The view from a mountaintop expands the mind.

"It is pleasant thus to gaze upon the world from some lofty standpoint . . . It seems to expand the mind; it conducts one by easy pathways down long lands of thought penetrating far into the future of nations, and opens out broad vistas of contemplation through which glimpses of what may be can dimly be discerned.  The outlook from such a commanding point elevates the mind, and the soul is elated by the immensity of Nature."

Earl of Dunraven,

Rocky Mountain explorer

New Year's Day brings a sense of spacious optimism, eliciting in us the sense that ANYTHING is possible.

Photo: Alpine Sunflowers on Hurricane Pass, looking off into Idaho; Grand Teton National Park, WY; July 6, 2012

If you wish to heal your own suffering, seek to heal the suffering of another.

"If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.  If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know they are safe.  If you wish to understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to understand.  If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another."

The Dalai Lama

Like these fire-roasted aspen trees, we are all injured in some way.  However, like the roots of these aspens, we are all interconnected.  When we help another in their suffering, our own suffering is lessened. For we are all one.

Photo: Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO December 29, 2012

We live in creation's dawn

"I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in 'creation’s dawn.'  The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day."  

The Contemplative John Muir, pp. 289-290

Photo:  Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 29, 2012

Your essence is gold hidden in dust. To reveal its splendour, you need to burn in the fire of love.

The time has come to turn your heart
into a temple of fire.
Your essence is gold hidden in dust.
To reveal its splendour
you need to burn in the fire of love.

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Fern Lake Burn; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 28, 2012

I burn away; laugh, my ashes are alive!

I burn away; laugh, my ashes are alive!
I die a thousand times:
My ashes dance back-
A thousand new faces

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 28, 2012

The thief left it behind: the moon at my window

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window

Ryokan
(18th century Zen Buddhist monk)

Photo: Alpenglow and the full moon setting, from my front yard; Larimer County, CO; December 29, 2012

It is insulting to the Divine to identify ourselves with a spiritual community that is other than the personal interaction we are having IN THIS VERY MOMENT.

When I was 20 years old, a relative a decade older than me - Kathleen Mohler - said something in a discussion that has stuck with me all of my life.  Here is what she said: "When I'm talking with a person, having a meaningful conversation, and they ask me "What religion are you," or "What church do you attend," I feel that any answer I could give would be misleading, insulting and untrue.  For any religion or church I'd mention would do an injustice to the fact that - at this particular moment - my interaction with THIS PERSON is my religion, and my church."  Now, in my adult years, I am more convinced than ever of the importance of this truth.  Why do we insist on identifying ourselves with some religious community that is set apart from the sacred interaction we are having RIGHT THIS MOMENT?  Indeed, each person, event and landscape we encounter IS God's word to us in this moment; to refer to any other moment as more important or definitive of our spirituality than this is to insult the Holy Spirit who is ever present "wherever two or three are gathered" (Matthew 18:20).

While in seminary, I had a professor who specialized in the Radical Reformation, the movement that gave birth to the Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, Schwenkfelders, Moravian Brethren and Quakers.  Some members of this movement emphasized "the priesthood of all believers," and gave special attention to what they called "the invisible church."  Teachers like Sebastian Franck and Caspar Schwenkfeld spoke often of the sacredness of day-to-day interactions with people of ALL faiths, and understood that this sort of relationship IS the true church  operative in each moment of our lives.  Rather than focusing on a community gathered together in a single place, they viewed "church" as something organically spread out over time.  Thus, for example, we might interact with family members at breakfast, have coffee with a friend at noon, engage in a meaningful conversation with a co-worker in the afternoon, and attend a workshop in the evening.  When treated in a sacred manner, ALL of these interactions are equally instances of "church," "sangha" or "spiritual community" spread out over time.  And while we're pondering this topic, let's not forget our numerous social media internet connections.  After all, that is the community which is happening RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT. In our time, the friendships we form on Facebook or through email are increasingly among the most important forms of spiritual community we possess!  Let us, therefore, make a commitment to engage in these interactions mindfully and with full attention to the divine present in our midst.

Photo:  A Ponderosa Pine is highlighted against a backdrop of forest shot through with a ray of sunlight; Lory State Park, CO; December 26, 2012

Spiritual truth grasps us like a silvery, moonlit landscape.

