The Tao Te Ching and Dorothy L Sayers

Some might ask, "If there is no good or evil in the long run, then what's the use or the point of trying to be good?" It's a valid question. The point is that when we are fully present in the now, or as the New Testament calls it, "being led by the Spirit", then we know in that moment what action is right for that moment. It does not mean that we should do whatever we feel like in this life, regardless of consequences. To say that only spirit matters and this material world is useless is Gnosticism. While on one hand, that is true, at the same time, it's not true. This is the paradox. It is both true and not true at the same time.

But this kind of worldview that says, "spirit good, material world evil" is just another form of Dualism. Dualism can be helpful in trying to understand the physical world; hot and cold, good and bad, dark and light. I mean, learning to not put your hand on a hot stove is helpful, or learning to not put your tongue on a frozen pole is useful. But people who never mature beyond good v bad, black v white, hot or cold, yes or no can never really understand that everything is interconnected. It is both AND, hot and cold, good and bad.  As the Tao Te Ching points out, light and dark are the same. You cannot know one without the other. Of course, as we talked about before, these are just words and judgments.  As the Tao Te Ching says, “All the world knows and recognizes the beautiful.  Herein lies ugliness.”  In other words, in naming something good or bad, we have fallen into the old egoic trap of mental labels, forms, and judgments.

This brings us back to the interconnectedness of both form and formless. So, we do not take a dualistic worldview that only the formless dimension counts and that all forms are evil. They are both integrated.  Formless begets form, while form begets formless. This is the mystery within mystery. They are the same. Two sides of same coin. Temporary and eternal. Experience and mental concepts. 

Dorothy L. Sayers, Anglican apologist, called this intersection or juxtaposition of spirit and carnal, form and formless, spiritual and physical world "Incarnational living". She describes it as how an artist may be inspired to create a work of art. In and of itself, the creation (artwork) has a form that is inspired by the artist's spirit. In a sense, the artist imbues this piece with a bit of him/herself. But it truly becomes incarnational when another human interacts with it and finds something transcendent in their experience of this work of art. It's not just something the viewer gets from the art, but it is also something they bring to the art when they experience it.

What do we mean by transcendence? Transcendence is not a thing (though we try to give it a name). Transcendence cannot be a goal, otherwise it becomes an object. If I make it my goal to be transcendent or enlightened, then I am operating from my egoic mind, as though true spirituality can be something I use to define myself. This is why the term "holier than thou" really points to an egotistical trait rather than true holiness. Transcendence cannot be an object or goal of the ego. Rather, transcendence only comes in the now. It can only be experienced deeply now.  The path to transcendence is only in the now. It cannot be a future aim or a past glory. It is present moment experience of the one spirit, one life, one consciousness, or communion with God.

It's the deep, experiential knowing without words, beyond labels.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 wrote that he did not come to you with eloquent or persuasive words, but in a demonstration of the spirit's power, so that what you understood was not because of human wisdom or understanding. NLT

"When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn't use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God's secret plan." (1 Cor 2:1) He goes on…

From the NIV- 1 Cor 2:4-7 "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.  We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.  No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began."

True spirituality defies words. True spirituality cannot be understood with the human, limited, finite mind. The person who goes on and on about how spiritual they are has lost the plot. They are unspiritual. Spiritual things cannot be discerned by the egoic mind, or the person controlled by their human understanding. They can, however, be understood on a deeper level, an experiential level of understanding that does not need words.  Even this explanation cannot really get through, because I am limited by words, constructs, and finite forms when trying to describe something which is infinite.

Thought for the day

Surrender!

 I am reflecting on this pointer: surrender to this moment. It’s when I surrender in the now, that I find peace, joy, patience with others, total acceptance of others, and love.  After all, that’s what love is, isn’t it? Love is total acceptance of “self” and others as we are in this moment. I put “self” in quotes as we now know that there is no real self, only a false, mind-made, human- constructed idea of a separate self with its petty, little ego and its self-involved stories and little dramas.  Love sees the conditioned mind and “self” in others, and says, “Okay, that’s what’s there right now.”

We know that what we resist persists. My priest recently shared the gospel where Jesus talks about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. He used it to talk about fighting against racism and social injustice and ecological injustice wherever we see it. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel that he had not gotten it wrong, per se, but that he only glimpsed a portion of what Jesus was talking about. Jesus was talking about the destruction of forms.  Remember, everything that Jesus said was a metaphor. Many of my Christian friends would point to the scripture and say, “Aha!  You see Jesus was prophesying doom and gloom, and we should be afraid of the future.”  Many of them point to Matthew chapter 25 and say, “aha! See? Jesus predicted the end of the world.”

But what they fail to realize is that Jesus was merely pointing out the end of this world of form. Remember this sutra: “all forms, all structures are unstable”. This world of form was never meant to last forever. The only thing that lasts forever is now, this moment. Eternity is now.

Now is the one continuously unfolding moment in time. Now is eternity.

And so when people look at the Gospels and say, “see? Jesus predicted hell and gloom”, they forget that he spoke metaphorically. They forget that he was talking about the destruction of all forms. Did the temple in Jerusalem fall? Yes! Of course! Jesus was simply pointing out, though, that all things will disintegrate in this world of form: bodies, ideas, thoughts, buildings, religions, governments, mountains, kingdoms, languages… EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OF FORM WILL EVENTUALLY DISSOLVE!

When he predicted more earthquakes and tidal waves, was he being prophetic, as in predicting the future? No! In fact, the Old Testament scriptures and teachings were so anti-prophecy, so anti-predicting the future, that anyone caught trying to predict the future was to be stoned to death.  It is unfortunate that in the modern, Christian world, the pervading belief and use of the words “prophet and prophecy” always indicate some dire or even glorious foretelling of future events!  Some point to the Old Testament prophets and say, “Look! THEY foretold gloom and destruction if people didn’t get in line with god’s program”!  If they were in the foretelling business of predicting the future, then they were in direct conflict with the very rules their god put into place and should have been stoned to death.  Rather than thinking of prophets as fortunetellers or future predictors, another way to see them is as people who see a much larger picture of the patterns of human behavior. 

So rather than predicting a future of gloom, Jesus was simply commenting on the instability of all forms in this world, even his own religion and culture and language (how many people speak Aramaic now?). 

