Nonaligned faith and practice in the present
In much of the world, Samhain/ All Hallow’s Eve (Hallowe’en) /Día de los Muertos /Hanyijie (Chinese “Sweeping of the Graves”) is NOT about play-acting as ghouls.
It is about reconnecting with loved ones who have crossed over, yet who greet us across the veil when it is thinnest during the cusp of October-November, to eat and dance with us once more in memory.
This music video brought me
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World,
by the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams
(Penguin Random House, 2016)
Without forgiveness, we remain tethered to the person who harmed us.
There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys.
There’s only you and me and we just disagree. — Dave Mason
What is it we all fear? We fear what our culture—or, rather, whatever part of our culture we pay attention to—tells us to fear.
At the moment we are all afraid. All of us. On whatever part of the spectrum of belief we stand, there is nothing else in the pubic conversation right now except
…I love the joyful enthusiasm of this household.
Despite the hint of lower economic status suggested by their location next to a convenience store on a busy avenue, they cheer us every year with the “reckless exuberance” of their Xmas lights.
Blessèd be,
Back in June, I published a very long essay on this blog titled “Melancholia & thisness: where does joy abide?”
In brief, this essay was a response to leadings I gained from rereading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars. More specifically, is began with a description of melancholic temperament and walked through the approaches to reconnection with life adopted by Robinson’s characters (Kami and veriditas, Thisness) in order to arrive at joy.
In the key passage, I wrote of my experience in
…Somewhere I have read that joy does not depend upon happiness.
And somehow I have come to understand that salvation is first of all about this life, not the next.
Joy and salvation are intertwined in how one receives this finite, fallible, mortal existence. How one goes about each moment and each day. How one forgives the hurts and errors of each moment—one’s own and those of one’s fellows—and proceeds to the next moment with all the possibilities of life
…
… 