Doghouse

Beautiful...

I had breakfast with my friend the other morning. I cherish these times. We talk openly...we laugh and our hearts break often. It is real and then we go and pray like ancient priests and walk away like old school chums.

You see I am a poet beyond my schenanighans and goings on.

I'm not a monk (as I often claim). I am a Jedi.

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I'll explain that term later...but that is the Truth and the Truth is powerful in it's simplicity.

What is this beautiful Truth I want to share?

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I had this dream the other night that all places were walled off and there was no escape. I was running hard and I was being followed. Have you ever felt this way deep down in your gut?

I hit a dark room and there was nothing...I mean nothing in the room and it was dank and I could tell many had died in this place before...many.

Then a door opened, and it opened into a fresh field and a stream. I walked outside and heard the waters rushing by. I walked up the trail a few miles until it met the sea and the sun was setting in an orange blue misted glaze and it repeated off the waters as the waves swam inside and the shoals curled in and things became One.

Then I heard Brother Antonius say "beneath the blind surf of events is the Word of God."

The Word of God breaks my heart in every way but bitterness. There is soft nectar in its hard bedrock. The blind surf of events every year is passing as is the sea. The rocks that lay beneath are like the twelve stones of Jordan...no they are even more than that. They are beautiful. David's laments are deeper than any man's; the prayers of Jesus deeper still; the philosophy of Solomon deeper than any Modern; the kind pictures of Paul deeper and more difficult than any scholar.

But at the end we want beauty. We all know we are going to die. We treasure beauty so very much in all of its overt forms and even its echoes (I have to credit N.T. Wright for this...I use the word "snapshots" myself...but echoes is really good).

The Beauty is the Word. It is all around us, under us, above us...it flows from each of us one to another in a thousand different ways every single day. It is in the forgiveness, the repentant moment, the tossled hair of a child, the inspection of a bright orange, the smile to a fellow driver, the tears over a loss, the trudging down a stairwell when you just have to do it. It's like your dog in the sun, like that moment in Communion where Christ becomes real; like making love to someone you dearly cherish.

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Lucas hit on something CORE with the idea of the Jedi. There are men and women who have one foot firmly in this world, but who also understand that behind the veil there is another reality. If you ask anyone from any tradition they will tell you this is real. In fact, it is often the Religious who deny this reality because they need to try and control it...and it cannot be controlled.

Now Christ is the ultimate Jedi...Lamb and Lion, Incarnate Deity and humble baby. There is no greater or deeper story. And we are called in God's image to reflect this in some ways...even if they are small ways.

So when I meet a man who has killed off this Imageo Dei in himself I know there is no hope for him...just blank existence. But then I meet others...WAY outside my own tradition and training who are so filled with light you can feel it. They are glorious and I could often just take my shoes off because they are Holy.

Daughter is a Jedi.

Most of them are full of light. But not all. There are dark Jedi as well. They use their gifts to use others and they cause pain and suffering whever they go. They believe...make no mistake...they believe...but they are not troubled by their deeds.

I am troubled every day. I see what others see and how they agonize. They have an inherent spiritual power that few of them realize. They are always at the doorstep though they often feel they are miles away.

Such is the nakedness of faith.

posted by Obi-Mac BakDon @ 8:50 AM