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Sukkoth

As I write this post, the Jewish calendar is bringing a little known but intriguing holiday to a close. After the High Holidays have passed each year, the holiday of “Sukkoth” requires the faithful to move from the comfort of their homes into temporary “huts” constructed on porches, backyards, and driveways. I’m sure there are many dimensions to this holiday, but the aspect I’m fascinated by just now is the shift of focus from materialism and greed as the center of our lives over to a focus on spirituality as the center of our life.

There are traditions within many religions that draw the worshipper into a time of asceticism, though in our comfortable and pampered life we like to ignore these traditions whenever we can. It’s just so much bother, you know, and really, isn’t it much more efficient and enjoyable to just do the fun traditions?

Sukkoth doesn’t seem to be about asceticism just for the sake of sacrifice. Rather, I get the strong and consistent message that it’s more about separating myself from the vast material comforts that I enjoy, in order to bring my focus back to my “place” here on earth, and how my actions and my life impact Creation as a whole. Like the short moment of prayer many families share as they sit down to a meal, letting us take a breath and truly appreciate the gifts and bounty we’ve been given.

Focus. As a hunter and a birder, I use binoculars (or field glasses) a lot. When using them, it’s important to move them to your eyes, then away from your eyes. Back and forth, seeing the big picture, then zooming in on detail. So long as my eyes are seeing the world through the glasses, they don’t have the ability to see the big picture.

Day to day, we’re so focused on “bringing home the bacon”, or “getting ahead at the office”, or even on watching the football games or “face-booking”, that we fail to see the big picture. We walk through life with the binoculars against our eyes. (Try that sometime, by the way, and see how quickly you stumble and fall…)

During Sukkoth, we take the binoculars away from our face, and see the world around us. We see our place in the world, and spend a little time understanding how our actions impact those around us. In our “me-oriented” culture of selfishness, we like to focus a lot more on “rights” than on “responsibilities”. We like to think we can do whatever we want within the law – that this is our “right”.

Reminds me of this old story, “A man in a boat begins to bore a hole under his seat. The other passengers in the boat with him protest. ‘What concern is it of yours?’ he responds, ‘I’m making a hole under my seat, not yours.’”

We’ve undergone a radical and dangerous transformation in our culture in recent years, resulting in a consumer-based economy that puts more value on “cheap” than it does on “right” or “good”. Our homes and driveways are filled with the results of this destructive transformation. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, over half of them are large corporations – less than half are actual nations. My vote as a consumer might matter more in the world today than my vote as a citizen of a nation. How wisely do I vote?

While I’m not Jewish, I think I can learn a good deal from this holiday. I’ve never taken the time to see a relationship between Yom Kippur and Sukkot in the past, but I see it this year. My need for atonement reaches deep across the world I live in and my place in that world. Creation, atonement, and my place in the picture.

A week spent eating and sleeping in a cardboard hut might do me good.

This year, as I spend my time living a simple and sparse life in the woods while I hunt, I’ll think a lot about Sukkot. The time is always a very spiritual time for me, but this new understanding opens a path for even greater reflection and meaning.

And I’ll be sure and take the binoculars away from my face when I want to walk…

Playing Catch

I was fishing with my brother a week or so ago. We’ve developed a habit of bringing our baseball gloves when we go on fishing trips, and finding a little time to play catch in the afternoons. As much as I always enjoy the fishing, I’ve got to say I enjoy those brief moments of playing catch just as much.

My baseball glove is a leftover from 40+ years ago. Back then, I saved up for quite a while to buy such a nice glove, and carefully oiled it and broke it in through thousands of balls thrown and caught. I’ve oiled it now and again through the years, so it’s still serviceable today. I’ve always kept a baseball tucked perfectly into the pocket of the glove, to assure that it stays molded with the memory of the thing it’s meant to wrap itself around.

Through all the moves and changes in my life, that glove has somehow stayed tucked away in my drawer. It’s survived the many bouts of “cleansing”, where I give away or throw away everything I’m not using at the time.

It slips so naturally onto my left hand, and feels so “right” when it’s there. The ball falls from it into my right hand. I feel the laces touch my fingers just right as I’m rocking back onto my right foot and my right arm falls away behind me. My right arm and shoulder roll easily into an arc above my head and my wrist snaps lightly, I release the ball, and watch as it goes to the exact spot my mind’s eye was seeing.

My glove folds around the ball as it returns to me, snapping with a sweet “pop”. As the ball hits my glove, I’m already rocking gently through the motion of sending the ball back to my brother.

