Godliness...

My personal spirituality has evolved from the Roman Catholic catechism of my childhood, through an exploration of the sacred texts of the eastern religions – particularly Buddhism – and the stories of indigenous traditions. What I learned was, once you strip these religions of their dogma, parables, and myth, they all pretty much point to the godliness of all living things. In other words, the creative force of the universe (or God, if you prefer) reveals itself in each and every one of us.

In a world where religious traditions seem to divide us rather than unite us spiritually, a worship service that honors all of the religious traditions of the world as equal spiritual sources makes a lot of sense to me.

I recently learned of the Universal Worship Service, a service officiated by the clergy of Universal Sufism. During this ceremony a candle is lit and readings taken on a particular theme from the sacred texts of six of the world’s major religions and traditions. Each reading evokes a Divine Quality the tradition is said to illustrate: Divine Wisdom (Hinduism); Divine Compassion (Buddhism); Divine Purity (Zoroastrianism); Divine Covenant (Judaism); Divine Self-Sacrifice (Christianity); and Divine Unity (Islam).

Other candles may be lit to honor other world traditions, including the Earth Goddess tradition (Divine Feminine), Taoism, and the local indigenous tradition.

The first candle represents the light of Divine Truth and from it all of the other candles are lit.

Perhaps this godliness that is each of us is The Word that has been passed down – though, unfortunately, misinterpreted by us – from Jesus, the Buddha, and all of the other revered leaders of the world’s spiritual traditions.

There Will Come Soft Rains

I would like to think that Nature will survive our often-destructive footprint on our planet. This poem... a favorite of mine... expresses that hope.

There Will Come Soft Rains
by Sara Teasdale

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

About the author:
1884-1933. Sara Teasdale won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize in 1918 for Love Songs, which also won the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America. Although the popularity of her work declined considerably in the second half of the 20th century, it has received renewed interest in recent years.

Nature Enlarges the Mind and Spirit

Emerson believed that solitude in nature leads to true enlargement of the mind and spirit. His books, he said, “should smell of pine and resound with the hum of insects.”

Nature also teaches us humility. For those who doubt this, you only have to stand beneath a towering sequoia or gaze across the expanse of the Grand Canyon to appreciate our insignificance in the overall scheme of creation. Our greatness is not defined by our desires and arrogance, but by our interconnectedness with all of nature.

How Art Reveals Our Inner Nature...

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist. She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

This is a truly amazing and moving video (viewed over 11 million times on You-Tube) that exemplifies, I feel, the power of art to reveal our inner nature.

A Walk in the Snow...

It is snowing this morning. Not one of those arctic-blast snows that stings your face, but a powdery, gentle snow that blankets and purifies the landscape. The dog and I take a long walk. He amuses himself sniffing and snorting in snow banks. I use the crisp morning exercise to figure out problems with the short story I’ve been working on, replaying the fixes when they come – the new dialogue, the improved character development – over and over again in my mind so as not to lose them before I return to the story after the walk.

Captured in the Timeless Web of Rome

To me, the greatest reward from travel is not the destination itself, but the sublimity of the experience that somehow continues to resonate with you long after you return home. The following was written after a trip to Rome a few years ago...

As any great city will, Rome reminds us why we travel. The real discoveries – the experiences that hang on longest after the trip is over – are not the “must-sees” we highlighted in our guidebook before leaving home. These are merely the embellishments that draw us to her. Rome’s true allure reveals itself in more subtle ways.

We visit, of course, those obligatory sites. It is expected. For one does not go to Rome without seeing the Coliseum, or without marveling at the harmonious architecture of the Pantheon. We eat gelato while sitting on the Spanish Steps next to the Keats House. Exercise neck muscles to capture the full panorama of Michelangelo’s masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And, following tradition, throw coins over our shoulder into the Trevi Fountain to assure our return to Rome.

But the memories that haunt us the most afterwards are those that come about unexpectedly – the dozens of feral cats that escort us on the Palatine Hill; the artisans restoring century-old furniture in tiny workshops tucked into the medieval buildings a few blocks off the Campo dei Fiori; the osteria on a side-street in Trastevere, where we eat lavishly and inexpensively and then successfully negotiate with our waiter in our rudimentary Italian for the ceramic pitcher he’d served our vino rosso in.

And we remember the Sunday morning church bells, their chiming replacing the usual early-morning cacophony of Vespas and spirited conversations over cappuccini beneath our hotel room window.

The first bells arouse us from the deep sleep of exhausted travelers. Then, one by one, other bells from Rome’s hundreds of churches join in, permeating the morning with their collective celebration.

This ethereal wake-up call draws us from our bed to the window, as if the sound of the bells might actually be seen, as well as heard. The sun, though not yet dipping into the shadows of the piazella below, pours invitingly into our third-floor room. The late-February air teases of spring. But the bells dominate the morning.

The day before, we’d walked among the ruins of the Roman Forum, imagined we might actually be placing our feet upon the very stones that Julius Caesar once walked, yet still conscious of that vast chasm between past and present.

But these bells chiming across the city defy such temporal barriers. This, we realize, is the same Sunday morning concerto that centuries of travelers to Rome have awakened to. As they might have, we linger at the window and listen, captured in the web of that continuum. We know now why Rome is the Eternal City. This is why we have traveled here.

Listening to Our 'Whispers'

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve spent more years (decades) than I care to remember seeking inner satisfaction from ‘things’ and ambition, only to discover that their value, in the end, is insignificant or even non-existent. What has stayed with me, though, are simple moments of experience that were unadulterated by expectation or hoopla. I’m convinced the grandeur of our existence is revealed when we pause long enough to reflect on those experiences that whoosh by unexamined as we speed towards our desires. What follows are the 'whispers' I've listened to in hope they might encourage you to examine your own glimpses of satori in turn.

Wishing you inner peace and a happy 2010.