"Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be. This means we can edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not too little — just right. "Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the move from deep conversation to mere connection is part of this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. "We are tempted to think that our little “sips” of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation. But they don’t. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places — in politics, commerce, romance and friendship. But no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation. Here's the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?_r=0 I love this wind-blasted, twisted old Limber Pine growing out of the rock. Actually, it's on an island jutting up in the middle of The Loch, a subalpine lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. To get to it last week, I hiked out over the ice of the frozen lake. To me, this tree symbolizes the messiness of both our individual personalities and our relationships with others. I pray that we all can learn to value that messiness - the awkward pauses in conversation, the foot-in-the-mouth verbal blunders, the rough and unfinished parts of our personalities. After all, we really do need one another to help make up for our own imbalances. The true self subsists in a web of presences - which includes, of course, the beings of the natural world :) Photo: Twisted Limber Pine growing on an island in The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 14, 2015 Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/
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“Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism.” Thomas Merton Photo: Limber Pine cone resting on Gem Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 18, 2015 Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ This past weekend, I went with my family to see the newest episode of Star Wars - "The Force Awakens." Like everyone, I am wowed by the special effects and technical expertise of the moviemakers, especially when heightened by the 3-D glasses provided by the theater. However, I have to admit that when I leave any Star Wars (or Lord of the Rings) movie, I'm inevitably disappointed by the rather simplistic cosmology that is the operating system of both. Many people in our culture have jettisoned the traditional Judeo-Christian myths (and here I mean "myth" in Joseph Campbell's sense of a philosophy that is too profound for logic alone to articulate, and thus necessitates the telling of a profound "story"). These folks view this sort of myth as WAY too dualistic, yet - ironically - they now find themselves embracing a Star Wars - type myth that is EVERY BIT as dualistic. Here, all of the good lies on one side (e.g., with "The Republic") while all of the evil remains on the other side (e.g., with "The First Order"). I suppose most moviegoers end up losing sight of this underlying philosophy in a welter of way-cool, awesome special effects, but it is nevertheless still present as the operating system. In its defense, the Star Wars philosophy does hold that evil is actually the dark side of THE GOOD ("The Force"), and that a Jedi "is responsible for holding in balance the light and dark sides of The Force," as the current movie proposes. However, in practice, the two remain continually at odds with one another, locked in a continual battle. For me, the dualism embedded in this kind of philosophy does little to heal a world wracked by conflict based on the conviction that each side (whether it be the U.S., China, fundamentalist Christians, extreme liberals, jihadist Islam, etc.) views itself as completely correct, and the other side as completely wrong. What we need, I believe, is a more nuanced philosophy which reveals the fact that in EVERY person, philosophy, culture and religion, "our gifts are our flaws and our flaws are our gifts." As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke so aptly puts it: "If my demons leave, I am afraid my angels may take flight as well." And here he is of course talking about the light and shadow sides of our INNER lives and philosophies. In my opinion, what is needed in our time is to uncover the underlying goodness of opposite positions and then work to see how each has been distorted into evil. In the current struggle with terrorists, for example, what is needed (in addition, perhaps to military action) is to bring to light the underlying psychology of the people who end up becoming terrorists, liberate the good and true aspects of that psychology, and then work for social justice in their particular situations. Similarly, it is important for us who are embedded in Western corporate-industrial culture to get in touch with the shadow side of our own system. I don't think a dualistic Star Wars philosophy is adequately equipped for this sort of work. What we need is a brand new philosophy or theology, one which is capable of holding the best aspects of opposite positions in tension. For this, after all, is a defining mark of what has traditionally been referred to as "genius." May all of us contribute what we can to the emergence of this revolutionary and transformative kind of philosophy :) Photo: Bellvue Dome and Watson Lake at sunset, Bellvue, CO, December 20, 2015 Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ In Northern Europe, the goddess Frigga - also called "Mother Night" - gives birth to Baldur the sun god on the winter solstice - today! I love the symbolism here, for it reveals the fact that light is actually born from the womb of darkness. Applied to the inner life, this means that the light of