Reality

Reality is all of which a story could be told.

The Jigsaw puzzle of Life

Over noontime meal yesterday, Bro. Jeffrey got me to thinking about the puzzles of life, and the human urge to not leave puzzles be, but to ponder them, to work on them, all in an attempt to solve them. But perhaps much of a puzzle is really in our minds, yet we project our fragmented thoughts to the external world of daily life and see bits and pieces, the imagined puzzle pieces, even believing that they are real, indeed puzzle pieces awaiting our knowing intelligence to fit the pieces "back" together to complete this imaginary whole. And in our confusion we turn to Jesus, and Jesus? He shrugs His shoulders and asks, "Have you read the instruction manual yet?" And we are taken aback, expecting the "instant Jesus answer" and to our bewilderment, we realize what we really need to do is the hard work, reading the instruction manual. So we pick up the Red-letter Bible and read the instructions. Anew. And when and if we "get it," then just perhaps, the jigsaw pieces fade and Jesus lets go with a swift kick in the seat of our pants -- yes, we really get it -- and we get back on the path and we get moving, for the journey isn't over yet, and the gas station stops are just that, relief stations along the way.

The Telescope Kit

Bro. Clarence is busy right now building his new telescope, the kit arrived and after pondering the contents of the boxes, and pondering even longer over instruction sheets, he finally began work. He told me it is a 10" f/6 Dobsonian Reflector, which means little to us non-astronomers, but the 10" mirror does impress me, for I have done some viewing of the night sky through, I think, a 6" telescope. An astronomy club holds monthly star parties at the Joshua Tree National Park, and a few of us have ventured there and experienced the excitement that those star gazers express, and I think our appearance those nights caused a bit of a stir, for they said we were the first "monks" that have ever appeared at one of their parties. Well, that was then, now is now, and shortly we will have our own telescope to scan the night skies with. I admit, my knowledge of astronomy is limited to the fuzzy recollections of a college astronomy class. But I do recall, at the time, I was dazzled by the "numbers" involved in all that is "up there" over head. Just trying to grasp the distance in one light year (I just asked Bro. Clarence what that distance is, and he rattled this off without blinking: "A light year is 6 trillion miles.") 6,000,000,000,000 miles!!! And a while back I clipped this pedometer to my belt, just for the fun of it, and after a predawn stroll through the desert, I returned to the break fast table and checked my pedometer and found my trek came to 4.8 miles. Now how many morning strolls equals one light year? Anyway, I just returned and can report that Bro. Clarence is making slow headway, for now he is surrounded by four brothers, each peppering him with questions, of which I heard one answered, "Pluto is no longer a planet, but I understand that the folks at the Lowell Observatory maintain that Pluto is indeed a planet on all their brass plaques."

Crossed paths

This is taken from a 14th century 'guidebook' written by an anonymous English monk. I find an interesting intersection, it seems that here Christianity and Zen Buddhism crossed paths.

"Understand this clearly: your spiritual work is not in any physical place. But when your mind focuses, you are there in that place spiritually, as truly as your body is located in a place now. Your physical senses and faculties will find nothing to feed on and they will chide you for doing nothing. 

Go on with this nothing, moved only by your love of God. And let nothing interfere with this therefore but persevere in this nothingness, consciously desiring that you may always choose to possess God through love, whom no one can possess through knowledge. For myself I prefer to be lost in this nowhere, wrestling with this blind nothingness than to like some great lord travelling everywhere and enjoying the world as if he owned it."

Sandal upon sand

Here in the Mojave the afternoons have been warm (80F) and the nights have suddenly cooled down, in the mid 40s, too cool for sleeping outdoors in my hammock, but each night brings us closer to those wonderful winter night skies when the Milky Way's boldness is a sight to behold. This morning at the break fast table Bro. Juniper shared some of his recent studies of the Desert Fathers, this a wonderful story told by Isaac from Syria (7th Century). It reminds us that we are the sailors of the desert, we walk the ancient seabeds, sandal upon sand, oasis to oasis, our course charted by the Word ... and prayer.

