Teetering on the edge of eternity

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Tomorrow I travel

It is not a trip to Disneyworld

or to a beach somewhere far far away

 

It is to an area where there is enmity and strife

And perhaps a little danger

 

This journey, this pilgrimage has a purpose

And I am called to go

And so I will

 

But I feel my mortality.

I walk through my home seeing it

As if for the last time

Hugging what is precious to me close

And wondering what this space would feel like

With me gone

 

I see my spouse, my land, my animals

The mountain I love in a new way

The unbearable beauty

Of the earth

And of love relationships

 

I teeter on the edge of the unknown

The abyss of the new

 

It is not lost on me that tomorrow is also

Election day

 

And I feel the power and danger

What will happen

I think about my freedom,

I think about the nation as it is

 

Incredibly imperfect and flawed

And yet still

At this moment, my country

 

I think of the core values that drive me

Those my mother taught me

Who was a person who served

And my father who was a healer

And even my church, which (Presbyterian) fed me a steady diet

Of love and hope

Rather than hate and fear

 

I think of the values that shape this nation

(how every imperfectly those values are embraced and lived)

 

I think of freedom, safety

Equity, equality, justice, abundance

 

I am an idealist, I know

But I think of a nation that takes care of its vulnerable

And welcomes refugee and immigrant

 

A nation where one’s vote counts

And one can speak up (even, as we have seen, what is said is hateful and false)

Where children are educated AND protected

And women are not second-class citizens

And people have the freedom to worship how and whom they please

(not the freedom to impose their faith system on everyone else)

 

And I feel the mortality of our country

Its fragility

 

God knows we have never been

What we have aspired to (or even claimed)

But this has been a nation I have loved

With all its flaws

 

And I realize that even for nations

Life is fleeting

And there are moments of danger

When, in a moment, all can be lost

 

We stand precariously on the edge of the abyss

Will we slide into the darkness

Tumble into hate and fear, greed and inequity?

 

I feel all of this

In my throat, my chest

My beating heart

My breath

 

How precious is life

How cherished are the blessings we have received

As individual soul, as communities, as a nation

 

Nothing lasts forever

But there is so much worth living for

Risking for

Voting for

 

Blessings my friends

You are precious souls

God loves you

 

Believe it

And be not afraid

Living forward

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Once we see that our deepest self, the real person in us is not limited to being any one particular image-self but is actually a Child of God, one who simply says “I am I, here, now”  -  once we really grasp that all need for this elaborate and expensive defense system evaporates  Then we are free to love others, to will abundant being to them, to all…

 

Our sense of feeling good in being ourselves does not come from any kind of contrast or comparison with others  It comes directly and immediately out of our realization of being a creative act of God, simply unique and absolutely precious.

 

We [should] have a sense of ourselves as the process of be-ing, as an ever-renewed act, a continuous motion of living, which is God’s ever-present act of creating us.  Looking toward others we sense them also as creative acts of God, being made fresh from moment to moment, not limited to the descriptions of their past qualities or acts…

              Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism, p. 69  Sentient Publicatons, 1993, 2002

____________________________________

 

This morning the world changed.

Brown and gold became white.

As the world

Ever renewed, despite our best attempts to destroy it

Became, in a moment, something new

 

And here am I

A creative act of God

Always changing, being ever renewed

A child of God

 

Creation and I both reflect God

We are both, in our own way, incarnations of a God who

Is transcendent, immanent, and cosmic

 

I sometimes call the reality that we experience through creation, God

But the name God is inadequate for the task

It touches on the transcendence of God perhaps

The fact that God is “beyond”

 

To transcendent we have to add cosmic

Which reminds us that God is not only vertically beyond imagination

But is also horizontally transcended, broader and wider than we can contemplate

covering and embracing all

 

And then there is immanence. Presence

The Sacred being woven into the fabric of creation,

Into the rocks and trees, mountains and rivers

Flora and fauna

 

Woven into us as human creatures

Into me.  And you.