While we generally strive to perceive spiritual truth within the "sunlight" of certainty, we actually experience it with a more "moonlight" type of awareness; that is, with a degree of obscurity.

Whenever we look for "clear and distinct ideas" (Descartes) available for our perception through a clear sunlight-awareness, we find them slipping away from us. Often we bemoan this fact. But we needn't feel bad. For there can be no objectively-perceived certainty in a world where human beings are called to sink into a more unitive, moonlight type of awareness. Here, just as the full moon reflects a light whose source (the Sun) is hidden from view, so all spiritual insights are actually reflections of a divine Source which is nowhere to be found. After all, God is eternally and blissfully self-emptied into the world! This means that our experience of spiritual truth is like having a mirror-image present but no Original, or an echo with no original sound as its source. Or - in this particular context - like having a dazzling silvery moon with no Sun ever to be found!

On moonlit nights - especially when the moon is full - we find ourselves EMBRACED by a silvery landscape - a condition that is associated with an obscure sense of union - rather than SEEING it in any crystal-clear sort of perception. Indeed, the experience of moonlight points to the fact that spiritual truth is less a thing that is available to be objectively perceived, and more a presence that GRASPS and holds us - body, mind, soul and spirit. In fact, part of the reason why spiritual truth is not available to be "proven" comes from the fact that it has a habit of embracing and holding us in the nighttime mystery of spiritual intimacy. It is like having the divine "arms" holding us in intimate embrace, preventing us from ever seeing the One who is holding us. Yet this lack of clarity is precisely the condition that allows us to experience intimate union with the beauty of the Divine Presence.

Photo: A nearly-full moon peeks out from the clouds at sunset; Larimer County, CO; December 26, 2012

Characteristics of a Religion of the Future

What are the major characteristics of a religion of the future?  For starters, it will stop playing the game of one-upmanship.  Instead, each tradition will humbly view itself as just one piece composing the puzzle of Divine Mystery, rather than pretending it alone is the entire puzzle.  Correspondingly, each will revel in learning from all of the other traditions rather than trying to show how it is superior to them.  Second, a religion of the future will understand that it must continually change and grow if it is to remain vital and relevant.  Rather than cling to a conservative ideology, it will be radically evolutionary in its view of itself.  Third, religion will fulfill its primary function of revealing the incredible beauty and wonder of this amazing  planet, rather than focus a surplus of attention on the next life. A corollary to this function is religion's calling to take good care of the Earth and all of her creatures, species and cultures, a care that is based on an experiential realization that the Divine Presence dwells within each.  Fourth, this kind of religion will specialize in embodiment of the Divine - one that implies a profound experience of union - rather than in belief and dogma.  And finally, it will involve large numbers of people who view themselves as "spiritual, not religious," those who see everyday encounters with Nature and with other people as a sort of "temple" rather than focus excess attention on the maintenance of religious institutions.

Photo: Bellvue Dome at sunset; Bellvue, CO; December 26, 2012

Transformative global values are now prevalent among 10 to 20 percent of the population, a number that will need to increase if we are to forestall global chaos.

"We are beginning to see a fundamental shift in humanity's consciousness - our way of both perceiving and acting in the world . . . The shift accompanies a profound rite of passage that the earth and its people are going through now as well as in the future. What is going to change?  The prevailing societal trends of unlimited economic growth and material consumption will not continue, as they are not sustainable.  On a global level, humanity will outgrow its adolescence, learning to become better stewards of the earth and its resources.  Nations and cultures will increasingly come to honor each other as part of a global family, regardless of differences in race, religion, or nationality.  Cooperation among nations will, out of necessity, begin to supercede conflict.  Such values and inclinations are prevalent now among perhaps 10 to 20 percent of the population.  They may not achieve a broad base, however, until the challenges humanity faces reach a critical mass.  Increasing problems posed by climate change, ecological disruption, diminishing resources (especially oil and water), population growth, and poverty are rapidly reaching a point where dramatic worldwide changes in priorities will be REQUIRED to forestall global chaos."

