The Ground of Our Being!
The Ground of Our Being!
"God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction." —Meister Eckhart, sermon on Romans 8:18?
In his writings and sermons, medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) counseled detachment from anything that would separate us from God, whom he understood as the very ground of our being.
I am coming to the end of my three week break, a time of weeping over four young men who died, and of weeping over how the crackdown by the Mayor and Governor are effecting people on the street.
My colleague Rev. Keenan Kelsey use to say to me, "You have a different message than me and others." What she was saying in other words is that I am called to "Bear witness!
To bear witness to the words of Philip Berrigan, "The institutional?church is a major bureaucracy and major bureaucracies are disobedient to the Gospel."?Bearing witness of one who is "outside the gates", as the book of Hebrews tells us.
I bear witness in saying that "presence" and truly "listening" are the cornerstones of spirituality.
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Simply living in the present moment,?being present, and "listening" to others deeply.
We live so far in the future worrying about "everything" and we spend all of our time on social media we lose sight of the pain of the person next to us.
Finally, bearing witness that we should?be present to the people on the street, and stop counting on the government, National Guard and police of "solving the problem."
Instead go out, see people as simply human beings and listen to them, simply listen. As Jesus tells us "Become like a little child," and listen deeply.
I close with a poem of unknown origins that sums up a way of life, a way of being present, of?finding the "ground of our being.":
"Dance as if no one were watching, sing as if no one were listening, and love everything as if were your last day."
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Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
www.temenos.org
415-305-2124