What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous.
God is a glimpse into the meaning of the totality of human experiences, where we recognize that we are part of an ultimate grasping after a universal consciousness with which we are one and in which we are whole. . . . God is present whenever a person transcends human boundaries and sees the portrait of unity, not separation. God is the journey beyond the fear of loneliness into a new wholeness . . .
~ from ETERNAL LIFE: A NEW VISION by John Shelby Spong
Springtime greetings, dear friends. Even though there may still be some cold days, we've come around again to the time of year when nature outdoes herself, gloriously bursting forth with the burgeoning life that has lain dormant and hidden during the cold months of winter. Even the most pragmatic among us might feel like waxing poetic when in all directions we see only the beauty of the earth and feel again the soft, gentle air of spring. Surely the presence and glory of God are never more obvious than during a beautiful spring! It's time for us to grow and bloom as well., for we are part of nature; as new life bursts forth in nature, so it does in us when we allow it. Happy Springtime, friends!
I believe we are part of the universal rhythmic process because we're all a part of nature--we are in it and of it. So like the ingoing and outgoing waves, we breathe in a similar way--we flow. Cosmic creativity and creative evolution are always going on. Everything is always singing.
Nature's intent is neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else in which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly nature seeks, hunts, tries to ferret out the track on which God may be found. . .
No matter what the weather looks like outside the window, life is warming up. Something in nature knows what it is doing; even if from time to time winter icily touches the napes of our necks with its cold fingers. . . . Woods will fill with black-birds and grackles, and swollen buds will cling like small birds to wet branches. . . . Old oaks sleep as long as they can, while the rest of creation exhibits an aching restlessness to move on. As everything begins to move, an almost forgotten song plays in our chests, the music of beginning again. The early small birds flit here and there on the rising winds; a lone, red-winged blackbird sits unmoving in the empty cherry tree . . . waiting . . . To live is to change, to move through one transition after another, to reinvent one's life, as needed. . . .
~ from AN ALMANAC FOR THE SOUL by Marv and Nancy Hiles
The need is for the connection to nature within ourselves; only then can we understand how to act toward nature outside ourselves. Along with the obvious crimes our culture is committing against the natural world, we would be wise to remember that the main crimes are the crimes against our inner nature. From these inner crimes all the outer evil arises. This is the teaching of wisdom.
