Tag: Beauty

The Mystic Way; Part One

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Five years ago, I wrote five blogs on the Mystic Way. I think it may be time to revisit these five movements in spiritual growth.

a seed breaks open
transformation begins…
awakening

Nicholas Hermann (Brother Lawrence) saw a dead-looking tree in winter. As he meditated on that sight, he realized that the tree would come back to life in the spring. He was awakened to the presence of God.

Paul of Tarsus and Rulman Merswin saw great lights and were awakened. Jesus of Nazareth heard a divine voice at this baptism and his life was never the same.

Richard Rolle and John Wesley both felt a warming of their hearts–a heat that modern Tums could not ease. Catherine of Genoa felt her heart pierced by the love of God.

Sundar Singh had a night dream and awoke transformed.

Awakening comes in different ways, but when it comes a person is never the same. The Divine becomes the ever present reality of their lives (except maybe in the Dark Night of the Soul, the fourth movement). They affirm over and over again, the beauty and love of God.

Awakening is not something we can make happen for ourselves. In fact, it can be experienced by religious and non-religious people. All I can suggest is to pay attention to life–both inner and outer. All life comes from God. Perhaps if we pay attention, we are more likely to experience a moment of awakening that will endure, though conceivably not without some naps along the way.

One caveat; not all mystics talk about an awakening. Not all awakenings are as dramatic as the ones mentioned above. Some may be so gentle that they are barely remembered. I imagine this is more likely to be the case with persons who are raised in a deeply spiritual atmosphere.

May the love of God fill your heart. May the beauty of the Divine radiate through your thoughts and imagination.

LaMon

Pathway Poem #12

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Jane Kenyon was a wonderful poet. She died of leukemia at the age of 48. She wrote,

There are things in life that we must endure which are all but unendurable, and yet I feel that there is a great goodness. Why, when there could have been nothing, is there something? This is a great mystery. How, when there could have been nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, beauty?1

Among the many poems in Otherwise: New & Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon, I have chosen the following:

At the Feeder

First the Chickadees take
their share, then fly
to the bittersweet vine,
where they crack open the seeds,
excited, like poets
opening the day’s mail.

And the Evening Grosbeaks–
those large and prosperous
finches–resemble skiers
with the latest equipment, bright
yellow goggles on their faces.

Now the Bluejay comes in
for a landing, like a SAC bomber
returning to Plattsburgh
after a day patrolling the ozone.
Every teacup in the pantry rattles.

The solid and graceful bodies
of Nuthatches, perpetually
upside down, like Yogis . . .
and Slate-Colored Juncoes, feeding
on the ground, taking only
what falls to them.

The cats watch, one
from the lid of the breadbox,
another from the piano. A third
flexes its claws in sleep, dreaming
perhaps, of a chicken neck,
or of being worshiped as a god
at Bubastis, during
the XXIII dynasty.

What makes life worth living if not “love, kindness, beauty” and perhaps a bit of humor.

We have a beautiful Korat cat named Jinx. He too watches the birds at our feeders. And the beautiful birds come all 12 months of the year. Like Jinx, I too like to watch them, though perhaps with a different desire.

One of my Autumn haiku:

a beautiful morning:
just watching the birds feeding
and the leaves falling

May you all rejoice in the beauty around you–blessings of God. As always, feel free to share this blog with others. And comments are always welcomed–really! Peace, LaMon

1 Good Poems for Hard Times by Garrison Keillor, p.314.

Pathway Poem #8

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Tom Hennen was born and lives in Minnesota. Many of his poems are meditations on life in the upper Midwest. Today’s poem, originally found in Love for Other Things, looks at the prairie land he cherishes. I suggest you might want to read this one twice. Listen to the words, see the images, understand the feeling of the poet. Everything flows from the poem’s wonderful first line. But don’t allow you rational side to argue with it. If you can’t say, “Yes,” perhaps you can at least wish it were so.

From a Country Overlooked.

There are no creatures you cannot love.
A frog calling at God
From the moon-filled ditch
As you stand on the country road in the June night.
The sound is enough to make the stars weep
With happiness.
In the morning the landscape green
Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass.
The day is carried across its hours
Without any effort by the shining insects
That are living their secret lives.
The space between the the prairie horizons
Makes us ache with its beauty.
Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue
To the farthest cold dark in the universe.
The cottonwood also talks to you
Of breeze and speckled sunlight.
You are at home in these
great empty places
along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs.
You are comfortable in this spot
so full of grace and being
that it sparkles like jewels
spilled on water.

Toward the end he speaks of the spot he sees as being “full of grace and being”. Such language is a reminder that meditation on nature is a way to connect with the inner Reality revealed through what we can see (and not simply overlook). It is a pathway to experiencing the presence of God.

swollen Cahaba–
roaring into the silence
of the waiting woods

Peace,
LaMon

Pathway Poem 3

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I’ve have learned the secret for reading poetry. I read it aloud and slowly. Usually, if there is any movement in my heart or mind, I will read it a second time. So, again, I encourage you to read today’s poem aloud and slowly. Let the sound and the words sink into your heart and mind.

Today’s poem is by Mary Oliver. It is entitled “Of Love” and found in Red Bird. Oddly, at least to me, it is not found in the huge book Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver. Other poems from Red Bird are there, but not this one.

I have been in love more times that one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway people beautiful to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some–now carry my revelation with you–
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world–its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself–I imagine
this is how it began.

