Watering seeds

Thich Nhat Hahn once shared that in Buddhist psychology

there are two kinds of consciousness

Store consciousness, which we might call the unconscious, or perhaps subconscious

And Mind consciousness, which is our normal, awake mind

The store consciousness is like the soil

And it is full of seeds

All kinds of seeds

Good seeds, such as love and joy

Bad seeds, such as anger and fear

And the seeds that get watered, nourished

(we might say triggered)

Blossom and grow

and then becomes our mental formation

and then becomes our way of being

if we water a seed of joy

it makes the living room of our mind beautiful

if we water a seed of hate

it makes the living room of our mind a kind of hell

and our mental formations become

expressed in the way we walk the earth

the way we relate

So the question becomes

Which seeds do we water?

It is hard to avoid watering the negative seeds

The world around us is full of hate and enmity

Full of fear

And thus full of anger and violence

But we are not helpless

We have choices about who we spend time with

Who we listen to

What TV shows we watch

How much time we spend on Facebook and Twitter

And it is possible to avoid nurturing the bad seeds

It is possible to nurture the good seeds!

We can listen to music

Read a good book

Practice walking meditation

Notice the beauty around us

Spend time with good people

Talk about uplifting things

And it is possible to focus on Sacred Presence

That inner dwelling Love

Paul once suggested that though outwardly we are wasting away

Inwardly we are being renewed day by day

As we constantly return to that Love within us

We can water the good seeds

All of this is not to say we deal with the negative by hiding or suppressing it

The darkness of the world must be faced and dispelled

We don’t suppress the negative, we just don’t give it a chance

We overwhelm the negative with good (Paul again)

This all takes the ongoing, persistent, nurturing of good

This takes practicing the Presence of God

This takes actively inviting the goodness to flourish

Today I hope to nurture the good

I will notice the bad, how can I not?

But I will change the channel

Change my thinking

Touch those seeds that are wholesome

And let them bloom

Watered by Sacred Love

Ah Menno Simons

Ah Menno Simons

I never knew you

But your faith has trickled down through the ages

If nothing else you believed Jesus

when he said “turn the other cheek”

and “love your enemies”

and “bless those who persecute you”

my family

the Kluyvers (perhaps, or Cluyvers)

were driven from their home as heretics

for daring to be anabaptist

rather than burn at the stake they wandered

to Prussia then Russia

changing their name to Kliewer

then to Manitoba, Canada where my grandparents were born

peaceful farmers

people of intense faith

I remember Grandfather Peter Albert Kliewer

tall, distinguished, and intense,

a Mennonite, and a preacher

Who even during the trauma of World War II

remained a pacifist

and was deeply pained that his sons did not

(one was a fighter pilot, one a sailor, and my father was a doctor)

I remember a story told of a man

back in Holland, back in the beginning named Dirk Willems

who was being pursued by an officer of the court

for heresy

As the two crossed over a body of frozen water

the pursuer fell through the ice facing certain death

Dirk had a choice.

To turn back and love his enemy

or to continue

He turned back and rescued his pursuer

who then arrested him

Dirk was tried for heresy and burned at the stake

The Gospel is all about love, compassion, and forgiveness

The Gospel is all about sacrifice

The Gospel is extreme

Puzzling

Evolving (and thus at times contradictory)

Demanding

Challenging

Comforting

It is about questions, answered

And questions raised

But whatever else we can say

the Gospels are about an outrageous love

not outrageous certitude

not about domination

not about coercion

and certainly not about a Divine hate

that allows us to hate other people with piety

The Gospels are about Dirk Willem

Not his pursuer, and not the religious system

That burned him at the stake

There is very little Jesus left in those who embrace the politics of power and wealth

There is very little Jesus left in those who think the second amendment

Is more important than the beatitudes

There is very little Jesus left in those who support the death penalty

There is very little Jesus left in those who are so sure of their beliefs

that they would impose them on all

There is very little Jesus left

in me

when I judge and scorn

all of the above

and yet Jesus is still hanging around

as Jesus always does

loving, looking with compassion

forgiving

Just as he did his whole life through

Just as he did on the cross

Ah! May the love of Jesus

so freely given

nudge us toward love

nudge us toward peace

in spite of ourselves

for we are all in this together

life is messy

and we are messes

but thanks be to God

who rescues us from ourselves

thanks be to the light of the world

who sometimes shines through the cracks in our brittle souls

thanks be to Jesus

and all those people of faith

Menno Simon

Dirk Willems

Peter Albert Kliewer

who show us the way