The wind whispered through the tall pine trees. Sparrows danced in the foliage. Dappled sunlight painted the leaf litter with varying shades of green and brown. There was something extraordinary about the forest that surrounded Devil’s Tower. Eons of time weighed heavily in the pine-scented air. Each step rested in the holy ground of a thin place where the sacred and profane are separated with a tissue-thin veil of holy presence. I was walking in the shadows of spiritual power.

Thin places are part of the Celtic Tradition, where the “veil” between the everyday and the extraordinary touch one another. The slightest breeze will offer a fleeting glimpse of another dimension to our lives. Some see this as the division between the ordinary and the spiritual. I struggle with the dualism of the two. They are part of the same web of life and reflect the world where we live, breathe, and have our being. For me, a thin place is where I see my life from a different point of view.

In my experience, three thin places speak to the human journey in creation.

The first is musterion, a Greek word usually translated as mystery. The second is aeternitas, traditionally understood as eternity. The third is communitas or community. Each of these perspectives offers paths through our distracted daily lives and allows us to catch a shimmering glimmer of what is constantly before us, the everyday holy that steals our breath.

Generally, our day-to-day seeing looks past anything that is not useful now. Mystery shakes us out of this blindness. It evokes awe and fears that awaken our senses and opens our minds to new possibilities and explorations.

When the depths of time, eternity, shows up, it throws the ticking clock against the wall of reality. Eternity challenges the flow of time that lulls us into a shallow and false certainty about cause and effect. Eternity awakens us to the reality behind the mythologies of everyday living. It breaks the common, reminding us that we are constantly surrounded by the extraordinary.

Life in community forces us to accept that we are creatures of limited understanding and perspective. Meaningful relationships take us to foreign lands beyond our experiences and perceptions. We come face to face with the inner experiences of others. Those moments also shine a light on our inner lives and offer a glimpse into the shadows in our self-understanding.

Devil’s Tower rises out of the prairie of Northeastern Wyoming. It has been a beacon for humanity for thousands of years. Early native tribes used it to navigate their trails through the open prairies. The spirit of the place seeped into their oral traditions and spoke of bears that lived in the forest surrounding the place. It was a place filled with awe and wonder where the earth shook when the rock columns would split off and crash down the cliffs.

A large thunderstorm arrived the night after we hiked around the monolith. The lightning streaked across the sky. The thunder boomed and rolled all around us. Had I endured the tempest in a small tepee and been exposed to the howling winds sweeping off the grasslands, I would have known that we were in the hands of something far more significant than ourselves. I would have been moved to awe and fear, the central elements of worship and prayer. This is the power of thin places. They awaken our spirits to an existence far beyond our day-to-day experience and evoke gratitude, awe, and wonder. As Rudolf Otto said, they create “tremens et fascinans” in our deepest selves.

These times and places challenge our ego that tries to sum up life in formulas that begin “I am….” We are far more than any words we can use to complete that statement of who we are.

These sacred places attack the core statements about life that begin with the words “I think….”  Life is greater than any thought that tries to tame and control it with our mind.

Thin places such as Devil’s Tower wipe away our “I believe …” proclamations and leave us living in awe of a world that will never allow any certainty of belief.

Our egos, ideas, and beliefs obscure such places from our souls. We cling to a shredded reality that does nothing more than protect us until the storm becomes too great. We are then overwhelmed by reality. But a powerful encounter with a thin place will blow the tent away, leaving us naked, cold, and afraid. The pounding rain, thunder, and lightning shatter our self-understandings, thoughts, and beliefs. This is the great gift of the thin places in our lives.

When we cannot voluntarily let go of these things in contemplation, the thin places emerge and force us to face the deeper reality of our lives, where genuine love, trust, joy, and hope exist and become the paths to survival. In such moments we become shrouded in the spirit that moves into our lives in thin places. We encounter that wondrous mystery that forces us to acknowledge the eternity that is our natural home in time. We discover that we are part of a community of people whose only hope is in the love of their neighbor and whose only joy exists in the trust of the community that created and sustains us.