When I came to the end of the poem, I just had to sit silently and dwell on that last line, “I imagine this is how it began.” I jotted a few lines below the poem. I revisited it from time to time until this haiku emerged:

creation
love of God incarnate
intrinsic beauty

As Spring begins to blossom may you sense the inherent beauty of love in all of creation.

As always, feel free to share this blog with others. All who are interested are encourage to follow in order to receive them in your email.

Peace,
LaMon

Trees

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trusting like a tree:
an olive tree in God’s house
always cared for

The haiku was inspired by a reading in the Psalms this morning–Psalm 52:8-9. Today is the birthday of one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver. I turned to her book “Thirst” {Beacon Press, 2006) and found this poem that I had been impressed with on the first reading some years ago:

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Nature is a wonderful pathway to God. As we enter the Fall season, I want to be more attentive to the trees–those changing color and those seemingly eternally green. Our attention may be rewarded with a vision of God’s beauty. And perhaps our lives will shine just a little more.

As always, if you enjoy any of my blogs, feel free to share them with others.

Peace,
LaMon

Human Giftedness

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Recently I have turned again to Thomas Traherne’s Centuries. In #342, he wrote that God gave us “an eye to behold Eternity and the Omnipresence of God, that [we] might see Eternity, and dwell within it; a power of admiring, loving, and / prizing, that seeing the beauty and goodness of God, [we] might be united to it forever more” 132f.

The “eye to behold” may be our intuition or, perhaps more likely, our imagination. This is comparable to St. Paul’s insistence that we must consider or reckon our selves as dead to sin and alive to God, in union with Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11).

Our imagination can lead us to God or away from God! If we live our lives as though there were no God, then that is likely what our life will look like. Conversely, if we live our lives as though in God’s presence, we may ‘see’ God all around us. There is nothing wrong with training ourselves to see things a certain way–especially if that way is full of goodness and beauty.

human giftedness:

holy imagination

always seeing God

Like a gift for music which will atrophy if unused, so this human birthright may fade away if we never use it looking for God.

As always, if you like this, feel free to share it with friends, and perhaps encourage them to sign up to receive it in their email inbox.

Peace,

LaMon

The Mystic Way: Awakening

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The name of this blog site is Pathways to God. Today I want us to begin thinking about the Mystic Way. In the Christian context, three movements are usually affirmed: purification, illumination and union. However, two additional steps are sometimes mentioned. One may occur between illumination and union. It is traditionally called the Dark Night of the Soul. The other is prior to purification. It is awakening. And it is awakening that I want to think about today.

The experience of awakening can happen in at least two different ways. One is to experience the glory of God externally. Nicholas Hermann (popularly known as Brother Lawrence) saw a dead tree in winter and thinking about how it would come back to life, he was awakened to the greatness of God. It was life-changing. Men as different as St. Paul and Rulman Merswin saw a great light and they were never the same. Even Jesus heard a divine voice at his baptism and a ‘normal’ life was no longer a possibility.

The other way is inward. Richard Rolle felt a heat or warming in his heart. (I don’t think it was heat that Tums could ‘fix’!) Catherine of Genoa was struggling in a loveless marriage and perhaps with depression. She went to a priest for her normal Lenten confession, but wasn’t able to say anything. As she knelt, her heart seemed pierced by the love of God. In one moment she saw her own miserable state, but more importantly God’s boundless love. Both Rolle and Catherine became great affirmers in word and deed of a divine love that fills and overflows our hearts.

Awakening comes in different ways, but when it comes the person is never the same. The Divine becomes the ever present reality of their lives. They live for God and God’s will. They affirm the beauty and the love of God.

So, what can we do to be awakened? Perhaps nothing. It comes to irreligious and religious persons alike. We can’t make it happen. All I can suggest is to pay attention to life within and without. All life comes from God and perhaps if we pay attention, we are more likely to experience a moment of awakening that will last a lifetime.

God of the Wildflowers

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Pat and I love to go to the Gatlinburg area of the Smokies. Every season is a beautiful season in those mountains. But I especially like to go in the Spring to view the wildflowers. A line from Edna St. Vincent Millay describes my experiences each time I go, “I am waylaid by Beauty.”

Some years ago on a contemplative retreat I was asked (if I remember correctly) what kind of plant I would like to be, if I were a plant. Without hesitation I answered, “a wildflower.” Of all the flora in the world, I love wildflowers the most.

I believe that wildflowers can teach is some things about God. R.S. Thomas thought so as well:

It was easier to come out with you                                                                                       into the fields, where birds made no claim                                                                       on my poor knowledge and flowers grow                                                                         with no thought but to declare God.

What do they declare about God? One thing is obvious. God loves beauty. God’s love for beauty is manifest in the stunning profusion of wildflowers. In North America alone there are around 10,000 different types of wildflowers!

Another thing that wildflowers teach about God is that size really does not matter. We humans are more often impressed with bigness. Not so with God. To speak of God in human terms, God is as moved by a little stand of white Trillium trillium

as by a majestic mountain or a deep blue sea.

 

On a recent hike, I found a Mayapple wildflower in bloom. You have to really look carefully for it because when God created this wildflower, the flower was made to appear under the leaves.

mayapple Only by bending down can one see this beauty. Perhaps wildflowers are intended in part to teach us about the beauty of humility.

April 22 is Earth Day. It is a good day to be thankful for the beautiful world created by God–the great Lover of Beauty. It is also a good day to renew our commitment to encouraging those in authority to protect our fragile environment.