Spiritual Window Shoppers

There's a Rumi poem (translated by Coleman Barks) that starts:

"These spiritual window shoppers who idly ask,
"How much is that?
Oh, I'm just looking."

These window shoppers have a few Buddhas in their gardens and a couple of African tribal masks on the walls of their studies but haven't invested much beyond the acquisition of an interesting collection of spiritual artifacts. They are like those bachelor types that can't stay interested in a woman beyond the six-month grace period that typifies the first flush of love.
But passion is like a bonfire. It needs to be lit and relit before it can begin to build upon itself.

Rumi says in another poem (via Barks):

If you can't pray a real prayer, pray
hypocritically, full of doubt
and dry mouthed
God accepts counterfeit money
as though it were real.

In other words, fake it until you make it. Any form of homage to the unknown— prayer, worship, a few sincere strains from an old hymn— could at least be a way to get some distance from that arthritic stance of superiority that proclaims, "It's not digified to humble myself before something that hasn't passed the check list of my intellect." How could the mystery pass the muster of your constricted little criteria? You don't even know enough to ask the right questions. How could you even compose a question about something that is beyond words?

I know, you don't want to be associated with the sort that falls down and cries "Miracle!" at the sight of any gnarled turnip that vaguely resembles the face of the Madonna. I understand. We're not talking about that. The religious hysteric doesn't honor the mystery either because he, too, is always super-imposing his little dogmatic template over everything on God's green Earth.

Your intellectual dogmatism is not superior to the hysteric's dogmatism because all dogmas are inferior. Mark Twain said, "What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so." Prayer, at least prayers of celebration, praise, and gratitude, aren't about dogma. They're about cognizance and passion. Get a little cognizance and passion in your life. Otherwise you'll wind up like Rumi's window shopper:

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

If you find depictions of the Christ as basically another long suffering, blood spattered, pin cushion of brutality melodramatic and smarmy don't throw the babe in the manger out with the bath water. Paint your own vision of how the Messiah should be. What's the gospel according to your soul? As Rumi says at the end of his window shopper poem:

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah,
It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.

Breezing Through the Wine Country

The weekend after the election the clouds melted away leaving the air clean and bright. My wife and I were still trying to open up to the possibility that the people had actually beaten back the tide of fascism for now and perhaps a long time to come.

The internet had served its purpose beautifully where mainstream media had largely failed and now big media had no choice but to play catch up. The investigations long suppressed were now beginning in earnest. We could breathe again. In the back of our heads a little ditty was playing incessantly. Ding dong the witch is dead. Hey, we can dream can’t we?

And there we were cruising through the gold and rouge colored vineyards of the Sonoma wine country on a gorgeous fall day excited to be visiting our old friends in their beautiful homemade home fed by spring water and sun power high in the coastal mountains of Cazadero.

We glimpse the Russian River sparkling below the shimmering yellow leaves of the Maples. We stop at the Korbel Vineyard Deli to get a cup of Joe just long enough for me to see a couple of highlights of the Cal/Arizona game on the TV over the bar. I’m happy to see the highlights are of two Cal touchdowns. Outside the deli Japanese tourists with the latest camera phones are taking pictures of the rununculas cascading down the old brick walls. God’s in Her heaven and all’s right with the world.
Soon we are veering off the Russian River Road past the llama farms and climbing up and up into the forests along Austen Creek. I see a buck foraging by the waters edge.

We are immersed in a wonderful moment. We know it’s temporary. We know that corporations still call the tune in this country. We know we’re far from out of the woods yet. And I know one’s mood shouldn’t be predicated on the outcome of a football game (Cal ended up losing the game, of course).

Only one thing is certain— change. It’s the quick or the dead in this life… “quick” meaning quick thinking. This being so, the universe seems to reward intelligence. If this condemns man to the disaster of his own selfish stupidity then so be it. But it also may mean that in the end we will be forced to adhere to thoughtful determination as opposed to blind brute force. So… expect a miracle but remain unattached to outcome.

It’s going to be a long fight that may not succeed. But in any guerilla war of attrition those that can draw sustenance from their environment will be the ones who endure. And so, despite knowing we are merely enjoying the peace that attends the eye of the storm, we take sustenance from that peace and let our gratitude bolster us for the challenges to come. We revel in this day, a dazzling proof that grace happens.

Note: Image is from picturethisgallery.com

Real Regime Change

Ronald Reagan once said, “Government can’t solve the problem. It is the problem.” And then he proceeded to prove his point by showing us how bad government can get. Ever since, ideologues of a similar bent have followed in his footsteps trying to prove his point by governing just as badly. But one is not proven prescient just by winning a bet on a race he's fixed.

So now the supposed reform party has regained a modicum of power and a corrupt system will be steered in “a new direction.” There are developments to be excited about. I am encouraged that Barbara Boxer will be chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee— succeeding a chairman who still thinks global warming is a hoax. Thank God there are politicians in office that I can actually believe are still motivated by a passion to promote the common good and that they are in positions to finally fulfill such dreams.

But how can the common good remain the focus of a system that is so dependent on institutions of such extreme self-interest as the corporations? Just to run for a mid-level office today requires such an astronomical amount of concentrated capital, it is impossible for influence peddling not to be a prominent feature of our governmental process.

Reform? It will always remain true that there will be no lasting reform without campaign finance reform. Yet both the major parties insist that requiring a king’s ransom to run for office is a good thing— a fundamental tenet of free speech. Not the best outcome of bipartisan cooperation one might hope for.

Do they really think that defending the oil company's perogative to spend 95 million dollars on a campaign, allowing them to buy up every second of ad time on television, and bludgeon our sensibilities with misinformation to the exclusion of all other perspectives is the way to protect our free speech rights? I guess Democratic leadership, despite all evidence to the contrary, apparently considers the thesis that saturation propaganda has a devastating effect on ones ability to make an informed choice at the polls also a hoax— like global warming and evolution are for others deep in denial.

One of the major hurdles to reform has always been, as Upton Sinclair once pointed out, that certain people have a hard time believing what they are paid a good salary not to believe. Still, if we want to get some real integrity in the real world, we need to get real with ourselves one day soon. Regime change doesn’t just start at home. It starts in the heart. Being a democrat is not enough. But, one would hope, it's a step in the right direction.