Life Circles

The act of questioning is also the act of exclusion, of growing ever more distant from the norms or common denominators that unite communities and people. It is a tricky decision, whether to pursue the light of truth and expansion of mind or resign oneself to the comfort of community and connection. This is the circular route I see my life taking constantly...


moments of bliss ~~~> moments of existential wonderment~~~> moments of despair ~~~~> neutrality ~~~> moments of bliss~~~~~> moments of existential wonderment ~~~~> moments of despair ~~~~> neutrality ~~~> moments of bliss (ego on joyride) ~~~~> moments of existential wonderment (why am I here? who am I) ~~~~> moments of despair (I am no one, who cares) ~~~~~> neutral zone ("conclusive" state of being as determined by this ongoing process).


... sometimes the states of existentialism and despair are reversed... but for the most part...


bliss ~> existentialism ~> despair ~> neutrality. 


What makes me happy is being able to identify this trajectory. Knowing before hand that a high will not last forever, that a great adventure like doing a play or dancing or whatever it is that gives you that high will ultimately not last forever, that it will ultimately transpire into existential meanderings that then more often than not lead to despair because they remind you of the answer to the exact question that they seek to answer (will this high last forever? is this IT? have I found my PLACE? answer = no), and then descending into a state of neutrality, of peacefulness, of neither happiness nor sadness, of just simply being, ...... (this might not be a coherent sentence hahaha).... the fact that I have come to a point in my life, that I have lived long enough and been attentive enough to be able to determine that this is LIFE, this is the circular process that we (I?) go through, gives me hope, happiness, makes me joyful...it essentially keeps me going. 


The seeking is better than the sought.
-cirque du soleil

People...

Love means in general terms the consciousness of my unity with another, so 

that I am not in selfish isolation but win my self-consciousness only as the 

renunciation of my independence and through knowing myself as the unity 

of myself with another and of the other with me.

(the nation and its fragments)

.... moreso than anything else, do not like feeling displaced. We create and perpetuate all of these crazy theories about human beings not liking to feel imprisoned (by a person, institution, place, emotion) or not enjoying abuse or other forms of "violence," but what they really despise more than anything else is not feeling like they have a place in the world, that they don't matter, that they are nobody or dead to the world or lonely. I'm thinking of the old man in the Shawshank redemption who, after being in prison for virtually his entire life, committed suicide once he was released. I am thinking of myself and how I can go from one lifestyle to the next (in love with school/learning, in love with a person, in love with God, in love with dance/movement, in love with reading, a book, family, blah blah blah...).... and be in love with all of them.... they all offer essentially the same thing... a chance for me/us/human beings to feel placed instead of displaced... to feel connected, to feel like we belong....

I didn't mean to throw God in there with everything else...

and then we die..

but in the meantime there are cool things we can do...
 like try and figure out what our "destiny" is.. and then realize that it is only our "destiny" because we had been bred, since childhood, for such...

or get married and share in the absurdities and perplexities of life with something/one that is constant...

or ....

Sermon

Sermon – Leila Noone

Throughout the course of our human lives, we encounter many different people from many different places. There are those who enter into our lives in passing, those whose memories linger long after they leave us, and those whose influence seems stay with us forever. We are inspired by so many different people; by movie stars and models and politicians and revolutionaries and athletes and intellectuals. We measure success and progress in so many different ways, according to so many different standards. Then, suddenly, we realize that we have been swept away by the rush of life.

We often forget that the most profound and inspiring things are often the messages that are right under our noses, that we need look no further than the little things that people in our own personal lives say to us as wellsprings of inspiration.  

My grandmother was a beautiful writer. Whenever she would give us grandchildren birthday cards or little notes or random letters, she would always sign them “don’t forget to say your prayers.” Even after she had passed away, we would find little notes and letters that she wrote, all ending with this simple reminder about the importance of prayer. I used to read them and think to myself “oh Nuna, you are so cute,” never fully realizing how profound this simple statement was, how truly powerful prayer can be. “Don’t forget to say your prayers.”

In today’s gospel, Jesus extricates a demon from a possessed boy. When his disciples ask him why they were not able to perform such a feat, He responds "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." He reminds us that “All things are possible to him who believes."

 Belief and prayer go hand in hand. When we pray, we are aligning our thoughts with something that we believe in, directing them towards a goal. Prayer, in essence, is a meditation driven by a belief in things-not-seen.

An Orthodox Monk described prayer in the following way:

 "The prayer of simplicity consists of placing yourself in the presence of God and maintaining yourself in His presence for a certain time, in an interior silence which is as complete as possible, while you concentrate on the divine Object, reduce to unity the multiplicity of your thoughts and feelings, and endeavor to 'keep yourself quiet' without words or arguments. It is not difficult...it is marvelously fruitful. It is like a welcome shower of rain falling on the garden of the soul. It gives a most powerful assistance to the efforts which we make in order to avoid sin and to accomplish the divine will."

Prayer and belief go hand in hand. My grandmother realized this when she signed each of her letters “don’t forget to say your prayers.” She in turn passed this message on to her own children. When my brother and I were growing up, my own mother told us never to get her presents during the holidays or for her birthday. Instead, she would ask us to write to her. One birthday, she had us write down our short term and long term goals and where we saw ourselves in 10 years. Today, I see my brother living out that same life path he had written down all those years ago, accomplishing the very things he wrote down on paper both academically and athletically at his university in California. Just as the act of prayer is precluded by the act of believing, so the act of describing precludes the act of creating. We can literally create ourselves into whatever we want to be simply by aligning our thoughts according to a predetermined goal. By praying about that which we believe, we can create our very own live paths and actualize the principles that God wishes us to live by. 

So I’d say the advice that my grandmother gave to me is worth internalizing. Forget your keys. Forget to eat. Forget your schedule. Forget the groceries. Forget your homework. Forget your bad days. Forget your good days. But don’t forget to say your prayers.   

love

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
-St. Augustine