I apologize to anyone coming to the blog today looking for wonders. This is a day to return to Earth. No anomalies. Just nomalies.
The title refers to the Native American saying "that at the crossing of two lines, there lies Magic". That's not anomalies; that's all of life. My worldline...your worldline...we cross. There is the moment when Magic can happen. Today, it is "just" life...just Magic.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This morning was blessedly normal. Sitting on my chair in front of my home and watching the worldlines pass by while saying morning prayers. My unambitious middle-class neighborhood is still the prettiest place I've ever lived, and the flora make it so, while the fauna seem to agree with me. A great hawk is circling the sky seeking. I know what it is seeking and I forgive it. It's just trying to live and what it's about to do isn't personal. A small Titmouse is screeching as it bangs its head into the garage overhang, holding a berry tight in its beak, and not knowing why this is happening. It's been feasting on those berries I'll bet, and they're late in the year and fermented. The Titmouse is drunk. Well, it thought it got what it was seeking, too. A squirrel comes by with a walnut in its mouth. It decides to bury it next to my peace sign. It runs off, only to return 6o seconds later, looking for the nut. It can't find it. Around the yard it goes and glory be, it digs out a different one. Now a second squirrel shows up and the first, nut still firmly clenched, attacks the second and runs it off. This nut is MINE, and off it runs to its home tree and happily gnaws away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Whereas the animals are grasping, the trees are releasing. A maple down the street has decided that this is the big day. It is showering its leaves to the ground...magic there, I think. My paper birch isn't quite ready yet. But when GOD gives a mightier gust, it treats me to a rain of gold. Across the street, the tree I call "the Rusher" [because its topknot leaves look like an entity in a hurry] is in no rush to do the same. Two days ago, it treated me to a single magnificent crimson leaf-fall, like a lazy Cardinal, drifting, floating, displaying maybe just for me. Even GOD's strong wind this day was not enough to convince the Rusher that it was time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Two distant dwellers of this neighborhood, persons I don't know, jog by separately. I look, hoping they'll turn their head so I can say hello..good morning. They plunge flatly on. No crossing of the lines..no magic for them. It reminded me of the wonderful Henri Nouwen, who spoke in his own way about crossing lines. He said that all of us have lives that we define in certain ways. Those "definitions" become in our minds who we are. They become our "agenda". He then said an amazing thing: The quality of our lives..the quality of our selves..is not defined by our agendas, but rather by how we respond to the interruptions. Interruptions are all about line-crossing and possible Magic. Agendas are all about "me". I think about that,a lot, when contemplating the things I "pursue". When they and the line-crossings collide, will I do the right thing? Fixation on Anomalies is like that, you know. Along comes another human. This is the cute, perky letter-carrier for the neighborhood. She gives me her sunshine smile and my mail, and genuinely wishes me a good day. And off she bounces to the next house. She isn't living a life of great adventure, but she is doing the best with the life she has. I felt the Magic anyway.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------So here's the mail. The Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy wants me to give a little money. Thinking of the Hawk, the Squirrels, the drunken Titmouse, even the children that the letter carrier may have, I guess I will. Out on the street, a Jack drives by in his pick-up truck, going hunting for a nut. Sealed away in his glass and steel, there'll be no line-crossing for him, or at least I hope not. As I continue to sit there, rationalizing that it's OK for my one-year-on-the-sunny-side-of-seventy body to do so, there is one last crossing before going in to work on the big UFO book. The chocolate box [UPS] pulls up. A great big box for me--how neat! Inside I find 48 rolls of 100% post-consumer waste toilet tissue. I'm not sure what Carl Jung would say about this, but I'm pretty sure Henri Nouwen would approve. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What crossed my worldline today? A seeker Hawk, a drunken Titmouse, an aggressive and somewhat bone-headed Squirrel, people seeking no interruptions, and one welcoming it. And so, on your worldline path, what tried to make Magic with you? I think that many good things made their little "magicks' with me, and I tried to let them. What else am I seeking? GOD was there in so many ways. Haven't I already found it? But now it's back to the box of toilet paper, and a bit of an unpacking and storing job. Ah, the joys of a life well-lived! HAH.
