Life on the Edge

A week or so ago I received from America a small, yet potent gift of Kentucky bourbon fudge made by the Gethsemani Trappist monks. The side of the box offered this insight: “The monks of Gethsemani are called to a balanced life of prayer, sacred reading and work”. I pondered and mulled over this for a few days and, in the end, decided that my life wasn’t too much different than that of the monks (even to the point of being celibate for two years). Nothing was intentional. It has just evolved into this pattern. And, (mostly), I gracefully accept it. Prayers happened throughout the day; formally, during the daily rituals of sitting at the Peace Fire and surfing or randomly, when carving or simply staring into the treed hill side. Sacred readings are eclectic; anything from Rilke’s “Book of Hours” to Michael Pollan’s “The Botany of Desire” and David Suzuki’s edited collection “When the wild comes leaping up”. But what is my work? The poet Mary Oliver, when writing about her future death, says: “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” She wants to be the bride married to amazement. She wants to be the bridegroom taking the world into her arms as she thinks of "each person" as precious to the earth. She wants to have made of her life something particular and real. Her work, therefore, is to insure that this happens. Likewise, for me. As I watched on TV tonight film footage of our Australian government's brutal treatment of refugees as though they were less than animals, I wept. As I heard Phillip Ruddock, minister of Immigration, defend the government's position, the tears turned to anger, turned to the realization that complacency is no substitute for compassionate action. We all have much work to do.

Late this afternoon, near the center of a large circular native grass sanctuary, I lay down on the warmed earth. The ground was soft with moistness, but not damp; the grass no taller than a golf green. The autumn sun was pushing out gold. I lay on my back and looked up into a blueness where angels must surely live and where painters could only hope to live. “Oh, my god,” I said. “Oh, my god.” ************** How many more days in the years that I have left will I be graced to bear witness to such wonder? More importantly, though, how many of these days will I allow myself to lay down and look up? I don’t want to squander a moment. I want to savour each golden ribbon caressing each black cloud. I want love to ooze over me.