Spiritus Monday: Tough Love

Franciscan Father Richard Rohr, who is a national leader extolling the practice of contemplative prayer, sets out what I think to be a very telling and very demanding set of guidelines for personal conduct.

Rohr proposes 3 actions: “Refuse total allegiance (“idolatry”) to all false power, while still working around and with the power structure in service to justice and love; refuse to idealize one’s private self, which props itself up by myths of importance, control, power, money, and wealth; and, to offer ourselves trustfully to a much larger pattern, because our lives are not about us!” (emphasis Rohr’s).

I daresay to accept Rohr’s first edict in this world as we know it—and as far back historically as power has been exercised—would be to stand in the fire metaphorically and perhaps literally as well. Feel free to cherry-pick from the news those who wield power and send this idea off to them in a letter or email—or tweet.

The second notion begs a first step, an honest face-to-face with the face in the mirror—or if truly brave, let those closest to you do an intervention. A word of advice, brace yourself. Just in case. As a question, what if you lost _________ in the next instant? Game over for your you-ness? Life over?

Somehow this line of inquiry makes me recall the idea that the objects of our affections are not objects—are they?

Finally, there it is in a nutshell, “not about us”. We can’t have 7 billion “it’s-about-me’s” sucking the future out of this world. Just won’t work.

Reread Rohr’s ideas—read, contemplate, read again—demanding in extreme, I think, for most of us. Too demanding for many.

Now about those New Year’s resolutions….

Trump Names Arsonist New USFS Chief

Three-time convicted arsonist Edward “Bud” Franklin is slotted to reign as Chief for the US Forest Service in the Trump administration. Franklin, currently serving the 7^th year of a 10-year-sentence, resides at the federal prison camp located on the Maxwell Airforce Base in Montgomery, Alabama.

Sources within the presidential transition team explained Franklin will be pardoned by President Trump no later than Monday, January 23, 2017 and should be in his new office by the end of the week.

A transition official demanding anonymity revealed President-elect Trump believes Franklin would “shake things up” at one more “bloated federal agency”. The official went on to say that other nominees set to serve in the Trump administration thought the pick “inspired”, “transformational”, and “a good fit”.

Social media claims that Trump’s daughter Ivanka briefly dated Franklin while she was in college have been dismissed as “madman stuff—never happened—not her type” according to another unnamed official close to the Trump family.

Franklin, who is from Murfreesboro, TN, was graduated from high school in 1998 and earned a 2-year-certificate in welding. After being convicted and fined for starting small wilderness fires in Tennessee and Virginia, Franklin was sentenced in federal court for the 2009 Great Grassland Fire that burned over 12,000 acres in parts of Kansas and Nebraska.

A spokesman for the camp warden where Franklin is housed revealed the prisoner’s face “did seem to light up” when told of the appointment. The nominee was unavailable for a press conference because he is under house arrest for possession of smoking contraband.

The Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation, and the Audubon Society are on record protesting the nominee’s fitness for the post. An environmentalist, speaking anonymously, denounced the move as “waging a jihad against Mother Earth”.

In related market news, shares for heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar were up 1.8% today in light trading, and Chelyabinsk Tractor’s stock soared 6.2% on the Moscow Exchange. (FLNS)

Spiritus Monday: Radical Awe

Self-identifying as a child of God unscrolls several lines of thinking that are helpful to my sense of self and my connection to the larger world beyond the domain of my face in the mirror.

To view myself as a child—in the sense of a certain smallness physically and of a limited understanding cosmically—provides a good dollop of humility. Basically stated, I am so small and God’s creation is so vast—deeply humbling.

Of course, there is the longstanding idea setting God in place as a fatherly figure and the human race safely in the basket of all God’s children, but it’s a child’s response to the world that most resonates with me.

Most anyone who has been around preverbal children has seen their facial reactions to new experiences—birthday candles, puppy licking at their faces, a sudden boom or pop that startles them. They are unable to articulate through words what they are feeling, but clearly they are moved.

