The thing about pride is a kicker for sure. I think of what I have heard you say so many times about living in the tension between the two. Reading this piece today I am reminded of the Hasidic saying - Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: “For my sake was the world created.” And in his left: “I am dust and ashes.”
is a place I currently find myself. Wrestling with an ageing body, my hips starting to give out so more often than not I am limping. Wrestling too with overwhelm.
Every day I find a way to somehow get through, to create the spaces in which that small quiet voice of calm can enter, however fleetingly. Today I found myself a local beautiful church for a hymn singing practice, something had called me to just get up and go. The singing of hymns I always find grounding. I simply showed up. A small group of four of us with the organist taking the rehearsal. I'm no trained singer but I like to sing..somehow I hit the notes. Everyone was so welcoming to the stranger in their midst. I then found myself making up the tiny choir for the harvest festival. The church, with cathedral proportions and stunning stained glass by William Morris, is celebrating its 150th birthday. It was a place of solace many years ago when I was in deep grief after the stillbirth of my son. In some small way the hymns lifted us up and I was looking at the angels in the windows above. I felt a
tinge of sadness, as the congregation was small rattling about in this huge , drafty Victorian gothic temple, everyone carrying a story of sufferings past and present. But the harvest festival table was full, and a communal Sunday lunch being prepared in the hall next door. Just for a while the wrestling stopped and the songs carried us up out into a place of expansion and peace.
That would be wonderful. I found with years of singing hymns at School that quite a few have lodged in my memory waiting to be brought back to the surface. And I love carols too.
Thanks Martin. This is an extremely powerful story and you really touched it's source.
I preached on this 3 years ago when I was in the middle of the wrestling match. 2 days later my very sick wife passed away. It was quite something to see it come up for this Sunday and realise it was 3 years ago. I revisited it this morning and preached it again in church. You know its truth is seeping up out of the stone floor when the quality of the silence of the congregation deepens and changes and there are moments of sitting in an expanding, cavernous, disturbing empty space. People's hearts recognising and touching
I love the fact that Jacob, the grabber and cheater, has the shit kicked out of him but grabs on in a different way realising that he needs the blessing of this awesome being because it is everything that he is not. The Guardian on the Threshold.
Thanks Martin, the feeling is very mutual! It is a very exciting time to know you as you are so obviously on the threshold of something really important. A doorway, hidden in the long grass, that only you have earned the right to find.
I was reminded as I read this, of one of my favorite poems; "Return" by Robinson Jeffers, a kind of a paean to the Hawk, Jeffers's totem animal.. It's served as a kind of breastplate to me these past few years:
**
A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk's food and noble is the mountain, Oh noble
We've probably talked about this Ian, but did you ever go to Jeffer's tower/home in Carmel? Paul Kingsnorth and myself did an evening there maybe five years ago now. I remember telling the Birth of Ossian as the place was so Irish in feel. I love this poem, thank you. I'm in a sick bed up in Point Reyes (covid), but thinking of Jeffers a few miles down the coast.
I did visit it a few years ago before leaving the bay area, and had a hot exchange of words with the local caretaker who was on site; an unpleasant toad of a man who wasn't going to let me in for anything. I can't for the life of me remember what was said, but later I did manage to transgress my way onto the property and have a walk around, and the feeling of the place was ghostly even with the encroaching suburban blight that he foresaw: "This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses / How beautiful when we first beheld it.." I imagine he saw the region transform rather profoundly in his lifetime. Good health, feel better.
I worked with Elliot to help arrange that event, Martin, but failed to make it as it was on my birthday. I’m still kicking myself for that one. I live in the shadow of Pico Blanco on the rugged coastline of Big Sur. Grateful for how the wildness of the place continually humbles me, the limp it has bestowed upon me as a blessing.
In my church we recently did a walking service in the fields and wood, reading the text about Jacob, then walking in silence and later sharing. ( Two ravens were following us all the way.. talking in a low voice like wishpering. ) What stood out for me afterwards was the limp. Reminding me of Pinkolas “scared woman clan” and also of The Listner, told by you, having his foot licked by the waves of the sea, a price for visiting the other side, and ever after being a limper, with all the pain and the benefits from that. I was born with “twisted feet” , meaning that I have to watch every step, when walking outside, to prevent falling. If I want to look up, I have to stand still. I think that this “limp” has made my way to nature and to being a teacher in biology. Being slow has been a good teacher. I didn’t fought an angel to get my limp, but it has enriched my life.
I hope this makes sense in English! The bridges between the stepping stones of my thoughts are difficult in Danish and , I sure, worse in English.
I would like to share a link to a video “Invitation from God” ( 30 minutes) about father Thomas Keating. He is dead now, but he reflects so much wisdom, peace and love, talking about Christian mysticism.
