Musings

Promises, Promises

What's a promise worth, any more?

Surely one of the most peculiar phenomena in America's peculiar politics has been Grover Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge. It was signed solemnly by countless Republican politicians over the last couple of decades. But it was a scruple disconnected from any real consequence. It's sort of like a public declaration that you won't step on a crack so you won't break grandmother's back. Norquist's pledge made no more sense than to declare that you'll never pay more for a gallon of gas than you do today. It's a promise likely to be mooted by circumstance.

Such as the fact that there is no way out of the federal fiscal hole without some kind of tax increase. Thus Grover Norquist, until recently the most powerful unelected political figure in the country, is on his way to becoming an anachronism. Republican members of Congress and the Senate are coming up with inelegant excuses for breaking the promise. Like certificates of stock in a bankrupt company, their signed pledges are no longer worth what it costs Norquist to store them in his vault. Soon his anti-tax crusade will be small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown in the tub.

It's easy to make light of the revealed absurdity of the no-tax-increase pledge. But this occasion invites deeper consideration into the nature of vows of all kinds. Norquist's pledge was never much more than a ploy for him to control the flow of campaign cash. But more substantial promises are often broken. We live in a society where about half of all marriages end in divorce. Does that mean that the promises made in half of all weddings are meaningless? I've officiated at hundreds of wedding ceremonies. I have failed to find any patterns in the behavior of couples, as they get married, that would suggest the ultimate outcomes of their unions. Divorce statistics don't dampen the intense sincerity which couples express in their vows. When people commit themselves to each other forever, that eternity exists in the moment. Forever is a quality of the here and now. Hopefully, it builds on itself, day by day, to create a future in which the promise stays alive. How many tomorrows will forever last? We don't know. Things change. Sometimes the promise evaporates more than it breaks. Marriage can die a natural death that may be nobody's fault. The vows lose their meaning in the new reality, but that doesn't take away the meaning they had when they were first uttered.

So let us be gentle with the politicians who took Grover Norquist's pledge. History has erased their signatures. The pledge made no sense in the first place, but that doesn't matter now. They don't need forgiveness for doing what they swore they'd never do. They don't need to make excuses or prevaricate about what they meant when they signed. We can't expect them to eat crow, because the crow has flown on.

From this moment in history, let us learn to discern carefully before we invest our hearts and minds in promises. Let's save them for things that matter most, humbly recognizing that the only future we'll ever know is the one we feel and imagine in the here and now. And let us be graceful in times when promises lose their force and meaning.

JIM BURKLO Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo See my GUIDE to my books, "musings", and other writings Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Hope Unseen

(I wrote this poem in 1979.)

Hope Unseen

(John 5: 37-47, Romans 8: 18-25)

When one comes in a never-uttered name

God wins the glory for all that is done:

It's in hoping for what cannot be claimed

That every inch of justice is won.

We hope alone for the hard-to-conceive,

And so we see more of what has occurred;

We listen for groanings we've yet to perceive,

And so hear more than we might have heard.

Our hope is God's eye for creation's tendency

From it comes the gift of living patiently....

The Flow

One day, several years ago, I took our dog Kai for a walk.  Just outside our home in Mill Valley, California, next to our steep driveway, was a flume where water ran in the rainy season.  Halfway down the driveway, Kai stopped, fascinated by a little waterfall in the flume. The water poured, steady, smooth, and shining, over a crack in the cement.  Kai tried to grab it with his teeth and play with it.  He could not accept that it was not a solid chew-toy.  Every time he put his teeth around it, all he got was wet. 

 

I was fascinated by Kai’s comical perception of the solidity of the flowing water.   But my observation of Kai led me to reflect on my own perception.  The little waterfall was not a solid object:  neither Kai or myself could chew it.  But what was it?  What was I seeing? I didn’t see the individual water molecules pouring over the cement.  All I could see was the slightly-wavering reflection of light from the surface of the otherwise invisible water.  I saw the secondary effects of a flow, without fully perceiving what was flowing.

