My Spirit Splashes

My spirit bathes in
rivers

oceans

still ponds

 little tidal eddies

and  the grace

of rain on sage

carried by prairie winds

Godly waters leak inside me

drip
by
drip

hollowing out the caverns of

my soul with something holy

 the spiritual promise

in sulfur spray that shoots from

faithful geysers

and the soothing calm of

cool running mountain waters

Clinging

like little wisps of moss

growing slowly

on unmoving river stones

I remember that

 time and water always

 all ways

find a way to flow

Reaching
with all ten fingertips,

grasping for a taste of heaven

and I see myself in

the lips of trout that break surface

 reaching for low buzzing insects

  kissing the unknown above 

Scrambling

 awkward in my humanity

like misty bouncing water droplets

springing off  of heavy boulders

and fragile ferns alike

as they tumble the waterfall

 

Like every drip of rain,

and every snowflake that ever fell

my being wants nothing

but the soothing saltiness of the ocean

to wash my sins away

my spirit splashes 

 in the grace of rain on sage

carried by prairie winds

Perhaps this is why, I fell in love with Norman Maclean

Every year that I was growing up in Olympia, Washington my mom, dad, sister and I would travel home to visit my grandparents here in Wyoming.  In the dusk of a summer evening, we'd often approach Pinedale with seventies rock playing on the tape deck.  Steve Miller, Fleetwood Mac, America... All make for nice traveling music at dusk time in the Hoback Canyon.

My father almost always chose a path along the Snake River, which we considered among our family rivers.  It was there he felt his soul restored and his imagination stirred.

Always we'd watch for wildlife.  Sometimes we saw moose or deer.  One time we pulled over and listened to bighorn sheep at Stinking Springs.  They were fighting on crazy ledges, their slamming skulls, cracking sharp - like home run hits, sent rocks falling down the canyon.  Often we'd stop for a long while and go barefoot in the shallows of the river as my father spoke.   I can still hear the message of his lectures, if not the words, "Long ago rain fell on mud and became rock.  Halt.  A billion years ago.  But even before that, beneath the rocks, are the words of God.  Listen..."

And if my sister, Laura, and I listened very carefully all our lives...we might hear those words.  Laura and I received as many hours of instruction in listening for God's voice beside a river, or on a lonely mountain trail, as we did in all other spiritual matters.  
As some kind of hybrid Humanist/Spiritualist/Buddhist/Christian, my father believed that man, by nature, was a damn mess and that only by walking a careful path were we able to regain power, beauty, and grace.  To him, all good things, wisdom, as well as enlightenment come by fumbling human experience: cleansing work, devotion to others, dedication to education and understanding and perhaps, even worldly suffering.  Forgiveness, grace, enlightenment and peace do not come easily, they are earned through earthly experience.  Humanity is flawed, and our redemption is in our effort at compassion, empathy and love... 

So sang the sermons of the prairie winds as my faith found its seat in a pew of wildflowers, along the riverbanks and mountain valleys of Wyoming. 


I am reminded of the gift of a painting that he gave me for Christmas one year, and the powerful written message that came with it:

"For Sarah, Girls Winnowing.  This painting has much symbolism.
Annapurna is one of the greatest mountains in the Himalaya.  I grew up in the view of the Annapurna Range (Annapurna I 8,091m) and subordinates such as Machapuchre, or “Fishtail.”  Some would believe the summit is holy, representing the peak of enlightenment and perfection.  Beneath the mountain two sisters live a simple life, blessed by natural beauty themselves and all around them.  Life on the farm is simple and revolves around work.  They take turns at harvest, building mountains of grain.   One rakes the pile with a wooden tool, deftly tossing grain and chaff to blow away.  Sister stands smiling ready to take a turn with her tray, scooping grain and tossing it in the air, again for the wind to do its cleansing work. For them, the mirroring peaks they build also represent enlightenment and perfection.  They achieve their own karma by following the 8 Fold Path, repeated in the golden border of the frame.  Like life, the mountains are always there for the sisters and they for one another.  Four symbols at each corner of the frame all symbolize eternity and infinity, mystical signs on a small pouch I bought from an old Tibetan lady in 1972, later finding garnets in a stream, such as the two in the yin/yang.  The Symbols in the center of the frame mean “om – which resonates timelessly in meditation and transcendentalism.  My return to the cerulean blue skies took me to Annapurna Himal.   Please enjoy, Love Dad"

Now more than a decade has passed by.  The majestic Wind River skylines of my childhood are gone now, lost to oil drills and roughnecks and the pursuit of the golden machine.  My sister and I are slow to become the wise cerulean mountains in the distance on which my sons will one day reflect as their twin mounds of grain and chaff sit before them.  But our time, too, will come to pass.  I smile as I imagine my children as they learn how to run by the heaven, the stars, the moon and the sun, and toss their trouble in the air for the wind to do its cleansing work.

When I am alone in the half-light of the evening, the twilight and summer wildflowers of the Hoback River Canyon echo in my mind.  My spirit is mesmerized by the never forgotten sound of water rolling over holy stones, and the ageless laughter of my family.  All existence seems to fade to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of a mourning dove singing chorus with the Steve Miller Band as the smell of prairie sage fades to Papa's lilac bushes and a faint taste of wild mountain honey...

