{"id":1672,"date":"2012-08-05T20:36:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T03:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegatheringcincinnati.org\/?p=1672"},"modified":"2012-08-05T20:36:24","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T03:36:24","slug":"august-5-2012-poetry-to-a-spiritual-theme-seize-this-summer-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/2012\/08\/05\/august-5-2012-poetry-to-a-spiritual-theme-seize-this-summer-day\/","title":{"rendered":"August 5, 2012, "Poetry to a Spiritual Theme: Seize This Summer Day""},"content":{"rendered":"

Message 102, \u201cPoetry to a Spiritual Theme: Seize this Summer Day\u201d, 8-5-12\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the message or see below to read it.<\/p>\n\n

Just after the end of World War Two, a young soldier and his commanding officer get on a train together.\u00a0 The only available seats were in a small compartment across from a beautiful young woman and her grandmother.<\/p>\n

As the train began its journey, the young soldier and young woman exchanged sly glances.\u00a0 They smiled shyly at one another and then would look away.\u00a0 It soon became clear, however, that they found each other very attractive.<\/p>\n

After a while, the train entered a long and dark tunnel.\u00a0 The compartment was plunged into pitch blackness.\u00a0 Almost immediately came the sound of a loud kiss – a \u201csmack\u201d – followed quickly by the even louder sound of a slap – \u201cwhack\u201d.<\/p>\n

The grandmother was horrified and thought to herself, \u201cI can\u2019t believe the young soldier kissed my granddaughter and I\u2019m glad she gave him the slap he deserved!\u201d<\/p>\n

The young girl was inwardly happy.\u00a0 She thought to herself, \u201cI\u2019m glad he kissed me but I wish my grandmother had not slapped him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commanding officer had a bemused but startled look.\u00a0 He thought, \u201cI don\u2019t blame the boy for kissing the girl, but I wish she hadn\u2019t missed his face and hit me instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the train emerged from the tunnel into bright sunlight, the young soldier could barely suppress a broad grin.\u00a0 He had just seized the opportunity to kiss a beautiful girl, slap his commanding officer and get away with both!<\/p>\n

Such a story captures the kind of \u201cseize the moment\u201d attitude many of us wish we had.\u00a0 How many of us have been presented with a golden opportunity to revel in the delights of life but have been too timid or fearful to act?\u00a0 Indeed, we are often envious of those who find the thrill in life and who seize countless opportunities to find and then experience happiness.<\/p>\n

What holds some of us back from living life with such an attitude?\u00a0 Why do we allow worry, fear, anger or doubt to creep into how we think and thus how we experience life?\u00a0 If our goal is to be fulfilled in this one journey of years we\u2019ve been given – to find contentment in who we are and to build a legacy of helping others – can we say \u201cyes\u201d to joy, laughter and compassion, and \u201cno\u201d to the things that defeat and hold us back?<\/p>\n

For me, summer is the symbolic season that reminds one to grab a hold of all that life offers.\u00a0 Summer is the fulfillment of a hopeful spring.\u00a0 It is the so-called salad days of warmth, expansive opportunity, and joie-de-vivre<\/em>.\u00a0 To make the most of summer is, for me, to make the most of all that is good in life.\u00a0 Gone are thoughts of winter despair or a chilling fall.\u00a0 Everything around me is alive and vibrant and in full maturity.\u00a0 If I seize a summer day, I believe I seize life itself and find in it all that gives pleasure and meaning.\u00a0 And that is an attitude I want to have each and every day I live…<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s read two short Japanese shinto poems that speak to a spirituality of finding joy, living in the moment and saying \u201cyes\u201d to life.<\/p>\n

The Ink Dark Moon<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Song<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Izumi Shikibu, ca. 1000 CE\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 by Issa, 1763-1827<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although the wind\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On a branch<\/strong><\/p>\n

blows terribly here,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 floating downriver<\/strong><\/p>\n

the moonlight also leaks\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a cricket, singing<\/strong><\/p>\n

between the roof planks<\/strong><\/p>\n

of this ruined house.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These spare poems highlight Japanese style and culture.\u00a0 Much like Japanese art and architecture, they draw the mind into introspection such that ideas and interpretations are subtle and nuanced.\u00a0 In their seeming simplicity, Japanese poems are highly complex in structure and symbolism.\u00a0 They paradoxically speak volumes while using the fewest words possible.\u00a0\u00a0 Typically, Japanese poems employ images from nature to address universal human themes of life and death while emphasizing the inherent beauty and joy of life.<\/p>\n

We need not be reminded that our lives are difficult and that struggle defines many of our years.\u00a0 The human condition is certainly not one of perpetual paradise and that fact daily confronts us with how we might live and react.\u00a0 We struggle in our minds and in our souls to open our difficult lives to moonbeams of contentment – or to songs of joy in the midst of river streams that threaten to overwhelm and drown.<\/p>\n

