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I have struggled with the feeling of indebtedness that I have to the Franciscans with whom I spent twelve years of my life.   They are a community of men who educated me, shaped me and prepared me for a life in their community.   Then I dis-robed, I left.

I was discussing this with a friend recently, and he insightfully said that the Franciscans had given me as  gift.   I think that is true.     I have had an effect on my world in ways I never could have had if I had continued, as Neruda said, with cassock and biretta.

While I can take some satisfaction in the traces I have left on the world in the past half century, it is the training and education of the Franciscans that shaped much of that work.    My roots, to this day, show their monastic origins.

Every morning I dedicate myself to be a ‘guardian of nature,’ a role I typified during the years I spent in governmental policy dealing with the environment.    I routinely describe myself as a ‘gardener,’ an identify I began to take on as a novice with the Franciscans.    I was always the one who created and tended the flower gardens, wherever I went.

I see myself as a ‘healer of misery,’ an attitude that was cultivated by my years as a Franciscan.    For me, that often meant releasing people from the legalistic burdens imposed by the Catholic Church, a role that eventually nudged me into leaving the official role of a priest.

I daily pledge myself to be a ‘messenger of wonder,’ a role that continues to unfold with each exciting new day.   It was as a Franciscan that I learned to look beyond the ordinary and the expected and focus on dreams and untested realities.    It is a habit that I  took into the work place and into the St. Stephens community.    In a simple manner, I helped others to reach out beyond the obvious and trust their own sense of wonder.    My experience in the world of wonder allowed me to tell others that it is rewarding to trust their own heart.   I learned this from the Trubadour Vagabond known as Francis.

As much as I daily aspire to be an ‘architect of peace,’ I am not aware that I have yet learned that skill.    People tell me of my calming presence, but I am not sure.     I have begun to experience an inner peace, but it has been many years developing.    There are still many sharp and rough edges.    The Franciscans may have nudged me to become an Instrument of Peace, but it is an instrument still being fashioned.

I am grateful to the Franciscans who have given me as a gift to my community.    My community is unaware for the most part, but there are some who can recognize the Franciscans for what they have given.    I wish the Franciscans could be as aware themselves of what a gift they have given.

I sense that most of them look inside and see what they have lost by my leaving their community.      When I have reached out, they have not been able to respond.    They have not yet raised their eyes to see what a gift they have given.    That would be very hard.

 

 

Wanting things to be different causes me the most turmoil.    I just chased two rabbits out of my yard because I don’t want them to be there.     I’m not sure if I caused them as much turmoil as I felt.    I hope I did.     I hope they will want to be some place else  and the turmoil will cause them to move out of my yard.

The things I want are exemplary of the many feelings of dis-satisfaction I experience.     I want things to be different than they are, I am dis-satisfied with what is.     I want the snow to melt and plants to start coming out of the ground.   I want my injured leg to be stronger.

I think I notice more how the dis-satisfaction creeps into my life.   I am more aware of the powerful influence it has on my contentment.   As much as I want the rabbits to be gone from my garden, I am not as disturbed by their presence as I once might have been.    I am simply and reflectively looking at my options and deciding what to do.   I may want the rabbits to be gone, and I also plan that they no longer will  hang out in my yard.

Mindfulness has become more of a solitary experience for me.    When I sit down on my cushion, I am very aware that I am very alone.   It is a place that I can only go by myself, in spite of all my desire to have companions.    It is nothing anyone can experience with me.

Ever since I began to experience the joyful energy, the deep relaxation, the pool of contentment, the clarity of thought that comes with mindfulness I have wanted to share that discovery.   I have wanted to bring all my friends along.   I have wanted them to experience what I had discovered simply because it was so wonderful. I wanted this  not so that I would have company but simply because I wanted them to sample and experience this wonder.

I am gradually accepting that the passage into mindfulness is a narrow and secret passage.    It accommodates only one person at a time, and the passage has contours that fit that person alone.   I cannot bring anyone along with me.    It is a solitary passing, and no one can walk beside me.

I can help my friends to find their own way, but they will have to fashion it for themselves.    There are many common aspects and similar approaches.    But the passage is a personal one and I think no one can be completely taught the way.

I have already learned from a variety of teachers, but I have basically had to rely on what I have taught myself.   I have learned what I have chosen to experience.    I continue to discover what works for me.    It is a solitary passage meant only for me.

The paradox for me is that when I sit alone on my cushion, or walk alone across the parking lot, I do not feel alone and disconnected.    My experience is of a vast emptiness with no shape.   In the same instant, I experience a connection without bounds or shape.    I have the feeling of falling into a vast void and plunging into the midst of everything.

