The Empty Yard

With the commandment to “Go play together,” the young boy and girl skip into the yard, an empty field of bare grass. A blank canvas for their fertile imaginations.

“Let’s play Tag!”

“Ok!”

One reaches out and pokes the other, then runs away squealing. The other chases. After a few minutes, two mothers glance out the window and smile. All is good until The Incident. The current “It” reaches out and brushes a sleeve – light contact, at best.

“Hey, you’re It now!”

“Am not! You didn’t touch!”

“Did too – I touched your sleeve!”

“That don’t count. Besides, I was Home.”

“Was not – Home is over there.”

“Is not cheater!”

“You’re the cheater!”

A flying blast of sod escalates the confrontation. Soon a scream and crying pierce the air as perplexed mothers rush out. An empty yard, filled with imaginary rules resulting in hurt feelings and physical violence. What went wrong?

And so goes human nature. What an incredible power we posses, to create something out of nothing. We can create worlds from blank paper. Music from silence. Rules from anarchy. Boundaries from empty space.

We need rules, of course. Our systems organize us, give us structure in which to advance and grow. So we create imaginary boundaries and laws, then imbue them with the power of our belief.

And there’s the key: communal belief. We cannot paint a boundary in an empty yard unless we all believe it exists. Our communal belief creates the structure and order we desire. In fact, it is the only thing that creates this structure. Without communal belief, it doesn’t exist.

Of course, the truth is, it doesn’t exist even then.

It is not the incontrovertible fact of a rule’s existence which we recognize and honor. It is our combined belief in this rule. And does this belief help us? Without communal belief, we have no rules for the games we play. No laws to order our society.

No religion to bring us salvation.

No boundaries to fight over.

No “other side” to kill or die fighting.

But in the end, they still don’t really exist do they? And if a rule that doesn’t actually exist is causing hardship, then doesn’t it benefit us to question it, challenge it, dissolve it back to the nothingness from which it came?

Who threw that clod of dirt on the playground? Who knows. Rewind. Was Home over here or over there? Rewind. Did the sleeve count? Rewind. Let’s play Tag. Rewind. Moments of unbridled joy. Rewind. Children running into the yard. Rewind.

The yard is empty. No rules. No joy. No suffering. It is empty.

And so it was. And so it will always be.

Candle in the Shadow

I just came across this old favorite again:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandela 1994 Inaugural Speech

Since the election results came in, I’ve been feeling a bit depressed, sort of closed in and full of anxiety for what the next four years will bring. But beneath it, I feel a ribbon of hope. It’s a hope borne of determination not to succumb to that fear. A hope for the strength and power that comes from being “a child of God.”

Mandela’s quote helps me remember that this strength and power lives within me. It’s that connection with the Divine. It’s that joyful, playful spirit that dances inside this body.

We are already free. We always have been. And what better time to celebrate our beauty than now?

I will not lend strength to the troubles of our country by naming them directly. I imagine that anyone connected with the spirit of Life can feel the same potential for sadness that I feel, and for the same reasons.

I’ll say instead that with the changes our country currently undergoes, we who have a commitment to Spirit, who see beneath the structures and patterns of our society, who understand the nature of this world and the next, have an opportunity. This is the time to be Ourselves. Our True Selves. Unmasked. Uninhibited. Unbridled. Full of all the joy and hope and peace and love and beauty and truth of life itself.

This is our time to “make manifest the glory of God that is within us” and to live that glory in our daily actions.

This would be our path in any age. But I feel that in the context of all that is Not, we can give greater strength to all that Is. For the next several years, we’ll have even greater opportunity to see the power of this connection to the sacred.

It’s not my place to label good and evil. I feel we all start out the same and discover our version of reality in large part because of the context of our environment. Even so, I feel that this is my time to be a candle in the shadow.

I’ve been late getting started. Now’s the time to do the work of a Higher Purpose.