"When a sailor voyages in the midst of the sea, he watches the stars and in relation to them he guides his ship until he reaches harbor. But a monk watches prayer, because it sets him right and directs his course to that harbor toward which his discipline should lead. A monk gazes at prayer at all times, so that it might show him an island where he can anchor his ship and take on provisions; then once more he sets his course for another island. Such is the voyage of a monk in this life: he sails from one island to another, that is, from knowledge to knowledge, and by his successive change of islands, that is, of states of knowledge, he progresses until he emerges from the sea and his journey attains to that true city, whose inhabitants no longer engage in commerce but each rests upon his own riches. Blessed is the man who has not lost his course in this vain world, on this great sea! Blessed is the man whose ship has not broken up and who has reached harbor with joy!
--Isaac from Syria

Baseball in the air

Now back to baseball, the wonderful thing about baseball is that you have the two foul lines that begin at home plate, yet they extend to eternity, and likewise the outfield has no limits, that is, the fence or wall but delineates a homerun, but that fence or wall is merely the beginning of where a homerun begins, but in theory, the outfield also extends to eternity, for a ball hit one inch over the wall is a homerun, ten feet over the wall is a homerun, 100 feet over the wall is a homerun, 1 mile over the wall is a homerun, 1 million miles over the wall is a homerun …
I love baseball.
So too Christianity when one views the outfield extending for eternity.

Shalom,
Bro. Bartleby

The inner self

"The inner self is as secret as God and, like Him, it evades every concept that tries to seize hold of it with full possession. It is a life that cannot be held and studied as object, because it is not "a thing." It is not reached and coaxed forth from hiding by any process under the sun, including meditation. All that we can do with any spiritual discipline is produce within ourselves something of the silence, the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of his Presence."
--Thomas Merton "The Inner Experience"

Sunday sunrise

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

--Edward Abbey

Desert dreams

Last night just before falling to sleep, I 'watched' myself falling into a sleep, and then in sleep, 'watched' myself sleeping, then as if free of myself, for myself was indeed sleeping, I was free to explore the desert from above, and with a simply flapping of the arms I was skyborne, and then the flapping stopped and flight was controlled by willing the direction I wished to go, except at times I would give a few mighty flaps and would soar among the clouds, then would will myself to glide lower and lower until just above the Joshua trees, I could not only observe the goings on of desert critters, but found I could focus on single grains of sand, or the blinking eye of a lizard, this ability to telescope my vision amazed me, and for the longest time I delighted in picking out tiny things, such as the pocked surface of a black volcanic rock or the brown speckled feathers of a cactus wren, this delighted me so much that I had to will myself to hover and not sink to the ground. This seemed to go on for hours, and then I discovered the most refreshing stream that coursed through the sand, a stream that I am at a lost to explain, for I have never seen such a stream in the desert, but there it was, the surface a swirl of white froth, then a large pool of still water, and before I knew it I dove into that pool and found myself beneath the surface looking up, as though viewing the cloudy sky through crystal glass with glints of sunlight dancing on the surface bubbles. And then I awoke. The room pitch black except for the tiny window, which I now stood before and beheld a dazzling starry night, and wondered, was this too a dream.

Flies in for a closer look

This afternoon Bro. Sedwick produced a small plastic pill bottle in which was a rather odd insect, or I should say beetle, he said he found the beetle near his garden and when he picked up the creature, it gave him a bit of a bite, or more exactly, secreted some caustic substance that produced an instant blister on Bro. Sedwick's finger. Bro. Clarence retreated to his library and returned with his 'beetle book' and after not too long pronounced that it was a 'blister beetle' to the delight of all, that is, except Bro. Sedwick. After a bit more research Bro. Clarence came up with this rather interesting information on this beetle, which had us passing around the plastic pill bottle and each of us inspecting this most amazing critter in light of our new found bafflement over how this beetle 'learned' all these various tricks of survival.

"Life in the Mojave Desert can be tough and requires some creativity to survive, and few species are as creative as the blister beetle. They are parasitic creatures and their larvae need to get into the underground nests of a local solitary bee to feed on her provisions and molt into beetles. But getting across the desert is tough for a 2 mm-long larva. Instead of trying to walk across the hot sand, they form clusters on the stems of plants and collectively mimic the sex pheromones of a female bee to attract the male bees. Not only that, but they clump together into a mass that physically resembles a female bee. When the male flies in for a closer look, the larvae grab onto him and fly with him to a real female bee, then grab onto her when the two are mating, and fly with the female bee back to her nest. It’s a case of chemical mimicry and collaboration not seen before in the insect world."

Notes on the fly sheet of a tattered copy of The Old Man and the Sea

I find that mumbling to myself a bit as well as wrestling with imaginations of God as well as being confused by just ‘being’ as well as catching a glimpse of eternity every now and then as well as delighting in ‘just being’ as well as being unsure and then being sure and then again finding surety in every breath one takes while at the same time contemplating things unknown while searching the path for another fingerprint left behind by God.
-- Big Sur 1977

Did Jesus experience guilt?

