Meandering

I think today I feel like a little meandering. I am still reading the Tutu's book and am now into another of Mary Oliver's books of poetry and of course, am always reading Thich Nhat Hanh. So here we go.

Mary Oliver has a poem from the early 1990's called: 'When Death Comes'. I want to quote a few lines though I know that a poem is a whole and that perhaps it is unfair to take bits. Still, the poem begins:

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me and snaps the purse shut; .....

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering,
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

The final lines of this poem are, it seems to me, the cruncher and the part that makes me want to live each moment:

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

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Then, from the Tutu's book. There is a chapter called 'Where is God when we fail?'. In that chapter they talk about how hard it is for us to deal with failure in our lives; how we seek to be in control, to be self-made so that we can keep failure at bay. But of course, we do fail and then we are full of shame and find whatever faith we may have to be not always helpful because we are ashamed. Here is a little bit about what they say: 

The gift of failure may be a deep encounter with God...It may be only when we have reached the end of our rope that we finally realize that the only secure handhold is God. When we recognize that we can no longer rely on our own resources, we open a space for God to work. When the myth of being self-made explodes in our face, we can fully awaken to the abiding presence of God. At times like these, failure is a blessing.

I would guess that not many of us experience failure as a blessing but I have to say that in my own life, the experience of reaching the bottom of the pit; the bottom of abysmal failure has been a gift of the most life-blessing power.

                        ---------------------------------------------- 

And now, from Thich Nhat Hanh. I think this certainly relates to piece from the Tutu book but it is also of course, its own wisdom.

The Buddha advises us not to try to run away from our fear, but to bring up our fear and have a deep look into it. Most of us try to cover up our fear. Most of us are afraid of looking directly at our fear....the Buddha proposed that you bring the seed of fear up, and recognize that it is there and embrace it with your mindfulness.

Many of us have probably experienced how much more power unexamined fear has than that which we do face. The fear for instance,  that if we tell someone our deepest concern they will turn away from us only to discover that they embrace us and accept us and know us, sometimes, better than we know ourselves. 

I just found all these bits kind of wise and wanted to share them with you.

(Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992: Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu: Made for Goodness and why this makes all the difference, Harper Collins, New York, 2011: Your True Home, The Everyday wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, compiled and edited by Melvin McLeod, Shambhala Press, Boston, 2011)  

 Also: don't forget -  http://charterforcompassion.org/  It is such a great project.