This ability to respond may encompass small children standing rapt before waves crashing onshore, geese splashing in a small pond, or a large adult looming before them. I venture to say they are in awe in the moment.

Surely, children in such circumstances may shout or shriek or gasp, which is not so very far from we adults, who in a moment fairly described as awestruck, may call up nothing more than a Wow from our more sophisticated vocabularies.

I have known many such moments. I hope you have as well.

Rightfully, now, you may be thinking back to the title of this little piece of my mind. Nothing so very radical in the idea of being so stunned by a scene or event before us that we are dumbstruck in wonder.

Well, should you be thinking of the deep blue of the Caribbean or the mighty chasm that is the Grand Canyon or the terrible solemnity of a funeral, I am with you. But I have in mind smaller items on this particular agenda.

Restudy your right or left hand, unfold a half-opened rose, or watch a young deer stumbling to its feet.

An AAA battery, a coffee grinder, or a daisy. A pencil and a piece of paper.

Imagine a point of view where all you behold amazes you as if you were a child just coming along into this world. How extraordinary, how enthralling, indeed how miraculous life would seem. To live in radical awe of all things. 

Worrywarts, Unite!

Is it time for Worriers Anonymous? May be a need, although most likely WA already exists. Let me check.

Of course it does. Here’s the link: http://www.worriersanonymous.org. My public service for the day, done.

This topic arises from what I thought a moderately interesting quotation yesterday morning, part of my daily routine to post a notion from the famous, living or, more likely, dead to us. Here’s the observation: “What worries you, masters you.” John Locke (1632-1704) I include the lifespan of the author as a way of reminding all of us that the more things change….

When more than a handful of friends, acquaintances, and strangers hit the like button, and even more so when a handful take the time to comment, my reader radar starts beeping.

Worry is not to be taken lightly, of course. Having evacuated your home under the threat of a Cat 2 hurricane that is slowly rolling toward your town is cause for concern rising to the level of worry—anxious moments, indeed, and anxiety for the reality of the situation and the potential outcome. All fairly and squarely fermenting in the worry barrel.

Turns out, I had 3 quotations addressing worry in my file of quotations that may or may not see the light of morning—well, I post typically at 6:00, so would be the darkness of the morning for most this time of year. I went with Locke because he offered a gentler nudge, a sort of Hey, be aware. And by extension, try to dial down on the worry meter.

I didn’t go with this line: “I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance”. Seth Godin (1960--) Struck me as a bit too negative at a point in the day that might be pre-coffee or before yoga or after dressing the kids for school.

And I easily vetoed this one: “Worry is spiritual short sight…. Its cure is intelligent faith….” Paul Brunton (1998-1981) Just too early for what may be antagonizing or perhaps a springboard into philosophizing on the meaning of faith in a troubled time.

But worry about the potential for mayhem of some sort—that I think gets the goat of some folks worrying the moment. Being a captive of worst-case scenarios that seem to unleash the coconuts clacking in the mind. Pacing, knitted brows, restless sleep—or no sleep at all—and unable to wrest control back from the monkeys.

The ones in your mind. My Zen buddies or meditative types will know the allusion to the quest to quiet the monkeys in the mind. Metaphorically. I am just jacking the image up a notch by imagining the monkeys smacking coconuts together.

If the monkey imagery doesn’t resonate, go with Macbeth complaining of a mind full of scorpions. Metaphorically. True, he’s killed his king, and so the visual might be overkill for our day-to-day worries.

But if you do, in fact, conjure an image of monkeys crashing coconuts together and even add a song for them to be singing, perhaps your worries may subside a bit, and thus the exercise is therapeutic.

No charge, Worry Warriors.

Now, I must admit some of this coaching strays into the territory of two of my 

strongest dislikes. One, don’t tell me how I feel. Two, don’t tell me what to feel. Plainly, then, any positive takeaway does not in any fashion reflect the intent of the writer.

It’s all in your head.