So what is eternal? God, spirit, the one consciousness, the cosmic Christ, our spirit as a part of God? Yes, we are part of God, spirit, the eternal one. If you think that is too pretentious or assuming, see Jesus’ final prayer that we see that we are one, “even as you and I are one”(John 16).

So how do we find God? You can only ever experience God or oneness with God right now in this moment.

For myself, I grew up raised in fear, always dreading the future, the rapture, the tribulation. I never realized that Jesus wasn’t predicting all this horrible stuff! He was simply pointing out that if left to our carnal nature, our human mind-made constructs, we would, of course, devolve into wars and catastrophes!  This was not about predicting some dreadful future.  It was simply a statement on the egoic mind-made structures of man. So, when I think of that sermon and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that Jesus spoke of, I see that he was speaking of physical and temporary forms falling away, even (gasp!!!) Judaism and yes, his own physical body. 

One of my dearest friends from church keeps pressuring me to commit to stay at the church forever and ever until I die. And yet, I can’t help but think that maybe the episcopal church is fading away, like all man-made structures. The church of Jesus Christ was never meant to be the end-all be-all of the world of physical form. 

Remember, the finger pointing at the moon is NOT the moon.  Religion is only useful as long as it points us back to oneness with God, but religion is NOT god. And as long as Christians maintain that Jesus the human is the only answer, they miss everything he said. We have missed the most crucial essence of everything he taught. Love can only ever be experienced now. God is now. Forgiveness only ever happens when I recognize that we are the same, you and I are not separate, different.   When I love my neighbor as myself, that’s when I am able to “forgive”, because there is no “other”.  “Forgiveness” is just me recognizing and accepting the form of another as it is right now.  When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, Christians twisted this, especially modern day, American Christians. We think it points to a belief in Jesus the human as God that saves us. But Jesus was speaking metaphorically again. He was saying, “I am”, that is, in being, in stillness, when we are led by the spirit, when we are in spirit, in quietness and stillness, in presence,  in beingness or I am-ness, that we discover the way, the truth, and the life. The Way, the truth, and the life can only ever be found right now in beingness.

I’m beginning to understand why the Buddha said that with desiring comes suffering. When we want or desire life to be other than it is right now, we suffer. We complain, we gripe, we criticize, we judge and we are unhappy. It seems like we can never allow this moment to be as it is. We always seem to want life to be different than it is. We want more. Or we think we have to fix ourselves. We can never seem to be satisfied with life the way it is. But I’m beginning to understand that surrendering to this moment, to life as it’s unfolding right now is where we find peace, joy, love, and God. We spend 99.9% of our lives wanting life to be different, not accepting this moment. We can never seem to be content with what is.  It seems we have to judge it and demand that life line up with our desires and our wants and our hopes and our dreams. And when it doesn’t, we say, “life is so unfair!” 

Surrender to now is the only way to peace.

Unfortunately, recently at church, I did not live out surrendered to this moment in whatever form that this moment takes. I found myself reacting negatively to two guys at church. I think I need a new strategy to help me remember to be surrendered to this moment. My hope is that I will take a deep breath and count to three before I answer someone else either criticizing or giving me instructions. I am not proud of the way I overreacted to both people.  When I recognized that it was my ego and my pain body reacting negatively to their instructions, at least I was able to do that…eventually? But in spite of all my good intentions as I drove to church, I still found myself reacting negatively to people in the band and at church who just rub me the wrong way. This is because my ego was really at work and my pain body was reacting to criticism. And the ego really wanted to be right!  

Today is Monday and I’ve spent the whole morning completely taken over by my egoic mind, fighting with other people in my head, making up conversations with people who aren’t there. LOL! I can’t believe how completely I have been controlled by my mind this morning. Even while listening to Eckhart Tolle, my mind has just been out of control with judgments, criticisms, and angry retorts to people who aren’t even there. I laugh about it now, but it took a while for my mind to disengage. But the more I practice observing my own reactions to others, the easier it gets to let go of this desire to defend some false sense of self.  That is true humility…not feeling the need to defend some imaginary self or attack some imaginary “enemy” in the form of another.  

See Tao Te Ching 16 on emptiness.  The Tao describes emptiness as the truly useful way of being.  An empty cup or vessel is useful precisely because it empty.  If it were already full, where would the usefulness be? Jesus is the perfect example of emptying himself of “self”.  It was in this state of emptiness, true humility, or egolessness, that he was truly useful and showed us the path to God.

What the Hell is Wrong with Rock Music...

It's already nearly July.  I've been slammed with compiling, editing, and revising music lists for both bands.  Rock and Blues songs for our band, "On the Rocks", playing hits from the 1960s and 1970s, here in Southern California.  I've also been working on sacred music for the church band, though I don't know how much longer it will hang together. I say that, because our little Episcopal church is barely hanging on after COVID.  Some are moving away.  Others are burnt out from volunteering 50 hours a week to keep this tiny community alive.  More elderly folks passed away, and quite a few just don't see the point of returning to church.  I can't blame them.  I volunteer so much at times, that I think, "God!  I just want to escape from all the work I have to do at church! I don't want to go to church either!"

I have to laugh as I contemplate the two disparate styles of band: Rock & Blues v Contemporary Christian music.  As a 1980s Evangelical kid, I was dragged to more than one church seminar to discuss all the evils of rock music.  LOL!!!  I look back now, shake my head and laugh.  People just love to hate, don't they?  We just love to feel morally superior.  We love to sit in judgment on everyone and everything.  And Christians are among the absolute worst offenders, I say as one who grew up in that legalistic, judgmental environment.  Talk about toxic!  As they preached about how rock music was poisoning our minds, they were dumping their toxic sludge of judgment into our souls! 

Frankly, I love the episcopal church with its view to social justice, sacred ecology, and spiritual openness, but it seems that it is dying.  Literally, dying off.  I have buried over 2 dozen dear, elderly friends in the last 5 years.  These sweet friends are often very socially conscious, generous, and compassionate.  Their capacity to love and accept everyone is truly the best part of humanity in action.  And yet, though they all raised their children (now adults with kids and grandkids of their own) in the church, NONE of their progeny attend church at all or the episcopal church, in particular.  