Ah, thank you Bodil. I love the idea of a walking service, and the Thomas Keating video too - I'll be sure to watch it. His Centering Prayer work is having a hugely restorative impact on several friends of mine.
A beautiful expression of metanoia! Thank-you, thank-you, Martin. Defeating the smallness in us (move beyond the small mind). Opening to the vast (move into the larger mind). How our good Teacher’s body could quiver at that cross point of perfect incarnation is achingly and often, my greatest longing, and my greatest fear, all at once. The word “beshemi”, usually translated as “do this in my name”, (and not always, but often, used as a cheap spell) - is better translated as “do this according to my method” - (follow me) and whenever I ponder that, I think about Abba Joseph, when the young monk visits him and tells him “I fast, I pray, I meditate on the scripture what else can I do?” And old Abba Joseph stands with the setting sun to his back and the tips of his fingers are like fire, and he says, “if you will, you can become all flame”. How it burns before surrender… but in that attempt St Francis made to quiver in his body, in the world, at that frequency, there is a point where even for one moment, it no longer burns, because a flame does not feel flame. From the heart in the breast to the tips of fingers and toes when Christ is bursting at my seams, it has been so momentarily whole, that I doubt it when I waffle back out from that place of zero variance and feel the burn again. But to that charism and instinct I hold my fidelity, and as I continue to fail and fall into the infinite arms - where all things are reconciled - I blush when I realize that even the waffling and the pride are incarnate.
“The sacredness of the unraveling” and to be defeated time and again. The sudden death of my wife almost three years ago has led me to this descent through my broken open heart and the unrelenting waves of grief. And at the same time I was blessed with this incredible opening within that gave me entry to beauty and the vastness of the eternal. Forever changed and never the man I was before — how could it be any other way.
Thank you Mark. That's a kind of profundity I shouldn't say much about other than to thank you for sharing it. Bless your broken open heart all the way.
Thank you. I considered writing you one of those letters recently myself. A beautiful friend of mine, one who I refer to in my heart as one of earth's most beloved daughters, died in childbirth in September. Her son survived, with her daughter and husband. Your books, words, and temple of stories has helped me so much in this feeling of nonsensical loss. Thank you for this Sunday story, deep from my heart thank you.
Oh no Michelle, I'm so very sorry to hear this. I don't have any words, save what you may find in my books. And I'm glad they may provide some crumb in such a harrowing. Bless all of you.
Curious too, is it not, that immediately after the angel leaves Jacob he lifts up his eyes and sees Esau coming with 400 men--an army he thinks to destroy him and his family. And yet Esau does not bring destruction but forgiveness, healing and rest for the flocks and the children, reconciliation, and reunion. Genesis 33 starts with the sense of imminent death and ends with Jacob "erecting "an alter there and called it El Elohe Israel."
I can't rid myself of the tendency to compare Odysseus and Jacob. Both are wily men of many twists and turns, both attractive and repellent; but somehow Jacob emerges from the pages of the bible as a more complex and human figure to me than Odysseus.
Thank you Martin. I think this is one of the most beautiful and powerful passages I’ve heard you read here. Or maybe it’s just I need to hear it this morning... and tomorrow and the next day and again and again. Either way thank you.
The thing about pride is a kicker for sure. I think of what I have heard you say so many times about living in the tension between the two. Reading this piece today I am reminded of the Hasidic saying - Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: “For my sake was the world created.” And in his left: “I am dust and ashes.”
Yes, I like that. I remember an African saying 'be proud, but do not remind the world of your deeds.'
It was said about my Grandad: “Bernard keeps his light under a bushel, but makes sure everyone knows where the bushel is” 😂
Wrestling....
is a place I currently find myself. Wrestling with an ageing body, my hips starting to give out so more often than not I am limping. Wrestling too with overwhelm.
Every day I find a way to somehow get through, to create the spaces in which that small quiet voice of calm can enter, however fleetingly. Today I found myself a local beautiful church for a hymn singing practice, something had called me to just get up and go. The singing of hymns I always find grounding. I simply showed up. A small group of four of us with the organist taking the rehearsal. I'm no trained singer but I like to sing..somehow I hit the notes. Everyone was so welcoming to the stranger in their midst. I then found myself making up the tiny choir for the harvest festival. The church, with cathedral proportions and stunning stained glass by William Morris, is celebrating its 150th birthday. It was a place of solace many years ago when I was in deep grief after the stillbirth of my son. In some small way the hymns lifted us up and I was looking at the angels in the windows above. I felt a
tinge of sadness, as the congregation was small rattling about in this huge , drafty Victorian gothic temple, everyone carrying a story of sufferings past and present. But the harvest festival table was full, and a communal Sunday lunch being prepared in the hall next door. Just for a while the wrestling stopped and the songs carried us up out into a place of expansion and peace.