Edmund Bourne,

"Global Shift"

Photo: Rainbow-colored clouds soar above trees gilded by last light; Lory State Park, CO; December 26, 2012

Each day's weather is an integral part of our life of prayer.

"Our mentioning of the weather - our perfunctory observations on what kind of day it is - are perhaps not idle.  Perhaps we have a deep and legitimate need to know in our entire being what the day is like, to SEE it and FEEL it, to know how the sky is grey, paler in the south, with patches of blue in the southwest, with snow on the ground, the thermometer at 18, and cold wind making your ears ache.  I have a real need to know these things because I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place, and a day in which I have not shared truly in all this is no day at all.  It is certainly part of my life of prayer."

Thomas Merton, 1963

Photo: A last ray of sunlight slants through the landscape; Lory State Park, CO; December 26, 2012

In meditation, the mind is like the sky, while our thoughts are like clouds. During the practice, we learn to take an attitude of wonder at the number of different kinds of "clouds" that emerge within that wide-open sky!

During Insight Meditation, we allow our mind to become vast - like the sky - generally with the aid of our exhalations.  Some Buddhist teachers call this "mixing the mind with space."  The meditative process involves watching our thoughts, perceptions and emotions arise - miraculously, almost - like clouds in a wide-open sky.  Many people become frustrated with the number of thoughts that enter that sky, as though the practice were designed to make the mind a blank.  However, it is helpful to take different approach, one that uses the thoughts to bring about a sense of intrigue. Here, rather than treating the thoughts as an unwanted nuisance, we instead practice being FASCINATED at the number of different kinds of thoughts - or memories, feelings and perceptions - that arise during any given period of meditation.  In this approach, they become like different kinds of clouds, each with its own unique shape, color and size. Amazingly, we never know what kind of cloud will emerge next!

Photo: Burned tree with clouds above; Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012

It is because of our weaknesses and deficiencies that we need others and others need us.

"We all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives.  It is because of them that we need others and others need us.  We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself or herself for the lack in another."

Thomas Merton

Photo:  Live aspen trees intersperse with those that were burned in the Fern Lake Fire; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012.  The blue glow is caused by late-day light reflecting off blackened trunks.

Christmas is the celebration of God's silence becoming aware of itself in Christ, and in us.

"Christ's birth as man is nothing less than the visible expression of his eternal birth as the Word of God in the eternal silence of the Father.  Of course, in the Father, silence is the fullness of everything.  This silence - fullness becoming aware of itself - is the Word, God's Son.  Christmas is the celebration of the grace of this eternal birth IN US."

Thomas Keating
St. Benedict's Monastery
Snowmass, Colorado

Photo: Cub Lake, Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012

Christ's birth is "a finger pointing to the moon."

In Zen Buddhist tradition, there's a famous image about regarding all scriptures as "a finger pointing to the moon."  Here, the moon represents Ultimate Reality, or - in the theistic traditions - "God."  I like to imagine calling to a pet dog, and then pointing toward the moon, hoping the dog will look as well.  However, as everyone knows, no matter how hard we try, we won't get the dog to look WHERE the finger is pointing.  Instead, the dog will always SNIFF THE FINGER!

We human beings are just like that dog.  While all of the world's scriptures - and the words and ideas they contain - are trying to point to an amazing Reality that lies BEYOND all words, we all insist on sniffing the finger itself.  That is, we act as though Ultimate Reality - God - is somehow contained within the scriptural words, and within the ideas on which those words are based.  Or, to use another Zen image, we insist on "eating the menu" instead of ordering the food to which the menu only points!

It is the same with Jesus, and with the reality of Christmas. Although we focus on the birth of Jesus in time and space as an individual person, we are intended ultimately to become one with him and to look out through his eyes AT THE ULTIMATE MYSTERY and AT THE WORLD.  In other words, Christ intended that he would be a "finger pointing to the moon."  Here, the "moon" is the "Father" on the one hand - that is, the Ultimate, Loving Mystery - and the embodiment of that Reality in the world around us, on the other.

I've always been impressed by the story in the Gospel of John (chapter 12) where a few Greek people came up to the apostle Philip, saying: "We would like to see Jesus."  When Jesus found out, his reply was quite enigmatic.  He told them that "unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds."  In other words, the answer to our request to "see Jesus" is that Jesus insists on EMPTYING HIMSELF and hopes that we'll focus on the amazing sacredness and beauty of the world that sprouts from his boundless self-giving.

