Stables – Bartels' Universe

December 25, 2020

Of a morning… 12-25-2020

Of a Christmas Morning. The wind is down… Still dancing and playing. Enough to blow the porch around… And so, battened, hunkered, sheltered… with family and friends scattered in places near and far… comforted by the stories of the desert fathers and mothers… grumpy and also filled with care, empathy, humor, … a bit dusty from days of wind, piles of sand, blown over and then away… care-worn and yet, and also, and even… filled with humble care, humble love, humble wonder… at the rising sun of this day.

Of a morning. Blessings to each and all beloved. Holding in mind’s eye, the whole of the journey’s host. Some gone on before… the beacons to harbor, to camp, to home. Some off on far away journey. Seeking and finding on a path which, for the moment, has looped away. Some, from a moment of great connection… now on a river, stream, bay or ocean… long shifted in the tide. The parting, perhaps not of the same texture of the shared moment. And, in this dawn, lifting up that moment shared. For, it is the soul moment.

The rest is but cover of other condition. 6DCD975E-1FEF-4A06-B728-86E0B6248E6B

Of a morning. Chipping clay from leaden feet. My own – of course. For every moment of amazing place… a pat of clay to humble in oh so human. The wounding from, these feet have trod… Yet still, the dawning of this day, as each dawning, to fall again in love … at this altar of the world.

A blessing of the dancing wind. A blessing of the warming sun. A blessing even of the dust filled air… even that set of mote – a blessing.

In dreams, last night, again in a barn. The rain and storm… battering against the walls… the machines drawing milk from warm and steaming cows. The stench of manure and urine … of sweet milk and my own sweat. The sacred moment of, sudden care. Just there, sweet hay also is in the stench. A song begins to lift in my heart. For, this is dreaming and waking dream… all wrapped in a moment.

Now, far distant… through years… a moment back in that barn… a sudden remembering and also crystalline vision… on a boat, in a storm, on a flight, in halls in far off lands, at the foot of castles, in ancient stadium, with baton in hand… at letter A, in the 3 with 2, at a birth, at a death… the whole of the host… in the arms of love, in the arms of lyric, of song, of all of creation… of a dawning morning. The fire is burning bright. The wind dances. Children are waking. In this same dawn, a breathing is stilled… the leaf falls from the tree… a train leaves on time… a ship sails, a song… the last note… there, just beyond hearing… fades away… and it is all of this, in each breathing moment.

A gift. A humbling gift of the living moment. 2D3FA2AA-9C15-4F3D-AC10-CF280E6AF4C9

In thanksgiving… in lifting up… in the bidden or not… presence.

And into the dawning of this, this new day.

April 30, 2020

Hubris

Hubris

The heroic journey. Being the hero. As Hero. As Guide.

When the guide comes to the fore, the hero fades. The work of the hero is to be … the hero. The work of the guide is, to engage the journey as well as be in relationship.

Living in a small town. A generous house that allows … music, engagement, a sunny spot to be at the altar in the world.

Hubris

When we, as an agency, begin to align with hero… we become that which we despise.
When I, in agency, begin to align with hero… I become that which I despise.

When shadow drives my behavior. Suddenly ‘winning’ becomes the goal. The wonder of winning… what is that? That place of being the ‘winner’ in this crazy trek.

I hear the speculative nature of living… It echos in my own and of all of the lives that are now in play. The teams that play at speculation are actually based upon being the house. So, when the house owns the line, the house wins. We are working with and … sometimes being… a huge group of folks who have bought into the game of ‘winning’ the big pot. Believing, in the wonder, that we, all of us, own that pot. Now the pot is turned to what is has been for a long time. A grand speculator scheme… a grand Ponzi. And, the iceberg that is the whole of creation… is slowly turning turtle. An acceleration of the swiftly tilting…

And, we, the investors in that grand scheme… we are in a funny place. The last time we rode this pony, it caused us to re-evaluate. And, since then, there has been something holding the moment. For, that re-evaluation, is now the continuing of … holding place on the turtle turning ice…

I woke … the clarity of mixing up the hero and heroic, the hero leader and guide… One leads a parade. One coaches up and over… This is not a parade of leading. It is a journey of comrades. When the comrades are calling for a hero or … seeking that hero who has show the universal feet of clay… there is the moment. My own clay feet, they are still wet from the morning meditation. Created in the past days… swiftly encasing feet, and even whole leg.

