Zero

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equilibrium, judgment, seeing, stasis, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, zero

The temperature on my phone’s weather app reads zero degrees (F) – a large oval sphere with a small circle outside its upper right corner. The sun outside is puzzlingly brilliant until I notice the telltale sparkling of ice on the upper branches of the trees. Only the most intrepid and well-dressed adventurers would welcome a hike on a morning like this. “But it is so beautiful,” my inner voice says. I know that to be true, but know as well the dangers of too much cold. Wise people need to be prepared on days like this.

As I look at the zero, I begin to muse about more meanings of the word. Is there no weather advice in a zero? Does it mean there is no warmth and no cold but rather stasis? (i.e. the state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces) It does seem very quiet outside – no cars, no voices, no movement of the trees – just…zero. I am also in a period of semi-stasis. Nothing is moving as I sit in this chair except my fingers as they move across the keyboard of my computer. Everything in my bedroom is at a point of zero when considered in this way. Nothing moves. I know, however that as my prayer plant sits in a stance of reaching out toward me and appears frozen in that position, there is consistent growth going on under the surface. And I know the same to be true in the stillness of my body as I feel breath moving in and out of me.

Thus I begin to shift the lens to see zero more as equality rather than nothingness. I am no more or no less – on the inside – than anyone else I might encounter. Warm and cold might be seen as relative terms from the perspective of an Inuit and a resident of Southern California. Perhaps we ought to think more of moving toward zero in all of our judgments, especially about people. Hmmm…

Peace Work

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equilibrium, outrage, Peace, political discourse, pray for peace, psalm 48, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Psalm 48 speaks today of the heavenly city where God reigns as a stronghold. It seems right now that in our country we are moving further and further away from that notion of “a holy city built on a mountaintop where peace reigns.” Politically, we become more and more divided by the day and a serious outbreak of violence seems inevitable as our president upends all of what we hold as the values of our democracy.

Questions of how to speak truth to power while maintaining our equilibrium become more difficult to answer. It is clear to me and to many people with whom I speak that solutions/responses cannot come from our political discourse. All must be grounded in the bedrock of inner work. Silence (which I’ve heard is “God’s first language”) must precede action or violence will result. Perhaps we will not be those who throw the rocks and start the fires, but if we do not come from a place of inner silence our words will cut like a knife and do a kind of damage that is not easily repaired.

Let today be the day we increase our efforts toward peace. Stop talking about your outrage and pray for peace. Stop vilifying people with whom you disagree by volunteering at a hospital or a shelter. Don’t get in your car until you can drive from a place of peace. Use up the energy that fuels your anger by working in a garden – yours or one providing food for the poor – pulling weeds and removing rocks. Think of something along these lines that will work for you and commit to it for the long haul.

Pray for me as I will for you that we will all come to the peace that we offer to our country and our world as our commitment to the future.