I hope you will stumble upon a thin place just as the storms build. In such moments, may you hear the bears roaring in the thunder. I pray you catch a glimpse of the world beyond yourselves in shadows cast by lightning. I sincerely wish that you find comfort and peace in being part of the great flow of life that exists in the eternity of time (past, present, and future) in that single fleeting moment as the veil moves between this world and the next.

Journey on, My friends.

Bob

 

Reality can get a bit overwhelming at times.  We all need an occasional break from the daily struggle.  We need to be restored by the essential goodness of living.  We need a happy place that reacquaints us with the joy of living.  For thousands of years, we have called this place paradise.

The dictionary defines paradise as “a place of delight or bliss,” meaning exceptional happiness.  It is a place where we can relax into living, knowing that “all shall be well.”  It is a place where we feel safe.  We feel accepted because we belong there.  We are not a visitor.  We are a resident homeowner who does not fear eviction.  We can accept our responsibilities without hesitation because we are grateful to be in this paradise.  Paradise is the place where we live, and move, and have our being in happy delight.

This word comes from the Greek Paradaisos or Royal Park.  It referred to a place that was closed off and used exclusively by the gods.  It grew out of the desert experience of the ancient Persians and was an oasis in a dry and parched land.  Our most common image for a paradise is the Garden of Eden, a gated place where God strolled through the abundance.  It was surrounded by flowing water and came with a single responsibility, to remain ignorant of good and evil.  We could stay in paradise as long as we remained innocent of the ways of the world beyond the gate.  We could stay as long as paradise remained clean and undefiled.  Paradise was not “in heaven.”  It was a place on earth.

This was no utopia, an idea of Sir Thomas More in his writing by the same name.   Utopia is a composite Greek word that means “no place.”  In using this particular word, More claimed that lives of perfection were not of this world.  A utopia was a fiction that existed only in the mind.  It was the unattainable goal that lived in stark contrast to the stark political realities of More’s chaotic society under Henry VIII.  Utopia was a pipe dream of political perfection.

In comparison, paradise is a living reality for those with the eyes to see and the heart to embrace it.  Utopia was a creation of the mind that lived beyond the living reality of our lives.  Paradise is a living reality for those who live in innocence of the world.  This innocence may grow out of a lack of experience with the world.  But, it may also develop after a long and arduous journey back through those gates.  In this brief post, I want to explore the latter.

The image above is from the North Shore of Oahu. We spent an hour or so at this spot after a long drive around the island.  Construction detours and traffic, my two least favorite driving experiences, bedeviled our journey.  Also, the people were not all that courteous on the road or in the parking lot.  Besides, I had a schedule to keep and several other stops to make.  I generally drive past such “paradises” because I am too preoccupied with the stuff in my head.  I blindfold myself to the world around me because I have a schedule to keep.  But this paradise was different.  I suspect there was something different in me as well.

Once I got there, the place itself spoke to an emptiness in my soul.  We spent an hour walking around the North Shore.  I began to look past the crowds and found what Carlos Castaneda called a “place with heart.”  It was a paradise.  It was far too real to be a utopia.

When we reached this particular spot, we pulled off the busy main road and found a parking spot between a trash can and a closed vendor stall.  The sound of crashing waves drew me to the sidewalk that overlooked the shoreline.  I was transfixed.  The crowds and noise behind me evaporated.  I stood there, unable to move.  I felt tiny when I looked out on the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.  My mind knew that there was very little between Asia and me. I remembered reading about the Bonsai Pipeline that ended in this cove.  These massive waves were nothing compared to the waves that arrived during the height of Surfing Season.  They reached 50+ feet.  These were a “mere” 25 feet.  Their roar blended with the howling wind to create a rhythmic symphony that challenged the mastery of Mussorgsky and Stravinsky.  Rainbows appeared in the mists of the shattered waves.  They glowed with the promise of even greater delights.  I could not turn away.  I was enraptured.  My soul found comfort as I wandered through that tiny piece of paradise.

