Welcome! I am a contemplative thinker and photographer from Colorado. In this blog, you'll discover photographs that I've taken on my hiking and backpacking trips, mostly in the American West. I've paired these with my favorite inspirational and philosophical quotes - literary passages that emphasize the innate spirituality of the natural world. I hope you enjoy them!

If you'd like to purchase photo-quote greeting cards, please go to www.NaturePhoto-QuoteCards.com .


In the Spirit of Wildness,

Stephen Hatch
Fort Collins, Colorado

P.S. There's a label index at the bottom of the blog.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

True power is self-emptying.


"Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne."  (Revelation 5:6)

A common human tendency is to see power as the capacity to rule over others. However, an enlightened view understands that an attitude of self-emptying is the only true source of power.  In the famous "kenosis" passage recorded in the book of Philippians, Jesus is presented as receiving his power through radical self-emptying.  Often referred to as a sacrificial lamb, he understood well the nature of this truth of living for the good of others. Like him, we too can realize that self-emptying is in the very nature of God. To this end, meditation practice teaches us that all things arise - magically, almost - out of the spacious backdrop of human awareness in which God forever loses himself in bliss. We understand that we too can learn to unite with God's humility in drawing out and learning from the spiritual qualities of others rather than arrogantly attempting to impose our own ideas on them.

Photo: A Prickly Pear cactus flaunts its beauty, while the Great White Throne looms in the distance on the left.  Observation Point, Zion National Park, UT, May 26, 2012.

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