So, the church needs to be asking itself: "What did we miss? Are we even relevant to any of the younger generations?"  But instead of asking themselves, "What could we do differently?" Or "How could we reach a younger generation who feel no compulsion to join yet another organization and yet who are spiritual?" Or "Why is it that most people under 60 years old would define themselves as 'spiritual, not religious'?"  Instead of asking these questions, they seem, in my limited perspective, to be circling the wagons around their standards, rituals, and old traditions.  Or maybe they should be asking, "Has our time come to die?  Has our purpose been fulfilled? Or are we just propping up yet another bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy?"

Sacred music?  It means many things to many people.  But for the "unchurched" who do not even care to ever hear a choir or an organ, and who are, quite frankly, turned off by such antiquated types of music, good luck getting anyone under 60 or even 80 years old to come to your church!  So why do Episcopalians (and certainly not only them, but many denominations) insist on choir and organ as the ONLY acceptable form of worship?  Who determined that organ and choir are the only form of sacred music?  I used to teach at a private, Christian school where most of the students were from the Church of Christ, which believes that ALL INSTRUMENTS in church, outside of a cappella voices, are demonic.  Who told them that load of crap?  Again, how little their view of God must be, how limiting a creator.  I would not want to serve that God.  Ick!  What kind of Creator God do they serve?  A creator who hates modern music?  If their version of God is that petty, no wonder the unchurched want nothing to do with this hateful, narrow minded, exclusive God.  The Episcopal church teaches and preaches inclusion, but their God tends to be very exclusive, especially when it comes to "so-called sacred music."  I actually read a quote on an Episcopal church website recently (it's 2021 for God's sake!) that 

"We have a quite traditional conception of the use of music in church, exemplified by the following words:

'Just as swine run to a place where there is mire and bees dwell where there are fragrances and incense, likewise demons gather where there are carnal songs and the grace of the Holy Spirit settles where there are spiritual melodies, sanctifying both mouth and soul.'

 - St. John Chrysostom"

WHOA!  Talk about a LOAD of judgment in that statement.  As they go on to describe what they consider acceptable sacred music, it basically boils down to chants, organ, and choir.  Implying that any music which is appealing to a non-churchgoer, that is not hundreds or thousands of years old is automatically demonic. Wow.  Perhaps I am focusing too much on the negative part of that ancient quote, I'll admit it.  But it was a total turn off for me when I read it.

The older I get, the more expansive my view of God becomes.   I enjoy many, many types of music: creating, writing, composing, recording, editing, mixing, engineering, playing, singing, learning new instruments, etc.  I don't enjoy only one kind of music.  I like nearly every kind of music out there, with the exception of heavy or death metal, but that is just personal preference, and I recognize it as such.  The creative process is such a joy!  So, I have a really, really hard time imagining that a creator god hates any kind of music, or calls it demonic.  

I've seen it done in many places.  It can be done.  I have seen very traditional Episcopal churches keep the liturgy (the form) and embrace modern praise and worship music.  It's beautiful and elegant and raw and authentic and honest worship.  Or it can be.  I miss that.

Recognizing that each church is a minuscule ecosystem or sub-sub-culture within itself, with its own preferences, norms, traditions, jargon, and music styles, I propose that if churches coming out of COVID lockdowns are finding that no one wants to come back, that maybe they should re-examine their traditions, music styles, and insular "us four and no more" approaches to community.  

A friend confided in me recently that she really missed her little Episcopal mission church, which closed after 20-some years.  Why did it close?  It never grew beyond 40 people attending.  The children have grown up, whom they raised together in a very supportive, small, family environment.  But again, none of those grown kids see the need to go to church.  To be very clear, going to church is NOT the end all.  I know it may sound that I am preaching that everyone should go to church.  Nope.  God is everywhere and in everything. So God can be found everywhere.  

What can church add to a person's spiritual growth?  A lot and nothing at all!  If making people all think like each other or believe like everyone else or love the same things or hate or judge or condemn outsiders is the goal of church, then run!  Run far away.  They will only poison your heart and your mind.  In fact, don't go to church at all if it only insists on conformity.  A true spiritual teacher or guide will simply reveal to you what you already know in your spirit.  They don't force you to change or believe what they do.  They let you come to your own awakening.  They can point you in the direction of soul or spirit or god or consciousness, but they do not manipulate or force or coerce or try to get you to be anything than what you already are.  A real spiritual person will not even try to make you believe the same as them.  They can, however, point you toward ultimate connection to all.  

So, going back to the discussion of churches... Am I advocating for large churches only, or implying that only churches which grow are worth while? Is there a place for tiny groups like my friend's old church?  Of course.  But the reason they never grew, as she explained innocently, was that they liked having a tiny group of people and really did not want anyone else to join them.  I know!  I visited their church before it closed.  Those few families were very close and very happy to keep everyone else out.  This is not to say or imply, in any way, that only huge, mega churches are "successful".  Not at all. But a church which is not inclusive or welcoming and which is content to only remain "us four and no more" is a church that will eventually die.  Then again, all things die.  This material world and its temporary forms were never meant to last forever.  Maybe some churches should die off.  Maybe they have served their purpose, and now that purpose is over.  

I also accept that denominations often morph from a spontaneous movement of like-minded, spiritual seekers to a bureaucratic organization, which feels compelled to keep propping itself up.  The denomination becomes an end, rather than a means or a tool to help humans find connection to the "deeper I" or the soul.  When the denomination only propagates itself, its ideas, its beliefs, its worldview, it becomes insular, isolated, and out of touch with the rest of humanity.  Instead of keeping relevant, in whatever form that takes, they tend to try to keep pumping up their organization, especially through the mentality of "we've always done it this way", or "change is bad", or "only OUR way of doing life is acceptable".  This leads to what Madeleine L'Engle called "the making muffins of us all."  If church is only a place where people get indoctrinated to believe all the "right things" and do all the "right things" or avoid doing all the "bad things", then it is doomed to add to the burden of humanity with its narrow, dualistic worldview.  However, community (be it a church, a family, a group of friends, whatever) can point us in the direction of connection with God and the entire cosmos.  And when it gently points, but does not forcefully shove us in that direction, then it can be a beautiful thing, no matter what form it takes.

Perspective from It's A Wonderful Life

I was reminded the other day of the 1942 movie with James Stewart, "It's a Wonderful Life", when a friend was repeating a story I had heard several times before about how she wished her partner would act differently than he does.  