Paradise overwhelmed me with delight.  It lit up my life with wonder and awe.  I stood in a liminal space, the edge of being itself where life stretched out into the great unknown.  The tingle of unknowing and the wonder of the moment wrapped me into a deep sense of awe.  It spoke to my soul.  It shut off the voices that were urging me to move on to other places to see and things to do.  And in that stillness came the soothing voice of grace and gratitude, celebrating where I stood and who I was.  Paradise had called out and found me.

The essence of paradise is not that we have to go out and find it!  Paradise has a way of finding us.  How do we “get found” by paradise?  It is really quite simple.  We need to be ready when it shows up on the doorstep of our daily life.  Here are a few ideas that I have found helpful.

Stay in touch with the state of your soul.  Acknowledge your hurriedness and the world that is slipping by.  Recognize when you are letting paradise slip by because you are distracted by lesser things.  Listen to your inner dialogue.  Review your recent memories.  You can assume that you have missed out on at least one experience of paradise if your internal dialogue and memories have ignored them.  Give yourself permission to slow down and look, listen, and stop when a glimpse of paradise comes into view.

Look past the noisy, clanging of the ego, the cynicism, and the despair.  You will not find your paradise with anxiety or fear.  Paradise cannot be found at all.  Instead, slow down and pay attention to the edges of your life so that the eyes of your heart will be open when beauty, goodness, and joy appear.  Stop and listen with the ears of your soul, as paradise announces itself in the shadows of your everyday living.  You cannot reach out and grasp it.  It is beyond your reach.  You cannot shame or guilt it into appearing.  It is far too honest for those games.  Striving for it leads to anxiety and the fear that you will miss it. It will also guarantee that you will miss it.  Slow down and pay attention to the wondrous mystery that lingers on the edge of your awareness.

Let yourself be awed.  Awe means giving up control of our perceptions.  Go where awe is experienced and let go of your expectations of what you will see and hear.  Let the world show itself without any comment or explanation.  Allow the moment to speak for itself.  The first waves of awe will touch the edges of your soul.  When paradise whispers into your soul, allow your delight as it overflows into your mind and body.

Lastly, admit that there is much more to life than we can ever really know.  We are not smart enough to believe that we see, feel, and know all things.  We are not really smart enough, perceptive enough, or experienced enough to know how the rest of our story will turn out.  When we replace our unknowing with visions of utopia, we create depression and anxiety at how far we must travel to find perfection.  But, by allowing awe, wonder, and gratitude to flow into our unknowing, we will find ourselves surrounded by paradise and be drawn further into the beauty and wonder of life.  Embrace the energy that surrounds you, and the gate to paradise will open before you.  Paradise will inform and guide your today and your tomorrow.

These steps make it possible to regain our innocence even after we have eaten a whole bushel of the knowledge of Good and Evil.  In them, we find forgiveness for our personal experiences of evil.  We discover the grace of loving acceptance of ourselves and others.  Our second experience of innocence is an “eyes wide open” variety.  We know the choices that are available to us and have found ways to fill our soul with the strength to choose “the better way.”   We have found the path of faith, hope, and love, especially love.

We are not barred from paradise if we can reclaim the core of our innocence and see good and evil for what it is, rejecting or accepting responsibility for ourselves and those around us.  We do not eat to serve our inner desires and passions.  We eat in order to enjoy and find delight in the life that we have and that we share with those around us.  Paradise can be a Hell on earth for those who approach it with greed and ego.  But a soul that delights and takes responsibility for that delight can find a paradise to be a heaven on Earth.    The gate is open to those with the body-mind-soul to see, hear, taste, and touch their way into the garden that awaits us in paradise.