This Christmas, may we look at the world through Christ's eyes.  May we see the divinity present - often hidden - in the most challenging of circumstances, and may we understand the need that all things have to be loved by the God who is present within us. May we look with Jesus' newborn eyes, with the eyes of a child, with "beginner's mind," as Roshi Shunryu Suzuki would say.  In this way, all the world will light up in the glory and glow of Christmas.

Photo: A charred stump points to the moon at sunset; Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; Winter Solstice, December 21, 2012

Christmas is the light of divine self-awareness being born within the abyss of the soul.

A mystical perspective understands Christmas as the birth of God's self-awareness within the human soul. More specifically, it involves spacious awareness suddenly perceiving itself - surprise! - as form.  Here we might imagine God - within OUR perception - watching the sunlight diamonds of form appearing as though out of nowhere on the surface of the alpine lake of divine consciousness. Or, we might envision the light of divine Love appearing suddenly within the dark canyon of the human soul, with no Sun anywhere to be found!  For God, we begin to understand, is emptied out in everlasting bliss at the great beauty and wonder of the Earth. Here, the experience of "silent night, holy night" is symbolic of the letting-go of all concepts and ideas as a necessary precondition for the divine mystery to reveal itself in all of its humble splendor as the backdrop against which all form is able to manifest itself. Similarly, the darkness of this night is the emptying-out of concepts and ideas in order to allow the Ground of Being to well up from beneath. The mystics also think of "heavenly sleep" as a sense of resting in a divine love that underlies all form. Finally, virginity means that only God can live within the core of the soul; not even the ego can enter there and mess things up!

Photo: The Joint Trail slot canyon, November 25, 2012; Canyonlands National Park, Utah

I have not been nearly as wild as I need to be.

"The root of my problem remains fear of my own solitude - imagined solitude - the fear of rejection, as if that mattered! . . . Apparent wildness is the providential and divine criticism that is demanded of us, and I have not been nearly as wild as I need to be . . . How crazy it is to be 'yourself' by trying to live up to an image of yourself you have unconsciously created in the minds of others.  Better to destroy the image if necessary.  But even this is not serious, or to be taken seriously."

Thomas Merton

Photo: Fern Lake Burn, above Cub Lake; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012

As long as a single person is lost, I am lost.

"There is no separating 'my' pain, suffering, limitation, lostness, etc., from that of others.  As long as a single person is lost, I am lost.  To try to save myself by getting free from "the damned," and becoming good by myself, is to be both damned and absurd - as well as antichrist.  Christ descended into hell to show that He willed to be lost with the lost, in a certain sense emptied so that they might be filled and saved, in the realization that now their lostness was not theirs but His.  Hence the way one begins to make sense out of life is taking upon oneself the lostness of everyone - and then realizing not that one has done something or 'made sense,' but that one has simply entered into the stream of realization.  The rest will work out by itself, and we do not know what that might mean."

Thomas Merton, 1966

Photo: A singed Ponderosa Pine, Fern Lake Burn; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012

God is the co-incidence of opposites.

"God is the co-incidence of opposites."

Nicolas of Cusa, 16 century

Photo: Burnt and living aspen trees; Fern Lake Burn; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012

The fire of the heart - expressed in both passion and joy - has the capacity to melt life's opposites into a single Whole.

The fire of the heart - expressed in both passion and joy - has the capacity to melt life's opposites into a single Whole.

Photo: Charred stump, snow, the moon and a sunset sky; Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012.  The Park Service opened up this area to visitors just today.  As luck would have it, I was the first visitor to hike here after the reopening.

I need very much this silence and this snow.

"I need very much this silence and this snow.  Here alone can I find my way because here alone the way is right in front of my face and it is God's way for me - there really is no other."

Thomas Merton

Photo: Lory State Park, CO; December 19, 2012

The severest and coldest of the immortal critics have shot their arrows at Winter and pruned it till it cannot be amended.