Back and forth my feet take me through the familiar motion, my arm arcing and releasing, my glove popping. A familiar rhythm that became part of the fabric of my being during a time when my heart and mind and soul were learning to become the rhythm that is life. Just as the glove has maintained the memory of the baseball it’s meant to  hold, my body has maintained a memory of that easy rhythm of the game.

Letting my body fall into that familiar memory does something to my heart and soul too. The gentle rhythm of activity that feels “ancient” to our muscles releases our mind, heart, and soul to fall back deeply into ourselves. A bit of a “renewal” I suppose, like drinking from an ancient and well-guarded spring of water so sweet it never leaves our memory. Continue reading “Playing Catch”

The Verb of God

I read a really interesting book once, titled “God is a Verb”, by David Cooper. The book was thought-provoking, and I learned a good deal from it. It’s the title, though, that’s hung with me, and what my mind makes of the title. I got to thinking back on this title while I was writing this recent article on career paths. (Or is it careen?)

Though not an expert, I see a noun as a thing, and a verb as an action. Neil’s oversimplified view of the world…

The thing that really intrigued me at the time about the concept of seeing G-d as a verb was how universal the concept was, if we could get our heads around it.

Throughout history, religion is right up there on top of the list of things we make war over and hurt people over. Sad but true. Often, this happens because we allow religion to become so entwined with government that religion becomes nothing more than a tool of oppression used by the government. The dark years of The Inquisition and the religious wars in Europe were relatively recent memories when we were smart enough to demand a separation between religion and government when we put our constitution together.

Think back to the holy wars that have been waged throughout history. The sort of “jihad” where religious zealots kill lots of people because they think God wants them to. It’s happening in the world today, and you can see it throughout both recorded history and recorded myth.

G-d wants you to kill people. Really? Don’t most of us find this a little difficult to reconcile? For those who do believe in G-d in some way or anot

her, our deepest understanding of the concept and reality of G-d revolts at the notion that He/She/It would demand evil and killing. For those who don’t believe anything like god exists, such notions simply reinforce our inability to see the possibility.

I suspect much of this difficulty happens because our brains (today and historically) want to turn G-d into a thing (a noun), like a king or a dictator. What would happen if instead, we saw G-d as the verb – the action in the equation? After all, great spiritual teachers of all traditions have taught that G-d is in each of us. So long as we think of G-d as a thing, then this sounds a lot like we’re “possessed”, but if G-d is action, then this makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?

If we saw G-d as a verb, as the action that can come from us, we might spend a little less time worrying about whether he/she/it is male or female, or has dark curly hair or long blond hair. We might worry less about what “orders” we receive from whoever happens to be claiming to be the voice of G-d at this particular time, and start focusing more on how we can release G-d into the world around us through our actions.

Happy God-ing!

Career or Careen?

“Career” is a nautical term. I never knew that. I do so love thesaurus.com…

Both careen and career are nautical terms. As nouns, they refer to the nature of a course moving forward. A careen is a course forward using a side-to-side trajectory, while a career is a course forward in a headlong and high-speed trajectory.

This really got me to thinking about my own “career”, and the careers of most folks I know.

It starts early, when we’re encouraged to define what we’re going to be when we “grow up”, as if knowing that destination is a critical element, and as if defining that defines us and who we become. As we mature, there’s a steady set of cultural expectations built on the assumption that we’re all on a “course forward in a headlong and high-speed trajectory.” Continue reading “Career or Careen?”

The Deed Done, or The Poison Left Behind

In a conversation with a friend the other day, my heart was breaking over how distraught he’d become over something he’d done and wasn’t proud of.

The deed was a small thing really, in the big scheme of things. Not a moment in life to be proud of, but neither a moment of darkness and desperation. Just a lapse in judgement, a small slight, a minor blemish. The sort of thing we’ve all got hanging around the dusty crevices of the paths we’ve taken through life.

But my friend held this “sin” up in the bright light in front of the eye of his mind’s judgement on himself, and couldn’t seem to let it go. He was letting it define him, and shape the “goodness” or “badness” of how he viewed his place in the world.

He could see clearly the arrogance that he was displaying in trying to hold himself up to the unreasonable standard of “perfection”. He knew – objectively and logically – that he needed to let go of this poison of self-loathing that was seeping into his soul. Yet he struggled to do this letting go. Continue reading “The Deed Done, or The Poison Left Behind”

Shelem, Shulam, Shalom

I’m not a student of Hebrew, but little bits and pieces of the language drift in and out of my life, and often fascinate me. I’ll request here that my Hebrew speaking friends correct me if I mis-speak below…

Shelem means “to pay for” something, while Shulam means “to be fully paid” for something. Two very similar words, and two sides of the same coin, so to speak. When looked at together, they represent reconciliation, completeness, balance, harmony.

