Himeji Garden

There is little sign of death as

I wander slowly

round the Himeji garden

walking each time

a different way

and it reveals itself

anew

There is little sign of death

all, I suppose, carefully removed

by the happy man

who I met once

first thing in the morning

sometimes shoving

sometimes pushing

always trimming

and tweaking

what is already

well trimmed and tweaked

there is little sign of death

who rakes the garden of the universe?

it seems too careful for this brash bloke

who removes the death

even when it rains

and circle upon circle

is pitted with droplets

it is soon re-raked

so that the universe

is still serene.

there is little sign of death

Who Should Confess, and Who Absolve?

A good reflection from Killing The Buddha

Who Should Confess, and Who Absolve?
by KtBniks
Our own Peter Manseau has a powerful piece in the Washington Post today, which brings his own mother’s experience with sex abuse at the hands of a priest to bear on the crisis today:

Before we left the priest’s wake, I knelt beside the casket with my mother. I have no doubt she prayed for the man’s eternal soul, for the healing of the church, for the well-being of the pope and the bishops. I did not pray so much as sigh with relief: Finally, forgiveness was not hers to ask for; it was hers to give.

If the Vatican truly wants to do penance, absolution should not be sought in the secrecy of the confessional but in the open air of the pews. And instead of “we Christians,” the pope would do well to begin his act of contrition as I’m sure my mother began hers long ago: “My God, I am sorry.”

Peter’s mother’s case is also a reminder of just how troubling and false is the Vatican’s insistence that homosexuality is to blame for all their troubles.

There’s much more where that came from in Peter’s extraordinary memoir of his family’s unusual relationship with the Church, pre- and post-Vatican II, Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son.

My oscillating view

One of the questions that doesn't get enough attention about religious faith (by people of faith) is the scrutiny of the 'spectacles' through which we look at the world, God, the Bible, stories etc.
Ruth Gledhill of the Times raises the current discussion about whether the 19th century stigmatic Padre Pio was faking it!(here)
It is clear that some people look at the world through supernatural glasses. They want God to be the sort of God who inflicts people with the wounds of the passion, or the world to be the sort of world in which the Blessed Virgin appears to a group of children on a hillside in Southern France or Eastern Portugal. The randomness of these events seems curious, and more likely to happen in some places and to certain types of person than other. Perhaps that fact alone is not surprising, or it should alert us to be more careful.
My concern is that such views of the supernatural, although they seem powerful and dramatic are actually demeaning of the way God relates. I don't doubt that God could do any of these things, but whether God does is another question.
Or is the issue that we want God to be this sort of God.
In fact I do believe God relates to my life, but the sort of change and growth that is being asked of me is far deeper and profounder than just acknowledging various 'supernatural' phenomena. In a way that sort of stuff is easy, you either accept it or you don't.
What is often difficult for us to accept is that God deals with us slowly, that God is patient and that most of the stuff that is "Godly" in lives is fairly ordinary....like learning to love, to seek forgiveness, to practice humility. Too much of this other stuff (stigmatae, visions etc) seems to have a contrary effect. It produces a sort of arrogance, hubris even, and stops the process of ongoing deepening...why should we go deeper when God has wounded us with the supernatural.
Worse than this, it might distract us. We spend so much time authenticating the Shroud of Turin that we lose sight of the poor at the door.
An old Buddhist proverb reminds us to be wary of the supernatural ...If you meet the Buddha on the way then kill him.
It is the journey and its end that is the point, not the temporary distraction of a vision or supernatural encounter.