Have I waited too long?

It is a common human failing of which I am a master. That is: I have waited too long to write, so now what I have to say is too big and too complicated to relate. Let me try to chip away at the edges and we will see what remains.

Sedona is overwhelming to the senses. I lived in Northern Arizona in the eighties (remember them?), and was happy to leave because I had a sense that the energy of the place was too much for me to manage. Twenty years later, I understand the futility and wrong-mindedness of trying to manage these forces. They are what they are; if I am easy with the place and with myself, the goodness of the energy will find a dwelling in my heart, and all else will fall away.

Last week I attended my first mid-week training at the Unity Church. It was a two hour intensive study of the Sunday lesson having to do with “High Mysticism”. Some of you are thinking: “Oh my God – he’s losing it!” You could not be more wrong, so stop it. My point in telling you this has more to do with the spectacular weather that accompanied the event. At sunset, the wind came up, blowing leaves and branches from their hold on bending limbs. Lightning struck the desert all around with thunder following so close it made you jump. Then the first big drenching rain of the summer; it tore at the windows while we sat inside and pondered the possibility of being even more alive.

The Navajo call these sudden storms a blessing. For me, that goes without saying. I remember the summer storms when I was a boy growing up in rural Indiana. The sky would turn green and my mother would round up the family to run to the basement and find safety from the imminent tornado. I loved the excitement of the drill, and some part of me, I suspect, regretted that the devastation never completely hit our home. But even more, I wanted to be on the porch with my Dad, who quietly watched the storm and did not fear the thunder and the lightning. He was fearless, compared to the rest of us, because he lived closer to God and to death, and so – feared neither.

The Buddha tells us to focus on “the out – breath” during our meditation, because that breath brings us just slightly closer to our source than does the "in – breath". When we no longer fear our dying, we may truly live. I’m not instructing anyone to swim with sharks or to play golf in a thunder storm. I am telling you to breathe deep, and to look for wonder in the smallest event.