When I am vector, just as each of us is vector… Then there is something even more … Something even more. I don’t get to be both inside and outside. We are all amid. And, when the cacophony of amid, together becomes so loud… then the desire to be outside, away, different, … with and alone… in quietude and safety… and able to dance in the glorious…

To try to be both a fighter jet and a freighter at the same time. To deploy as “both/and” … is to risk something of tearing apart at the seams. The Hero/Guide is neither Hero nor Guide. The Guide is one who practices presence; the guiding in the guiding. A hero is one who stands arrayed in power and light… keeping all around safe. There is the hubris of the moment.

1CD2543C-6B94-490D-A751-D19CC95F8B11_1_201_a Seeing all of us… all vectors… all transmitters… all receptors… each in-fected; each and all. In this humbling moment. To understand that something even more is come. In that owning the all, comes the wonder of the journey. The trek. Such is the moment. Great and gracious in care. Great and gracious in care.

Funny too, to come slowly awake and be met with the reading of Easter 19. Acts 8:26-40. Funny to have risen this morning in the understanding of mis-step and mis-stake, only to be guided by a reading that created a grand joke… a humor. A wonderful tension that is both/and; just as this being human is both… and…

The wonder of the joke… both… and. Suddenly this day seems … ‘something about this day…’ A gift. In gratitude, a gift.

Acts 8:26-40
An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

April 7, 2019April 7, 2019

The putter of renewal

04-07-19 A ripple in the linkage across all creation

Sleep was filled with disjointed dreams. Dreams of connections, apparent; yet falling away as if a stage falling away from a speeding rocket. Spent and falling away. In olden times, that stage would then fall to the earth and be sunk in the sea as fodder from the sky. These days… the stage is landed and reused… sometimes.

We are in a time of sometimes. That transition of a from what to a to what… That wonder of links apparently broken and yet linked in so many ways … the falling away, in so many cases actually moving to a set of other links.

When the connection is all to … me; the shift is a wild pulling and tearing. Wild, at times painful and always a challenge. In the renewal this spring, of so many parts of my immediate world… that tearing and reconnecting is strong. The renewal of the plumbing. The renewal of the water system. The renewal of … each aspect of … means a tearing out and then a building back in. The opening of space to allow replacing, renewing, and finding path. The discerning of connections that worked at one time and now, with shift, no longer flow. In that discerning. … In that discerning there is an awakening to opportunity. Seeing what appeared sacred in a new set of ways. Just so… learning something beyond. That place of … It is a great and gracious moment. This wonder… indeed.

Feeling the work of the pulling and pushing… In yesterday’s renewal of space of tank house and garage. That making anew.

Now it is morning… actually, moving quickly to afternoon…

And the gratefulness of yesterday’s work, into today’s putter. The wonder of… just sitting in this moment. That is enough. In grateful moment… enough.

March 15, 2019

03-15-19 Increase and decrease.

Lent 10

“For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” (from John 3:22-36)

To declare a certain set of moments… In that declaration, that observing, that describing; those moments take on scope, scale and context. They live beyond the moment of coming into being, passing through being and spinning on and away. Even in the taking time to describe, to observe, to muse… the moment lives beyond its arc.

The breath. The beat of the heart. The whole of the heart beat. The whole of the breathing cycle.

When a moment is judged in the context of a larger wave, that moment may be living far beyond its ripple.

Into the dark of this lenten moment, a light is shining. That which would grab and hold moment is given free rein to stand far beyond the moment of existing. Defended as special in the face of the wave of next moment. Held against the rushing tide and wave of time… In that defense, a different ripple comes.

In John being clear that the passage of moment is to allow the breaking wave … the breaking wave and the receding wave … in harmonic dance. When one holds the longer… the rip is inevitable. As with each life… to celebrate arc in place …

So, invited to be in moment. Clear in arc. Celebrating each and all in arc. The link of tide, wave, pulse of breath, beating of heart… these are each the more and the less. Room in pattern for each. Celebration in pattern of each. To hold up one is to hold up the whole of the arc. In gratitude, it is enough. In celebration, it is the small wonder of dawning as the lenten cave invites the breathing, the pulse, the dance of all creation; the dance of all creation.

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Lenten Musing and… All Creation

Cleaning up the stables…

Sometimes the flowery words of scripture are like the duff on the stable floor. So overlaid with blather that the beautiful invitation to relationship and conversation are covered over in layer after layer of rococo …

What do you wish in your life? What are you looking for? What are you seeking?

Where are you going? Who is going with you?

The teaching of Augustine: … our hearts are restless until they rest in God…”

What do you wish in your life? What are you looking for? What are you seeking?

Where are you going? Who is going with you?

The teaching of Augustine: “… our hearts are restless until they rest in God…”

It is now a moment… where am I going? Who is going with me… resting in the heart of creation. In my world, the heart of God. The heart of all creation.

All from cleaning the stables. A gift.