"The Universe is Made of Stories, not Atoms."

"The Universe is made of Stories, not Atoms."

– Muriel Rukeyser

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY . . .
 
INVOCATION
 
Hear this silent river flowing.

Feel this soft breeze blowing down out of the hills of dark.

See again and again as we watch the miracle of story unfold

and praise this endless giving.
 
In the night of a freight yard, many voices jungle up around the wee hours waiting . . .

Waiting for the train.

Around the fire in the eyes of a lonely hobo

a great dark land looms as fear,

and as promise.

We huddle and stare and watch and listen,

and the story flows like a river.
 
Big trains makin’ up for long away destinations,

you hear them crashin' in the yards,

your hands are black and sooty.

A Zen monk asks if it is permissible to pray while smoking.

Galaxies spinning violently seem a good way to be.

You accept this night.

The light seems brighter in your chest.
 
In these lonesome hours, all the sorrows of your life

come to watch and listen,

storying up their own causes for future rejoicing,

and this is the greatest pain . . .

that in our tea of  joy,

leaves of sadness float.

This is certainly a 'religious' Truth.
 
The only way to explain what a story is, is with another story.

This must be how religion got started, at least it seems that way to me.

So many stories crowd in upon us.

But why tell a story?

So when she turns her head and looks at you,

you do not look away like I did.  

Not once, but many times,

I was not ready for grace,

not now,  not yet . . .

LET ME TELL YOU THAT STORY . . .

       A Naked Girl, A Dead Cat, A Blind Man

It was 1969, and I was seventeen, hitchhiking out of Saratoga, California,

all charged up on religion and some sort of "other-worldly" paradise.

I was praying over and over again for God to show Himself

and anyway, she pulled up in an old Plymouth

and she was naked, totally naked, and blonde,

her skin tan and golden, her eyes glowing with invitation,  

her gloried hair all over her breasts

and beautiful and young and offering me a ride . . .

She was the perfect vision of a surf Goddess!

I had dreamed of her all my life,

and now, here she was . . .  

  
I was confused, caught off guard, flabbergasted, dumbfounded.

I had been dwelling on the attainment of another world,

I had been thinking of the lack of happiness in this one,

and

although I had not attained anything other than my own mind and prejudice,

I said, I actually said,

"No Thanks"

and smiled the worst, most fake, and regrettable smile I ever smiled

and  she said

"OKAAY??"

and pulled off, unbelievingly,  

and so I tell you this story . . .

So when your moment comes again, and again, you look back . . .

say 'Yes,'

reach out and grasp the hand that is given you, for God shows Herself

in unthinkable ways . . .

for grace is too quick for thought,

too quick for any philosophy whatsoever . . .

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY . . .

Driving down Route #1 north of Mendocino in a sports car, 60 mph.

I did see the kids playing by the side of the road,

but I did not see the cat that shot out of their midst

until it was too late.

I swerved the car, trying to miss the cat,

but hit it anyway, a dull thump,

tried to straighten out, went into a spin,

cracked up and was thrown from the car

as it rolled down an embankment.  

The impulse to avoid hitting the cat was based

on a deep-rooted "ideal" of non-violence.

From the age of fourteen,

when I realized that hamburger was a dead cow,

I had been attracted to the ideal of non-violence.

But I almost killed someone in the opposing lane . . .

I almost killed myself.

Non-violence towards a cat almost led to a greater violence against humans.

It seemed my philosophy was not quick enough for Life.

It seems all ideals, no matter how benign, are blinding.

Life happens too fast for Idealism.

It was certainly too quick for my idealism of nonviolence towards animals.  

I was blinded by the light of my ideals.

Now, this is a most difficult issue.

Does this mean we shouldn't have ideals?

Well, the only way to consider a story is with another story, so . . .

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY . . .

 THE ELEPHANT GOD

Once, a master and his disciples were gathered in the jungles of India.

The Master was telling his disciples: "Everyone is God, everything is God, and we

should bow down to God in everyone and everything."

Now, all of a sudden, off in the distance

was heard the bellowing, trumpeting, and crashing of a great bull elephant,

wild with rage; he was, in fact, crashing through the jungle,

precisely in the direction of the assembled group of the Master and disciples.