"It was summer, and now again it is winter.  Nature loves this rhyme so well that she never tires of repeating it . . . What a poem!  Winter is an epic in blank verse, enriched with a million tinkling rhymes.  It is solid beauty.  It has been subjected to the vicissitudes of millions of years of the gods, and not a single superfluous ornament remains.  The severest and coldest of the immortal critics have shot their arrows at and pruned it till it cannot be amended."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Greyrock after a snowstorm; Bellvue, CO; December 19, 2012

Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end

"Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. Our divided, schizophrenic worldview, with no mythology adequate to coordinate our conscious and unconscious -- that is what is coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth -- that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Fern Lake Fire, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012

All things are made for happiness.

"The stones are happy.  Concord River is happy, and I am happy too.  When I took up a fragment of a walnut-shell this morning, I saw by its very grain and composition, the form and color, etc.,. that it was made for happiness.  The most brutish and inanimate objects that are made suggest an everlasting and thorough satisfaction; they are the homes of content.  Wood, earth, mould, etc., exist for joy.  Do you think that Concord River would have continued to flow these millions of years by Clamshell Hill and round Hunt's Island, if it had not been happy, - if it had been miserable in its channel, tired of existence, and cursing its maker and the hour that it sprang?"

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: The Poudre River and Bellvue Dome after our first major snow; Bellvue, CO; December 19, 2012

The most important events make no stir, but seem hedged about by secrecy.

"The most important events make no stir on their first taking place, nor indeed in their effects directly.  They seem hedged about by secrecy.  It is concussion, or the rushing together of air to fill a vacuum, which makes a noise. The great events to which all things consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no explosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to be suddenly filled; as a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered about the neighborhood, but an assassination, which is at war with the constitution of things, creates a tumult immediately."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Hallett Peak peeks up through the mist, with lichen covering a rock in the foreground; Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012.  Will this be the case with tomorrow's event?  Will the end of the Mayan Calendar be similar to the winter Solstice - initiating a series of changes that will manifest themselves only gradually?

Identification with basic goodness gives us the strength to face our flaws, both personally and nationally.

The winter solstice is a time of stripping - the purging of the old to prepare for the birth of the new.  This time of year also coincides with the birth of Christ - which the mystics view as God's self-awareness - in the nighttime emptiness and spiritual poverty of the manger, when there was "no room at the inn."  This year, the sense of purgation is especially heightened because it is the end of the ancient Mayan calendar.

In order for us to be purged and healed of our untransformed personal tendencies - egoic narcissism, explosive anger or crippling fear, for example - we first must be able to SEE and ADMIT these tendencies.  However, we will never have the strength to face them unless we first learn to identify ourselves with the indwelling Divine; that is, with the True Self, as Thomas Keating refers to it. Some Tibetan Buddhists call this core sacredness "basic goodness."  Notice they don't refer to it as "MY basic goodness."  This makes sense when we realize that  we don't own this good-heartedness; rather, it is a Goodness that is much larger than us, a reality in which we simply participate.  In any case, without a trust in this basic goodness, we either fail to face our own flaws (because they are too painful), project them onto others, or do the opposite - exaggerate our faults as a subconscious means of avoiding the judgments of others and of a god we perceive as judgmental.

As two recent Photo-Quote postings from Thomas Merton have illustrated so vividly, this is also a time of NATIONAL purging, a season for examining the things about our American culture that we want to change.  This includes such qualities as materialism, a failure to slow down in order to relate to others with dignity, an arrogant attitude toward other nations, environmental degradation, free market fundamentalism, obesity both economic and physical, a culture of violence, as well as an imperialistic attitude that historically tried to subjugate Native Americans and enslave those of African descent.  However, we will never have the strength to face our American flaws unless we first identify ourselves with the basic GOODNESS that underlies the true American culture in which we all share.  

Thus, for example, we can begin to face the ravages of our stressful, frenetic pace of life when we identify ourselves with our country's unique brand of American Buddhist mindfulness.  Or, we can begin to own up to the environmental devastation our industrial lifestyle is causing by identifying ourselves with the wide-open spaces we have preserved within our National Parks and Wilderness areas, which some have called "America's best idea."  Then again, we can find the strength to face our culture's rampant consumerism by getting in touch with our national tendency to practice compassion and to give abundantly to those who are afflicted by a disaster, like an earthquake, flood or fire.  Again, our addiction to monetary wealth can be faced when we remember to identify ourselves with American heroes of simplicity: Emerson, Thoreau and the Shakers, for example. Or, when we examine the high rates of rape in our country, we can recall with pride the fact that America is the place where the 20th century women's liberation movement was born.  

