Finding the Forest in Spite of the Trees
In search of authentic Christianity
“I was young yesterday,” she said……”
“You say you were young?”
“Yes.”
“Are you not young to-day also?”
She appeared to be thinking for a few moments, so intently
that the flowers dropped, unregarded, from her hand.
“I see it now,” she said presently. “It is very strange to say
one is young at the moment one is speaking. But to-morrow
I shall be older. And then 1 shall say I was young to-day……”
The Queen of Parelandr
“Most men will not swim before they are able to”
(Novalis).
“The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
…………….. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
In the time of autumn floods, a hundred streams poured into the river. It swelled in its turbid course so that it was impossible to tell a cow from a horse on the opposite banks or on the islets. Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty of the earth was gathered to himself. Down the stream, he journeyed east, until he reached the North Sea. There, looking eastwards and seeing no limit to its wide expanse, his countenance began to change. And as he gazed over the ocean, he sighed and said to North-Sea Jo, “A vulgar proverb says that he who has heard a great many truths thinks no one equal to himself. And such a one am I. Formerly when I heard people detracting from the learning of Confucius or underrating the heroism of Po Yi, I did not believe it. But now that I have looked upon your inexhaustibility — alas for me ! had I not reached your abode, I should have been forever a laughing stock to those of great enlightenment!”
To this North-Sea Jo (the Spirit of the Ocean) replied,
“You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog, which is limited by his abode. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, which is limited by his short life.
You cannot speak of Tao to a pedagogue, who is limited in his knowledge. But now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and have seen the great ocean, you know your own insignificance, and I can speak to you of great principles.
“There is no body of water beneath the canopy of heaven which is greater than the ocean. All streams pour into it without ceasing, yet it does not overflow. It is being continually drained off at the Tail-Gate {65} yet it is never empty. Spring and autumn bring no change; floods and droughts are equally unknown. And thus it is immeasurably superior to mere rivers and streams. Yet I have never ventured to boast on this account. For I count myself, among the things that take shape from the universe and receive life from the yin and yang, but as a pebble or a small tree on a vast mountain. Only too conscious of my own insignificance, how can I presume to boast of my greatness?
Autumn Floods Abridged-Chuang Tzu
……..we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
Re-Blogged from the living way by Dave Brisbin
Someone recently told me that he needed excitement in his life, that there was nothing to look forward to. Someone else was telling me that she was completely dry, and the work she used to love was uninspiring and dead to her, that the coworkers and clients she still loved deserved more and better than she could deliver. I could certainly understand. I’m sure we’ve all been there, done that: feeling the edges of burnout or ennui crowding into the corners of our eyes, threatening hostile take over. Truth is, regardless of how we view them, our lives are made of moments. Nothing more. Just a string of moments from birth to death, or better, a single moment constantly changing in its detail and composition. And most of those moments, or the details of that one moment are usually pretty ordinary, commonplace–what we’d call boring from a certain point of view.
Does your faith life make you feel like this?
We keep looking for our moments to inspire us, to fill us from the outside with the meaning we can’t find on the inside. But this moment right now, like an island, is self-contained–if we don’t bring meaning here, we won’t find it here. The circumstances of our moments have no intrinsic meaning. Everything in life is equally meaningless–or meaningful–depending on what we bring to the party. If we spend our moments waiting for or trying to manufacture those rare peak, “exciting” moments, then our lives become flyover country, like the plains of Nebraska we fly over to get to the coasts…and all those precious moments viewed from 30,000 feet appears flat and dimensionless. But we are all just a moment away from transformation. And when we can simply revel in the warm updraft from a grate ballooning our skirts, when we can come back down to earth and fill our moments with our presence, our moments will be full of Presence–exciting and meaningful…and not a moment before.
Dave Brisbin
[03.26.09]
Finding the Forest in Spite of the Trees 