 

So, we have God

this transcendent, Cosmic, immanent being

this reality is that beyond

that is Sacred

that is Love

 

Once upon a time this reality

The Sacred, Creative, Loving

Something bigger

 

Became a focused presence

In a child, an adolescent, a man we call Jesus

 

And we were reminded of the nature of

What I will call God (it is just easier)

 

And we were reminded who we are

Children of God

Creatures in the process of be-ing,

as ever-renewed acts of creation

always growing and changing

surrounded by others, by a creation

that is constantly being renewed (day by day)

 

In a sense I cannot, need not be defined

Any more than God can be defined

 

I am a presence, I have this body

But I am transcendent, as I participate in God

And I am cosmic, as I but necessity must also be

Connected to all other human creatures (and more)

 

“I am you, and you are me and we are all together”

Who could have known Lennon and McCartney would get it right?

 

I love the idea that I am being made fresh, moment-by-moment

And I love the idea that each person

Is being remade moment by moment

Every other person

Kamala, Donny, that person who can’t control their use of alcohol

Who lives down the street

That person who helped me, and the one who hurt me

The one who looks like me, and the one who doesn’t

The MAGA Republican, the Democrat

The Indigenous person, the immigrant

All

 

All are creative acts of God.

And I can look at myself, and look at others

Without being limited to their past qualities

Or their past acts

Their past success or failures

 

For they are constantly being created

And are unique and absolutely precious.

 

This gives me hope, because who knows what God can do

With me, with you, with them

This gives me the capacity to forgive

Because each person, even Donald Trump is poised right on the edge

Of newness

 

It is easy, in this time of strife and chaos,

in this time marked by hate and violence (verbal and physical)

To give ourselves, and those around us, hard edges

To define people as static and stuck

They are a libtard

MAGA

an animal

garbage

male, female, black, white, and everything in between

 

enemy, friend

 

but what if we understood that this moment is only a moment

and in the next moment we, they, can be different

will be different

 

What if we tried to live forward

Not just live forward but live forward in expectation and love

Uniting with others where they are

In this moment

Knowing it is just a moment

And that love and forgiveness, hope and joy

Just might change who they are

In the moments to come?

And change us too?

 

Can we give each other

That gift?

 

 

In this moment, I will blaze

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“I used to think that hope was the confidence that what I fear won’t happen.”  Then she added, “Now I think that hope is the confidence that what I fear will happen, but that I don’t have to be afraid.”…

 

… here is the presence of doom we find a portal into maturity and wisdom.  Domm challenges us to face our greatest fear, and as we do, we discover that this fear played a big part in driving us toward doom in the first place.

              Brian McLaren, “Life After Doom”

__________________________________

 

Today my eyes opened

And my heart broke open.

 

And as I walked along familiar paths

And did accustomed things

 

The sky shone cerulean.

And  golden rays broke through the darkness of the tress

Splashes of gold among the emerald green and brilliant gold

Of the fall grasses

 

Everything seems precious

A treasure I wanted to hug close to my soul

 

Today I felt my mortality

I realized I am a light

A candle

I am alight, here and now

I am “wax and wick of unknown length,

carrying a fragile gift of flame”

for a time

 

Today I imagined the world without me

And all became precious

The colors deepened and I realized how precious

Each moment is

 

I felt my connection to the earth,

And to the animals who

let me love them,

the people too

 

it all feels so precarious

as wars rage and the plant is tortured

by our greed

as damaged people create damage and division

in families, communities

and nations

 

it is easy to be afraid,

but much harder to hope

when hope is based on the fact that I will die

later or sooner

and that evil might prevail, at least for a season.

 

But that while I am still alight

I can do what I can, in this moment

To bring peace

And kindness

Into the world

 

I am a candle

Wax and wick, flesh and bone

 

And in this moment I will blaze

(or perhaps flicker)

As best I can

For the time gifted me

 

I will seek to be the living flame of love” (St. John of the Cross)

And will live forward in hope

Rather than in fear