“The natural world is its own good and sufficient story, if we can only learn to see it with humility and love. That takes contemplative practice, stopping our busy and superficial minds long enough to see the beauty, allow the truth, and protect the inherent goodness of what it is—whether it profits me, pleases me or not. Every gift of food and water, every act of simple kindness, every ray of sunshine, every mammal caring for her young, all of it emerged from this original and intrinsically good creation. Humans were meant to know and enjoy this ever-present reality—a reality we too often fail to praise, or maybe worse, ignore and take for granted. As described in Genesis, the creation unfolds over six days, implying a developmental understanding of growth. Only the seventh day has no mention of it. The divine pattern is set: Doing must be balanced out by not-doing, in the Jewish tradition called the “Sabbath Rest.” All contemplation reflects a seventh-day choice and experience, relying on grace instead of effort. Full growth implies timing and staging, acting and waiting, working and not working. All the other sentient beings also do their little things, take their places in the cycle of life and death, mirroring the eternal self-emptying and eternal infilling of God, and somehow trusting it all—as did my dog Venus when she gazed at me, then looked straight ahead and humbly lowered her nose to the ground as we put her to sleep. Animals fear attack, of course, but they do not suffer the fear of death. Whereas many have said that the fear and avoidance of death is the one absolute in every human life. If we can recognize that we belong to such a rhythm and ecosystem, and intentionally rejoice in it, we can begin to find our place in the universe. We will begin to see, as did Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God.”
From Richard Rohr- The Universal Christ- How a forgotten reality can change how we see, hope for, and believe.
From Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle: “Feeling the oneness of yourself with all things is love.”
Other quotes from Tolle’s Stillness Speaks:
- “In the Bible, it says that God created the world and saw that it was good. That is what you see when you look from stillness without thought.”
- ‘To be still, look, and listen activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you.”
How do we recognize beauty, truth, or goodness? Are these just cultural concepts, human concepts that must be taught with words? Or do you recognize beauty when you see it, without words, beyond thought? This is what Tolle means by the non-conceptual intelligence within you. There is a wisdom, a spiritual “truth”, an elegance in the universe which resonates with you, without needing words to actualize or describe it. You just know it. You feel it. You recognize it. You sense it in the form of a tree, without naming the tree, the species, the genus, without enumerating the particulars, and yet at the same you feel the rootedness of a tree which does not strive to be. You feel its inner beauty, without form. And at the same time, this formless presence gives shape to the form in front of you. This is the wisdom of love in the universe. This is the wisdom of the formless, eternal presence, the I Am that I Am at work in us and through us and for us, drawing us deeper into grace, into love, into the universal Christ.
As I’m listening to Eckhart Tolle’s retreat, Freedom From The World, on Audible.com, I am reminded of a sermon I heard years ago when I attended a Chinese Baptist church outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yep. You read that correctly, a Chinese Baptist church in Oklahoma. I hope you giggled a little at the thought. I still do. I loved those people.... The services were bilingual. But back to the reminder, the pastor of the church had been a Tai Chi master in Singapore. One Sunday, after quite a few of us had been up all night playing cards and games, he chided us gently to live a life of balance. Tai Chi is all about balance, he said, and our call to spirituality is all about balance, not about perfection.
As Tolle discusses in the 3rd session, or Chapter 3 on Audible, music which pulls us into the spiritual dimension points to a balance between form and formless, structure and space, notes and silence. As I let this concept sink in today, I feel like I want to try to create music this week which honors that balance between structure and space, form and formlessness. Can I give more space to the silent parts of a song? It’s a challenge in which I find joy and delight. It’s not something I feel compelled to do, in the sense of obligation, but in the sense that I feel pulled toward. Does that make sense?
I recognize that what Tolle is saying is only a pointer, it is not ultimate truth. Keeping this balance between ideas or concepts, which are only forms, and true spirit which is formless, is key. Again, the old Buddhist saying that “the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon” hints at this revelation. Can a “spiritual song”, that is, a song that pulls me toward oneness with Being be birthed through me, this form that I have right now? It will be fun to explore this. Will the product of this exploration, i.e. the song, have meaning or impact on others? Who knows? And ultimately, that probably doesn’t matter at all.
Oh, the monkey brain...right? This also reminded me of singer, musician extraordinaire, and songwriter, Michael Gungor, formerly of The Gungor Band, Gungor, the Liturgists Podcast, author of the book, This, and now known as Vishnu Dass. Watching his transformation over the years, since he was a teen leading worship at his dad’s church in Oklahoma, gives me incredible HOPE for this new generation. I still love his old music from the early days, and I’m excited to see what will continue to come into the world through this open, ever-questioning, mystic musician. I hate to categorize him as just a musician. He and wife Lisa are obviously so much more. Even the word “mystic” is limiting. I’m looking forward to what comes from them next.
It took me 50 years to wake up. That’s why I have such incredible hope in this younger generation. They are already so much more “woke” than I was at their age. Even my 15-year old nephew is incredibly “woke”, that is, less tied to the world of forms, less attached to the ideas of forms that we often put on each other. I can see that he and some of his friends are already less attached to the labels we put on ourselves and others: Christian, conservative, gay/ straight/ Bi, male/female, American, black/ white, etc. And this in a group of kids who are going to a private “Christian” school. The fact that they are already challenging their assumptions of how the world is “supposed to be” comforts me. It’s encouraging to see my nephew already open to the perception of form and formless.
And now, I am going to practice stillness for a bit with Tolle. Maybe this will seep into my music, maybe not. I’m okay with that, too.
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