It is such a solitary moment that I am not even sure I am there.   It is the closest I feel to a no-self.    Little by little, there is no other, there is no me.    Sometimes, I feel like I am lying on the dock at my cabin and staring into the night sky above me.    The vastness is so magnetic that I feel like I am falling into it and becoming part of it.    There are no stars, only deep darkness.

I am in love with my companions.    I love the time I spend with them and take deep delight in being present with them.    I often want to drag them into what I know is possible, but I know I cannot.    It is a solitary place that I must go alone.   There in is no room for anyone. There is only room for no-one.   Even I have to surrender my-self to go there.

 

It seems that I have spent much of my teen and adult life considering what is natural for me, and all other humans.  It might seem like a relatively simple issue, but I have noticed that what is identified as natural by my culture is highly influenced by religion and other social forces.    It has not been guided by observation.    I’ve not been immune to this influence and I have struggled against it. .

Today I have the expanding benefit of many human minds who have examined this issue, both from a philosophical and from a biological perspective.    I am trying to rely mostly on the simple observation of how I operate and how that has been influenced by the selective pressures of evolution.     I am part of a species that has not only survived but has been able to prosper to such an extent that it has overrun the planet.

All this success has been part of natural selection.   Nature has set this course.   Generations of humans like me have been highly successful in surviving long enough to pass genes into a new generation.    Our intelligence also has allowed us to figure out how to do this without the restrictions of natural controls, such as disease.

It’s really quite simple.     I have senses, such as eyes, touch, hearing, etc.    These allow me to be in touch, in contact with the world around me.    These contact experiences allow me to learn what is favorable and what is unfavorable to my survival.     My humanness attaches feelings to these experience so that I feel attracted toward some things and repulsed by others.    It is that feeling that propels me to act one way or another.

This is where mindfulness enters in.     If I am not mindful of those feelings and their power, I simply act as they guide me.    Nature steers me toward what is favorable to my survival and away from what is perceived as unfavorable.   Nature is very demanding about this and causes me to be very dissatisfied if I don’t follow this reflex response.

Natural selection has in many ways put me into a bondage.    It has compelled me to live in an illusion that my feelings are in control.   I have lived most of my life unaware how much I am compelled by what I feel.

However, if I am mindful of those feelings and their demands, I can intervene and naturally govern that reflexive momentum of nature.    The insight I have about what I am feeling provides me with more information.   I have more insight.    And this is also a human response according to nature.

Most of my life, I have relied on the mechanism given me by natural selection.    I have followed my feelings, sometimes even tried to get in touch with my feelings so that I can follow them.    I have relied on a natural reflexive response.   I now realize how much control I have given to those feelings.   I am learning that I have another natural ability to know what I am feeling, that I can escape the reflexive control my feelings have over me.

Mindfulness is what has put me in the driver seat.    I am no longer a passive passenger following the natural process of clinging to the actions and outcomes identified by my feelings of attraction or aversion.

For me, the process of mindfulness is a valuable asset.   I have no idea why we humans evolved to have this ability.    But I am aware that mindfulness is an ability that has somehow emerged from the process of natural selection.     It is natural.   As an ardent biologist, I assume it has something to do with natural selection.

I am relying on the natural ability of mindfulness to get us through the mess we humans have created as a result of our unbridled reliance on what we feel.     I have hope that natural selection will allow some mindful humans to survive.

I admit that I like to know how things are going to turn out.    I will often read the last pages of a novel before I settle in and enjoy the embrace of the story.    I like to sit on the side of my bed and review in my mind how a day will likely progress and only then do I plunge into the experience.

I actually don’t get excited about the notion of uncertainty, even though I am slowly allowing ambiguity to creep into my life.    I sometimes think that I am most comfortable when I focus at the extreme far edge of where my headlights can reach.

I know there are no guarantees and that life is essentially ambiguous.    In order to embrace that notion, I feel that I have to unlearn a lifetime of practice.    I am so accustomed to knowing, or at least wanting to know how things will turn out.

Every day I creep a little more into a world where there are no guarantees.    I am convinced that things are intrinsically unpredictable.    If there is something like the essence of reality,  I think it is essentially ambiguous.   Most of what I once thought was clear and predictable I am recognizing as an illusion.    The reality behind the illusion is hard to grasp, but it is where I know I come truly alive.

So each morning, I sit on the edge of my bed, take a deep breath, and then plunge in.     No guarantees today.

It is a harsh realization that there is no satisfaction to be found  in normal human experience.   “I can’t get no satisfaction” is not only a musical relic from my past but is a profound commentary on how things are.    Any satisfaction is at best temporary, and that is probably what motivates most of us to keep trying.   It never ends.