What Issa and Shikibu eloquently convey is our human yearning to overcome the struggles of life, to transcend them not by mere force of will but by recognizing, embracing and saying \u201cyes\u201d to life itself.\u00a0 Indeed, it might be said that all we really possess in this world is our own life – the experience of living – and how we choose to care for this one fragile possession \u2013 that defines who we are and what we might become.<\/p>\n

What this boils down to is the great question we are asked to answer in life: do we figuratively seize the day, carpe diem<\/em><\/strong>, or do we say \u201cno\u201d – refusing to bask in moonbeams because of doubt, fear, worry and timidity?<\/p>\n

Spiritually speaking, saying \u201cyes\u201d to peace and joy in the moment is the goal of almost any world religion.\u00a0 It is, in essence, to find the peace that passes all understanding – peace in who we are, peace in our circumstances, peace in how we live.\u00a0 It is the Buddhist effort to find nirvana and rest in perfect balance, it is the Christian desire to find solace in the promise of a better existence, it is the Jewish and Muslim life of duty, obligation and purpose to a higher God, it is the humanist\u2019s design to dwell in unity with all creation. Such are all the common \u201cyeses\u201d of world religions.<\/p>\n

In that regard, Issa\u2019s cricket might be a symbolic figure found in any faith – singing joyfully that this life is not all there is, singing peacefully content despite what life brings, living obediently to a god controlling its destiny or drifting in union with water, air and nature.<\/p>\n

Jesus implored his followers not to worry about tomorrow and to live in the present – tomorrow will take care of its own troubles, he said.\u00a0 He also employed images from nature to encourage a contented human mindset.\u00a0 The lilies of the field bloom in glory and abundance just for a day, he pointed out, knowing that tomorrow they will wither and die.\u00a0 They have seized their day.\u00a0 The birds of the air do not store and save but live in the abundance of the here and now.\u00a0 \u201cCan all of your worries,\u201d he said, \u201cadd one moment to your life?\u201d<\/p>\n

King David, in Jewish mythology, is described as returning from victorious battle and exulting in the moment by literally stripping down to his tunic – his underwear – and dancing through the streets.\u00a0 This decidedly non-royal behavior was ridiculed by a few but implicitly sanctioned by his God of celebration.\u00a0 Like the young soldier in my opening story, David chose to revel in the sheer joy of his moment – a Biblical story used for approval of the exultant life.<\/p>\n

And we find in the Islamic tradition the quest for salam – <\/em>for peace through submission to Allah.\u00a0 He will prosper his followers with paradise and usher in a realm of eternal contentment.\u00a0 Most importantly, life is to be one of devotion and obedience thus experiencing the elusive salam <\/em>\u2013 and thus allowing Allah\u2019s moonbeams to leak through the cracks of troubled lives.<\/p>\n

Like the Japanese poets and world religions, other writers, philosophers and comics have all pointed to the carpe diem<\/em><\/strong> ideal.\u00a0 Mother Theresa said, \u201cYesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>\u00a0Erma Bombek wryly noted, \u201cSeize the moment.\u00a0 Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 And in his haunting novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls<\/span>, Ernest Hemingway wrote, \u201cOh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet.\u00a0 Now and forever now.\u00a0 Yes now.\u00a0 Always now.\u00a0 And not why, not ever why, only this now and always, please always, now.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>What Hemingway beautifully conveyed was his own fictional soldier seizing life in the moment – refusing to consider that life is oh so fragile and could be snuffed out in the horrors of World War One carnage.\u00a0 For that soldier, to live in peace, it must only be \u201cnow.\u201d\u00a0 So it must be for us.<\/p>\n

What we note is an encouragement to adopt a mindset of Presence – which is the title of a book many of us read as a part of our Book Club several years ago.\u00a0 Such a philosophy captures much of what we believe to be spiritual ethics – like empathy, forgiveness, trust and love.<\/p>\n

If we live life with a desire to \u201cBE<\/strong>\u201d – to seek being<\/span><\/strong> rather than doing<\/span><\/strong> – we find empathy with and for others comes easily.\u00a0 Listening and understanding another person in the moment of now is our goal.\u00a0 Indeed, such empathy is not merely for people or creatures – it is an identification and presence with all that happens in the lifetime of a moment.\u00a0 Sights, sounds, smells, tastes and emotions felt in the eternal \u201cright now\u201d are acknowledged and experienced deeply.\u00a0 The young soldier in our original story felt the excitement of his attraction to a beautiful young woman and fully lived in one glorious kiss; the cricket sings joyfully at the bliss it feels drifting down a stream; the religious worshipper finds lasting peace in a moment of prayer; each person seeks the eternal now in contemplation of an eternal death.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The one who says \u201cyes\u201d to life, he or she forgets the past, its shame or heartache, and refuses to consider an unknown future.\u00a0\u00a0 We yearn to live forever in the recurring now, the now of ALL nows.<\/p>\n