 

Blessings,

Bob

 

 

I love Cardinals!  If I were Native American, I would likely have the cardinal as my spirit animal.  My brother carved one for me many years ago, and it still adorns my study.  I have chased them down country roads and waited hours for them to show up at feeders all over Texas.  My heart races with anticipation when I hear their call as I await that flurry of red.  I have hundreds of pictures of Cardinals.  Many were of the “bird-butt” variety when I was too slow on the trigger.  But I have many other shots that capture the full range of the bird’s classic poses and posturing.  The image above is one of the more unique and memorable.  This particular bird is in his annual molt that, in other species, precedes the Fall migration.  However, cardinals do not migrate.  They choose to stay in one area throughout the year. 

This bird could be thinking that he is not at his best and would prefer that I not share his picture.  But of course, he is a bird.  He does not have the human weakness of pride.  He accepts and embraces himself just as he is.  He may not be at his best, but he is not hiding in the bushes.  This bird is out and about.  He is at the feeder competing for food and enjoying the water drip in the center of the birding blind.  This attribute is called humility, a noble trait for birds and people!  He has ample reason to sing along with Mac Davis, “O Lord, it hard to be humble…” And his humility is especially remarkable because he is an exceptional creature. 

The cardinal is the state bird of 7 eastern states.  Its range covers over half of the Eastern US and Mexico.   The male and female cardinal has beautiful and distinctive songs that are easily recognized by even novice birders.  Cardinals generally mate for life and stay together throughout the year.  They communicate with each other with their songs.  If a cardinal appears, have patience.  The mate will appear shortly.  During courtship, the male will bring a seed or bug to his mate and feed her the morsel.  Both parents work together on building the nest and raising the young.

Humans have marveled at cardinals for hundreds, if not thousands of years.  An ancient Legend of the Red Bird identifies the bird as a sign of good fortune.  In the tale, a cardinal hears the lament of a young woman who yearns for a husband.  Her loneliness touches the bird’s soul.  In a few days, he encounters a young man and experiences the same loneliness in him.  The cardinal devises a plan whereby he shows himself to the man and appears wounded and sick.  The bird limps along, and the man follows the bird to the young woman’s hut.  The man and the woman become answers to one another’s loneliness.  Many other legends and stories view the cardinal as extraordinary companions for our journey.  (Follow this link, and you can read about many of them, Cardinal Lore.)   

If we were as gifted and honored as the humble cardinal, we would puff up with pride.  But the cardinals live their lives, accepting themselves, and each day as it unfolds.  They do not insist on special privileges or demand any special attention or allegiance of those around them. 

Blue jays seldom slip in and out quietly.  They announce themselves very loudly and chase away the “lesser” birds.  The hummingbird flashes brilliant colors, diving and swooping as they chase away other hummingbirds (as well and bees and wasps) that are trying to sip “their” food.  The grackle gangs up on other birds and chases them away, even much larger birds.    But the cardinal comes and goes in life. 

They maintain a healthy relationship with their life-mate and take care of themselves and their family.  It is a marvel.  Yet, it goes on about its life accepting its lot like just one more bird at the feeder and nothing more.

I continue watching this noble creature as he flies in and takes a beak full of food and seeks a nearby perch to enjoy his meal.  Then he dives in for a quick sip and splashes in the water at the drip before finding a branch to clean his feathers and allow them to dry.  The cardinal is flash without pretension, and beauty without ostentation.  He seems to know himself and is comfortable in his feathers, even when the feathers are a bit shabby and bare.

Through these amazing creatures, the spirit of life whispers to each of us.  “Know thyself.  Accept thyself.  Live your life.  Stay focused on what is truly important.  Live the life for which you are most suited.”  The cardinal reminds us that in all things, we must be true to who we are.  We are nothing more and nothing less.  We can celebrate our life even when we have two odd feathers sticking out of our heads.

Blessings,

Bob