Loving Without Understanding

 Loving Without Understanding

“And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us, but we can still love them. We can love completely without complete understanding.”—Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It (University of Chicago Press 1976).

Beside the Clark Fork, Missoula, Montana

I remember being in Missoula, Montana, visiting our daughter, Joanna, and her husband, Dennis, with our oldest grandson, Mac, and his dad, John. Our hotel is directly on the banks of Clark Fork, and the river is racing in real-time by our small porch on the first floor.

We are mesmerized by watching the high-speed water, but the sound of the raging river enters our being and, indeed, runs through us. It calms. It soothes. In its orchestral movement, it is peaceful. It sounds like a wind instrument, perhaps a distant Native American flute. Sometimes, it has the “Om” sound chanted in yoga and Eastern meditation.

We begin to know the stillness of sitting or standing and observe the wonder of something too magnificent for words as it rapidly passes by. We can become so relaxed that we fall asleep.   Water, moving or still, has healing powers we cannot understand.

I watched Robert Redford’s movie A River Runs Through It with all of our children and most of our grandchildren. We can often quote lines in the film and answer back the responses. Stop now if you have not read the book or seen the movie because I will spoil it for you.

The story is about the Maclean family, a father and two sons, Norman and Paul, growing up fly-fishing in Missoula, Montana. The words quoted today are near the movie’s end, preached in one of the father’s last sermons.

I could almost hear Norman’s father when we rode by that same brick Presbyterian church yesterday on the way to get ice cream. The father indirectly talks about Norman’s younger brother, Paul, who died an early traumatic death related to his addictions.

As I watch and listen beside the Clark Fork, where the Macleans lived and loved a century ago, I also think of those I could not understand but wanted to love completely. Today, my prayers are to continue to try to hear these words from Norman’s father about them. Of course, there are also those I cannot understand and may never want to love the slightest bit, much less completely. I pray to see them in a new light, seeing the Christ in them.  

Loving without understanding may be on the path to unconditional love, God’s love. It is also the balm to heal our differences. Om.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

Walking Meditation: Thich Nhat Hanh

Walking Meditation: Thich Nhat Hanh

“People say that walking on water is a miracle, but to me, walking peacefully on the earth is the real miracle. The Earth is a miracle, each step is a miracle. Taking steps on our beautiful planet can bring real happiness.

As you walk, be fully aware of your foot, the ground, and the connection between them, which is your conscious breathing.”— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns To Joy, a Guide to Walking Meditation

For many years, I would walk around the block in my neighborhood for twenty minutes before going to work at the hospital. The quiet walk seems to calm the committee meeting in my head. Putting my feet on the earth, even the pavement of the street, appears to reconnect my head to my body as I become “grounded.” When I am outside, I always realize there is a world more significant than the one I live in.

There is a power greater than myself. I have trouble meditating by simply sitting, but some movements, such as walking, can lead me into that meditative journey. The Vietnamese Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, is one of the most well-known meditative walkers. This pocket-sized book contains simple mindfulness exercises to think about as we walk.

Thich Nhat Hanh introduces us to several methods of following and listening to our breath as we walk. My pattern became breathing in on the right foot and breathing out on the left. This was similar to walking the labyrinth and paying close attention to the path. In mindful walking, as I stayed with my breath, I saw no more rooms available for that committee to meet in my head.

Thich Nhat Hanh compared walking to eating, nourishing our bodies with each step. With each step, we massage the Earth. When the baby Buddha was born, he took seven steps, and a Lotus flower blossomed under each step. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests we imagine a flower blooming with each step.

We can also practice mindful walking anywhere, between meetings, in hospitals, at airports, and walking to your car. The Buddhist monk also offers several poems to recite while walking: “I have arrived, I am home, in the here, in the now. I am solid. I am free. In the ultimate, I dwell.”

Murfee Labyrinth, El Dorado Arkansas

Joanna. joannaseibert.com

 

 

Benefits of Meditation

 Dissolving the Membrane Between the Spiritual and Actual World

‘If you compare the mind to a balloon, meditation as a religious technique is the process of inflating it with a single thought, to the point where the balloon finally bursts, and there is no longer even the thinnest skin between what is inside it and what is outside it.”—Frederick Buechner— in Wishful Thinking.

Buechner’s thoughts on spirituality take us out of the box. Indeed, in meditation, we hope to enter that thin place where the spiritual and actual world is only a thin layer away. Buechner tells us that meditation can dissolve and break that membrane wide open, so no barrier exists. That especially happens when we see Christ in our neighbor, and our neighbor sees Christ in us.

This explosion occurs when we see the sacredness in the secular world, honor every human being, and care for “this earth, our island home.” That barrier is often broken in the sacraments, especially Eucharist and Baptism. We recently saw it at our church at the baptism of three adults, but this mystery also happens with infant baptism. Earthly holiness breaks through, all wet, sometimes with screaming.

I like the bursting of the balloon because we never know when it will happen. Balloons, like meditation practices, come in all sizes and colors. Some balloons seem not burstable. Some break with little effort. Again, it is a mystery.

Breaking a balloon can also produce chaos. Yet, that is where God most often meets us—and creation begins.