Mostly About Peace

04/11/2006 7:06 AM – 7:36 AM

-But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our Peace- and this is what Zen can teach the Christian. I, Spike, worrying about money, am a very small thing. But I am, at the same time, a very large thing. I am less than a speck in the universe and yet I contain the purpose of the whole of the universe within me –the fullness of Him who fills all in all-

I am myself. I am not my own, but I am my own, having been bought with a price. To affirm a statement is to affirm its negation. It’s not true, of course, it is that incomprehensible and useless thing. But we stand up and sit down. We rise and we lay down. There is a time to kill and there is a time to heal. Forget yourself. Forget the weight of your life. Realize the full impossibility of managing your existence and laugh at it. It’s just this. This now. This. This. The sun is coming up over Elmwood strip. People are walking down the sidewalks. It’s cold, but not bitterly so. Remember again that the difference between an apartment in the city and a strong cottage in the country is the bitterness that you choose to cling to. It all is. This is just this.

Are you thinking about your age? Did you taste the terror of death again? So did I. Then you get up, drink your coffee with a merry heart, and walk back into the underlying tranquility. This or this. It doesn’t matter. It’s all this. Did you imagine again the horrors of damnation? Can you know which path to choose? No? Then let it go. This is just this. We weren’t given knowledge. Just hope. Just faith the size of a mustard seed, covered by the dust and debris of daily existence. So let it be buried. Let it go unseen for a while. And hope that it will grow. Let everything go. Even your faith. No matter how you imagine it, it will be wrong by virtue of its incomplete perspective. It will be right by that same virtue. So your heart is beating faster, so your mind is whirling in darkness. Just let it go. Take your hands off the wheel and let being be. We can only be what we are at this very second. This very now. Now. Now. Let it go, kid. Let it go. Now, pick it up and start again. Put the pack on your back and start walking. All the world is contained in your room. In your hands. In your wholeheart. So pick it up and let it go. We exist. That’s all that we can know, and we can’t even know that. Why not let it be peace? All this is just all this. We are. We are not. –But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law- there is, therefore, now, no condemnation. Be here now. Be at peace. Against peace, there is no law.