Hopeful Thinking

Beginning occasionally two years before, but then with a great deal more frequency during the pandemic, I’ve been making and handpainting 7’ x 11’ canvas banners which I suspend from the columns of both my churches from their positions at the head of each town square. It’s my little community service attempt at instilling a bit of inspiration and hope. I’ve painted 40 of them so far.  The current banner opines, “Be at peace. Zen you can do anything.” Yes it’s trite and unapologetically cute. It also very nearly over-simplifies Zen Buddhism. But perhaps that’s the point of Buddhism in the first place. If you choose the right words, you can say an awful lot with very few letters. That will not quite be so in this column, but it’s still good advice.  The banner I am painting over the next few days will read, “A pound of opinions is not worth an ounce of knowledge.“ Everything I ever write in this space is just my opinion. And it really should be taken for that. All spiritual and ...

When stuck in a cycle of rumination, how do we find an exit ramp? Sometimes I get really stuck in my thoughts. I, like many people, have a tendency to trap myself in little emotional spin cycles that feel as long to end as if I were standing in front of the washing machine willing it to finish spinning already.  Knowing that I’m not alone, I ask the question on behalf of us all: How the heck do we manage to just chill out once in a while instead of letting things get to us? Where is the peace? And why isn't it available on demand? Those of us who make a point to study spiritual practices have a tendency to get even more frustrated with ourselves, thinking we should be better at this kind of thing than we are. But added perspective doesn’t always mean added results.  It’s a source of frustration for me because when something gets under my skin, I have a tendency to talk to myself a lot. I continually refine my arguments against the person who miffed me. Out loud. I do it for se...

One of my favorite characters in all of literature is the Bishop from Victor Hugo‘s 1862 novel Les Miserables. Also referred to as Monseigneur Bienvenu (meaning, welcome), Bishop Charles Myriel was suddenly elevated from parish priest to his high clerical rank by Napoleon himself after paying him a complement in passing. Having originally learned the basic story of Les Miserables as a stage musical in the 1980’s, I discovered the Bishop in more detail once I read the book upon which the musical was based.  In the musical, Les Miserables , the Bishop plays a minor but still crucially benevolent role. It was presented in the stage production rather like backstory exposition rather than the fundamental ingredient to the entire novel’s raison d’être; its literal reason for existing. All of the moral choices made in the entire novel by its lead character, Jean Valjean, are based upon his singular night’s exchanges between himself and Bishop Myriel.  In short summary, out of despe...

What choice have we but optimism? Truly, in the end, there is literally nothing else for us but to seek out ways toward which, at a minimum, at least our basic survival seems possible. This is instinctive for us. Of course there are other options. Pessimism. Obstinacy. Fear. But those things are not self-sustaining; nor are they naturally-occurring. They require we bolster them artificially, through the misuse of power and authority. Through an avid campaign of persuasion against our natural instincts. There are those who would prefer we continue to exist in a little bit of fear. That is the way of the world.  Well, clearly not all of it. Still, there is tremendous beauty, and even elegance, in the design of these challenging human classrooms. When we step back a bit from how difficult it feels to be in it, we see an arc of progress that occurs especially because of having gone through it. Is that benevolence? Diversity almost always refines us. If we could manage to believe that o...

Why do bad things happen? Do bad things happen for good reasons? Meaning, is there a hidden benevolence in all things?  For spiritual teachings to have any value, they must have a practical, human relevance. They must look like us and empathize with our feelings. It can’t be all about the heavens. All worthwhile religious traditions must be about our experience here on earth.  Religion gives vague answers about the reasons for why bad things happen. I think that’s fair and understandable. There is no one answer we all equally perceive. Every tradition has its own facet of the diamond. The light reflects differently from there. And since there is no rational, human answer to some of the tragedies which befall us, traditionally, we conclude them to be celestial in origin. A.k.a. punishment from God. Punishment implies we have done something wrong. Since religion is rarely about definitive answers regarding the mind of God, it can’t give a clear answer. But I think they can’t giv...

How does appreciation configure into our well-being?  There is a distinct ring of upward trajectory in the word appreciate. It’s from the late-Latin adprentium, meaning to price. It’s a business term. When we set something at a price, when we assess personal value and give it a monetary equivalent, we are declaring something. Something deeply personal and well attached to our sense of satisfaction. Interestingly, the use of the word appreciate has more than doubled in the past 200 years. My uneducated guess would index its use with the rise in industrialism and technology. More people, more things to sell. Things appreciate in value. Yet have people? Do we appreciate people more now than 200 years ago? Even looking at the decline in homicides per capita over the past 200 years would tell you the answer is likely yes. Not that that alone would prove it. What is the benefit of appreciation? I’d think that the answer is dividends. Offshoots of benefit resulting from the benefit of som...

What is it that really makes a difference in the world? What is it that changes something from an impossible situation to an ideal one? What is it that takes a few small, scattered rainstorms and coheses them together into a perfect storm? It takes just one small updraft of air at just the right temperature and just the right amount of moisture in just the right location to create a superstorm. Does that little puff of air know that it will be the final ingredient of a super storm of incalculable power of both destruction as well as transformation? How could that little bit of warm moist air know its real destiny? It doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. But it moves as if it desires something. It moves, like everything in the universe, as if it seeks equilibrium with its surroundings. Equality. Equanimity. Balance. We love to say that ‘one person can make a difference’ even though we never think we will actually be that one person. Is that something that we choose, or are we chosen? W...