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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