Moreover, we can begin to admit to the devastation our government has wreaked on this land's original inhabitants by realizing that we desperately need to align ourselves with our true national psyche in this matter - that is, with a Native American perspective on the sacredness of the web of life - if any of us are ever are to survive.  In the absence of this kind of identification with a NATIONAL "basic goodness," we either deny that our nation has serious flaws (e.g., fundamentalistic patriotism) or we become overly judgmental of ourselves as Americans (the liberal tendency) as a subconscious means of preventing God and the world from judging us too harshly.

This Christmas and solstice season, may we as a country find the strength to admit our multiple flaws in the very act of seeing our own simultaneous national basic goodness, a goodness that is rooted in our deepest societal psyche and in the dignity of the beautiful American landscapes we inhabit.

Photo: Sunlit grasses gleam at sunset on soil blackened by the High Park Fire; Lory State Park, CO; December 15, 2012

The United States is like the body of a great, dead, candied child!

"I fear the ignorance and power of the United States.  And the fact that it has quite suddenly become one of the most decadent societies on the face of the earth.  The body of a great, dead, CANDIED CHILD.  Yet not dead: full of immense, uncontrolled power.  Crazy.  If somebody doesn't understand the United States pretty soon - and communicate some of that understanding to the United States - the results will be terrible.  It is no accident that the United States endowed the world with the Bomb.  The mixture of immaturity, size, apparent indulgence and depravity, with occasional spasms of guilt, power, self-hate, pugnacity, laping into wildness and then apathy, hopped up and wild-eyed, inarticulate and wanting to be popular.  You need a doctor, Uncle!  The exasperation of the other nations of the world who know the United States thinks them JEALOUS - for what they don't want and yet what fascinates them.  Exasperation that such fools should be momentarily kings of the world.  Exasperation at them for missing their great chance - this everyone finds unforgivable, including America itself.  And yet what held the United States back was a spasm of that vestigal organ called conscience.  Unfortunately not a sufficiently educated conscience.  The conscience of a ten-year old boy, unsure of his parents' standards - not knowing where approval or disapproval might come from!"

Thomas Merton, 1961

Photo: Sandstone "candy"; Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 24, 2012.  Yes, most of us really DO love America.  But as we approach the winter solstice (and the end of the ancient Mayan calendar), there is a sensing of purging and emptying that must occur before a new consciousness can be born.  And yes, the U.S. - at its heart - really IS as beautiful as this "candied" canyonlands rock!

When your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.

"When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest.  When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you . . . But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God."

Thomas Merton

Photo:  Aspen trees glow in the day's first light; Vail, CO; November 23, 2012

My God, while I am asking questions that You do not answer, You ask me a question that is so simple that I cannot answer it. I do not even understand the question!

"God, my God, God Whom I meet in darkness, with You it is always the same thing!  Always the same question that nobody knows how to answer! . . . You have listened and said nothing . . . While I am asking questions that You do not answer, You ask me a question that is so simple that I cannot answer it.  I do not even understand the question! . . ."

"You have contradicted everything.  You have left me in no-man's land.  You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again: 'Solitude, solitude.'  And then You have turned around and thrown the whole world in my lap.  You have told me, 'Leave all things and follow Me,' and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain.  You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank.  Is that contemplation? . . ."

"My God, I frankly do not understand Your ways with me . . . Are You trying to kill me?"

Thomas Merton

Photo: Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012

To conceive of any natural object with a total apprehension, we must for the thousandth time approach it as something totally strange.

"To conceive of any natural object with a total apprehension I must for the thousandth time approach it as something totally strange . . . You must be aware that no thing is what you have taken it to be."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Aspen bark detail, with the Lumpy Ridge in the background; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 7, 2012.  We could benefit from taking the same approach to people and events that are challenging for us.

The world of the U.S.A. is a massively aimless, baseless, shrewd cockiness that simply exalts itself without purpose.

