Finding the CENTER

Finding the CENTER

"Strained by the mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence..."
"Within, is the beginning of true life."
"...a dynamic center, a creative life...a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of humans."
"Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center."
"From this holy Center we love our neighbors as ourselves and are stirred to be the means of their awakening..."
--Wise words from Quaker Thomas Kelly,
A Testament of Devotion and The Eternal Promise

The central difficulty though in finding this CENTER
and
living in the CENTER and becoming more and more who we truly can and ought to become
is
that many humans, including some Quakers, state that NO Center exists.

In so many ways, finding and CENTERING is like the story the Jewish prophet told about a seeker of fine pearls who found a wondrous pearl. One first needs to seek!
Then one needs to use her/his reasoning ability to identify and discard fake pearls and fraudulent ones that at first looked genuine.

Then one needs to compare average pearls to fine pearls--average facts to transcendent oughts and great truths.

And then comes the most difficult of all--when finding the ONE pearl of perfection,
we humans need to focus on that central wonder.

Each of us needs to give all in order to acquire the perfect gem.

Let us, in this dark present time of horrific suffering and confusion and delusion--
Seek that CENTER--seek what is true,
what is reasonable,
what is wise,
what is good,
what is just,
what is beautiful,
what is kind...

Live in the Reason which spangled the universe into becoming.

In the Light, in the Center,

--Daniel Wilcox Posted by Daniel Wilcox at 9:11 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: A Testament of Devotion, burdens, Center, creative, destruction, Friends, God, hatred, Light, Quakerism, religious persecution, The Eternal Promise, Thomas Kelly, trials, troubles, war

It Is the Set of Our Sails...

You can’t learn to sail
if the weather is still.


Neither hurricane nor calm will provide a good life.
But the daily stresses and challenges, like the Trade Winds for so many sailors, give us the energy for which we can choose to set our course.

In the Light of the Trade Winds:-),

Daniel Wilcox

John Adams: "You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.”

This is such a catchy maxim, one written by President John Adams
to his son, John Quincy Adams: "You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.”

However, quickly, deeply, key questions arise:

1. Is this true, that you will never be alone?

2. Which poets ought one to include, without so stuffing your pocket it begins to look
like you have a huge wart on your leg?

3. Besides, Adams, spoke of only one poet at a time. So that leads to the more difficult question,
what poet ought one to put in his/her pocket first?

4. And most of all, what poem deserves to be hugged closely to yourself, bleeding deep into you--
one that you read with shock, powerful reaction,
sometimes in delight or in horror,
and eventually with deep reflection
that gets down into the marrow of your bones and heart?

You--with that pocketed poet in your soul and gut--then like the proverbial camel who chews his cud,
you chew on it for years.

The camel goes incredible distances through difficult terrain and inhospitable weather, and can survive without water and other things that most animals must have.

Does any poem do that for you?

Here's one powerful poem, a stunner:


in time’s a noble mercy of proportion
with generosities beyond believing
(though flesh and blood accuse him of coercion
or mind and soul convict him of deceiving)

whose ways are neither reasoned nor unreasoned
his wisdom cancels conflict and agreement
– saharas have their centuries; ten thousand
of which are smaller than a rose’s moment

there’s time for laughing and there’s time for crying –
for hoping for despair for peace for longing
– a time for growing and a time for dying:
a night for silence and a day for singing

but more than all (as all your more than eyes
tell me) there is a time for timelessness


by e.e. cummings




In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

LIVE BRANCH REACH

Live Branch Reach


Writhing twists of growing
Corded effort stretched
Out westward

From the knotted
Leaning
Shadow dark trunk,
Bright sunlight
On the contorted
Slow-year braided flow,

Tribulating
Over
Dry boulders,
Stone-strewn
On the sand-creeked streambed;

Stretched wooden waves
Driftwood wrenched,
Intertwined effort
Convoluting,
Live branch reach

Tributaries
Flowing west with
New green growth
Behind and above
The under shadows
On the barred river sand,
Living driftwood river

--Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Western Friend Magazine,
also in Willows Wept Review
and selah river poetry collection

The Whys of a Theistic Seeker and Humanist

Growing up in a tiny village in Southeast Nebraska, we were taught that God is Love, Infinite Eternal Love, Goodness, Holiness, and Justice without End.

My childhood and youth were so wonderful, even in the midst of the common troubles and trials that every young human faces, no matter how good their family.

At times, we suffered in minor ways, but my sister and I were blessed beyond measure.

