therefore allows for exceptions since the issue isn’t about observing some law but of loving others, yourself and God. In any wrestling contest between us God never is the winner because we are not contestants or rivals, but the Holy One’s dearly beloved lovers.

    Is not such an affectionate, freedom-giving Lover God reason for joyous wild dancing?

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Insurrection…or Nózh’q?

10/8/2014

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Insurrection…or Nózh’q?

Dear old and new friends,

You should be mad as hell—as your God is—for the injustice where you must work more than a month to make the same amount of money that the average CEO earns in one hour! Instead of silent acceptance of this inequality be infuriated that the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all wealth, while that of yours and the other 99% is daily eroding. That God hates injustice is obvious from the Hebrew prophets, including Nazareth’s carpenter prophet! This radical, sinful disproportion between the very, very rich and the rest of us could cause us to be jealous or eager to join an armed insurrection to establish financial equality…or we can consider a different view of wealth.

If asked to approximate your wealth, you would likely estimate your bank balance and any real-estate or stocks/bonds/investments (if you own any). If a traditional Navajo Indian were asked the same question, she or he would list the beautiful songs they knew by heart, especially those they had self-created. Then they would add their art works, like rugs, pottery or poetry, as well as all the beautiful sights they have seen, like desert sunsets. For the traditional Navajo beauty is a way of life, a lifestyle called Nózh’q (hoe-shk).

I say the “traditional” Navajo since today sadly many of them have been contaminated by our addictive commercialism and material values and forgotten the ancient way of a life of beauty. Let you and I, along with our Native American brothers and sisters, strive to make our lifestyle that of Nózh’q. We begin this life change by rejecting the illusion that bigger television screens or other such possessions are signs of status or wealth. Begin this radical conversion by making what is beautiful not some superficial luxury but rather something essential to your home and personal lives. We shape our homes—and then they shape us! Beauty does not cost a penny! It requires the desire and discipline to bring harmony and creation’s variety of beauty into our lives and surroundings.

Beauty is a sacred manifestation of the Divine. Enjoying beautiful things and sights is a sensual Holy Communion. Beauty is prayer-full. So if you feel anxious or fearful, close your eyes and visualize something beautiful. Find healing in re-envisioning a vacation memory of the soothing repetition of waves washing ashore or being in a forest of towering giant trees. Beauty is healing. Look long and lovingly at the view outside your window or visually caress an old family heirloom to allow the beauty to heal and rejuvenate you.

God is beauty and God is ugliness! Unique vision, however, is needed to see the divine in what is perceived as ugly, unattractive and even repulsive since they require X-ray vision to see beneath the surface to that which God finds delightfully beautiful. Whenever confronted with the ugly, look directly at it as you practice using X-faith-ray vision.

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Wordless Messages

10/1/2014

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Wordless Messages

Dear old and new friends,

    Signs speak louder and travel faster than words. The highway sign depicting a black silhouette of a leaping deer warns drivers of potential deer crossing the highway. Traveling at sixty or more miles an hour your mind almost instantly comprehends the warning faster than if it had being printed in words, plus it is also an internationally understood sign.

    William Hoy, who played outfielder in the major leagues for fourteen years from 1888 to 1902, was a champion base stealer and in spite of being completely hearing impaired was highly respected by all his teammates. Today, attending or watching baseball games on television you see baseball umpires using hand signals to signal an “out,” “strike” or “safe.” These were first adopted for the special needs of Billy Hoy and continue today as his legacy to baseball.

    Clapping hands is so prehistoric it would be impossible to date when the first humans struck their hands together to show approval and delight. Our original ancestors were hunters and gathers who surely must have communicated to others over distances by hand signs of the presence of game or possible dangers.

    The massive crowds in the Roman Coliseum decided the fate of defeated gladiators by hand signs: thumbs down he dies, thumbs up he lives. These ancient Roman hand signs continue today to indicate approval or disapproval. In the 1415 battle of Agincourt, though outnumbered, the English were victorious over the French due to the superiority of the English longbow over the French crossbow. The French previously cut off the middle fingers and the forefingers of captured English archers so they couldn’t again draw back the strings of a bow. The defeated French at Agincourt were marched off the battlefield to the taunts of the English archers holding up their hands, palms forward, with their forefinger and middle upright in a “V” to show both fingers intact. This highly symbolic gesture shouted, “We’ll be victorious again against you.” And this bowman’s sign was used famously by the British during World War II. Interesting, but what does all this have to do with me?

    This brief history of hand signs has domestic use. Here are a few examples:

    1. Communicate over the noise of a television ball game that you found a meal marvelous by clapping your hands.

    2. Place your index finger on top of your thumb to make a circle with the other three fingers raised high to say of anything, “It’s great!”

    3. Clamp your thumb and index finger down on the end of your nose to signal wordlessly    something isn’t good.

    4. Blowing a kiss or hand waving is sending affection to another from a distance.

    As those early umpires invented hand signs for Billy Hoy to signal a foul ball or home run, consider following their examples and creating your own domestic or inner-partner signs.

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Your Appointment

Your Appointment

A Good Day to Escape

A Good Day to Escape

Fellow Israelites

Fellow Israelites

Insurrection…or Nózh’q?

Insurrection…or Nózh’q?

Wordless Messages

Wordless Messages

Edward Hays

The Haystack

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