As she went on again about how he should know that such and such bothers her, I remembered how we (that is, our egos) often like to complain about others.  We want them to read our minds.  We want them to do or not do what we think.  It’s a subtle voice in our heads trying to control everyone else around us, but not recognizing that our perspective is warped, that the real issue is inside us.  Oh, that judgmental little voice just loves to gripe about everyone else.  Complaining and blaming is a hard habit to break!

How I wished that I could tell my friend at that moment, “Hey!  Stop!  You are making yourself miserable with a partner you tell me all the time is just lovely.  You are letting your thoughts and emotions dictate your unhappiness right now, because you are focusing on him as the problem, when the real problem is inside your own self.”  So, I did try to remind her gently that she can’t change anyone else, ever.  She can only decide if she wants to continue making herself miserable by repeating this story over and over, or if she really wants to discover the joy that is right there, hidden at the moment, but lurking under the surface if she wants it.  I'm no relationship expert by any means.  In fact, I'm probably the family cautionary tale:  "Oh.  Watch out kids or you might end up single like your Aunt Gigi!" LOL!!  

But I have learned one thing about relationships: We tend to lose those things and people for which we are no longer grateful.  When we begin to try to blame the other person for our own unhappiness, we rob ourselves of the joy and love that is waiting for us.  We close ourselves off, wrapping ourselves in judgment of what we think others should do, how they should act.  We fall into the trap of judgment.  This is why Jesus said, "Judge not, lest you be judged."  Or "what you do to others you do to yourself".  Or even his whole talk about taking the log out of your own eye, when you obsess about the tiny speck of sawdust in your neighbor's eye.  When we judge someone else or blame someone else, we are really unhappy with ourselves.  Oh, we think it is all the other person's fault, that the problem lies with them. But the reality is that happiness is fickle, based on my idea of life's circumstances lining up the way I want them to.  When they don't, look out!  Here comes Misery...and he's brought his friends Blame, Shame, and Obsessive Thought.  You are already familiar with Blame and Shame, no doubt. Obsessive Thought loves to run over and over in our brains.  We play and replay what we should have said or done or what we think the other person might say or do... we plunge into imaginary scenarios- all completely pointless, unproductive, and UNREAL!

Now, for people who are in abusive relationships, I am not talking to you.  You might need another tactic altogether!  But my friend is in a very loving, supportive relationship.  She just had fallen into that old habit of blaming and complaining.  We all do it until we learn that we don't have to live like that ever again!  

Most people live this perspective every day- wanting life to be other than it is, because they can't see the miracle of life as it is. We grumble and complain and gripe and moan and kick the cat. We rail against life! How insane is that? We rage against life itself because we are so caught up in dictating to life how it must conform to our preferences! And when life does not do as we command, we rant about how unfair it is! We walk around with our judgmental view of the world, our list of likes and don't likes, wants and don't wants (see Michael A Singer, The Untethered Soul)! And when people and circumstances do not line up with our very limited ideas, then we are miserable and a misery to everyone around us!

If you are stuck on the same old storyline, endlessly looping about how someone else is unfair or does something you don't like or how they did something that hurt your feelings, you will destroy your own happiness. 

Can you see yourself in the scene or character below? I can.  I've acted like George Bailey more than once in my life, wallowing in self-pity, making myself miserable from time to time. Some people never get out of that pit, choosing to indulge in misery rather than change their perspective.  Imagine that!

From It's A Wonderful Life:

-George Bailey: "...It's this old house. I don't know why we all don't have pneumonia. Drafty old barn! (kicks kitchen chair) Might as well be living in a refrigerator... Why do we have to live here in the first place, and stay around this measly, crummy old town..."

-Mary Bailey: "George, what's wrong?" 

-George Bailey: "Wrong? Everything's wrong. You call this a happy family -- why do we have to have all these kids?"

Different perspective:

George is given the chance to see his life from a different perspective in this 1942 classic movie. His perspective changes when he is grateful for what he has! No longer consumed by thoughts of what he doesn't have or how life didn't turn out the way he wanted or thought it should, he learns to be grateful for life as it is. Gratitude opens his eyes to see just how wonderful life is.

-Clarence: "You see, George, you've really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?"

Gratitude changes everything. It doesn't mean that life won't have hardships. Life is FULL of hardships. It's how we handle those that makes all the difference. And for most of us, 95% of our "hardships" exist because we can't get out of our own way, our perspective is warped. We cause our own suffering because we don't like or can't accept that this is the way life is.  We can’t see the hidden joy in every moment, blinded by our desire for life to be other than it is.  George Bailey still had to face the bank examiner, though his circumstances had begun to change.  But the most important thing he learned was to appreciate what he already had: love, family, friends, a community, a drafty, old house!  You’ll notice that at the end of the movie, he calls it a “beautiful old house”.  When we only focus on the lack or the things we dislike, we eat our souls away with regret, remorse, fear, hatred, and judgment for everyone and everything in life.

We want to dictate to life how it must be. We want to control all the externals; our job, our relationships, our home, our possessions, our image, our finances, our circumstances. And some of those things are under our control. Other things are not. Especially other people. We cannot control anyone else. We cannot make them be what or who or how we want them to be. We cannot make them do what we like, or not do what we don't like… we can ONLY control our perspective and how we react to life.  You see, joy is not dependent on circumstances or other people to line up and do what I want.  Joy is that ability to see that life is so much more than the challenges we face.  Life is miraculous in all of its forms.  Joy sees the eternal view of everything.  

If you are stuck on the same old storyline, endlessly looping about how someone else is unfair or does something you don't like or how they did something that hurt your feelings, you will destroy your own happiness. You are sabotaging the good thing you have, so you can repeat over and over to yourself how unfair life is or how much of a victim you are.

  

The ego loves to tell a story. Whether I am the hero or victim does not matter as long as it can tell the story over and over again. And it (the ego) especially loves to feed on negative energy. Please refer to any works by Eckhart Tolle for a deeper explanation of this.  

The only way I know to change this insane obsessive way of thinking is through gratitude. Gratitude does not change my circumstance. He did what he did. I did what I did. I made choices for better or for worse. Consequences still remain. Things happen. Tragedies occur. Life happens- good, bad, indifferent, glorious, horrific, sublime, awful… but how I perceive those moments makes all the difference. Gratitude has a way of seeing the whole truth, not just the awful stuff. It isn't a Pollyanna filter, through which I only see life as pleasant. Not at all. It just helps me see that life can be both mundane and divine at the same time. It can be both terrible and miraculous at the same time. Gratitude allows me to see the joy, miracle and absurdity of life even when someone is raging at me.

