So disconcerting...

Yesterday experienced workers with chain saws, a bucket truck, skid loader and brawn took down three tall, old trees near our house, cutting from the top down. Today sawdust blows from surrounding trees. The light and atmosphere is so different that sawdust blowing out of the trees is just one more element of this too-startling day.

Connection and being human

For years I listened to a weekly Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio broadcast, Music and the Spoken Word from the Crossroads of the West. 

There was a time when such vibrations put out from a great distance could only be heard―how? by magic, maybe priestly or mystical magic? by the aborigines who can also literally hear the music of the stars in a rich night sky? under the influence? But then came a clearer comprehension of how those vibrations could be translated.

Today we do not have a means to perceive how everything is connected with everything else, how even what we think matters. So much wonder beyond our direct comprehension. Yet just because we lack the means to perceive, measure and manipulate the full nuance and complexity of the idea does not mean our inextricable connection with everything is not deeply and profoundly true. Just because we cannot measure love, for example, or the precise effect of being bullied or abused (trauma) doesn't mean there is nothing real about those things, that they have no effect. Just because we cannot comprehend the crying out of the trees, the amoeba, the rock, does not mean those cries do not exist and/or do not matter.

In his article "God, Revised: The Atheists Are Half Right," (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-galen-guengerich/god-revised-the-atheists-are-half-right_b_3415942.html) Rev. Galen Guengerich, senior pastor of All Souls Church, NYC, writes:

"...scientists have come to (this) conclusion...: In our universe, the fundamental laws of nature have existed from the very beginning, they apply everywhere, and they do not change." 

(Yes. Isn't that, by definition, God? Existed from the beginning, applies everywhere, does not change.) Guengerich goes on:
 ...
"Seeking God, finding faith and participating in a religious community is more than a personal exercise. If we fail to adapt, our increasingly empty houses of worship will become a sad symbol of a deeper vacancy in our lives and our culture. We'll each be left increasingly alone with our spiritual hunger and our longing for a place to belong. Self-centered entertainment will increasingly substitute for moral education. Political expediency and religious zealotry will increasingly triumph over a commitment to common good.

"In our modern world, we need to understand where we belong―that deep connection to everything that is present in our world, as well as all that is past and all that is possible. For this reason, a revised understanding of God isn't an optional aspect of life today. I believe it's necessary―not to explain everything we don't know, but to make meaningful sense of everything we do know."

I weep for my country where political expediency and religious zealotry already seem to have triumphed over a commitment to a common good, weep for my grandchildren who will inherit this world where lack of such commitment to the commonweal holds sway. I have no good, large answer. 

Guengerich says he, also, does not believe in the god atheists don't believe in. I don't either. But I do believe Life, and some things I have from my own lifetime so far of experiencing and noticing.

I have spaces between words. I have some inklings of the power of words and story to transform the astonishment―even the shock―

of direct experience into useful life understanding. I have breath and pulse and the music of the spheres. I have poems to provide me with that which is beyond me, found in the spaces between formulas and words. 

I find myself in realizing that in this real, living world we always stand in relationship, mysteriously connected to all and every thing there is.

Money-money-money

I don't have enough money to have to worry about it, but I seem to have enough not to worry.

"Even Jesus had a fish story," says the bumper sticker. Yep.

common, constant

Compassion. Not pity, not condescension, but a deep, resonant, sympathetic feeling-with.  The sharing of another's experience at gut level, vibrating-with like one vibrates with the bass notes of music played loudly through Bose woofers.  Like the song that brought the Universe into existence, the Music of the Spheres.  That's what I'm aiming to be, full of that kind of compassion.  Why not?
Wisdom writings teach that there will always be greater and lesser persons than I, and, simultaneously, that all we humans are equal in our essence.  We all start from a sperm fertilizing an egg; we are all born naked; we all die.  And all the Universe, even the parts we label inanimate, have a cycle of life. Coming into being, existing, and fading out of being are the basics, the common, constant elements. 

In the past few days I've perused the Sibley Bird Book borrowed from the library. All the identifiable varieties of sparrows, oh my, and how much better Sibley does with sparrows than the Audubon books I own.

Yet, this morning the redwing blackbirds sang to me of summer. The indigo bunting flashed by in it's iridescent-- well, indigo-- feathers. The pileated woodpecker tapped such rapid, headache-reminder staccato, it's crown so red, it's tidy body suit so black and white. 

The book is wonderful, highly informative, communicating information, sharing names and identifiers I otherwise wouldn't know. And the direct experience is irreplaceable. I am reminded again how improbable the sharing between you inside your skin and me inside mine. 

both / and

"Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since one who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences, or the things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy." Roger Bacon. Quoted in The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse by Jennifer Oullette. Who can read that title and not at least look at the book?

"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." Søren Kierkegaard. Quoted in Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander, M.D.

I have thought about these two quotes a good bit, and days and days ago I imagined I would write a couple paragraphs of exposition on the theme created by the juxtaposition of the two. Now it feels like there's nothing more to add.

Both books are soon due back at the library. I've finished one, am more than half way in the other and will finish. Each fascinating. Let me always remember that either / or is likely a shallow or false choice. All the rest is both / and.

Grounded. Centered. Balanced. Whole.       Both / And.

Until I logged on today, I'd lost track of how long its been since I last posted. Both retired and home is as dramatic a change as moving from Pennsylvania to Iowa was. No value judgment, just this change big as an earthquake. I may be back more often again. Later.