Living Pagan
“In the
only wisdom I have at my disposal, the Creator does not live apart
from creation but spans and suffuses it. When I take a breath, God's
Holy Spirit enters me. When a cricket speaks to me, I talk back. Like
everything else on earth, I am an embodied soul, who leaps to life
when I recognize my kin. If this makes me a pagan, then I am a
grateful one.”
Barbara
Brown Taylor (Leaving Church)
The other day, my son,
Jake, brought me a bag of butter beans grown in a community garden. I
put them in the refrigerator and went on about my business. At the
end of the day, when I began preparations for dinner, I pulled the
bag out and began popping pods open and spilling beans into a pot.
One bean I pulled out had a hitch-hiker on it—a little green bug
that looked for the world like a miniature leaf. He sat there proudly
on the end of the pod and stared at me tiny green eyes. I said,
“Well, hello. You must be really cold. Let me take you outside to
warm up.” I took him out to the boxwood at my front door, and he
stepped off the bean pod like the queen stepping onto the red carpet.
At all its levels, life
is precious. I'll admit that I don't like roaches, and will sic Liza
on them if I see one in my house, but I respect their right to life
outside. Liza does not. Her little dog-self is a roach killer par
excellence! Every part of Creation has its proper place and purpose.
In the Spirituality Group on Sunday, we talked at length about what constitutes legitimate meditation. Some members of
the group sit and concentrate on the breath. Some have a mantra or a
centering prayer. For me, meditation is experienced in the natural
world. The sounds of cicada's, crickets, birds, wind, leaves, water
burbling over rocks—those are the things that entrain my brainwaves
to alert silence and stillness. You undoubtedly have your own place
of oneness. As embodied souls in the midst of Creation, we must
return to that solid ground as often as possible.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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