 

I lead a meditation group for students at the University of Southern California every Wednesday at noon.   My meditation practice is simple but challenging.  I try to watch my thoughts and feelings as they arise and fade, without judging or directing them.  I try to observe carefully what I am experiencing, with love and acceptance.  Today as we sat in our circle in silence, the memory of that moment with Kai (whose name means “water” in Hawaiian) came to me.  I realized that my emotions and sensations are not isolated, discrete things.  They are constantly changing and inter-relating.   If I try to grasp any particular thought or feeling, it has already begun to move on or into something else.  I can wrap neither my teeth nor my brain around these experiences as they move through my mind.  At most, I can observe the shimmering signs of the flow.  

Meditation is much like watching a stream tumble over rocks.  It's an awakening to the inter-related nature of all things, the lack of tidy boundaries between now and then, the fundamental lack of predictability in the cosmos.  In contemplation, we see signs of reality more than we see reality itself.  But being left with mere hints of what is, rather than certainties, points to the very nature of reality.  Meditative practice gets us closer to the raw root of things, as it liberates us from our assumptions.  It's okay that we can't get a handle on reality.  Knowing that we can't is as close as we can get to chewing on a waterfall.  

Falling water is a beautiful mystery for humans and dogs alike.  So the flow of the mind is an alluring mystery to appreciate in prayerful silence, whether or not we ever can apprehend its contents.

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM     Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See my GUIDE to my books, "musings", and other writings
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Quotations from Jim Burklo

 

Oddservations:

(Many of  these will appear in my forthcoming book from St Johann Press:  HITCH-HIKING TO ALASKA: The Way of Soulful Service)

 

You and I get ahead when nobody else gets left behind.

 

What others say I have created, I know only has been revealed to me.

 

What am I missing that would enable me to know what I am missing?

 

We take too much credit, and lay too much blame.

 

You are the beauty that you see.

 

I yearn to be present in this moment, until I remember that my yearning is present in this moment, too.

 

I am here to be and to see, not just to do and get through.

 

A road that ends in paradise has no need of two-way bridges.

 

I need to be humble about being humble.

 

There is no “thank” without “you”.

 There's not what is without what's not.

 

Wandering, I stumbled upon my purpose; adrift, I made port; unbidden, love arrived; asleep, I learned my lesson; in silence, notes danced across my score; dreaming, my problems solved themselves.

 

Dignity or bread: don’t make me choose!

 

What makes a noun proper?  Could it be the same thing that  makes a verb tense?

 

What matters most: freedom to, or freedom from?

 

Can you give me freedom?  I doubt I can give it to you.

 

The aroma of justice makes the heart hungry.

 

You broke my heart, and truth fell out instead of spare change.

 

If I own what you owe, I’ll reap what you sow.

 

I want to live in a world in which directions are marked with feathers instead of arrows.

I have hiked trails through land so beautiful that now even my shoes have souls.

 

I saw a large paintbrush lying in a gutter in a gritty city.  I hope the artist will come back and finish the painting.

If mud obscured my eyes long enough to break the spell they put on me, could I then see deeper into the heart of this muddy world?

 

Wait for grace when you are stuck between the cross and a hard place.

 

Look for leaf causes, not just root causes.

 

I'm a mountain broker: where life has gone horizontal, my job is to arrange an uplift.

 

Since I gotta be on a cross, give me one with a view.

 

(After meeting someone for the first time)   I hope our crosses pass again.

(Wishing someone good luck)  I'll keep my crosses fingered for you.

Language has its limi

 

On God, Faith, and Religion:

(Many of these are from my two books in print, OPEN CHRISTIANITY and BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS.)

When you hear me talk about God, you are hearing poetry.

Poems are receipts I give to God for the experiences she gives me.

 

God is Love for some body, not just any body.

 

Can God be the subject of a declaratory sentence? 

 

God: a wonderful friend, but a troublesome concept.

