Declining the Invitation

Jon

I seem to have learned something very valuable: to decline certain negative invitations. For instance, I’ve had migraines since puberty, but now when the first stage hits?visual disturbances, flashing lights, stuff like that—I have the ability to refuse the pain that comes after. It’s like I might not be able to keep the UPS guy from knocking on my door, but I can refuse to sign for the package. My last several migraines, I’ve consciously (and successfully) just refused delivery.

Tonight, I felt another negative invitation, to physical sickness. I know it sounds strange, but my experience with qigong and reiki has sensitized me to sometimes be aware of subtle goings-on inside my body. Tonight, I got an invitation to a bad cold or sore throat, something that would’ve been quite unpleasant. I declined, and spent a pleasant bit of time consciously fighting the infection I felt brewing. I’m confident I succeeded, and I’m going to be well tomorrow and throughout next week.

I also got a chance to see how prone I am to accept so many other negative invitations. Stress. Fear. Anger. Sure, I’m a happy mystic who loves the whole world—until I’m running late for work in a grinding traffic snarl. Why didn’t I see the invitation there?

(Them): Hey, Jon, let us introduce ourselves: we’re a traffic jam, the clock inside your car, and the deadline you should’ve met yesterday. We’re inviting you to enjoy hours of tension and excess stomach acid. Please play with us!

(Me): Hey guys. I really appreciate the thought—it’s nice to know I’m not being left out,—but seriously, I’m afraid I’d rather hang on to a positive attitude of peace and happiness, even in these circumstances. See you around.

Lord, help me to decline the invitations!

That’s Jedi life in the real world.

The Navigator: a medieval odyssey

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Navigator poster The Navigator (New Zealand, 1988) is a wonderful little spi-fi (spiritual fiction) gem. Great movies aren’t always “masterpieces”? the big, conspicuously-wrought if not over-wrought works. There are also gems?small films on tiny budgets that pack more meaning and feeling in 90 minutes or so, than George Lucas did in the most recent seven hours of Star Wars. Please don’t confuse this movie with the cheesy 1986 children’s sci-fi The Flight of the Navigator. This is different. Very different.

The setting is a village in Celtic Cumbria in 1348, which is anticipating arrival of the Black Death any day. Griffin, a boy in the village, has been having visions (filmed in color in an otherwise black-and-white movie) of a journey to the other side of the world and erecting a cross on the steeple of a huge, white church. When his older brother Connor comes back from a journey, he brings news that the Death is much closer than previously feared, and will probably begin striking the village when the full moon sets, which is the next morning.

Griffin inspires the men of the village to follow him to a cave where they can punch through to the great city on the other side of the world, and erect a cross as an offering to God to spare them from the plague. There, in the cave, they see the strange sights that Griffin’s visions described, and depending on him as their guide, he navigates them through the frightening vision that is 1988 Auckland, New Zealand.

I don’t want to give anything else anyway?but suffice it to say this is perhaps the most realistic look at mediaeval British village life ever shown in a movie. The peasants, though illiterate and superstitious, are intelligent, and respond to the horror threatening their world with perfect faith and trust in God, as well as in the visions of their young mystic, Griffin. Ultimately, though, the offering that is needed is not of a cross, but the teacher’s demonstration of love.

This is a brilliant metaphor of Christ’s descent into hell, and the bodhisattva heart. It’s a paean to those shepherds, teachers, shamans, and navigators who devote their lives to guiding us in the territory that only the soul can see. Directed by Vincent Ward, director of Vigil, Map of the Human Heart, and What Dreams May Come, The Navigator also has a brilliant, moving film score by Iranian-born Davood Tabrizi. Only complaint? Subtitles would be useful. I’m an American. I don’t speak that English!

Seen on the Web

Jon

Sometimes there’s nothing better to share than what others have been sharing:

I’ve encountered an exceptionally beautiful blog, (some of you know it already), that of Sadiq Alam. The title is “Inspirations and Creative Thoughts, and the address is mysticsaint.blogspot.com, both of which are perfect descriptions for what I see there.

From a link from Twyla’s blog, I found another link that had this link “Martin Zender. This site might be the best expos? of the misunderstanding of “hell” as “eternal torment” on the Web, and I’ve added it to my list of hell-blasting sites on God is Love.

Here’s a bit of humor for anyone who remembers The Shining, the scary movie with Jack Nicholson and Shelley Long. Here’s a parody trailer for it, found at Real Live Preacher.

Don’t look down!

Jon

As my teacher explains it, in spiritual development, you can only see things as they appear at the level you’re at, or at the lower levels you were at. You can’t see higher than you are.

As soon as he told me that, I realized something about one of my most pernicious faults, which is that I have a creeping, recurring, intolerance for the levels I’ve left behind. When I “look down” at that spirituality, I sometimes (though I hate to admit it) “look down” on the people there, especially their leaders who are “there.”

In any sort of climbing endeavor, the best advice is “Don’t look down.” Looking down causes you to lose your balance. You’re suddenly focused not on present Reality, but past experiences through the distorting lenses of memory. Look up. at the highest thing you can see in this bright fog, the next hand- or foothold within your reach.

Don’t look down.

Overheard

Jon

At a church this morning, where the pastor was using the analogy of God as a builder:

Pastor: It’s not like you’re a nail. God’s not interested in whacking you like a hammer.

(From the congregation): A screw?

Pastor: No, He doesn’t want to screw you, either!

A Cure for Procrasination

Jon

Here’s a cure for procrastination I discovered: It’s the
Foxy Tunes extension for Firefox (And c’mon?I’ve said it before, but seriously, if you’re using Internet Explorer, be good to yourself and switch switch to Firefox!)

This extension allows to control your favorite music player from the status bar of the Firefox browser. On of the optional controls is an Alarm Clock / Sleep Timer function. If I’ve been putting something off, I’ll select 10 minutes on the sleep timer to do the off-put thing while I listen to my favorite iTunes playlist. (And if I want to listen to more music, I have to agree to do more work and reset the Sleep Timer!)

It’s working for me !

Enso

Jon

My teacher (very confidently) tells me that nothing is coincidence. He sees everything as a single great unfolding.

And my reaction is usually to say “Huh?” with quite a bit of skepticism. Sometimes, however, the “coincidences” are just too frimmin’ to be coincidences. For example, Sunday I created the favicon for the site, with an enso as the design. (Enso is the Japanese word for the Zen symbol of emptiness, a hand-brushed circle.

Less than two days after I created the enso favicon for this site, I received an email from a reader in Salt Lake City, who sent me an %enso% of his own, which I’ve included above. Isness works in mysterious ways?it ain’t coincidence.

And tonight in the grocery store parking lot, a great bumper sticker:

That was Zen. This is Tao.