The wide-open spaces of the West have served a fathering role for me, especially since my early 20s. They have taught me that my Source as a man is in another world. Like Jesus, the masculine element present in both men and women can say; "I am not of this world." For me, this means that the frenetic, competitive, herd-like qualities of society are not my true home. I belong instead to the vastness of wilderness spaces, to the silence that reigned for billions of years before human beings inhabited the planet. But my home is especially in the spacious and loving awareness of the Great Mystery - the One whom we call "God" - a vast state of consciousness that any of us can access during contemplative meditation. This vastness lies beyond the world of phenomena, yet it serves as the backdrop out of which all thoughts, feelings and events arise. It is this vastness that has fathered me in a spiritual sense. When I unite with it, then I too can serve as father to those around me, bringing a sense of transcendence, stability and space to a claustraphobic society turned in on its own shallowness, obsessive self-importance, fear and anxiety.
Photo: Yucca, Pawnee Buttes, and a vast sky; Pawnee National Grassland, Weld County, CO; June 10, 2013
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