So too comes the spiritual ethic and process of forgiveness.\u00a0 We choose to let go of the past.\u00a0 We do not condemn ourselves to an unhappy future.\u00a0 We choose steps and ways to refuse to live in anger and find, instead, a present peace with enemy and friend alike.<\/p>\n

Love also exists, for me, only in the present.\u00a0 What I felt about another person yesterday or last year is gone.\u00a0 I have only its memory which may have been love at the time, but is now a distant emotion.\u00a0 Who and what I dream to love in the future is just that – a longing for something I may or may not experience.\u00a0 For me, love is REAL only in the moment – the devotion, loyalty and rapturous affection I feel and experience RIGHT NOW.<\/p>\n

Such ideals constitute the philosophy of existentialism described by the French writer Jean Paul Sartre.\u00a0 We exist, we know, we love and we act only in the moment.\u00a0 All else is either the past, which might be interpreted a thousand different ways, or the future which is unknown mystery.\u00a0 My being is HERE and my existence is only now.\u00a0 Such is the only reality and truth.<\/p>\n

What all of this means for us in life is as complex and simple as the Japanese poems I read earlier.\u00a0 In our ruined homes of life, how do we let moonlight leak into our minds and souls?\u00a0 When drifting down uncharted rivers – heading for rapids, whirlpools and certain death – how can we sing like a cricket, a Japanese symbol of happiness?<\/p>\n

The answers we offer for the how of that process are many, and none are conclusive.\u00a0 Indeed, as much as life itself is a struggle, so too is the effort to be at peace and live in happiness.\u00a0 As simplistic as it is to carpe diem<\/em><\/strong> – to seize the day – or as it easy as it is to note that we should sing like crickets – the means we take to do so are more complex.\u00a0 We must listen more than we speak.\u00a0 We must observe and watch more than comment or judge.\u00a0 We must choose to unshackle our minds to thoughts of worry, sadness or fear.\u00a0 We must determine to simply BE<\/strong> – to rest in the breathing and heart beating and exist alongside all else that happens in a moment – the traffic outdoors, the stirrings of people around us, the sound of my voice, the light through windows.\u00a0 This is reality.\u00a0 This is truth.\u00a0 This is finding pleasure only in that.\u00a0 Nothing else exists.\u00a0 No worries.\u00a0 No anger. No fears.\u00a0 Now.\u00a0 Now. \u00a0Now…<\/p>\n

I find myself so often living contrary to such truth.\u00a0 I too often live in my past – in my pain and hurt and doubt of all that I have experienced.\u00a0 As much as I have worked to be real – to be the Doug that I am in this moment – I too often retreat to the son who feels the slights of his father, to the fearfully closeted gay man I was for so many years, to the people pleaser who only wants others to like me.\u00a0 Just as I sometimes dwell with ghosts of my past, I fear the prophets of my future – the unknown forces waiting to bring me down through illness, loneliness, or failure.<\/p>\n

In such thoughts of my past and my future are the seeds of present unease or discomfort.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to die alone.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to feel the pain of a failing body.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to reap the displeasure of others.\u00a0 I yearn to be at peace, grateful, joyous and really alive.\u00a0 I hope to matter and make a difference so that I am not soon forgotten.\u00a0 As much as I mourn my unorthodox schedule and life patterns, in doing so I miss the beauty of friends in my midst, of my daughters reaching out to me, my work that is enjoyable and fulfilling, my very existence that is a privilege if I ponder the alternative.\u00a0 Failing to live in the reality and celebration of now, I miss out on really living.<\/p>\n

This summer day can be one of capturing the warm sun on my skin, a humid breeze that cools me, the smile of a person I know, the sound of music in my ear.\u00a0 In my ruined house, in my small branch drifting in the river of life, I\u2019m alone and scared and saddened.\u00a0 In that reality, in that recognition of the pain of my life, I must answer the eternal question all of us are asked.\u00a0 Will I right now kiss the young girl or guy, will I dance in the street in my underwear, will I bask in the moonlight, will I sing strong and loud?\u00a0 Will I say \u201cyes\u201d to this reality, this life, this moment in time and embrace it all, or will I say \u201cno\u201d, and forever let slip that one moment\u2019s chance to find peace?\u00a0 Let me, I pray, choose this day – and only<\/span><\/em> this day – to truly live.<\/p>\n

I wish each of you, in this moment and on this day, much peace and joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Message 102, \u201cPoetry to a Spiritual Theme: Seize this Summer Day\u201d, 8-5-12 (c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved Click here to listen to the message or see below to read it. Just after the end of World War Two, a young soldier and his commanding officer get on a train […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}