With the Breath Comes What?

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

 

This morning I am writing from my friends Ken and Deana Kessin's home and using their computer.  My son, Jacob has to return to Sante Fe today so we drove in last night from the Refuge to have dinner with the entire family.  

We will send him off at breakfast today. 

 

A week at the Refuge has been a good experience, but more than that, the opportunity to read through a year of posts and other materials, organizing them, witnessing my changes, has been illuminating. 

 

I advise each of you to keep a journal. Journaling is a wonderful therapeutic device, but a great way to begin to notice shifts in personality, concern, theme, etc.

 

I am what I am.

 

Without a name, I am just God's breath in a body of dust. 

 

That should be good enough, but it isn't. Our conscience nags. We have obligations, commitments and vows.  It is through these that we develop our identity and determine our role.  

 

How do we know what our obligations are?  Historically, there are two ways, we are taught them or we discover them.  The teaching occurs through parents, peer interaction, community, and religious education. The discovery occurs through life itself, but most importantly through quiet introspection: meditation.  Serene reflection meditation allows us to see clearly what is there before us, but more, it opens a gate to the Universe.

 

All religion teaches us that we must die in order to live.  That is, this idea we have of ourselves must be killed, set aside, gotten rid of.  This is so because our ideas of ourselves are like costumes hiding the truth of our existence.  If I am a priest, I am a priest no longer; if a Jew, a Jew no longer.  Of course, I remain a Jew and a priest, but I am no longer them as costume.  What does God's breath in a body of dust do?  What is our original face, the face we had before our parent's parent's were born?

 

Now it is that we approach authenticity.

 

Costumes are both so, and too, convenient.  Authentic life as God's breath in a body, well that's another matter.

 

Be well.