I can only bow in gratitude

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I continue to listen to Speaking of Faith podcasts with great interest. Krista Tippett interviewed Eckhart Tolle in a way that elicited so much from him...questions about how his new-found fame is challenging him, for instance. Really fascinating.

She asked him about God, and he said he rarely uses that word because it has been so abused and carries so much dead weight with it (my term). But he does believe. He believes in a power, an energy in the universe that is constructive, life-giving, creative, beautiful (again, these are my words). As I listened to him I found myself in that place again. That place where I experience something un-name-able, the utter mystery of what is.

This constructive, life-giving, creative and beautiful power/energy is within all that is, including human beings. Once again I felt myself move to that place where I vaguely sense the essence of human being, that place where there are no separations; all is one, yet 'the many' are at home there as well.

How could human beings not be part of this beautiful energy? It's the only thing that makes any sense to me.

We are part of Creation--part of the Universe, the All That Is, that somehow comes into being and lives and breathes and moves and sometimes reproduces and always changes and never ends. We are part of this universal Pattern, seen from the sun to the black hole to the subatomic particle to the puppy to the rose. An inexhaustible, perpetual, powerful-beyond-all-imagining Pattern. Sunrises that take my breath. Wrenching world poverty that I, in my Western lifestyle, help create. Love for my husband and children and friends. Little false egos that hurt us and those we love. Economic systems that support us and lie to us. Addictions. The color Purple. Self actualization. Bicycle rides in the park. Tiny yellow flowers breaking through solid concrete. Exploding stars. All of it. EVERYTHING. NOTHING is not part of this Universe, the All That Is. And All of it is part of this inexhaustible, perpetual, powerful-beyond-all-imagining Pattern of Creation.

Being human and part of this gigantic Pattern helps me taste a tiny morsel of the Mystery of what it means to be human.

We are free. And not free.
We are unique individuals, but just the same as everyone else.
We are whole, yet fragmented.
We are empowered, but vulnerable.
We love, and we fear.
We are embodied. And spiritual.
We know so much. And there is nothing we really know.

I can only bow in gratitude.

Comments

Elaine (aka...Purple) said…
"Being human and part of this gigantic Pattern helps me taste a tiny morsel of the Mystery of what it means to be human."

Katherine, so powerfully summed up.
September 12, 2008 at 1:12 PM
Rev SS said…
And I like the last paragraphs of "and" whole and .. free and ... Yes!
September 12, 2008 at 8:54 PM
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