Archive for January, 2012
The Lesson of Winter
It’s been cloudy for days. We feel so gray.
The snow keeps falling. But for an hour on
Thursday night the clouds part and the moon,
almost full, makes everything bright—the ice
like diamonds stuck in the gutters, the garbage
can wheels unable to move, happy to be at rest,
the nose of the deer as it nibbles the apple you
tossed for it to find. Our dog’s eyes, suddenly
full with her ancient bottom of wolf and her
irrepressible love for everything. Breathing in
the cold, the inside of time is close, like a story
held open till the center of all story shows its
face. And every crest of snow seems blue, yet
nothing is blue. The moon so bright it makes
us look for the sun. The way one honest hand
lifting a particular lie makes us look for truth in
the bottom of history. And the sun keeps spilling
its light off the moon, off us, off our dog whose
breath drops it like silver dust on the snow. Now
the clouds return as if the night is a soft magician
closing its robe. In the days that follow, I am com-
forted to know that the truth of all that keeps us
going is just beyond the closing robe. So powerful
it can spill through a torn heart and light our way.
Wu Wei’s Pot
The King asked the Master Potter to shape a pot with a strong foundation and a thin lip from which to drink. Wu Wei had made many in his time. This was a simple request. He asked to watch the King and his chancellors to see how they used such pots. So Wu Wei attended a banquet where he saw the hard use and breakage of rough living. Then he went to work.
He spun the clay on his ancient wheel. But this pot resisted being brought into the world. It would not center. Wu Wei had to hold the clay for a long time before it would yield to his hands. Once trimmed, it had to dry. The King was impatient, wanting something special to show his court. But Wu Wei said that this pot had to be wood-fired for many days in order to tame its shape.
The King didn’t understand but left the potter to his secret ways. Not wanting to fire it alone, Wu Wei sat the stubborn pot on a shelf in his shed for months till the other potters had enough. Together, they fired the large sleeping giant that was their kiln. For one week, day and night, the fire was fed constantly and the King’s pot waited to be born in the midst of hundreds. Not special in the least.
It took a week for the fire to cool. When opened, many of the pots and urns were warped and brightly flashed. When the King’s pot was handed to Wu Wei, it was still warm and the reddest markings made it seem perfect. The lip was thin as flame itself. But the bottom had a crack. Wu Wei was pleased, but tired. He went to sleep.
The next day, he brought the beautifully cracked pot to the King. At once, the King saw the unrepeatable coloring and the utter thinness of the pot’s fine lip. Then he felt the crack underneath. He gave it back, “You call yourself a Master? This is not finished!” Wu Wei put it back in the King’s hands, “The fire always has the last word, your Highness.” The King was insulted and ordered Wu Wei to try again.
Wu Wei bowed and withdrew. On his way from court, a little boy was dumbstruck by the coloring of the pot. Falling to his knees, the little boy could see the sky through the crack in the bottom. Wu Wei helped the boy up and gave him the pot. Overjoyed, the boy ran home and hung the cracked pot from the edge of his roof. Meanwhile, Wu Wei began again.
It took several months but the Master Potter chose another lump of clay, which also resisted being centered. And after stilling it, and shaping it, and fixing its form, after waiting for the others, after stirring the sleeping giant of the kiln once more—another pot was born. This one even more colorful than the last, its lip even thinner. But in the bottom, another huge crack. Wu Wei was doubly pleased as he let it cool.
The next day he brought the second cracked pot to the King who was more eager than before. The King at once was stopped by its beauty. But as he held it, he quickly felt the Godforsaken crack. He smashed the pot and dismissed Wu Wei.
That night, while Wu Wei dreamt of flames cracking the sky, the King dreamt of being a little boy. And as a little boy, he fell in love with cracks and the pots that reveal them. In his dream, the King was startled to see his heart as a cracked pot hung from the edge of a roof. But this cracked heart was his and not his. Somehow it belonged to everyone. And suddenly, those tired of the world were falling on their knees to drink from the rain that was dripping through the crack in the heart that belonged to everyone.