Gratitude becomes a lens through which I can perceive the whole world, but it does that through habit. It does not come naturally to the ego mind which always and continuously tries to defend its sense of false self to anyone and everyone who will listen. So, today, as another friend called to complain about something she wished were different or that someone would behave differently than they do, I took the time to remind myself to focus on one thing for which I am grateful.

I hold that thought for more than 15-20 seconds, so my brain can develop a new neuro-pathway for that kind of thought. I repeat that gratitude again. I allow myself to feel the gratitude well up inside me. 

You can do it, too.  Hang on to that feeling for a moment. Allow it to fill your soul.

Breathing in, I smile to my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my lips.

Breathing in, I smile to my soul. Breathing out, I smile to my eyes.

Allow yourself to physically smile.

I’ve shared in this blog before the story of going to the southernmost tip of India years ago.  In Kanyakumari, where the three holy waters meet: the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea, a watchman is posted just off the mainland on a tiny rock/island.  His job is to wait for the first ray of morning sun.  As the first light shoots across the Bay of Bengal, we see it.  It is thrilling to see that first ray rocket across the water.  And then moments later, we hear the faint pealing of bells wafting over the waves as the watchman announces to the people, who have waited in darkness in hushed silence, that morning has come!  It’s a joyous, raucous moment.  Some people dance and cheer.  Others quietly pray.  Children jump and scream with delight. Some calmly enter the waters to bathe.  Some splash in the waves. Others just stand still for a moment before returning to the rush of an ordinary day.  

It’s a day like any other.  And yet, the anticipation of something good, of good news pervades the quiet crowd.  And the joyful ringing of that bell across the water reminds us to look for the good things, to anticipate the moments of delight over simple things like day breaking through the darkness.

I have also often said that if you are looking for a fight, you will find it wherever you go.  If you are looking to be offended by others, you won’t be disappointed.  You get what you look for.  That is not to say that we can control life.  Not at all!  I am not saying that you bring hardships on yourself.  Challenges and difficulties out of our control happen all the time. But how we respond to those hardships is what makes us either delightful people or miserable people, a delight to ourselves and others or a misery to ourselves and everyone else around us. You know it’s true.  Misery DOES love company.  But a joy shared is divine connection.

Even if your circumstances don't change, YOU can change! You don't have to be miserable. You can find the good around you. You can rediscover the joy that is hidden in every moment, even the worst ones, if you can just open your heart to see it. 

Wishing you peace today as you navigate the joys, challenges, and the mundane moments of life, hoping you can perceive the hidden possibility of bliss in every moment.

30 second meditations...

 These tiny tune videos are created to allow time for people to reflect each Sunday morning on what they have heard. 

I think I would prefer to say, “Clear your mind. Come into now fully.  Allow yourself to just be without thinking. Just breathe.”

I think I would prefer to say, “Take a deep breath.  Let it out slowly as you let go of all judgment against life, others, and yourself.  Come into this moment and feel the joy of being begin to well up in you as you let go of all attachments. Peace comes when we accept life as it is in this moment.” 

More fun with music

 Here are a few more short reflection songs for meditation which I create for our little online church in SoCal.  

Composing and creating

This is a short tune I had fun playing with the other day.  I call it Grief Falls Like Rain.  Based on a tune I heard in a Chinese or Korean mini-series, it might seem like an oxymoron to talk about having fun while composing songs about grief or laments.  But there is a creative joy that wells up, even when the subject matter seems so serious or somber.  I wrote a couple of tiny tunes that deal with this subject of grief and sorrow. However, for me, there is a freedom in accepting that this is what the song is about, as I accept my own mortality.  This world of physical, temporary forms is losing its grip on me.  I feel my own form beginning to slip away, and I am at peace with that.  Having said that, I do not know when I will lay down “this mortal shell” as my dad called it, but I am at complete peace in accepting that this temporary form, my physical body, was never meant to last forever.  The deeper part of me, or the spirit part of me which is connected to greater whole, to God, to the universe, gladly embraces the spiritual dimension.  

As I get older, I find that letting go of who I thought I was, or who I thought I should be, or what I thought I should have accomplished by now, becomes less and less important.  There is a sweetness in letting go of attachments to everything in this world.  Those attachments to material things are easiest to let go of.  Things, stuff, material possessions have a way of owning us, rather than the other way around.  “My car”, “my body”, “my money”.... I've never had a problem of letting go of material things.  Even now, letting go of relationships is easier for me... “my family”, “my friends”...I should say, letting go of my attempts to control or own or find my identity in those relationships is fading.   Even letting go of what I believe...or what I think defines me... “my religion”, “my thoughts”, “my ideas”, those intangible attachments which I often confuse as somehow defining me are sometimes the hardest to let go.    But there is freedom in letting go, of no longer trying to define myself by those externals.    

"Misery comes when we fret and worry and obsess about what we are not or what we don’t have.  But gratitude really does allow me to see the beauty around me now and the enoughness of this moment." 

I think, if I am honest, letting go of my dreams of how I thought my life could have turned out are the most illusory, and by far, the most deceptive.  After all, none of us have any guarantees of a long, fulfilled future life.  The future is an illusion.  The only moment that actually exists is right now, continuously unfolding,  as Tolle points out over and over.  But these attachments to unfulfilled dreams of romance or a home or a successful career or whatever it might be for each of us....those are harder to let go of, until I come back to the present moment.  

A new friend recently asked me, "Why aren't you married?"  Well, that's a loaded question in itself, fraught with all of its built-in expectations that I cannot live a fulfilled life without another person to validate my existence.  But putting that aside, because she was only asking out of curiosity and because she loves me, I tried to find an honest answer.  I mean, life isn't that simple, is it? I can't just decide to get married by myself!  There needs to be another willing party.  LOL!   I was engaged once.   Once upon a time, when I was young and foolish I thought I was in love.  I can see now that what I called love was infatuation and truly selfish in nature.  We were both selfish.  That is not love.  I could lament that I am not in a relationship now, but what is the point of lamenting what does not exist?  My life is as it is.  I would not change any of my choices.  Because no matter where I have landed, I have always found incredible, lovely, kind, shining people.  I have friends all over the world, from France, Belgium, Italy, India, Oregon, Oklahoma, Texas, and here in California.  So, instead of lamenting something that is not, I rejoice in what I do have:  FABULOUS friends!  

