Sunday, October 7, 2018

I am not I





I am not I.

I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.

The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.







~ Juana Ramon Jimenez
translated by Robert Bly



where?




Where are you searching for me, friend?
Look! Here am I right within you.
Not in temple, nor in mosque,
Not in Kaaba, nor Kailas,
But here right within you am I. 



~ Kabir


a path where they found no path





In the story of Sir Galahad, the knights agree to go on a quest, but thinking it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group, each

"entered into the forest, at one point or another, there where they saw it to be thickest, all in those places where they found no way or path."

Where there is a way or a path, it's someone else's way.  Each knight enters the forest at the most mysterious point and follows his own intuition. What each brings forth is what never before was on land or sea: the fulfillment of his unique potentialities, which are different from anybody else's...when the knight sees the trail of another, thinks he's getting there, and starts to follow the other's track, he goes astray entirely.


~ Joseph Campbell


Sunday, September 30, 2018

irreplaceable "thisness"





Franciscan philosopher-theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1303) taught extensively on the absolute uniqueness of each act of creation.  His doctrine of haecceity is derived from haec, the Latin word for "this." Duns Scotus said the absolute freedom of God allows God to create, or not to create, each creature. Its existence means God has positively chosen to create that creature, precisely as it is.

Each creature is thus not merely one member of a genus and species, but a unique aspect of the infinite Mystery of God.  God is continuously choosing each created thing specifically to exist, moment by moment. This teaching alone made Scotus a favorite of mystics and poets like  Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Merton, who considered themselves "Scotists" - as I do too.



 ~ Richard Rohr
from just this

 

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

The Inner History of a Day


.


No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.



~ John O’Donohue,
 from:  To Bless the Space Between Us
.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky








~ Janine Jansen
Tchaikovsky's violin concerto

performed and broadcast on April 19th, 2013. 
With Paavo Järvi conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra
 
 
Tchaikovsky (right) with violinist Iosif Kotek