"I think the world of U.S.A . . . is a world of crass, blind, overstimulated, phony, lying stupidity . . . The temper of the country is one of blindness, fat, self-satisfied, ruthless, mindless corruption.  A lot of people . . . are perfectly content with the rat race as it is, and with its competitive, acquisitive, hurtling, souped-up drive into nowhere.  A massively aimless, baseless, shrewd cockiness that simply exalts itself without purpose."

Thomas Merton, 1967

Photo: Fern Lake Fire, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012

The bitter and lucid joys of solitude. The real desert is this: to face the real limitations of one's own existence and knowledge and not try to manipulate them or disguise them. Then, new possibilities open up in the PRESENT.

"The bitter and lucid joys of solitude. The real DESERT is this: to face the real limitations of one's own existence and knowledge and not try to manipulate them or disguise them . . . We have trained ourselves to think that we live at every moment amid unlimited hopes.  There is nothing we cannot have if we try hard enough, or look in the right place for it.  But in solitude, when accurate limitations are seen and accepted, they then vanish, and new dimensions open up. The PRESENT is in fact, in itself, unlimited.  The only way to grasp it in its unlimitedness is to remove the limitations we place on it by FUTURE expectations and hopes and plans, or surmises, or regrets about the PAST . . ."

Thomas Merton, 1966

"Wisdom is knowing what to do NEXT."

David Starr Jordan,

Founding President, Stanford University

Photo: The purple pads of prickly-pear (ha!) glisten in morning sunlight; Needles District, Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 25, 2012

The eye which appreciates is just as beautiful as the thing seen.

"The lover sees in the GLANCE of his beloved the same beauty that in the sunset paints the western skies.  It is the same daimon [muse], here lurking under a human eyelid, and there under the closing eyelids of the day . . . What loving astronomer has ever fathomed the ethereal depths of the eye?"

Henry David Thoreau, 1852

Photo: Sunset at Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 23, 2012

Happiness is the happy aspect of sadness; sadness is the sad aspect of happiness.

Happiness is the happy aspect of sadness;
sadness is the sad aspect of happiness;

Form is the form aspect of emptiness;
emptiness is the empty aspect of form;

A dream is the dreaming aspect of being awake;
being awake is the awake aspect of dreaming;

The more good we perceive in a thing,
the more its shadow will feel comfortable revealing itself;
The more we become conscious of shadow as shadow,
the more it is able to shapeshift into the good;

The more surprised we are by death, the more surprised we can be that we are alive;
the more surprised we are at being alive, the more we can accept the reality of death

Photo: scorched Ponderosa Pine cone in the Fern Lake Burn; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012.  These pairs of opposites are not meant to be treated as static logical equivalents.  Instead, they reveal their oneness in the act of MOVING from one to the next.

God has become not only one of us but even our very selves.

"God has emptied Himself . . . God has acted and given Himself totally.  He has become not only one of us but even our very selves."

Thomas Merton

Photo: Grasses glow at sunset on the edge of the High Park Burn; Lory State Park, CO; December 15, 2012

Could it be that this earthly realm, not in spite of but BECAUSE OF its very density and jagged edges, offers precisely the conditions for the expression of certain aspects of divine love that could become real in no other way?

"There is a beautiful saying from Islamic tradition: 'I was a hidden treasure, and I loved to be known, and so I created the worlds both visible and invisible' . . . Could it be that this earthly realm, not in spite of but BECAUSE OF its very density and jagged edges, offers precisely the conditions for the expression of certain aspects of divine love that could become real in no other way? . . . We can see that those sharp edges we experience as constriction at the same time call forth some of the most exquisite dimensions of love, which require the condition of finitude in order to make sense - qualities such as steadfastness, tenderness, commitment, forbearance, fidelity and forgiveness.  These mature and subtle flavors of love have no real context in a realm where there are no edges and boundaries, where all just flows.  But when you run up against the hard edge and have to stand true to love anyway, what emerges is a most precious taste of pure divine love . . . Let me be clear here.  I am not saying that suffering exists in order for God to reveal himself.  I am only saying that WHERE suffering exists and is consciously accepted, THERE divine love shines forth brightly."