I could lament that I do not own a home or even furniture anymore...but those are just things.  I’m comfortable giving away everything I have.  In fact, I'm on a mission to get rid of every nonessential item in my current possession.  I could lament that I don’t have a bigger income or a thriving career.  I remind myself that "more" is not always more, but can be a trap.  And the trap of wanting more than what I have leads to discontentment or what Tolle calls “mostly useless thinking” (see Eckhart Tolle), based in either regretting the past or regretting a future that will never be.  

When I wake in the night and feel overwhelmed as physical pain stabs at my left breast, I pause between spasms of pain, and I feel the joy of accepting what is, of feeling the beauty of this broken body, and gratitude for now begins to comfort me.  Misery comes when we fret and worry and obsess about what we are not or what we don’t have.  Misery focuses on lack and Neverland, that obscure world of the “nevers” of the future.... “I’ll never have ________....I'll never be _________."   But gratitude really does allow me to see the beauty around me now and the enoughness of this moment. 

Isn’t it miraculous that I have lived and had enough to eat or had a roof over my head my whole life?   Isn’t it miraculous that as this physical body begins to shut down, and we are spinning in space at nearly 1,000 mph on this wonder planet filled with life, that I get to let go of attachments to this world?  Isn’t it amazing that we can experience joy and peace and love at the deepest levels of who we are?  Those qualities of joy, peace and love are not dependent upon circumstances to line up the way I think or demand they should.   No, the real peace and joy of being transcend circumstances.  So whether my body is breaking down or in health, I can have peace.  Whether I am rich or poor, I can find joy in every circumstance.  Whether I am accepted or cherished by my family or not, I can know a deeper love for them which transcends all the judgments and which covers all sins with forgiveness.  

More thoughts on Revelation and wilderness

 Thoughts as I walk in the wilderness and listen to Russell Brand’s Revelation:

What I can learn from 12 step groups:

• Ritual helps us “give up our addictions” more easily.  Well. Maybe not “more easily” but at least, perhaps less fractiously.  
• Tokens are handed out for milestone moments... 40 days without drugs... maybe 40 days without food for me (with medical supervision, of course).

“We are the unfolding path that we walk upon.  Unless we can walk with grace,  we are already fallen.” Russell Brand, Revelation. 

Other quotes I’m embracing this week:

“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.”- Mary Davis

“Earth's crammed with heaven, 

And every common bush afire with God, 

But only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Wow!  The more I examine this tiny verse, the more impactful and insightful, even incarnational, it becomes to me.  While I always understood the first part as a recognition of the sacred all around us, even in us, I only ever understood the second part about others as dismissive of those who don’t perceive the sacred.  Maybe I’m imbuing too much of my own limited perspective on this, but this is a profound insight into the ego-mind or the carnal mind, the unconscious mind-driven self.  Those who do not perceive the sacred all around them and in them do only what is natural to the mind divorced from the sacred.  They commodify or use the mundane for self-gratification, thus making it profane.  As we already know, the sacred and the mundane are one and the same.  It is a matter of perception, or in the latter case of the blackberry pickers, it is a misperception, an inability to recognize the sacred in everything.  This blindness to the sacred all around is the great disconnect we talk of sustainability circles.  It is our disconnection from the sacred that leads us to plunder and pillage the earth for our own selfish gain, to oppress and objectify “others” and thus, to commit acts of violence.  This is not a judgment on blackberry pickers, either.  There is nothing wrong with satisfying your natural cravings for food, right?  Browning’s longer form of this verse from Aurora Leigh points to this dichotomy in the human world of both sacred and profane all around us.

In Native American tribes like the Inuit and Aleuts or the Amazonian tribes like the Achuar, this common, global problem of greed, corrupt systems,  pollution and social disparities is perceived as only an external sign of a spiritual problem or a disconnection with spirit.  This is why Jesus said that if you fix a man’s eyes, the whole man would see clearly.  “But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”( NLB)

Purple-hued mountains and bushes.  Clouds of lavender and deep purple flowers.  The luscious scent of Lilac and buttercups wafting from the pale blue and purple butterfly bushes in the wilderness.  Everything  was alive.  The birds sang and chirped and cawed.  The ants seemed to frolic as they hurried about their business.  The bees seemed to hum with aliveness.  Pinks, reds, magentas, purples, lavenders, white blossoms, brilliant yellows, neon oranges, spring greens, bluish sage... every color seemed more vibrant than ever before.  

Even lizards- black, brown, gray, or one iridescent aqua and turquoise blue- seemed to dance and leap.  A falcon allowed me to approach it.  I heard a bird in the preserve calling.  It reminded me of the sweet call of the red-winged black bird back home every spring.  

Tiny little green finches gather up the dandelion seeds.  My mother was right.  Why keep a lawn without dandelions?  What will the beautiful, little finches eat when they migrate through this land if everyone poisons the dandelions? I saw a dead hummingbird, its iridescent green feathers dulling.  I wondered had it died of natural causes? Had the fierce winds yesterday knocked it down and killed it?  I stopped for a moment to thank the bird for its beauty and its life.  I wondered if it had a grieving partner somewhere?  I thanked the tiny bird for its participation in this physical form, for its contribution to the dance of life.  

I remembered the sweet, gentle mourning dove yesterday.  As I approached along the sidewalk, I saw it lying perfectly still in the middle of the sidewalk.  I drew closer.  It did not move.  I drew closer still, not wanting to frighten it, but wondering if it had been injured? Then, it flew away! And there on the sidewalk where it had lain was a tiny, damp feathered baby dove.  The winds had blown it from the nest and the mother was sitting on her baby, warming it, cuddling it, protecting it beneath her outspread wings. 

I thought of all the lovely redbud trees and the rocks, many pebbles which seem to find their way into the tread of my shoes... I thought about what it means to ‘be Zen’.  Zen is to be alive to this moment, to all of life as it is, to be like a tree.  Trees do not toil and strain.  They do not complain or make up useless stories about either how great they are or how despicable or how victimized they are.  They simply are.  