The mahout (the man who rode the elephant) was shouting,

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way! The elephant is mad!"

Seeing the approaching terror,

all of the disciples and the Master began to run,

except for one who remembered the Master's words:

"God is in everyone and everything,

and we should bow down to God in everyone and everything."

The elephant was thundering towards him, and the Mahout was shouting,  

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!"  

But he only bowed down to the approaching elephant.

The elephant plunged on towards him, smashed him to the side with his trunk,

and thundered on through the jungle.

The Master and disciples came back and, finding him unconscious, revived him.

When he came to his senses, the Master asked him,

"Why did you not run away?"

The disciple replied, "Master, you yourself had said that

God was in everyone and everything,

and one should bow down to God in everyone and everything.

I have simply followed your words."

The Master replied,

"It is true; God is in everyone and everything.

There is God in the elephant,

but there is God in the mahout, too,

and the mahout said,

'Get out of the way.'"
  
  The elephant of my ideal appeared in the form of

‘renunciation,’ and it was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

who first told me about the 'mahout.'

Costa Rica
 
I have always been attracted to what religion seemed to promise

and always thought that to really practice religion, one had to become a renunciate.

When I was 16 years old,

I was full enough of youthful idealism

and had read just enough of Indian philosophy to think,

that if I was really happy, then I would have to renounce the world.

Because all things have a beginning and an end,

it seemed that attachment to anything whatsoever brought pain.

It seemed obvious that attachments to friends, parents, sex, clothes, career and all

the rest of it would ultimately bring suffering,

and thus would have to be given up, left behind, renounced.

One night, after an awakening brought on by reading

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, I left home,

leaving a note for my parents, and after traveling around the United States

hitchhiking, eventually came to live in a religious commune in Costa Rica,

the "flower garden of the Americas".

After I arrived there, I sought to distance myself even from the small group of

Americans around me.

I became their goatherd and lived in a little hut by myself in an upper valley,

secluded from the rest of the small community.

I was very lonely and sad, but I thought that this was a necessary trial

through which I must pass.

There was a young man of 23 at the community, his name was Michael;

I took to him like a young man takes to his hero.

Michael quickly became the personal focus of all my spiritual hopes and aspirations.  

He was very quiet, in fact, he hardly ever spoke at all.

Even his motions were very slow.

I took this all as a sign of great spiritual advancement.

Often, when I would come to visit him in his small cottage,

we would just sit in silence and move very slowly,

when we moved at all.

At the time, it seemed to be the sad and wonderful way to be.

I would milk the goats in the upper valley regularly,

and every day, I would take the milk in metal containers

down to the community in the valley below.

One day, instead of bringing the milk along the jungle path,

I decided to venture down the river over the large round boulders.

As I came around a bend in the river, I saw just ahead of me Michael  

and one of the married women of the community naked,

making love on top of one of the large flat rocks by the river.

I went into a mild state of shock.

I literally could not tear myself away from the scene.

It was the first time I had ever seen anybody making love.  

and I also knew they were  doing so in secret

and that it was somehow "wrong."

I was fascinated, I was crying softly, and I felt terribly betrayed ,

and finally, without them ever noticing me,

I backed up the river

and came down the usual path to the main house.

I had experienced something I could not resolve or integrate,

something I did not have the words or feelings, or understanding to deal with.

I now avoided Michael

and I never sat with him again

and I never discussed the event with anyone else.

In the following months,

I became more and more withdrawn

and eventually came down with Pellagra,

a vitamin B deficiency disease,  

forcing me to leave my upper valley for medical care and attention.

Even under the care of the main community,  

I only became more and more isolated with my heavy secret.

After a few weeks,

I regained my health and decided to leave the community.

I returned to the United States after only one year.

Michael represented my first vision of what I thought was a "spiritual" person.

When I saw him on the river, not only making love,

which, at the time, I thought was a definite non-religious act

(certainly not the act of a renunciate)

but making love with another man's wife, I felt he had failed terribly

and that it was more than ever up to me to persevere where he had not.

I did not in any way have insight or understanding into his or my 'personality.’

I had not yet failed myself.

I did not in any way understand his 'failure' or my idealistic attempt to 'succeed.’

I was blinded by an ideal . . .

Story to be continued . . .