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"Those who know don't speak. Those who speak, don't know." Tao Te Ching

Sometimes I realize that every time I open my mouth I am merely revealing my idiocy. Not so much in what I am saying, but in that I need to say anything at all. Sometimes speaking is more a way at straining toward meaning - toward connecting with others/myself/life/etc. in the midst of such alienation - than a means by which I think I might actually come to any meaningful conclusions. I think sometimes the questions make me isolate - or feel that way. Talking breaks the isolation - or at least pretends to.

My whole life seems a little unreal right now. There is this tugging at me in so many different directions, and I am sitting there wondering if it matters what my dreams are - what I long for. Then I wonder if I'd have any idea anyway. And I don't think it's so much about my dreams as it is about my authentic understanding of what it means to be in the world for me - Jonathan - not dictated by my schizophrenic super-ego that now can't even agree on one single way to guilt and shame me into being not good enough, but traps me so that even if i listen to one directive I end up violating another (American-dream super ego vs. Claremont School of Theology Progressive Christian super ego, etc.). Sometimes I step back and wonder who the fuck I am!!!

Because if I don't know, what good is it going to do to go forward when I basically feel like the numbed out videos you see of people prodded along lines onto the trains that will take them to Dachau? Yeah. Morose image.

One thing I've realized is that none of us knows how to stop. We know how to do, to act, to learn, to grow, to strive, to produce, to rest (for the sake of recharging, ie. to produce better), but I don't think rest is for the sake of working better. I think Heschel agrees with me. Work preceeded God's rest. There's something sacred about stopping - about stillness - that is an end in and of itself. I wonder what will happen if the progressive liberals end up having amazing victories in the political spheres - new legislation to protect the environment, new laws governing treatment of immigrants, etc - but no one learns how to stop - how to slow down - how to do nothing.

There's a line in the Tao Te Ching - "can you be still until your mud settles and you can see clearly? can you do nothing until the right action arises by itself?" I think we can fight all the battles for environmental justice that we want, but until we learn to stop the incessant need to produce - be it production of nuclear arms or production of new green legislation - then we will never be settled. And if humans are never settled, we will always need something to destroy, something to dominate, something to use or utilize, some addiction, some entertainment, something. We don't know how to be with ourselves. We don't know how to be with ourselves. Our culture is built upon noise - and persons who seek silence amidst their daily lives are estranged and seen as weird.

Our culture moves us from one tv show to the next, gives us entertainment after entertainment, and i do NOT think we will know how to be at peace again until we start to live in harmony with nature and with ourselves. When we stop the habit energy of production - the proving of ourselves to others - we will be able to start returning to a place where we can be more at peace. But until we are at peace with ourselves - we will always need more distractions to run to. more distractions means a need for more toys, more recreational devices, places, vacations, etc. What if our vacation were a sabbath? Or a tea ceremony? A meditation? Yoga or tai chi? How are we at simply not moving, letting the murky water we are constantly stirring settle so that we can finally see what our faces look like?

Perhaps we can take a day and simply do nothing. Perhaps we can simply take 3 hours and do nothing. Sadly LA is broken in a lot of ways - it is hard to find a lake, or a quiet field or forest where we can just be. Don't journal. Don't process through things. Don't take a bible and read it. Don't learn anything. Just sit and don't do anything and see how damn hard it is. Watch all the conditioning pull at you - scream at you about how you are wasting time and life.... See if it shocks you how much your body and mind scream and rail against simply being still. See if it shocks you to realize that deep down there is this sense that simply being you is not enough - you have to do, to prove, to struggle, to strive, to prepare, to plan, to create, to store away in expectation, you have to study or pray or teach or help or journal or process or any number of things.

No wonder we are so easily convinced to need new toys. New tools. New vacations. My deepest prayer is that I can learn how to rest, with each of you - to be a sabbath, to experience a sabbath's sacred rest. To have a simply tea ceremony that lasts 2 or 3 hours. There are so many things. May I - May you - May we - live in such a way that we are enough without all of our doing - may we find a world where each step, each breath, is enough. Where we can be right where we are.

Peace and Grace. Namaste.