Does that mean that trees do not have hardships?  Of course not.  Just look at the tree in my yard, its bark wounded and scarred from the childish trauma inflicted by my young nephew.  Those wounds now allow the infestation of bacteria and insects.  Or look at the twisted, bent-over trunks along my usual path up to the mountains behind my home. The Santa Ana winds are a destructive force to be reckoned with.  Many trees are uprooted each year or branches broken.  To be Zen is to be at peace with what is, to be present now, doing whatever you do now because this is just what you do.  To be Zen is to be one with all of life. To be fully present.  This is the sacred dance, the awareness of the underlying life in all, the connection of community, the perception of beauty, of joy, of is-ness.  

Russell Brand’s Revelation :

Russell Brand's Revelation on Audible.com

It's April 1, 2021. A new day.  Today is Maundy Thursday in the liturgical calendar, the night in the church in which we remember the Last Supper, before the Christ was executed by people caught up in their ego-selves.

Listening to Russell Brand's Revelation: Connecting with the Sacred Everyday Life on Audible makes me want to laugh and cry and applaud his honesty about this addictive part of our lives. He is brilliant yet down to earth, logical but spiritual, profound yet simple, human but definitely looking for the divine...

Like his own chapter 3 on the sacred and mundane, Russell Brand personifies both. And he points out that we all are both sacred and mundane. We are both ordinary and extraordinary. His line of reasoning is spot on! When he talks in chapter 2 about our human systems of oppression and ego-centric selves, there is still hope! It is not depressing, but enlightening! There is a sense of joy, even as he deliberates his own bouts with hypocrisy. His openness about his own struggles with ego self, materialism, addiction, and awakening are refreshing! I sense a wave of new freedom! And as always, even with all of his intensity, there is humor. It's just breathtaking.

I'm going to listen to chapter 2 for the third time as I walk.  Something in what he said made me think of Jesus' 40 day fast.  It's still Lent for a few more days... maybe I will be able to let go of my own addictions this time and find out how and why Jesus fasted. I mean, I know it was about "dying to the false or ego self", but how do I let go of my own forms, while accepting them at the same time? Maybe my own hold on things and food and this sense of self will finally be broken. Maybe I can find true freedom from addiction. I don't want to just substitute one addiction for another: fasting for overeating, or addiction to exercise instead of overeating, or falling back into the addiction of judgment or even adopting a new addictive ideology, which feels really good and makes me feel "right and righteous". I want to truly lay all those down and find "God"... not my ideas of god or spirit, but find true spirituality, a wholistic, integrative way of seeing the universe and celebrating it and participating with it.

After Brand confesses his own participation through action and inaction in a global system which perpetrates crimes against the sacredness of the universe, he states, "The reason I want to talk to you about God, about revelation is because I believe we need a new way to conceptualize divinity and sacredness to survive. And if we don't, there is no point in surviving."

In chapter 2, Brand quotes the Kali Yuga. It sounds apocalyptic like the book of Revelation in the Bible.... yet, Brand points out that all these "disasters" are less like Nostradamic prophecy and more of a "prognosis based on deep knowledge of the principles that underwrite reality beyond perception"!!! Yes, thank you! This is logic. This is NOT fear based eschatology or end of the world hype, which feeds on the energy of more fear.... it's addictive! Fear feeds on fear. Fear turns to anger and hatred and violence.

I see my own family is practically paralyzed in fear and hatred and anger thanks to all the "End Time" preachers like Rev. David Wilkerson, Rev. John Hagee and Fox News' own cult leader, Tucker Carlson. While they lament the state of America (no sense of global, shared humanity or compassion here- there's no room for it with fear), they rush home nightly to feed their addiction to Tucker Carlson's End of the World diatribes and laments. This kind of prophecy does NOTHING to help humankind. It only leads to more fear, more distrust of "others", more "tyranny wrapped in an American flag" and thumping a Bible. I know this sounds really judgmental right now. But, I finally have compassion for those trapped in this ego-driven, fearful self. I was also caught up in that destructive way of perceiving the world for 50 years! I mean, what else can they do if they don't know that there is ANY other way to be in the world or to see the world? This type of insanity is the norm, as Eckhart Tolle very often points out. How can it be otherwise for them or for me or for any of us unless we take that immense leap into faith?

As Brand so simply puts it, this is a logical natural order and sequence or consequence of events. It is the natural, ordinary, even predictable outcome of human behavior! It's logical, not supernatural. Reflective of Jesus' own attitudes toward "sin" and "hell", seen as a natural consequence in this lifetime of our choices, rather than some future state of paradise for members-only or a future state of eternal damnation, this makes perfect sense. Yes, even the prediction that earthquakes and natural disasters will increase only makes sense when one recognizes the impermanence of this physical world or the basic laws of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy (or chaos and disorder) always increases with time! This isn't a dire prediction of doom and gloom for the future, but a "revelation" of the condition of the physical world.

For all my friends and family who love to quote the ominous, end of the world predictions attributed to Jesus at the end of the gospel of Matthew (chapter 25), we must realize that Matthew the tax collector, who lived by a sort of balance book accounting, rights and wrongs weighing each other out, missed Jesus' worldview completely! Matthew's retributive sense of justice is always scaled toward punishment, rather than seeing that God has always loved us and always will. He misses this beautiful connection with all things. Read Matthew's accounts of Jesus' parables and almost inevitably, there is a twist like a knife at the end of his version, one which almost always includes some judgment or meeting out of punishment. Unfortunately, like Matthew, we make empty, vain, self serving ideologies out of Jesus' death, but we forget his life and his powerful truths about the nature of reality.

Brand states, "In advocating for a return to the sacred, I'm not evangelizing for any one faith, far less any doctrine, simply that you elect to commune with the beautiful connection between all things over separation". Well said, Brand, well said!!

Brand goes on with his soul-searching questions, questions which I am asking myself:

"Who would we become if we could let go of self obsession? Who would we become if we stopped doing what we know to be wrong and start doing what we know to be right? "

This is Brand's invitation to "practice."

Can I use these questions to guide me during this 40 day fast? Can I embrace each moment as it comes? Can I be fully present now, to this moment, each moment? Can I let go of everything that holds me back from seeing this oneness with the universe, with God? Can I find meaningful connection to the oneness that is everywhere and in all? Can I see my family in this same way?  Even making this my goal misses the point. Why?  Because it is future-focused, rather than present moment being.

