RSS 
E-Mail11 comments
An ancient Sufi poem goes like this:
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly laughing –
Now!
I love this poem because it is something I have lived – something I believe all of us have lived. In contrast to assemblies and seminars and meetings and spiritual gatherings of all sorts where mounts of information is heaped upon us and all sorts of admonishment is coming fast and furious, it only takes one trip to the ocean to hear the voice of creation and know it is here that our Beloved sings.
I do my best to make it to the Caribbean at least once a year just to unwind, release and embrace that primal energy resonating at the waters’ edge. Even as I type these words, with little reflection I can feel the breeze – part air, part vapor – much heavier than the mountain air I’m accustomed to breathing. As I close my eyes and enter into stillness even now I can hear the waves lapping the shoreline, I can picture the rising or setting sun and hear the sounds of the gulls singing that all is well. And it is. All is very well. In the midst of ‘what is,’ all is perfect.
Mine is often a world filled with conversation; struggling for words to bridge transformative concepts between disparate nations, people-groups and sometimes the greatest of adversaries. It is a world of endless dialogue and attempts to mine beneath the surface of the ego and false self. It is here that the true self might be invited out to play.
And while all this talking is going on, all around creation sings. If we would just be ‘still,’ maybe we would discover that the answer to peace and abundance for all humankind is whistling in the wind or found tapping us on the shoulder in the drip, drip, dripping of the falling rain. Maybe we could all just use a dose of lying in the sun, allowing it to warm us in its embrace.
There are days I just want to say ‘enough with words and meetings and memories over past grievances!’ Would it not be more productive and appropriate to stop and look around; to feel our smallness and to regain our life’s rhythm by sensing the flow of nature? Could we not gain from sitting in anticipatory stillness and allowing our meditation to flood our souls with ecstatic realizations rising from the deepest parts of who we are as we’re immersed with the realization that Presence is both within and beyond all things?
Sometimes it is laughable that we, humanity, believe there is such power in our words. It is laughable how often we gather to praise and speak and plan and plot the good things of tomorrow while not taking time to notice that everything within and round-about-us is singing the song of the One, the One who said “Let there be…” and everything changed.
Whatever you do this weekend, be sure you make time for stillness… for there, creation sings.
11 comments to “When Creation Sings”
-
It has been years since someone I know who is a fantastic musician has spent time at the piano or getting to know a different instrument. That’s who he is and was made to be. The chatter of the work world and many voices crowded out that voice. Today he is excited because last weekend he chanced to meet a boy who is a genius on the piano, 16 years old, SUCH enthusiasm for the music. Well it was contagious, it was catching and it lifted up my friend to his old familiar music lovin’ self. Today he is shopping for a new keyboard and talking about learning jazz and blues, styles he would like to master, and about picking up the guitar to try it out.
It gladdens my heart to see him so!
-
What I had to say didn’t tell the whole story. And the reason is I don’t know the whole story to tell it…
What completes a person? For one person it might be music. For another it is something else or several somethings.
What is truth? I love the Sufi response to such a question as laughter at the impossibility of answering.
Why have there been so many prophets? Did they tell the same story or emphasize certain facets of the jewel that the story is? Why are there so many people in the world right now? Are we all saying the same thing in our different ways?
-
-
If we don’t cling to any given note, it’s not because there is not beauty in that note. We just don’t want to miss the symphony.
-
Tim I loved this Post, as I also often feel closest to God when I am at the ocean. I always feel so in awe of the ocean’s vastness and so much of it is still unexplored. I don’t think we can ever know all of it’s mysterys. I feel that way about God’s love and mercy. I am in awe at the vastness of it and as long as I live I will never be able to discover all the mystery of it. Like I do at the Ocean I can just sit and feel the power of it wash over me.
-
Hey Tim, Great post! Brought back such vivid memories…
Growing up, I spent summers on the Jersey shore. I can still hear the sounds of the surf as I played tag with the waves or dug clams for dinner. It really was quite loud or else so all engrossing as I could never hear when I was called to come home.
One day I body surfed with several others. The waves were great! I’d catch one and ride it in to shore. Then, barely standing straight, I’d turn and dive under the breakers until I was out far enough to ride another one in. I did that over and over again for hours.
The last wave I rode in I stood up and looked around. The water and the air were the same temperature. The sky and the waves were all pink and orange and purple with sunset.
Suddenly I realized there weren’t any other riders with me. I stood there taking in the sights and sounds and colors.I wondered how long I had been riding those waves all alone?
Tim, maybe you all should meet at the beach. After all, isn’t that what they say life is? -
[...] And the people. The drivers in the other cars transformed from obstacles and non-entities to being viewed as manifestations of the divine, children of God, sparks of divinity. The hustle and bustle of commuting cars was being observed as a cosmic dance. In a few words, everything became glorious and connected. Creation, as it turns out, was singing. [...]
-
Awesome post. It helped inspire my article over at RockOm this morning…
http://rockom.net/articles/2009/10/12/doctor-my-eyes
-
Thanks Tim. Your post resonates with me. It does me good to read these types of thoughts often, especially when the pace of my life seems to work counter to slow and solitude and stillness.
I’m also intrigued with the word “wild.” I was listening to the late John O’Donohue speak about the wildness of God, and the need for us to recapture a wild faith. Also, Speaking of Faith recently highlighted O’Donohue: “The Inner Landscape of Beauty” – http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/john_odonahue/. That may be of interest to you.
Psalm 19 has always inspired me. Your post directed me to read that psalm again, after not reading it for quite some time. I instantly remember moments when I was still and in awe of Beauty, well over a decade ago.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.4 Yet their voice [b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,5 which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Aaaah YES! I welcome these words! As someone who finds nature to have such a powerful voice in testifying to that which is unseen, your words resonate with me and soothe. I’ve found that I must live in a way that allows for nature’s voice to speak. I’ve stopped filling every waking moment with the noise of words in our world (whether meetings, media, or lamenting what was). If I am always operating in the noise of it, I only find myself “doing” and I miss out on “being”. So, I’m living intentionally with some “margins” as I invite the silence –an environment of great learning. Yet daily, I have to resist the common and worldly temptation to “write in the margins”. I’m finding my own pathway to peace in it, as I am more aware and available for the Presence of Love to teach me, bless me or pass through me to others.