It makes sense to me, I suppose. The first half of life is about self. The second half, giveaway. But, I wonder where those words came from, back in 2006, 2007… at the beginning of the shadowland. It was the beginning of the wilderness, the beginning of the darkness. I had just come out of seminary, three vigorous years of work that went far faster than I ever could have imagined. I was trying to figure out what spirit wanted for my life… never thought I would be here, doing this. I had space, time, mystery. A good cocktail for a mystic.
Yesterday, I was going through my documents on the computer, organizing arranging slimming down and I found writings that have left me puzzled and thrown for a loop really. Have I gotten dumber since then? Probably not, as I never would have imagined I would be giving and doing what I am now.
So I want to post a few things back in the day. A short one for this morning… more for later.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Anne Lamott writes in her book, Traveling Mercies, about a man in her church who was dying of aids and is taken up during a hymn by an elderly black lady. They hold each other and cry together… a moment of beautiful reconciliation. She concludes:
I can’t imagine anything but music that could have brought about this alchemy. Maybe it’s because music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We’re walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn’t get to any other way.
This music, this living, is what we begin to experience as we pay attention to the world around us. It is what makes us created beings, not “gods” who control our own existence. See how the birds sing, listen to how the wind whispers. It is us. We are a part of this. We always have been, from the moment that God put us here to be with his other creation. That’s really what it comes down to I think. Being with…
I am with the birds, I am with the wind, I am with the grass and the trees and the sun. I am with you, and you are with me. And in and through it all, God himself is with… His with-ness, though, is deeper and more profound. His with-ness is what gives life its existence. He is what makes things real.