We want to transcend, not to escape this life of joy and suffering, but to be fully present to every moment as it is. I want to find that good news that Jesus talked about, that the kingdom of heaven is here, now, not some distant future paradise, but a transformative view of the world (and yes, myself as a part of that universe) now.

Solutions based on the very systems which oppress will not lead to transcendence. Ideology, even these very thoughts I write now, will not work if they come from the same useless worldview which dragged me to where I am today. Only from transcendence can we find transcendent ideas... this is grace upon grace!!  And grace does not come from us. It is from God, undeserved, unmerited... Oh, that really smacks against our meritocracy beliefs in America! Grace.

Perhaps I'll write more about this in the future as I begin to grasp it myself. Who knows?

But for now, how do we live this transformation? What to do? How do we find the sacred within us, or that connection between us, the abiding presence of God (Brand 2020)?

Brand's advice:

"Having spent the first part of my life augmenting the self through gratification, fame, and indulgence, unconsciously tainting even the most admirable of endeavors in activism-the ego's easy colonization of righteous action- I am exploring spiritual solutions."

Brand's stated purpose in writing Revelation, "I want to find a new way of talking about God that is useful and meaningful to a culture that is inadvertently becoming nihilistic, angry, and inert, to broaden the conversation..." Hear! Hear! The very word or idea of "God" has come to be so toxic, its connotations so fearful, so hateful, so oppressive or dreary for so many, that it has lost its power. Brand uses the word, "God", in a sense reclaiming it, but redefining it in a meaningful, purposeful, relevant way. He says, "God can mean many things; transcendence, imminence, purpose, love, union, harmony.  Above all, 'God' must mean that there is being beyond our comprehension..." So, for those who shy away from any conversation about "God", but sense deep inside the truth that all is one or even that something more exists in the world that you can't measure or prove, this audiobook is for you!

The Ickabog 

by J.K.Rowling @2020, on Audible.com

“Rowling has captured a sense of our common humanity, while appealing to adults and children to be just and kind to all creatures and teaching children to recognize vile behavior.”

I'm sending out love into the universe for J.K. Rowling. Her negative detractors always seem to fill the web with their venom, so I'm posting a positive review of The Ickabog.  Yes, it's grim, but light. Yes, it tells a story of political intrigue, extortion, menaces, abuse of power, and, yes, murder...numerous murders. Grimm's gruesome fairytales were hardly a picnic, almost always ending in someone's eyes being gouged out. Just saying.... 

 “Ask any small child to tell you which characters in this story are good.  They know.  Children are not dummies.”  

I'm loving The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling, a darkish fairytale a la Roald Dahl tradition. It's dark... No, I shouldn’t say “dark” just because it has a “monster” or deals with heavy subjects. It’s more like twilight, that space between dark and light, because while the content of the machinations of greedy people may seem dark, there are plenty of light moments and glowing characters.  The Ickabog is satirical, humorous, vivid, and the best of the fairytale genre! As an adult, I've known, in some capacity, each of these characters or, in the Roald Dahl tradition, caricatures.  To be sure, no real adult is ever completely vile or completely good.  We all share both moments of glory and of shame.  But for the fairy tale genre, villains must be pure evil and saints must be transcendent. And somewhere in the middle, Rowling has captured a sense of our common humanity, while appealing to adults and children to be just and kind to all creatures and teaching children to recognize vile behavior.

The villains, Lords Spittleworth and Flappoon are completely vile, duplicitous and obsequious; Lord Spittleworth being the biggest liar of all.  The clueless, vain King Fred the Fearless is thoroughly idiotic, but redeemable.  Ma Grunter, matron of the orphanage, is a greedy lush.  Captain Roach is an ambitious soldier, willing to overlook just about anything for money and power.

The clear-sighted, grief-stricken child, Daisy, is valiant and outspoken, speaking truth to power with compassion.  All of the good folk are capable of transformation.  They may willingly blind themselves to some truths, but eventually they come to their good senses and do the right thing.

As the narrative unfolds, it brings to my mind Roald Dahl's Matilda-esque, avaricious, despicable adult characters with a hint of The Emperor's New Clothes, and yet, it remains a unique story in its own devices.  The glorious, delicious descriptions of the little country of Cornucopia are as sweet and warming as morning sunshine after a long, cold night.

As I listen to Stephen Fry narrate on Audible, I feel gratitude for such warm, wonderful acting talent. Fry, as always, is flawless in every role, every voice, every character. He is the most marvelous of storytellers, while Rowling is the most magical of tale weavers or yarn spinners. 

I will also purchase the bound copy of the book. I normally read each book on my own first, before listening or watching someone else's interpretation of a story, but when I saw that Fry was narrating, I had to listen to his rich voice immediately.

Anyone who has known me knows that I'm a fan of the fairytale genre. I'm sure there are more than a few early blogs on the importance of fairytales and what they bring to our understanding of the world. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien , and G. K. Chesterton wrote of the value of fairytales as literature, so I won't go on.

So, for J.K. Rowling’s critics who say this fairytale is too dark or heavy or frightening for small children, I say you don’t understand the purpose of fairy tales in the first place.  Fairy tales have the ability to convey hard truths to children in a way which is less frightening than hearing the evening news or some juicy bit of gossip about someone who died in a car accident or hearing of wars and mass deaths due to a global pandemic.   Why?  Because those true stories do not provide a buffer in a way a fairy tale can.  The best fairy stories always begin by distancing the reader from the harshness of reality now...”Once upon a time, in a land far, far away” or “Long, long ago in a distant land...”

And yet at the same time, fairy stories may provide “whole worlds of experience” to young readers or listeners (C. S. Lewis).  To be clear, Rowling does not go into gory detail on how people die.  The deaths are not graphic as some critics would lead one to believe.  But death and avarice and power- grubbing, abusive, manipulative people do exist in real life.  These almost comical,  yet thoroughly despicable characters are one way to teach children that NOT ALL adults are to be trusted. Then whom should children trust?  Ask any small child to tell you which characters in this story are good.  They know.  Children are not dummies.  This humorous tale teaches those eternal qualities of forgiveness, kindness, justice, loyalty, compassion, solidarity, hard work, honesty, courage, and humility.

So, if you do get a chance to read or listen to this tale, I hope you find it as delightful as I did.

Anyhoo, hope you are finding things to celebrate today. Today, I celebrate fairytales!!