What a different experience it is to simply accept and embrace experience as it is.    The joys and pains alike are better left alone, not pursued or avoided.     I’m more at peace when I don’t resist whatever it is that presents itself.   I’m at my best when I don’t try to change things very much.

I’m not being passive or giving in.    I simply don’t think it is a helpful practice to “let go.”    I’m rather annoyed by that 12 Step notion of “let go and let God.”    That may be a useful temporary bridge to get beyond some personal turmoil.    It is not good advice on how to live.

There certainly is no satisfaction to be found in letting go.  Letting go is much too passive for me and I would much rather embrace the joy and pain.    Allowing things to be as they are is a deep reliance on my having all I need.    I take great comfort in relying on everything in me to carry me through.     I am much better off when I don’t reach outside myself for solace or satisfaction.

I really don’t want satisfaction from fixing myself, or fixing anyone around me.    Change is OK, but it is something that naturally flows from interest and insight.    I’m not very motivated to change anything, but I rather just allow it to take a natural progression.   I especially don’t expect satisfaction from making changes.  I’ve noticed that pushing changes rarely bring satisfaction.

I don’t want to resist life, but I do want to allow it to happen.    I don’t at all intend to stand back and watch things occur.    I prefer to jump in and embrace what is happening, both the joys and the pains.   I don’t expect to get much satisfaction, but I do think I will have  more pleasant walks in my garden.

 

My back yard is small, but it has experienced such an abundance of past lives.   Last summer, there was a lawn of  bending grass and an orgy of flowering plants.   In the summer, birds flutter their way to drink from the pond.    Squirrels and rabbits are the typical denizens of my yard.  There is an occasional intrusion of a cat up to no good.

It hasn’t always been this way.    I like to think about what my yard was like a hundred years ago, and a hundred years before that.  What plants struggled here to slurp the sun, what animals scurried through or tip-toed in search of prey?

What was my yard like a thousand years ago, and a thousand thousand years before that?   How many plants and animals have passed this way and left a small bit of themselves in the yard I often saunter across?    Who lived their whole lives here and who entered my yard space to cause mischief?

I know that my yard is a place that has memories of those ancient denizens we collectively now call dinosaurs.    How many of those clawed feet, large and small, scratched the changing surface of my yard.

Are there traces buried beneath my lawn?    So many plants and animals came and went over hundreds of millions of years.    My back yard could tell me about them all, if only dirt could speak.

This has been a spot where millions of creatures first tasted life, and this is where many faded into the anonymity  of death.   If I could see them all in one glance, what an abundance of alive and once-alive I could experience.

They are all there, the ghosts of the epochs that marched across my back yard.    For sure there are traces of them still present, if only a molecule here and there.   There are remnants of living plants and breathing animals all around my yard, traces of lives once lived. The ghosts linger under my feet and rise to meet me in the plants that now poke out of the ground.

It is all in my care now, but it all has been here for a very long time.  How deep would the mound be if all those life forms suddenly reappeared in their old shapes?    What if all the traces of all those life forms were suddenly regrouped into a full manifestation of their past vigor.

All the many life forms my back yard has hosted are way beyond my calculus.   All I know is that their old forms may have melted away,  but their ghosts still linger.    I love to walk among the memories held by matter that has been transformed many times over in my back yard, again and again, and again.

 

I live with many traces of my past.    My history is part of me, but it’s not quite the same as it once was.    I still feel a connection with people, places and things that were once part of my experiences, front and center.    They are still a part of me, but I see and experience them differently.   I have moved to another place, crossed the river, and my whole world looks a bit different as I take it all in.

Today, this is so true of my experience with religion.    Christianity shaped and influenced so much of my life and how I saw reality.     It was a lens though which I interpreted the world, and had a profound effect on how I lived.  It would be foolish for me not to acknowledge that religion continues to be a part of me.    However, even that has been transformed.

Some people talk of having rejected religion, or left the Church.    I don’t think anyone ever really manages to do either, once religion has been part of their life.    However, I think that we all get to choose how we experience religion, and that makes a great difference.    And it is actually a more honest and accurate approach.

I prefer to approach this issue as a gardener.     Right now, the lush  blooms of last year are a memory and are in my compost bin.    The flowers haven’t really gone away, but they definitely are being transformed.    They are becoming the rich humus that will nourish and support the flowers that bloom in my garden this coming summer.   And so it is with my experience with religion.

