As an introduction, he starts with:
We are a circumference people, with little access to the center. We live on the boundaries of our own lives "in the widening gyre," confusing edges with essence, too quickly claiming the superficial as substance.and
Our "skin" is not bad; it's just not our soul or spirit. But skin might also be the only available beginning point for many contemporary people. Earlier peoples, who didn't have as many escapes and means to avoid reality, had to find Essence earlier -- just to survive. On the contrary, we can remain on the circumferences of our lives for quite a long time. So long, that it starts feeling like the only "life" available.
And here's the gem that's talking to me today:
The ordinary path is a gradual awakening and an occasional quieting, a passion for and a surrendering to, a caring and a not caring at all. It is both center and circumference, and I am finally not in control of either one. But we must begin somewhere. For most of us the beginning point is at the edges. This reality, felt and not denied, suffered and enjoyed, becomes the royal road to the center. In other words, reality itself, our reality, my limited and sometimes misinterpreted experience, still becomes the revelatory place for God. For some reason we seem to prefer fabricated realities to the strong and sensitizing face of what is.
Oh Lord - today, let me look full on into the strong and sensitizing face of what is.
2 comments:
David - so glad to see you back blogging!! I was worried about you.
deb - I really liked this book, I hope you get to read it. He writes from a different faith tradition and uses different language than I was used to in my life, especially when I first read it a couple of years ago. I think I appreciate it all the more for that.
i loved this so much i forgot to leave a comment, but i used it in my sermon a couple of weeks ago and it tied things i had been thinking about up so nicely. thank you for highlighting it!
Post a Comment