Thank you for this food on the table for thought.
I wish I could be there to sing hymns with you.
That would be wonderful. I found with years of singing hymns at School that quite a few have lodged in my memory waiting to be brought back to the surface. And I love carols too.
Thanks Martin. This is an extremely powerful story and you really touched it's source.
I preached on this 3 years ago when I was in the middle of the wrestling match. 2 days later my very sick wife passed away. It was quite something to see it come up for this Sunday and realise it was 3 years ago. I revisited it this morning and preached it again in church. You know its truth is seeping up out of the stone floor when the quality of the silence of the congregation deepens and changes and there are moments of sitting in an expanding, cavernous, disturbing empty space. People's hearts recognising and touching
I love the fact that Jacob, the grabber and cheater, has the shit kicked out of him but grabs on in a different way realising that he needs the blessing of this awesome being because it is everything that he is not. The Guardian on the Threshold.
Thank's Jonathan, what an extraordinary journey you're on, I'm glad to know you. I wish I'd been in the congregation this morning.
Thanks Martin, the feeling is very mutual! It is a very exciting time to know you as you are so obviously on the threshold of something really important. A doorway, hidden in the long grass, that only you have earned the right to find.
A hearty Sunday breakfast, Martin. Thank you.
I was reminded as I read this, of one of my favorite poems; "Return" by Robinson Jeffers, a kind of a paean to the Hawk, Jeffers's totem animal.. It's served as a kind of breastplate to me these past few years:
**
A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk's food and noble is the mountain, Oh noble
Pico Blanco, steep sea-wave of marble.
We've probably talked about this Ian, but did you ever go to Jeffer's tower/home in Carmel? Paul Kingsnorth and myself did an evening there maybe five years ago now. I remember telling the Birth of Ossian as the place was so Irish in feel. I love this poem, thank you. I'm in a sick bed up in Point Reyes (covid), but thinking of Jeffers a few miles down the coast.
I did visit it a few years ago before leaving the bay area, and had a hot exchange of words with the local caretaker who was on site; an unpleasant toad of a man who wasn't going to let me in for anything. I can't for the life of me remember what was said, but later I did manage to transgress my way onto the property and have a walk around, and the feeling of the place was ghostly even with the encroaching suburban blight that he foresaw: "This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses / How beautiful when we first beheld it.." I imagine he saw the region transform rather profoundly in his lifetime. Good health, feel better.
I worked with Elliot to help arrange that event, Martin, but failed to make it as it was on my birthday. I’m still kicking myself for that one. I live in the shadow of Pico Blanco on the rugged coastline of Big Sur. Grateful for how the wildness of the place continually humbles me, the limp it has bestowed upon me as a blessing.
And this one comes to mind as well, also by Jeffers:
Sign Post
Civilized, crying: how to be human again; this will tell you how.
Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity,
Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies grow,
Lean on the silent rock until you feel its divinity
Make your veins cold; look at the silent stars, let your eyes
Climb the great ladder out of the pit of yourself and man.
Things are so beautiful, your love will follow your eyes;
Things are the God; you will love God and not in vain,
For what we love, we grow to it, we share its nature. At length
You will look back along the star's rays and see that even
The poor doll humanity has a place under heaven.
Its qualities repair their mosaic around you, the chips of strength
And sickness; but now you are free, even to be human,
But born of the rock and the air, not of a woman.
Love this one too, Erin. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this poem, Ian. Love it!
Am reminded again of Machado’s beautiful image of the beehive of failures 💚 x
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
So much goodness in this missive — thank you.
Your words reminded me of a poem I encountered during a particularly troublesome/transformative time in my life.
A Tendency to Shine
If you prefer smoke over fire
then get up now and leave.
For I do not intend to perfume
your mind’s clothing
with more sooty knowledge.
No, I have something else in mind.
Today I hold a flame in my left hand
and a sword in my right.
There will be no damage control today.
For God is in a mood
to plunder your riches and
fling you nakedly
into such breathtaking poverty
that all that will be left of you
will be a tendency to shine.
So don’t just sit around this flame
choking on your mind.
For this is no campfire song
to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with.
Jump now into the space
between thoughts
and exit this dream
before I burn the damn place down.
– Adyashanti
Sending healing energy from the wilds of northern WI on Lake Superior.
Wow. What a kick in the pants poem, Mary! Needed that today. :) Thank you!
Thank you, Martin for this.
In my church we recently did a walking service in the fields and wood, reading the text about Jacob, then walking in silence and later sharing. ( Two ravens were following us all the way.. talking in a low voice like wishpering. ) What stood out for me afterwards was the limp. Reminding me of Pinkolas “scared woman clan” and also of The Listner, told by you, having his foot licked by the waves of the sea, a price for visiting the other side, and ever after being a limper, with all the pain and the benefits from that. I was born with “twisted feet” , meaning that I have to watch every step, when walking outside, to prevent falling. If I want to look up, I have to stand still. I think that this “limp” has made my way to nature and to being a teacher in biology. Being slow has been a good teacher. I didn’t fought an angel to get my limp, but it has enriched my life.