I apologize to anyone coming to the blog today looking for wonders. This is a day to return to Earth. No anomalies. Just nomalies.
The title refers to the Native American saying "that at the crossing of two lines, there lies Magic". That's not anomalies; that's all of life. My worldline...your worldline...we cross. There is the moment when Magic can happen. Today, it is "just" life...just Magic.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
This morning was blessedly normal. Sitting on my chair in front of my home and watching the worldlines pass by while saying morning prayers. My unambitious middle-class neighborhood is still the prettiest place I've ever lived, and the flora make it so, while the fauna seem to agree with me. A great hawk is circling the sky seeking. I know what it is seeking and I forgive it. It's just trying to live and what it's about to do isn't personal. A small Titmouse is screeching as it bangs its head into the garage overhang, holding a berry tight in its beak, and not knowing why this is happening. It's been feasting on those berries I'll bet, and they're late in the year and fermented. The Titmouse is drunk. Well, it thought it got what it was seeking, too. A squirrel comes by with a walnut in its mouth. It decides to bury it next to my peace sign. It runs off, only to return 6o seconds later, looking for the nut. It can't find it. Around the yard it goes and glory be, it digs out a different one. Now a second squirrel shows up and the first, nut still firmly clenched, attacks the second and runs it off. This nut is MINE, and off it runs to its home tree and happily gnaws away. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Whereas the animals are grasping, the trees are releasing. A maple down the street has decided that this is the big day. It is showering its leaves to the ground...magic there, I think. My paper birch isn't quite ready yet. But when GOD gives a mightier gust, it treats me to a rain of gold. Across the street, the tree I call "the Rusher" [because its topknot leaves look like an entity in a hurry] is in no rush to do the same. Two days ago, it treated me to a single magnificent crimson leaf-fall, like a lazy Cardinal, drifting, floating, displaying maybe just for me. Even GOD's strong wind this day was not enough to convince the Rusher that it was time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Two distant dwellers of this neighborhood, persons I don't know, jog by separately. I look, hoping they'll turn their head so I can say hello..good morning. They plunge flatly on. No crossing of the lines..no magic for them. It reminded me of the wonderful Henri Nouwen, who spoke in his own way about crossing lines. He said that all of us have lives that we define in certain ways. Those "definitions" become in our minds who we are. They become our "agenda". He then said an amazing thing: The quality of our lives..the quality of our selves..is not defined by our agendas, but rather by how we respond to the interruptions. Interruptions are all about line-crossing and possible Magic. Agendas are all about "me". I think about that,a lot, when contemplating the things I "pursue". When they and the line-crossings collide, will I do the right thing? Fixation on Anomalies is like that, you know. Along comes another human. This is the cute, perky letter-carrier for the neighborhood. She gives me her sunshine smile and my mail, and genuinely wishes me a good day. And off she bounces to the next house. She isn't living a life of great adventure, but she is doing the best with the life she has. I felt the Magic anyway.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------So here's the mail. The Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy wants me to give a little money. Thinking of the Hawk, the Squirrels, the drunken Titmouse, even the children that the letter carrier may have, I guess I will. Out on the street, a Jack drives by in his pick-up truck, going hunting for a nut. Sealed away in his glass and steel, there'll be no line-crossing for him, or at least I hope not. As I continue to sit there, rationalizing that it's OK for my one-year-on-the-sunny-side-of-seventy body to do so, there is one last crossing before going in to work on the big UFO book. The chocolate box [UPS] pulls up. A great big box for me--how neat! Inside I find 48 rolls of 100% post-consumer waste toilet tissue. I'm not sure what Carl Jung would say about this, but I'm pretty sure Henri Nouwen would approve. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What crossed my worldline today? A seeker Hawk, a drunken Titmouse, an aggressive and somewhat bone-headed Squirrel, people seeking no interruptions, and one welcoming it. And so, on your worldline path, what tried to make Magic with you? I think that many good things made their little "magicks' with me, and I tried to let them. What else am I seeking? GOD was there in so many ways. Haven't I already found it? But now it's back to the box of toilet paper, and a bit of an unpacking and storing job. Ah, the joys of a life well-lived! HAH.
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