And far better and deeper and wider and higher than everything, than the whole limitless universe was the wonder of God, that despite all of the horror and tragedy and suffering facing all of humanity--in many cases situation so much worse than our minor scrapes--
there was the Infinite Care of the Father who loved every single human being forever.:-)

Of course, early on, despite a powerful conversion experience with God, I asked many confusing questions, deeply troubled by contradictions in life, in the Bible, in Christianity that didn't match the view that Life's essential essence was Love.

#1 Why did so many innocent people die of cancer, terrible tornadoes, earthquakes, and famines?
Especially very young ones, infants, children, young people, before they even had a chance to live their lives and do good?

#2 And why were there so many evil texts in the Bible since it was supposed to be inspired by God?

But living in the wonder of the joy of Christian trust and faith, I could transcend
these deeply troubling questions, even if there seemed to be no answers...

Because we were enveloped in God's infinite love--

That is until I met face to face....

with the leaders of Augustinian-Reformed Christianity, who claimed that our Baptist religion was an aberration, heretical, and that we had never been saved!

I met the first one of thousands of these nay-sayers when I was 17. This Calvinist youth leader also tried to convince us that God will call us Christians to commit immoral actions for God!!

(Note: Thank God, I've already recounted numerous times on this blog doing battle for over 50 years against that many-headed theological hydra, so I don't have to go down into that detailed abyss again here, nor share of how it murdered our faith, our trust, our hope, destroyed our lives. It has destroyed so many millions of humans' lives.)

Instead, in this article, I wish to deal with a few of the deep, puzzling and difficult-to-answer questions that have gouged my mind and my life over the years and still are there today:

One of my questions beginning when I was about 12 years old:

#3 Why didn't God emphasize to all of God's people down through the ages that slavery is inherently evil?

And related questions:
#4 Why does Exodus 21: 20 say, "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave...if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money"?

And I Peter 2:18 "Household slaves, submit with all fear to your masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel"?

Think of the millions of humans killed or tortured and harmed and abused because of these and other verses!!

It was Christian and Muslim leaders, ship captains, merchants, plantation owners, etc. who carried out these rules and command, sure that God blessed their slave-owning, even when they were harsh and cruel, even when many of the slaves died in transit.

#5 If the Ultimate Reality of Existence (God, the Divine, the Spirit) truly has benevolence for all things, all beings, why didn't God reveal to humans 50,000 or 75,000 years ago the lethal danger of germs and viruses?

#6 Why did the Divine even allow destructive germs and viruses to come into existence and to thrive?

#7 Why didn't this loving God protect billions of humans from the Black Death, small pox, malaria, cancer, birth defects, and so forth?

#8 For that matter, why didn't God ease the suffering, even protect, all sentient animals, billions of them from excruciating harm and tortured deaths over the last billion years?


To be continued--



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Freedom to Choose

At tragic times like the present when destruction, heartbreak,
debacle, and slaughter 'reign' down--
when the ocean of darkness
seems endless and abyss'd,

remember the gravely etched truth
of the psychologist Victor Frankl who lived at Auschwitz:
















The wonder of being human, of being consciously aware, of experiencing
and living in the transcendent, of seeking the good,
of sensing the 'ought' of every ethical truth
is that each of us understands
(except for determinists of course)
that every human, everyone of us, all of us--
no matter how difficult our troubled life path,
no matter what our difficult circumstances,
no matter our weeping heartache,
no matter how chasmic deep our tragedy--

we are free to choose alternatives in the very midst of the evils,
to reject the horrific wrongs,
to song hope and justice,
to turn toward the Light,
to reach out to others and empathize,
to act compassionate,
and
to care
hell
down
and
out.

"I am not...my circumstances, I am...my decisions."
Educator Stephen Covey

"Any person, regardless of the circumstances, can decide what shall become of them--mentally and spiritually.
Victor Frankl

"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl G. Jung

Let us choose each moment.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Lyric Journey of 240 Years of Seeking

"America" by Simon and Garfunkel

Let us be lovers,
We'll marry...
And walk.. off
To look for America.
"Kathy", I said,
As we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
Michigan seems like a dream to me now.

It took me four days
To hitch-hike from Saginaw.
"I've come to look for America"...

So I looked at the scenery,
She read her magazine;
And the moon rose over an open field.
"Kathy, I'm lost", I said...

Counting the cars
On the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come
To look for America,
All come to look for America,
All come to look for America.