Cynthia Bourgeault

Photo: The edge of the Fern Lake Burn, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012

We live in a society that is going up in flames because we think the individual alone is real.

We live in a society that is going up in flames because we have a tendency to think the individual alone is real. Even religious and political and ethnic groups view themselves as individual entities that are separate from - and better than - other religious, political or ethnic groups, rather than serving as puzzle pieces that fit together to make a larger Whole. Whatever happened to our experience of something much more vast and spacious that ties all individuals and groups together into a larger Reality?  

Even God is viewed in our culture as simply one more individual - the "highest" individual, perhaps, but an individual nevertheless - rather than as the Ground of Being which underlies and supports all things.  This individualistic kind of god then exists simply for the salvation of the individual, and for the preservation of one's own particular group. 

It is no wonder, then, that there is currently a popular movement rampant in our society which mistrusts a government - imperfect though it is - that would foster the welfare of everyone.  Or an international body - like the United Nations - that would seek the greater good of the planet. When enlightened people speak of fostering the health and well-being of the entire Earth or of the international community, some among us claim that this is actually a misguided case of "worshipping the creation rather than the Creator."  However, they have no qualms, it would seem, about treating the individual self - and the individual God - as the most fundamental of realities, thereby effectively worshipping the creaturely concept of individuality. As theologian Paul Tillich so often said, whatever you view as the ultimate reality is your "God," whether that be the individual or the Greater Whole. 

Individuals are important, of course, but only as the unique means through which the Greater Whole - God, Mother Earth, the Web of Life, the Universe - comes to know and appreciate Himself, Herself and Itself within each creature.  Until we once again begin to view ourselves as part of a larger Whole that permeates and connects us all, our society will continue to give birth to a culture of violence and estrangement.

Photo: The tail end of the Fern Lake Fire, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 14, 2012

Love penetrates to the core of reality, making it blazingly transparent.

"Through the transfiguration of your heart you will gradually influence the obstinate givens of reality; everything that seems impenetrable to you will be rendered transparent by your blazing heart . . . Don't think too much about the moment and refrain from judging life during those hazy hours that afford us no glimpse of its vastness."

Rainer Maria Rilke

Photo: Gambel Oak leaf and Entrada Sandstone formations; Arches National Park, UT; November 26, 2012. This is one of my favorite quotes!

To feel that we belong to the world, we must be DESERTED.

"To feel that we belong to the world, we must be DESERTED."

Ellen Meloy

Photo: Buttes and grasses glow just after sunrise at my campsite; Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 26, 2012

True solitude is a participation in the solitariness of God - Who is in all things.

"Unfortunately, even in solitude, though I try not to (and sometimes claim not to), I still depend too much, emotionally, on being accepted and approved.

Solitude - when you get saturated with silence and landscape . . . How much of this is simply restoration of one's normal human balance?  Like waking up, like convalescence after an illness.  My life here in solitude is most real because it is most simple.

True solitude is a participation in the solitariness of God - Who is in all things.

All my desires draw me more and more in a direction: to be little, to be nothing, . . . to be glad that I am not worthy of attention, that I am of no account in the universe.  This is the only liberation, the only way to solitude.  As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I be a saint, a contemplative?  As long as I continue to bother about myself, what happiness is possible in life?  For the self I bother about doesn't really exist and never will and never did, except in my own imagination.  

The day goes by in prayer.  This solitude confirms my call to solitude.  The more I am in it, the more I love it. One day it will possess me entirely and no one will ever see me again. 

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers.  The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them.  It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say . . .  Solitude means withdrawal from an artificial and fictional level of being which people have fabricated . . . But by that very fact the solitary finds himself on the level of a more perfect spiritual society . . .  

Solitude that is just solitude and nothing else (i.e., excludes everything else but solitude) is worthless.  True solitude embraces everything, for it is the fullness of love that rejects nothing and no one, and is open to All in All.  

In the last analysis, what I am looking for in solitude is not . . . "my own" salvation, but the salvation of everybody.  

The idea of solitude includes living for others; the dissolution of the self in 'belonging to everyone' and regarding everyone's suffering as one's own." 

Thomas Merton

Photo: A lone pine snag overlooks Lumpy Ridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 7, 2012