Last evening at the dining table we were discussing the humanity of Jesus, and it was Bro. Simon who thought that Jesus could not have experienced guilt, for Jesus was sinless. I must admit, the discussion went all over the table until in the wee hours we had to quit the talk and retire for the night. So today I'll try to gather some of that discussion and will only say that most of what I now write is both my previous thoughts as well as what I gathered last night and have allowed to soak in and now I think it fair to say are my current beliefs on the subject. So ...

Square one -- birth. Do I experience guilt or am I guilty for being born? The usual meaning of guilty is a willful act by one, and the act is usually defined to be an act of wrongness. So is one guilty of anything upon taking that first crying breath? Or are we born innocent? Of course we can find lots of guilty acts after the babe has developed the very basic thought process of right and wrong. But at birth? I would think not. I would think we have a nature that includes a 'mechanism of guilt' just as our body includes a mechanism of pain, both are unpleasant, yet are necessary warning devices. If one ignores the warning of pain, then great harm may result to the body, just so with guilt, if one ignores the warning of guilt, then great harm to the soul may result.

"When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself."

I wonder, in this time of grief and mourning, wouldn't it be human for Jesus to experience the emotion of guilt, perhaps thinking that he could have saved John from that fate? Of course 'guilt' in English has many meanings, but in this case I would think that one could experience feelings of guilt, not for the actual death of John, but the guilt we all experience when something unpleasant comes to someone we care about, yet we think that just maybe if we were more attentive, or if we paid a bit more attention, then perhaps we could have prevented the harm that befell our friend.

This kind of guilt being the internal or subjective guilt, as opposed to the objective, or the group/society standard or laws, which are a different question. Jesus was guilty of breaking the laws of his society, yet he didn't have feelings of guilt, for he knew the laws unjust.

And I think what I mean by the 'mechanism of guilt' is somewhat akin to Freud's superego, or the parental imprint that shapes part of our being, so in a good upbringing, when the parents instill good values in us, then later in life when we knowingly or unknowingly are about to act against those 'imprinted' values, one feels guilt (and again, this simple word guilt has many meanings, in this instance, we may also have values imprinted upon us from schooling, from society, etc). In this example I'm saying these values were good values, but that is hardly the case for us all, we are imprinted with a mixed bag of values, and if one were unfortunate to have poor or bad parents, one's values may be poor. And if those poor values are not rectified while growing up, one may find oneself a lost and wandering soul.

So, I would say the mechanism of guilt in a person that has developed good healthy values is a wonderful warning device, but that same 'guilt mechanism' in a person that has a mixed bag of confused values, could be not a warning device, but a tormentor.

An example would be the child who grows up with parents who teach that fighting and arguing and all sorts of bad behavior are normal. This would become the child's values. Aggression and thuggery would be normal for this person, with acts of kindness and good behavior producing feelings of guilt. In other words, being nice would raise the warning flag -- feelings of guilt -- in this person, who may respond to these feeling by going out and beating someone up! Guilt in this person creates perversion, yet guilt in a decent person would reinforce good behavior.

I admit this is a bit muddled, but sometimes it is okay to be a bit muddled and feel no guilt about it.

Tiny windows of opportunity

The desert is a place where all certainty is uncertainty, where reality is a mirage, where a mirage becomes reality, where the wind tests all that dares to challenge it, and the challengers that survive are never the same, erosion bares all with softness the first to go, hardness is the survivor and adaptability coming in a strong second. At the last moment Bro. Clarence came up with a new plan, so we treked to Arizona via Bro. Juniper's pickup truck and found our starting point on the Navajo tribal lands and were well into our hike when the skies darkened and we were 'treated' to what I can only describe as an enormous thunderstorm which I can only thank God that we were on high ground when the normal dry lands quickly saturated and the former dry washes were roiling with mud and water. Now I must add water to the wind that forms and shapes the desertscape, for upon our return many of the hiking trails had simply disappeared, washed away, which made navigation a bit more of a challenge, but while under the still darkened skies I could only imagine what this soaked desert will look like in the coming months when long dormant seeds take advantage of their tiny window of opportunity and come to life, for a desert in bloom is a sight to behold!

What stranger miracles are there?

Yesterday Bro. Juniper picked up a copy of "Leaves of Grass" from a used book store, and just moments ago, outside with but lantern light, read "Miracles" to himself, to those of us still sorting through our seeds and nuts, and to the overhead canopy of stars.

Miracles

WHY! who makes much of a miracle?  
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,  
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,  
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,  
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,  
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,  
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,  
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,  
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,  
Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,  
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars shining so quiet and bright,  
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;  
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera,  
Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery,  
Or behold children at their sports,  
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,  
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass;  
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,  
The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its place.  
  
