Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 106
January 10, 2012
January 9, 2012
9.
My love
is like the grasses
Hidden in the deep mountain:
Though its abundance increases
There is none that knows.
Ono No Yoshiki, d. 902
January 8, 2012
8.
Resolve to Live a Life of Great Love
We must learn to be able to think and behave like Jesus, who is the archetypal human. This becomes the journey of great love and great suffering. This journey leads us to a universal love where we just don't love those who love us. We must learn to participate in a larger love—divine love.
If we remain autonomous, independent, self-sufficient, we cannot know God nor can we love God. St. John of the Cross says: "God refuses to be known; God can only be loved."
Any journey of great love or great suffering make us go deeper into our faith and eventually into what can only be called universal truth. Love and suffering are finally the same, because those who love deeply are committing themselves to eventual suffering. Those who suffer often become the greatest lovers.
Fr. Richard Rohr
I hope you aren't too put off by the religious words in this quote, because there's so much to think about in it. The main point, as Rohr says in his title for this meditation, is to "Resolve to Live a Life of Great Love." That resonated with me because it's what I've tried to do for a long time, without having heard it put quite this way: to love more and more deeply -- and more and more selflessly -- all other beings, the earth, the beauty of own creations, and whatever we call the force that connects us: that force Paul Tillich called "the ground of all being." A life of great love means loving yourself, too. Giving your heart to loving greatly means taking a lot of risks, but I think the rewards are worth it.
(Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest and founding director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He writes regularly for Sojourners, Tikkun, and the Huffington Post.)
January 7, 2012
7. What a Look
This picture reminds me of certain photo-averse friends of mine.
(click image for larger view)
Winter has settled in, and now it's the long three-month haul until spring finally arrives. I'm not complaining: Demeter's wanderings are already almost three months shorter than usual this year. For indoor creatures, it can be wearing, and maybe the one in the foreground is no exception. She lives in our studio, on an upper-level floor, and although there are large windows they look out on a busy street full of menacing, fast-moving cars: not a pleasant association with her past history.
A friend came over yeserday and observed that no matter what we do, it will never completely satisfy our cats. "I believe we live on a cat planet," he said. "Actually, it's their place, and we exist to serve them -- we just haven't gotten it through our heads yet."
January 5, 2012
6. Studio Wall
(click for larger view)
Studio Wall
(click for larger view)
5.
Cynicism salves the pain of unrealized hope. If we convince ourselves that nothing can change, we don't have to risk acting on our dreams. But the more we accept this, the more we deny core parts of ourselves. We deny even the possibility that our choices can matter....
As the poet and essayist Lewis Hyde points out, [cynicism] becomes "the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage." Accordingly, we might think of a modern cynic as someone who's given up all hope of finding a door, much less a key. And we might remember that there are better ways to live.
from Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time, by Paul Loeb, St. Martin's Press, 1999. Read the whole excerpt here, at Earth Island Journal. Thanks to Chris Clarke for the link.
January 4, 2012
4.
Since I am convinced
That Reality is in no way
Real,
How am I to admit
That dreams are dreams?
Saigo Hoshi, 1118-1190
January 3, 2012
3.
Grey fur frames each face --
How many wolves gave their lives
to warm Montreal?
January 2, 2012
2. Arnaud Desjardins: ne jugez pas
A small stone from the French Advaita Vedanta Master Arnaud Desjardins, who died on August 10, 2011 at the age of 86.
Ne jugez pas. Ne jugez pas les autres et ne vous jugez plus vous-mêmes. Essayez d'aimer les autres tels qu'ils sont et de vous aimer tels que vous êtes, essayez de comprendre les autres tels qu'ils sont et de vous comprendre tels que vous êtes. La comprehension conduit à la sympathie, la sympathie conduit à l'amour. C'est vrai dans votre relation avec les autres, c'est vrai dans votre relation avec vous-mêmes.
(Don't judge. Don't judge others, and don't judge yourselves. Try to love others as they are, and to love yourself as you are, try to understand others as they are and to understand yourself as you are. Understanding leads to sympathic feeling, sympathy leads to love. It's true in your relationship with others, and it's true in your relationship with yourselves.)
Arnaud Desjardins, Pour une vie réussie (La Table Ronde, 1985)
If this sounds like the Christian Gospels, that's because Desjardins started out as a Protestant and his spiritual work and teaching involved going being the dogma to the core of the truths found in Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. I've found his work and writings extremely enlightening and very helpful; unfortunately only a few of his books have been translated from the French.