Ooh, mama
Well look what's been done
You can only see the stars
After a setting sun
You run for the money
You don't even know about wild mountain honey
Come on mama
Heal this lonesome man
Grow the tree of wholeness
In this desert land 

Come on children
Now learn how to run
By heaven, the stars, the moon and the sun
Come on papa
Your end is the means
Don't trade your love and goodness
For the golden machine
You run for the money
You don't even know about wild mountain honey

For the companion piece to this post, click here: Perhaps this is why, I fell in love with a fisherman.

The Gop's God

 

Women's rights, climate change, the current cry for war against Iran, and the economy, they're all hung up in the same place: the GOP ideology and their false sword and shield of Christianity.   I don't see how "love thy neighbor," the only commandment Jesus Christ ever gave, could be honestly interpreted to mean kick thy mother in the ovaries, stab mine earth with oil drills, and bloody my holy name with the sin of war.  It seems to me that doing these things in His name is the ultimate in wickedness.

As a  result of this warping of religion, solutions to the issues that plague us all and the common sense legislation that could easily lead to better lives for many of us, are being ignored.  I don't understand why we are so dead set on cutting off our nose to spite our face.  I read the blogs, the news, the statistics, the studies.  I lay awake at night puzzling away at the patterns, and the inconsistencies.  I keep coming back to a single shoe string holding this mess together, the GOP's God.  
As a full fledged, card carrying, God loving woman.  I am pissed.  I am absolutely at my wits end at the GOP for using their interpretation of God as a reason to ignore what is needed for this nation.   I am furious at what they have smacked the label of God onto, this idea that "God hates" is of supreme insult to me.  How dare they commandeer Him that way? I mean, is it not truly narcissistic and blasphemous to dirty the idea of God with their agenda?  
Instead of using Him as a reason to exclude climate science from school, or forbid insurance companies from covering birth control, they ought to use God as a reason to forgive that which they don't agree with or understand.  They ought to use science, politics, and reason to further the liberty of those they claim to want to represent.  It is obvious from the political discourse on gay marriage, contraception, climate change, war and the economy going on all over the nation that misusing God in politics is an epidemic.
In thinking about this issue, I am reminded of a passage from "The Audacity of Hope" that shows that not only is Barack Obama a stellar Christian, he's the type of God loving man we want representing us in decisions that go beyond faith:

".... When science teachers insist on keeping creationism or intelligent design out of their classrooms, they are not asserting that scientific knowledge is superior to religious insight.  They are simply insisting that each path to knowledge involves different rules and that those rules are not interchangeable...
Politics, like science, depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.  Moreover, politics (unlike science) involves compromise, the art of the possible.  At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise.  It insists on the impossible. If God has spoken, the followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences.  To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.
The story of Abraham and Isaac offers a simply but powerful example.  According to the Bible, Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his "only son, Isaac, whom you love," as a burnt offering.  Without argument Abraham takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to and altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.
Of course, we know the happy ending - God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute.  Abraham has passed God's test of devotion.  He becomes a model of fidelity to God, and his great faith is rewarded through future generations.  And yet it is fair to say that if any of us saw a twenty-first century Abraham raising the knife on the roof of his apartment building, we would call the police; we would wrestle him down; even if we saw him lower the knife at the last minute, we would expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away and charge Abraham with child abuse.  We would do so because God doesn't reveal Himself or His angels to all of us in a single moment.  We do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be.  So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that are possible for all of us to know, understanding that a part of what we know to be true - as individuals or communities of faith -  will be true for us alone."


With this fine explanation in mind, it's time to get serious folks.  Let us all take our faith and, with love, set it aside for one moment.  Think about all the things that we can understand without it.  Appreciate all the places we can go together.  Even if you are Abraham, or Rick Santrum or the Pope himself... and even if you really do believe in every ounce of your heart that you know God, and your faith is right, then you have still got to know that your evidence for your faith is no stronger than my evidence is for my faith.  This roadblock between us is not a good enough reason to ignore science or math, or war or peace, or poverty or prosperity.
This issue of faith, is holding us up.  
It is separating us from the salvation that most of us are seeking through our faith.  No matter your religion, or lack thereof, I think we can all find common ground.  I think that we can all find reasons and solutions that are tangible and measurable in the here and now that make sense.  I think that for whatever reason, maybe even faith, most people want to help each other, we want to leave behind a livable planet and a working economy and a legacy of peace.  It seems that if we can find ways to do that, even if it means making political and religious compromise, maybe it'll take us all a little bit closer to God.  

The fact is, that whether there is really a need for spiritual salvation or not is debatable.  What is not debatable is the damage that spiritual debate is doing to our future as a society, as a nation, and as a planet.  Look around you.  We are taking away the rights of women.  We are throwing around callous words that could bring our nation to war for the fourth time in less than 15 years.  We are pumping carbon dioxide into our atmosphere that screws with our climate, while throwing our hands in the air in despair at tornadoes, hurricanes, snowmageddons, floods and droughts.  We wonder at people without jobs and our crumbling infrastructure, while we cry that creating new energy sources and building new bridges will take work and money.  This doesn't make sense.  We have the answers to these problems.  We have birth control.  We have peace.  We have alternative energy sources.  We have work.  We have answers.  Using God as a false shield, as an excuse to do nothing in the face of these catastrophe is the ultimate in sin.  I don't care what holy book you read, I don't care if you believe the only sin that exists is sin against humanity, or nature.  No matter how you frame this, it is wrong.  Using God like this has got to stop, right here, right now.