Getting naked

To my ear, the phrase “Lest we forget” has a chiding, slightly ominous ring to it, echoing George Santayana’s platitude that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. In fact, the opposite is true. Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Look at the oldest cultures on the planet, how they fight with themselves and each other. And with such ferocity! In the spiritual sense, we renew ourselves by forgetting ourselves. This happens every night in the state of deep sleep. If it didn’t, we’d go mad. And we do it consciously via meditation, wordless prayer, or total surrender to what is. We even do it just before we take a bath. By ridding ourselves of convention. By getting naked.

Death at the doorstep

Who will be the first to drive a stake through the dark heart of ambition? Young man! Ambition leads to competition. Competition leads to conflict. Conflict leads to death all over the place. See how swiftly ambition conjures conclusions. And how the mind shuts with a clanging sound and the ability to learn dies at the doorstep.

Toward a healthy masculinity

Nothing devours energy like conflict. It’s a great gaping maw into which all goodness and potential disappear. Jesus said, “Resist nothing.” His ministry was a mere three years, from which we learn that a long life is not important and that peaceful men have inestimable power. They “mount up with wings as eagles; they run and are not wearied; they walk and do not faint.”

Man offended

Surely the world has never not been disturbed, riven and violent. Even our corporeal selves are full of cellular antagonisms and warring entities. Why are we everyday freshly offended by this immutable fact?

War and peace. Briefly

When a concern for the common good overtakes our longstanding preoccupation with me and mine, peace will prevail. In the meantime, war is inevitable. We strive to hold individuals and agencies accountable for war, but in fact no one is responsible. Unless everyone is.