The religious experience that once was such a lush part of my life is more than a memory.     It has been transformed into something new.     I haven’t left it behind, I have not walked away from it, I have not rejected it.    I think it is a part of me, but it has been dramatically transformed.   I can see that it nourishes and supports me, but not in the form it once manifested.

Some people press flowers and try to keep them just as they were.    I place mine in my compost bin and they undergo a great change that makes them nothing like the plants that grew in my yard last year.    But they also become an intimate, integral part of the plants that will be part of the future garden.

I’m pretty sure that no one would say today that I am religious or that religion is part of my life.   I, on the other hand, prefer to think that I am someone who composts.     I have transformed my religious past into something quite new and pleasing.    The religion is still there, but it has been wholly transformed.    Dare I say it has been composted?

 

I just pulled a small stack of very old and worn books from the bookshelf.   Pinocchio,  The Story of Babar, Doctor Dan the Bandage Man and three Uncle Wiggly books.    All of them have evidence heavy use and repeated readings.    All of them are more than sixty years old.   As I open them and scan the aging pages, I am aware how deeply my heart is embedded between those soiled covers.

The resonance I feel reminds me that I still have roots in those simple stories.   The tales come back to me without my even looking at the words.   I remember the experience of reading them a long time ago.   Even though I have moved far from the fables in those books, their effect still lingers.

My attention to the actives of Pinocchio, Babar and Uncle Wiggly were eventually replaced by the fables of my many involvements in religion.    The stories coming out of my religious culture slowly shaped my view of the world for many years.    The stories nourished me, guided me, helped me see beyond my ordinary experience.   I don’t see them as wrong or misleading.    But I do know that their time and usefulness has passed.

Fables have a use and benefit, but there comes a time to put them aside.    I have gradually been moving into a world where reality is best known through direct experience.    The unseen world is best left alone, not explained, and accepted for what it is.    It is better for me not to try to populate my world with imaginary beings that live between the old, worn pages of fables.

I talked with a friend this past weekend about atheism and whether it makes sense.   For me, it is not even a relevant issue, not worth worrying about.    What is evidenced to me is what I know.    All else, everything beyond my experience, exists  only in the world of fables.   Does God exist?   Yes, in the world of fables.

All around me I watch adults caught up in the fables of their youth, still playing the games taught them by imaginative elders.    I don’t particularly feel critical of them.    I just wish they could take their rightful, mature place in the world.    I wish their eyes could truly see the reality surrounding them without the distorting veneer of an imagined world.

I think many who choose to live in fable-land are leading good lives.    I think that the stories provide reasonable road maps for being socially and morally connected.    The fables teach many how to stay on the desired path, how to reach a desired outcome, how to find a place to belong.   Many have followed these lines on the map.

I’ve chosen a different way and discovered that there is much more not included on those road maps.   The old fables tell  me little of the wild wonders of wandering off the path, outside the story-line.   It is becoming apparent to me that I have not rejected the fables of religion, but I have simply left them behind.    I’ve chosen to put them back on the bookshelf, with all the other rich and insightful texts that have populated my life.    And I still have roots in them.

There is another rich and exciting story out there, waiting to unfold.     I know it will be mine alone, none other like it.   There really is no accurate road map.     I love the excitement of stepping off the road into that rich and inviting void.

Time to turn the page again.

 

To sit on my cushion and meditate is nothing less than transformative.   I become aware what it feels like to be present, to show up, to exist.    The awareness begins with a feeling of intimacy with the fading sounds of my bell.    It morphs into intimacy with the reverberations of the bell traveling in my  body.

The attention often  changes into a focused awareness of the rising and falling of my breathing core.   My arms, my legs, my head all quickly get the message.     This is the time for all of me to feel present.

The attention I feel is not in my head but in my whole body.    My awareness is not a passive acceptance, but an active reaching out into an immense void.    My awareness is not receptive alone.  It is more like a search light that shines out and brings back to me all that surrounds me.  I embrace and I am embraced.

This feeling of being intensely aware can be regenerated frequently throughout my day.   I just have to remember to be aware.   It is not a struggle to make it rise to the surface of my experience.    It is difficult to remember to flip the switch, turn on the attention, become aware.

It takes me less than five seconds to become aware, once I choose to be present.    Then my feeling of awareness and intimacy can embrace just about anything.    It could be the rug under my feet as I walk across the living room, the person sitting before me, the food I am putting in my mouth.   It has become relatively easy to be aware, to show up, to be present.    I just have to remember to do it.

Awareness for me has become a chosen activity.   It is not something that simply happens to me.    It helps for me to be in a receptive posture, but awareness is something I do.   It is a paradoxical relaxed alertness.

For me, “aware” is not an adjective, it is an active verb.     I aware.