 

I'm an agnatheist.  I'm not sure there really is such a thingas an atheist.

 

On my night hike, a coyote stared at me.  “Dinner?” her eyes asked.  “God?” asked mine.

 

God may sleep in my storm-tossed boat, but when she rises, so shall I.

 

Belief in God can be an unsatisfying intellectual exercise, but knowing God is a heartfelt spiritual exercise. (Open Christianity)

 

Living faithfully – living “as if” – gives you the strength and imagination to make the world a better place.  (Open Christianity)

 

The gospel is true not because Christianity is the one true religion.  The gospel is true because you can find it in the stories of people’s lives, anywhere, anytime.  (Open Christianity)

 

When we are fully able to face the suffering of the cross, we can begin our own path to salvation.  (Open Christianity)

 

Conversion is not just about turning to Jesus: it is about entering into the experience Jesus had when he found God within himself – the Christ.  (Open Christianity)

 

Rituals give us inward mobility.  The movements of the ceremony take us to places in our souls that would otherwise be hard to reach.  (Open Christianity)

 

We are able to relate with other people only because we are able to relate to ourselves as if we were others… (Open Christianity)

 

Let the church open to all who seek to know God and follow the way of love, no matter what language they use to describe it.   Let it open to all who seek the kind of relationship with God that Jesus had, no matter how they sort out the myths from the facts of Jesus’ life story.   (Open Christianity)

 

Christianity follows the humble faith of an empty man.  So how did we Christians become so full of ourselves?   It’s time to empty ourselves of the belief that our religion is better than others.  (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

Prayer is like a hike along the shore of the soul, whether it’s full of dancing waves, or drained to reveal the mud and the junk.  (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

The good news about religion is that it helps us to see things that are invisible.  And the bad news about religion is that it helps us to see things that are invisible.  One challenge for us as faith-seeking people is just this: to sort out the difference between the unseen things that are worth seeing, and the unseen things that aren’t.  (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

To be a real friend to yourself, listening and responding with love, is to be God's friend. And from this compassionate relationship within, you will be moved to serve others more beautifully. (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

What’s the true test of Christian faith?  Is it to accept that all, or even most, of the stories of the Bible are literally, factually true?  …  But why should such credulity, so facile for so many, be the price of admission to the Christian faith?  What if the true test is to love the unlovable?  That’s a very steep price for everyone to pay.  (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

It is wisdom to be aware of the depths of our ignorance.    (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

What has more truth?  The front page of the newspaper, which lists facts, or the story of the gospel, which consists largely of myth and poetry?  I am convinced that you will find more truth in the gospel than in the newspaper.  (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

We can leverage the little faith we have today, so that we can move more than mere mountains tomorrow.   (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

The Christ within us transforms BUT into AND, AGAINST into THROUGH, FOR into WITH.   (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

Listening is what happens when the words of others go deep enough into our souls to take root.  Like soil must be broken and tilled to be ready for seeds, our souls must be broken open in order to make way for what others need to tell us. (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

Faith is what happens when we stop pretending that we are entitled to divine exceptions from the laws of nature.  Faith doesn’t exempt us from the pain of this world, but it does give us an experience that transcends it and gives it meaning.  Faith is the paradox of knowing our mortality and our immortality at the same time.  Faith embraces the contradiction that we are separate, limited creatures and we are also one with God.   (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

As Jesus emptied himself into the bread and the wine, so we revere the other creatures and people who, like him, have emptied their lives into ours.  (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

Let us feast on bread and wine in spiritual communion, and fast from all that keeps us from communing deeply with each other and with God.    (Birdlike and Barnless)

 

Marriage is a spiritual path.  A way of being together that liberates each of you from selfishness, from the attachments to material things that cause so much suffering.  Marriage is a refining fire that with your passion for each other can burn away the dross of your lives and melt your hearts down to the gold of pure unconditional love.  (Birdlike and Barnless)  

 

 

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM     Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See my GUIDE to my books, "musings", and other writings
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California