-

"Money" by Pink Floyd, from Dark Side of the Moon

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you're O.K.
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream...

Money, get back
...
Money, it's a hit
I'm in the hi-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet...

-

Yeah, yeah,
Alright,
Alright.

I'm a wheeler, a dealer, the man who's in control,
Don't talk about my feelings, don't talk abut my soul,
Well, you know my time is money, so I've got no time to spend,
But when you got some business, won't you come on by again.

I'm the winner and I made it to the top,
And I took it all, just like I planned,
I'm the man who holds the high card in his hand.

I'm an owner, a loaner, a master at the game,
And I've got that golden Midas touch; people know my name,
There were times I held the low cards, baby, well, I knew they weren't enough,
So I just kept my poker face and won it on the bluff.
...
I'm the man who holds the high card in his hand.

Hey, hey,
I'm the winner,
Hey yeah,

"The Winner" by Randy Stonehill
-

"Richard Corey" By S.& G.

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker's only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he's got.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."

-

There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly saying, "hooray for our side"

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?

"For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield

-

The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
...
With guns on their hands
And God on their side.

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
...
[More wars have come]
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons...
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

"With God on Our Side" by Bob Dylan

-

Oh, you rush to and fro to attain
Though you dwell upon the shore of history
The voice you should have heard in is the letter of the word
Come with me, dear friends, and you'll see

See my life, as it was yesterday
See my life, as it was today
Take my hand and I will show you
Within the moment lies the mystery

Oh, you seek here and yon in your quest
And arrive at the hour of regret
Come fly without distress to the shelter of the nest
Close your eyes, your ears, and forget

Forget life, as it was yesterday
Forget life, as it was today
Take my hand and I will show you
Within the moment lies the mystery

"See My Life" by Seals and Croft

--

I used to dream of being famous
Well, my name would be a household word
...
Now it strikes me as a little absurd

I used to dream of being Don Juan
Of having all these pretty girls on my mind
It made shambles of my mind, so I found myself a wife
Who's a lover and a friend of mine

As the world, keeps turning 'round
You either learn to bend with the wind or it knocks you down
Turn your back on the gods of men
...

I used to dream of being a rich man
Yeah, I swore I'd have it all someday
Once you chase it you will find that it isn't worth a dime
Until you're free enough to give it away

And I used to dream of chasing vengeance
All my enemies would crawl and sweat
Well my happiness was drained from reliving all the pain
Now I'm learning to forgive and forget
...

Turn your back on the gods of men
And the Lord, who is true, will give life back to you again

"The Gods of Men" by Randy Stonehill

-

If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning,
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a bell,
I'd ring it in the morning,
I'd ring it in the evening,
All over this land,
I'd ring out danger,
I'd ring out a warning,
I'd ring out love between,
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
...

Well, I've got a hammer
and I've got a bell
and I've got a song to sing
all over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's a song about love between my
brothers and my sisters
all over this land

"If I Had a Hammer" by Peter, Paul, and Mary


If we follow the versed lyrics of songs from the 1600's to today, we hear what a lyrical, but tragic, often absurd journey we humans traverse.

May we heed the call and the warning, the failing and the rising of these musicians.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Finding the CENTER

"Strained by the mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence..."

"Within, is the beginning of true life."

"...a dynamic center, a creative life...a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of humans."

"Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center."

"From this holy Center we love our neighbors as ourselves and are stirred to be the means of their awakening..."

Wise words from Quaker Thomas Kelly,
A Testament of Devotion and The Eternal Promise

The central difficulty though in finding this CENTER and
living in the CENTER and becoming more and more who we truly can and ought to become
is
the contradictory points that humans, even Quakers, declare about whether the CENTER even exists.

In so many ways, finding and CENTERING is like the story the Jewish prophet told about a seeker of fine pearls who found a wondrous pearl. One first needs to seek!

Then one needs to use her/his reasoning ability to identify and discard fake pearls and fraudulent ones that at first looked genuine.

Then one needs to compare average pearls to fine pearls--average facts to transcendent oughts and great truths.

And then comes the most difficult of all--when finding the ONE pearl of perfection,
we humans need to focus on that central wonder.

Each of us needs to give all in order to acquire the perfect gem.

Let us, in this dark time of suffering and confusion and delusion--

Seek that CENTER--seek what is true, what is reasonable, what is wise, what is good, what is just, what is beautiful, what is kind...

Live in the Reason which spangled the universe into becoming.



In the Light, in the Center,

Daniel Wilcox