I’m a young Unitarian-Universalist.
So I don’t really know a lot about the theology.
I like the idea of not just comparing religions side by side, but of seeing what happens when you intersect them. (Bahai?)
I was thinking about a person I know who really needs some miracles – or grace, I should say – gifts that he doesn’t earn. I believe in the laws of karma, in that I think if you want a friend, for instance, you have to become a friend; if you want gifts, you have to give. But sometimes people just aren’t capable of making those first inputs into the system; they haven’t been trained, they aren’t aware, they’re so low and down they can hardly move.
But grace is a Christian concept. Can it occur within or with the context of karma? What would that look like?
i lack faith and patience
like waiting for a fish
the one time there’s a bite
and i pull it out, wet and frightened and
it’s grace, and i throw it back to
keep the karma going -
November 20, 2008
Why little strips of translucent plastic scattered across the ball field – as though a plastic tree had been shedding?
Why a jacket, a sock, strips of cotton, abandoned?
Why this blue bowl, cracked, upturned – left here?
What is the animal control van waiting for?
The old beer bottles aren’t hard to figure – but as I collect the plastic pieces – one intertwined almost lovingly with a leaf – I feel both pious outrage at the litter and confusion and curiosity about its origin -
I recently heard one definition of evil as being “the inability to be curious about the inner experience of another person.” (paraphrase – and I wish I could recall where I heard it) This statement nibbled at me for days.
As I try to learn to describe things as they are instead of defining their meanings (good or bad), I try to use my curiosity and imagination to help me with those descriptions, even if they are guesses – then I am not engaged in the very dull, rote exercise of judging those who have trashed the park, but I am engaging in the life that happens here, which is much more interesting and real.
Here’s my outline to explain the residue:
Perhaps some girl was in a hungry rage to eat all the Cheezits in the package – her boyfriend ditched her – she tore, crying, at the package, stuffing them down her throat – A man, letting his dog drink from the blue bowl, heard her howls and ran in the other direction, leaving the bowl behind – a boy practicing soccer grew hot from the effort, shed his jacket, accidentally stomped on the blue bowl – the girl got distracted from her weeping-stuffing-face implosion by the graceful soccer-playing boy – the man’s dog gets off leash and chases the boy and girl out of the park, so the man calls animal control…
?
November 20, 2008
