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Reverend
I kin
Age: 41
Gender: 
Joined: 21 Oct 2002 |
 Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:44 am Post subject: Spiritual Moments |
Oddly enough, it had been some time since I'd felt any sort of "spiritual moment" in my life. Of course, the minute you go looking for a spiritual moment, you won't find it, so that this one snuck up on me was no suprise.
No, what suprised me was what it did to me.
I was reading articles for US Environmental History class when I came upon Ralph Waldo Emerson writing on the Over-Soul. As follows:
| Emerson wrote: | | We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally realted; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul...The soul gives itself alone, original, and pure, to the Lonely, Original and Pure, who, on that condition, gladly inhabits, leads, and speaks through it. Then is it glad, young, and nimble. It is not wise, but it sees through all things. It is not called religious, but it is innocent. It calls the light its own, and feels that the grass grows, and the stone falls by a law inferior to, and dependent on its nature. Behold, it saith, I am born into the great, the universal mind. I the imperfect, adore my own Perfect. I am somehow receptive of the great soul, and thereby I do overlook the sun and the stars, and feel them to be the fair accidents and effects which change and pass. More and more the surges of everlasting nature enter into me, and I become public and human in my regards and actions. So come I to live in thoughts, and act with energies which are immortal. |
As I read, a smile spread across me, and my whole body felt warm. I wasn't just smiling on my face, my soul itself was grinning. I was back with my congregation, sitting in my sanctuary on a warm, sunny Sunday of spring. All around us through the glass walls you could see vibrant green flora, hear the sounds of life around you, feel the warm sun penetrate the glass to remind you that there was no barrier between you and nature.
In a moment that feeling would end, but the smile remained. Despite the cold, and the snow, and the dark, and all the other things in life clamoring for my attention, I felt calm and at ease.
It reminded me of my ministers favorite poem, White Heron by John Ciardi. I've been working on memorizing it, as in a way the poem is a Unitarian Universalist equivalent to the Lords' Prayer.
| Ciardi wrote: | What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky — then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please
But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
It's heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.
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If there is anything that I feel sums up this moment, it was that I did praise, by any other name I praised the simple joy of connection, of ligare, with a part of my life I'd not paid much attention to.
So I hope that you too can find yourself sitting-standing-reading a book-buying your groceries-playing with a pet-living your life, and have a spiritual moment sneak up on you, and remind you that you are connected to the Over-Soul.
And if you feel that, praise it, by this or any other name you know it by. |
_________________
Pot, Burden of Dilligence, One of the Pans of the aPOcalypse
PONY's Preacher Man
Token Social Scientist
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Legend
Queen of Terabithia
Age: 41
Gender: 
Joined: 14 Oct 2005 |
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:21 am Post subject: |
<3 Emerson...now we all know why Shan is a Transcendentalist. ^_^ |
_________________
Close your eyes, but keep your Mind wide open.
If Everyone Cared, and Nobody Cried
If Everyone Loved, and Nobody Lied
If Everyone Shared, and Swallowed Their Pride
We'd see the Day Nobody Died.
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Reverend
I kin
Age: 41
Gender:
Joined: 21 Oct 2002 |
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:01 pm Post subject: |
| Quote: | | <3 Emerson...now we all know why Shan is a Transcendentalist. ^_^ |
Emerson was a Unitarian too by the by. |
_________________
Pot, Burden of Dilligence, One of the Pans of the aPOcalypse
PONY's Preacher Man
Token Social Scientist
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Wins 90 - Losses 76
Level 13 |
EXP: 5863
HP: 2940
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STR: 900
END: 1020
ACC: 900
AGI: 880
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GAAZ
MOD Black Sheep Commander
Gender:
Joined: 14 Oct 2002 |
| Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:40 pm Post subject: |
The last spiritual experience I had was the first day I started eating about 20 grams of fiber for breakfast.
About 2 hours later I was on the toilet seeing Myan Temples and the face of GOD.
Seriously, high fiber diets are awesome if you ever really want to experience the full potential of a bathroom.
Granted you can overdo the whole fiber thing like I did today and eat a half pound of prunes and apricots for breakfast and see Myan temples like every 15 minutes. Still smoothe though. |
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I think it's gigawatt when one and gigawatt's when two.
But when there is 1.21 then it's jiggawatts.
Join me pirate crew! |
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