insight is always given birth by the night of challenge and suffering. In my own life, I've come to realize that every "aha!" experience of revelation comes as a solution to a previous difficulty. For example, as a young adult, I felt an intense, insatiable longing for divine union, one that it seemed could never be quenched. While spiritual seekers all around me received the consolation they were looking for, all I could ever claim was unfulfilled longing. This situation made me feel, in fact, that there was something terribly wrong with me. As a consequence, I entered into a period of deep depression. Then one day, an inner light switched on, and I suddenly realized that the reason why my longing would NOT go away was because the desire was actually its own answer! In fact, I discovered that my infinite thirst for union with the Divine was actually a participation in the infinite longing OF THE DIVINE for union with ME! It's no wonder, then, that the desire refused to go away. How could it, when The Beloved's desire for human love is limitless? My experience teaches me here and in a multitude of other instances that revelation is ALWAYS born out of a logically prior experience of absence; in other words, out of some kind of "dark night of the soul" :) Photos: Bellvue Dome and Watson Lake; The Loch; and Alpenglow on Long's Peak, Larimer County, CO "Pessimism – from lack of silence (in my own life)." Thomas Merton Journal, April 9, 1967 Photo: Lichen rock and peaks, The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 14, 2015 Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "In silence we face and admit the gap between the depths of our being, which we consistently ignore, and the surface which is untrue to our own reality. We recognize the need to be at home with ourselves in order that we may go out to meet others, not just with a mask of affability, but with real commitment and authentic love. If we are afraid of being alone, afraid of silence, it is perhaps because of our secret despair of inner reconciliation. If we have no hope of being at peace with ourselves in our own personal loneliness and silence, we will never be able to face ourselves at all: we will keep running and never stop. Silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence." Thomas Merton Photos: Ice patterns on The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 14, 2015 "What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous." Thomas Merton Photo: Wind-carved ice on Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "The world of humanity has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude which is necessary, to some extent, for the fullness of human living. Not all people are called to be hermits, but all need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. When that inner voice is not heard, when we cannot attain to the spiritual peace that comes from being perfectly at one with our own true self, our life is always miserable and exhausting. For we cannot go on happily for long unless we are in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of our own soul. If we are constantly exiled from our own home, locked out of our own spiritual solitude, we cease to be a true person. We no longer live as a human being. We become a kind of automaton, living without joy because we have lost our spontaneity. We are no longer moved from within, but only from outside ourselves." Thomas Merton "The Silent Life" Photo: Ice "waves" on The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 14, 2015 Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Ice is only another form of terrestrial love." John Muir One of the things I appreciate about wintertime is the endless variation of sculptures and patterns that ice forms on our alpine lakes here in the Colorado Rockies. I find it amazing that the most basic element of life - water, which composes about 60% of the human body - takes so many beautiful forms. As Muir points out: "Nature's modes work towards beauty and joy." I love imagining how these lovely works of art will eventually melt next spring, flow down the rivers onto the Plains, get diverted to my kitchen tap, and enter my body, bringing all of that beauty with them. How wonderful! Photos: Ice patterns on The Loch, Mills Lake and Sprague Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December, 2015 Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "If we are fools enough to remain at the mercy of the companies who want to sell us happiness, it will be impossible for us ever to be content with anything. How would they profit if we became content? We would no longer need their new product. The last thing the salesman wants is for the buyer to become content. You are of no use in our affluent society unless you are always just about to grasp what you never have. Why can we not be content with an ordinary, secret, personal happiness that does not need to be explained or justified? We feel guilty if we are not happy in some publicly approved way, if we do not imagine that we are meeting some standard of happiness that is recognized by all. God gives us the gift and the capacity to make our own happiness out of our own situation. And it is not hard to be happy, simply by accepting what is within reach, and making of it what we can." Thomas Merton Photo: Beautiful wind-carved ice on Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO Please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ |
AuthorStephen Hatch, M.A. is a spiritual teacher and photographer from Fort Collins, Colorado. His approach is contemplative, inter-spiritual, and Earth-based. Archives
June 2016
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