Change just a couple letters, and we have the similar and related word “Shalom”, which I’ve always understood to be a bit like the Italian Ciao, the Hawaiian Aloha, or the Indian Namaste. Sometimes a greeting, sometimes a parting.

The difference is that Shalom always carries a meaning of “peace be with you” as part of the expression in my mind.

Come to find out, it’s a much bigger word really. While “peace” is a word I could use to describe the meaning, I could also use words like completeness, wholeness, health and welfare, perfectness, fullness.

Complete reconciliation with the Universe.

Perfect wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.

Exquisite harmony with every piece of the Cosmos.

Peace – with a capital “P” I suppose.

A very big word indeed…

Shalom!

Transforming the Path

I got an email forwarded to me recently. It talked about the notion of leveling the path of life.

When times are good, it said, we should plan for the bad times ahead. When times are bad, we should rejoice in the good times that are coming.

From a survival perspective, and an economic perspective, this is really good advice. When economic times are good, we shouldn’t be spending all we have, but instead should be paying down any debt we’ve incurred, and putting money aside for the “less good” times that will certainly come our way. As Americans, we can certainly see the wisdom of this approach at this point, after failing to follow this wisdom during all those good economic years, when we spent all our excess in reduced taxes and increased borrowing. Now that the predictable downturn has come, we find that not only do we have nothing in reserve, but we’ve also run up a debt over the last 30 years that is snowballing out of control.

But this email I got wasn’t talking about economics or survival. It was talking about faith and spiritual “investment” of energy. The email seemed to be saying that when things are good, we shouldn’t take too much joy in them, and instead should focus on the less good times we know are coming. By the same token, when times are bad, we should focus on the better times our faith leads us to expect in the future.

I don’t think it’s the same thing. I don’t think we should be treating our spiritual energy in the same way we treat our economic assets. Quite the opposite in fact.

When life drops joy in our lap, we should rejoice in that moment of joy with every molecule of our being. We should savor every little flavor of the joy, and look for ways to multiply it and amplify it and share it with every ounce of our spiritual energy. We should ignore completely the possibility that there may be some moment in the future where we’ll feel spiritually drained and exhausted, utterly dejected, devoid of any joy. We should spend every ounce of ourselves in the joy we’re passing through.

Sometimes life leads us onto dark paths of despair, dejection, and depression. During those times we can try and ignore the pain around us by focusing on the hope of future joy, but I’m not sure this is all that helpful. Certainly I agree with the notion of expecting future joy – hoping for it and praying for it. But that’s quite a different thing than “numbing” the current pain with visions of future joy.

There are times when we need to accept and assimilate the dark path life seems to have led us onto. By accepting it and assimilating it, it works through us and allows us to begin to transform it into the stuff of hope for the future.

It’s darkness that defines light. Shining faint light in the darkness and casting dark shadows on the light makes a morphine-like sameness to life that robs us of both joy and sorrow.

Celebrate every single joyful moment with every single ounce of spiritual energy you’ve got. Doing so will most likely reduce the times of darkness that find entry into your life. But when a moment of darkness and sadness does enter your life, let it work into and through you. Feel all it has to offer. Transform it, don’t numb it.

Enjoy the ride!

New Review by Janette Fuller

New Review by Janette Fuller

Janette Fuller published a new 5-star review of Peace at the Edge of Uncertainty last week – check out her comments here. I really appreciate Jannette’s comments! A reviewer named Red Haircrow reviewed the book last week as well, and gave the book only 3 or 4 stars (depending on which review site.) He doesn’t like spiritual books, and readily admits he was probably not the right reviewer for this book. I greatly appreciate that he took the time and energy to review the book even though it’s not a genre he normally reviews.

This points out to me again, (and Janette Fuller mentions this too in her 5-star review), that this is a book that some people will love and some people won’t. I suppose that’s the case with any book, but in this case, the subject matter is quite intertwined with our spiritual outlook. There are lots of folks in the world who want nothing to do with discussions of a spiritual nature, and often become angry and offended when any sort of spiritual discussion emerges. I think those folks aren’t going to like the book.

This is unfortunate, as when I wrote the book, it was my hope to reach out to some of these folks. I wanted to let these folks know that asking questions and wondering wasn’t the same as adopting and accepting dogma and doctrine. There’s lots of mystery in the world, and finding peace with the uncertainty surrounding that mystery is a good thing.

So, thanks Janette for the excellent review, and thanks Red Haircrow for taking the time and energy to review a book that clearly falls outside the realm of the sort of book you enjoy and want to review!