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,  
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,  
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;  
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,  
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.  
  
To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships, with men in them,  
What stranger miracles are there?

Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
Leaves of Grass

Preparing for the journey

Bro. Clarence and Bro. Juniper returned with the pickup truck filled with seeds and nuts and grains and dried fruits and an assortment of ingredients that will become our diet for next week, some call it trail mix. I understand that Bro. Clarence will be collecting yucca leaves, or I should say, the fibers from the yucca that he will use in his ongoing weaving projects. Most of us are now sporting woven yucca fiber hats, a few with woven yucca fiber sandals, and I can only imagine what his creative mind will come up with next. But for today and tomorrow, several of us will be mixing and bagging our trail mix, and with this vacuum contraption that Bro. Juniper purchased, we will be filling plastic bags with trail mix, then the bags will be vacuumed-packed for long term storage.

On another note, Bro. Robert said something interesting during our noontime meal: "Many people believe that you must first somehow decide whether or not God exists before joining a religion, but the opposite is true. One becomes religious so as to make God present in one’s life. Whether or not God exists is a separate issue. The important point is to make him present and real, and thus inhabit the space where our true humanness emerges."

I thought this is very fitting with Rosh Hashanah just past, the Jewish New Year, the time of reflection, the time to ponder who we now are and who we wish to be or become, and as is his custom, Bro. Sedwick sounded his shofar, the rams horn, the trumpeting that awakens us all from our slumber and reminds us of the coming judgment, and hearing this I ask myself, can one as Bro. Robert suggests immerse oneself in the unknown, at least unknown for the one taking the leap, and upon this new and uncharted path that one then finds oneself, can one experience a newness that one had never experienced before?

A time for retreat

Bro. Clarence along with Bro. Juniper have departed on a mission to Barstow to pick up some provisions for our anticipated retreat the first week of October. A few of us have decided that with the dropping of the daytime temperature, that we take advantage of it and will do a bit of desert hiking and camping for a week. I must admit, I do need to retreat from electricity and all things electrified from time to time. We do keep these sort of retreats very simply, none of the modern camping gear, certainly no global positioning devices, but I will have an old Boy Scout compass, and a hand drawn map that late Bro. Donovan left us. He was a true trailblazer, and if one simply follows the lines drawn on his numerous maps, one will not fail to be taken on an extraordinary journey through this Mojave landscape. Oh yes, as Bro. Clarence was getting into the pickup truck, he handed me this handwritten paper, and with no time to explain, he simply said, "Something to discuss upon my return." With that, the pickup sped away, and for half an hour I could still see a far off swirl of dust and could only imagine Bro. Clarence holding on for dear life as Bro. Juniper, behind the wheel, drove that dirt road like it was the Indy speedway.

Bro. Clarence's handwritten note:

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

For He spoke and they came into being

During break fast, Bro. Juniper was musing about Psalm 148, which I do think was prompted by his predawn desert walk, which I admit, put me too in the same frame of mind. First he questioned just how does the wind, or a cloud praise God? How does a tree praise God? How does the rain, or how does a rock praise God? As you can imagine, the break fast table remained silent, awaiting Bro. Juniper's "punch line" which was, each creation gives praise by its being itself. A tree is a tree and by being a tree it shouts to the universe, a tree I am, just so. But then Bro. Clarence questioned humans, can a human give praise to God just by being itself? He thought not, for of all creation, only humans can choose to be not what they are to be. Which Bro. Sedwick thought gave whole new meaning to Hamlet's "To be, or not to be." With that we heard shouts from outside, break fast was over, there is work to be done, yes, another chance to be human, another chance to praise God.
Shalom,
Bro. Bartleby

Psalm 148
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens! Praise Him on high!
Praise Him, all His angels! Praise Him, all His army!
Praise Him, sun and moon! Praise Him, all you shining stars!
Praise Him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord! For He spoke and they came into being.
He has made them last forever and ever. He has set a Law which will not pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you large sea animals and all seas, fire and hail, snow and clouds, and wind storms, obeying His Word.
Praise the Lord, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all tall trees, wild animals and all cattle, small animals that move on the ground and birds that fly, kings of the earth and all people, princes and all leaders of the earth, both young men and women who have never had men, and old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord. For His name alone is honored. His shining-greatness is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for His people, praise for all who belong to Him, for the people of Israel, who are near to Him. Praise the Lord!

Doubt?

How can a rabbi not live with doubt? The Bible itself is a book of doubt.
--Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg

Where were you?

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
--Job 38:4-7

Monkeying around

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."
-- Frederick Hoyle (British astrophysicist)