I hope this makes sense in English! The bridges between the stepping stones of my thoughts are difficult in Danish and , I sure, worse in English.
I would like to share a link to a video “Invitation from God” ( 30 minutes) about father Thomas Keating. He is dead now, but he reflects so much wisdom, peace and love, talking about Christian mysticism.
https://youtu.be/Lk-KWqVNpOw
Looking forward to read the post over again, translating a few words (smile) and felling warm, welcomed and curios when sharing this road .
Bodil
Ah, thank you Bodil. I love the idea of a walking service, and the Thomas Keating video too - I'll be sure to watch it. His Centering Prayer work is having a hugely restorative impact on several friends of mine.
A beautiful expression of metanoia! Thank-you, thank-you, Martin. Defeating the smallness in us (move beyond the small mind). Opening to the vast (move into the larger mind). How our good Teacher’s body could quiver at that cross point of perfect incarnation is achingly and often, my greatest longing, and my greatest fear, all at once. The word “beshemi”, usually translated as “do this in my name”, (and not always, but often, used as a cheap spell) - is better translated as “do this according to my method” - (follow me) and whenever I ponder that, I think about Abba Joseph, when the young monk visits him and tells him “I fast, I pray, I meditate on the scripture what else can I do?” And old Abba Joseph stands with the setting sun to his back and the tips of his fingers are like fire, and he says, “if you will, you can become all flame”. How it burns before surrender… but in that attempt St Francis made to quiver in his body, in the world, at that frequency, there is a point where even for one moment, it no longer burns, because a flame does not feel flame. From the heart in the breast to the tips of fingers and toes when Christ is bursting at my seams, it has been so momentarily whole, that I doubt it when I waffle back out from that place of zero variance and feel the burn again. But to that charism and instinct I hold my fidelity, and as I continue to fail and fall into the infinite arms - where all things are reconciled - I blush when I realize that even the waffling and the pride are incarnate.
So beautiful, Alana! I was overwhelmed with emotion making my way through your comment. ❤️
“The sacredness of the unraveling” and to be defeated time and again. The sudden death of my wife almost three years ago has led me to this descent through my broken open heart and the unrelenting waves of grief. And at the same time I was blessed with this incredible opening within that gave me entry to beauty and the vastness of the eternal. Forever changed and never the man I was before — how could it be any other way.
Thank you Mark. That's a kind of profundity I shouldn't say much about other than to thank you for sharing it. Bless your broken open heart all the way.
Dear Martin,
Thank you. I considered writing you one of those letters recently myself. A beautiful friend of mine, one who I refer to in my heart as one of earth's most beloved daughters, died in childbirth in September. Her son survived, with her daughter and husband. Your books, words, and temple of stories has helped me so much in this feeling of nonsensical loss. Thank you for this Sunday story, deep from my heart thank you.
Oh no Michelle, I'm so very sorry to hear this. I don't have any words, save what you may find in my books. And I'm glad they may provide some crumb in such a harrowing. Bless all of you.
Curious too, is it not, that immediately after the angel leaves Jacob he lifts up his eyes and sees Esau coming with 400 men--an army he thinks to destroy him and his family. And yet Esau does not bring destruction but forgiveness, healing and rest for the flocks and the children, reconciliation, and reunion. Genesis 33 starts with the sense of imminent death and ends with Jacob "erecting "an alter there and called it El Elohe Israel."
Yes, amazing Akido move from Esau. I think about that a lot when I have hurt feelings!
I can't rid myself of the tendency to compare Odysseus and Jacob. Both are wily men of many twists and turns, both attractive and repellent; but somehow Jacob emerges from the pages of the bible as a more complex and human figure to me than Odysseus.
Thank you Martin. I think this is one of the most beautiful and powerful passages I’ve heard you read here. Or maybe it’s just I need to hear it this morning... and tomorrow and the next day and again and again. Either way thank you.
I struggle to say my name with pride. Not sure why yet.
I’ve been told not to speak the fairies name aloud as it will annoy them (bringing unwanted attention to them?)
I’ve been told not to trust people who announce themselves as witches/shamans too eagerly.
I don’t trust the Christians who come straight at me with a bible because I believe they want to vampire me and my money.
There is safety in silence.
The limp is a truth that cannot be hid.
Thanks again Martin. Get well soon. Some good medicinal herbs over in the Bay Area.
As ever, very beautiful, thank you. You helped clear some cobwebs.
Thank you.
Wonderful - thank you