Yielding

Another lazy day. Reading and daily routines. Watched the US get trashed by the Czechs in the World Cup match. We have watched a lot of soccer in the past several days. We drag the TV out to the front porch and watch with whatever workers or security staff are there that day. I enjoy it much more than most other sports on television, but not enough to not take a siesta in the middle of the game.

Ted’s uncle appeared with more food cooked by his aunt. Delivery. This is kindness and generosity beyond reason. Surely other people could be eating this meal. It is very touching to see them caring for him in this way. The drive from their house is at least 20 minutes. This doubles our supper as Theremise has prepared dinner for the small group who has returned from Gros Mourne. I am not sure where we are going to put all the leftovers, but we may need to plug the fridge back in overnight. I cannot believe that we have more food than we can eat. In Haiti.

Having a lot of trouble listening today. Perhaps, having identified the challenge, I am confronted with my inability to listen more forcefully. Had a hard time not asserting myself in conversations with Helene. Needed to listen. More. However, I had a great conversation en Kreyol with my friend Mendelsohn who came to visit me from Mirebelais. He is the electrician for Fond-Pierre, so I have spent time with him on many occasions. I feel like I heard most of what he was trying to tell me about life, though I was also distracted by having to set up for tonight’s group’s dinner. I feel like I am so close to where I would like to be in this matter, but, like Paul, I struggle in doing the very thing I do not want to do! Like everyone, I suppose, who is aware of the spiritual journey.

Today’s gospel reading:”Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see the reign of God.”

Gary Wills made much of this translation, “reign” instead of “kingdom.” I was surprised that this was the Lectionary’s choice.

This reign is progressive, current, active. It is not just some transcendent place that we were before we were born or to where we go after we die (it may be that, too: eternal). It is something we participate in, but, more important for last night’s “Postscript”, it is something that can be acted out upon us, that we can yield to if we make our hearts of one thought and if we search for wholeness/holiness.

If we reach a place of poorness of spirit, of true understanding of the confusing nature of suffering in the world, in the paradox of living and the relativism of the truths of existence, we can be open to relearning the primordial truth of Being itself. Holiness will be meted out as favor from the King, from Being, from Tao, because this Being is itself holiness and love, or, as Richard Rohr puts it, “The universe is radical grace.” It is so transpersonal it can seem as impersonal (to the Taoists) or as the most personal (the Father, as Jesus taught us to say). It is both: the closest thing to us, and therefore the farthest away and most misunderstood, even impossible to understand. It is the way in which we walk and the way in front of which we move in constantly hindering ourselves by the mystery of its concealing and un-concealing nature. It is simply, God. And God’s very nature is yielding: Jesus, the example of using ultimate power to make oneself powerless, lives this for us because God is Himself meting out and holding back infinitude constantly for our sake. If we can make ourselves into this disposition of yielding, we can align ourselves with this lowliness.

In yielding, we always have something that intrudes itself and something that withdraws itself. Think of a car coming off of an exit ramp towards you on the interstate. You move out of the way so that it can enter. There is one car that enters, one that yields. This is the same for God and free will; it is the way of nature. God is always intruding and withdrawing and so all of Being reflects this movement, not as a system or a superstructure, but as reality. If we can align our selves with this yielding we can begin to walk in concert with the way of God, His will, both in disposition and in timing.

Other thoughts I encountered today along these lines:
“We must become the path before we can walk on it” (paraphrase of Rohr paraphrasing the Zen masters)

and

“Some people never know where they are in life, and that is one of the biggest reasons that they are unhappy.” (Deng Ming-Dao, reading for today)