The King woke in tears and rushed to put the smashed pot back together. He couldn’t and summoned Wu Wei to make him another. After several months, the Master Potter returned. This time, the King closed his eyes and searched right away for the crack in the bottom and was relieved to find it there.
From that day, the King forbid anyone to call him King and when alone, he drank from his knees; accepting a drop at a time through the crack in his heart.
The One Conversation
In the interviews I’ve been blessed to have with Oprah, we seem to enter what I would call the “One Conversation,” the one ongoing story of how we spend our time on earth. All our lives contribute to this conversation. All our stories contribute to the one ongoing story. Let me share some reflections on where that conversation has been taking me.
I keep returning to the ever-present riddle, that being who we are is the necessary adventure. It unlocks everything, not because our self is so important but because our essential nature that our self carries is the immediate doorway to everything that is life-sustaining. We learn early on that being who we are means fending off unwanted influence without cutting ourselves off from the chance to learn from others. Regardless of the culture we are born into, it isn’t long after we arrive that everyone starts pointing and telling us where we need to be and what we need to do to get there. There’s no time to really ask why. Soon, things happen and we are thrown off course and now there’s all this effort to win their approval, no matter who “they” are. If lucky, love will distract us more than suffering. If blessed, we are broken of everyone’s plans and regrets and thrown like a hooded bird into a sea of light. If trusting the fall, we find our wings.
The Poems
When starting out, I was so excited
that anything showed up, I thought
I was done. But somewhere along
the way, I realized they are alive
and I wasn’t wrestling them into
view. They, respecting my effort,
agreed to be seen. Not to be re-
vealed, but to be loved. Now I
circle back in the morning to see
what they need from me. Just more
of my attention which starts with me
undressing what I know. For the
longest time I thought I was revising.
It’s more a conversation in which I
keep learning how to listen. And
when I do, they will after a time
pull aside a cloth or cloud to make
obvious the reason they have come.
A Spiritual Problem
When circling what is sacred without touching what is sacred, it’s all we can do to find the thread of what matters. Mostly the thread finds us when we least expect: when things are going well and a sadness comes to dinner; when finding a picture of someone you buried long ago and in their eyes is a softness you never knew. Holding what matters at arm’s length in order to dissect it seems like a personal problem, and it is, but it’s also a spiritual problem that has set human beings at odds with their gifts.
In the beginning, the gods interfered to occupy their endless time on earth until we silenced them, became them. Then it took another thousand years to find the god within. Now it is we who interfere to occupy our limited time on earth, we who pull apart everything we need and poke at everything that is not us, until we fall into the silence that restores what we have known forever but run from: That fame is no reason to do good, and fear, no reason to do bad. Our lungs breathe the sky in every breath. Our heart feels the sea in every feeling. The mind sees beyond itself when it stops insisting it’s the thinker. These acts of being have their own continual reward. If we can animate them and let the sky, sea, and all that is beyond us help us and inform us.
There is only one conversation. Each of our lives is a sentence in its story. Loving is the art of putting down our want to be the hero. Listening is the art of threading all the stories. Once threaded the light in all of us is opened. It is the light of all that matters. Drinking of that light brings us back to life.
The Descent
How do we live in a world
where all things are true?
Yet we do. Like a pebble
tossed in the ocean, each
soul dropped into the world
floats slowly, though to us
it seems so fast, while a thou-
sand things come together, tear
apart, prey on each other, grow
from the bottom, leap for the
light, scatter from sudden dis-
turbance. All the while, the
soul drifts lower and we resist
the drift and trouble ourselves
about purpose and where we
are headed and if we’re thrown
off course. But there is nothing
more quietly beautiful than a
soul entering the sea of
existence, finding its place
below all the noise.
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