I found this poem the other day at Northwoods Contemplative and it speaks to me in the most amazing and direct way. I am in a period of intense wrestling with my relationship to institutional religion, while my faith in God and experience of sacred presence has never been stronger.
Forget Everything
If someone says, “To be enlightened you must
fast and pray all night,”
Have dinner and go to bed.
If you see a sign, “This way to salvation,”
run the other way.
If someone says, “This book is the truth,
you can buy it from me,”
Take your money and buy grapes and roses.
If someone says, “He’s talking tonight,
thousands will be saved.”
Go for a walk…listen to the birds
and watch the clouds, and leave
your backpack, your Bible and your Buddha
under a tree and hope
they will be gone when you return.
Where we are going you can’t carry anything,
not even your name.
If there is logic in the above,
be afraid, it’s a lie.
But if you feel something in your chest
as beautiful as the grass beneath your feet,
be grateful…open your arms
and forget everything
you ever thought you knew.
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
(photos taken in the Killarney Forest in Ireland with a wide angle lens, I love the sense of awe and disorientation it creates)
12 Responses
I think intensely wrestling with institutional religion can only bring life :) Wrestle on. And thanks for this blog; I lurve it.
Thanks Kievas. In many ways I am enjoying the struggle too.
Very true Songbird. I love your phrase: “we are participating in a further unfolding of truth.” That sums it up beautifully. I am not interested in rejecting religion altogether, I am just in a place where I need to question pretty much everything. Then I know when my struggles have subsided I will be closer to truth. Thanks for your engagement with this.
Christine, considering that the texts and the institutions themselves were influenced by human desires and opinions and agendas, I would say we are participating in a further unfolding of truth.
Enjoyed the poem (and photo). I think most of us wrestle with institutionalized religion at some point. For many years, I simply avoided dealing with it it altogether. I hope you find peace.
Toile is a great word Rich, thanks for sharing that with me. :-)
Looking at these photos posted here for some reason also make me think of “Where the Wild Things Are”
It only took me 6 hours to come up with the word I was searching for to describe your photos: TOILE. Along the way, I discovered that that word is appropriate on several levels. Here’s the snippet from Wikipedia: “toile”, is a type of decorating pattern consisting of a white or off-white background on which a repeated pattern depicting a fairly complex scene, generally of a pastoral theme..” Isn’t that cool?!
Yes Tess, isn’t it lovely to surrender to a more intuitive way of knowing what is deeply true?
Thanks Bette, I love the effect of these photos too — it would translate well to carving I imagine. Re: religion, yes, I haven’t shared much of this on the blog, but indeed I am being called to something I have not yet named and in the meantime, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. :-)
Thanks Songbird, yes that is an important distinction. One of the things I wrestle with though, is how much we can pick and choose, and when we do so is the religion left with integrity or is it a product of our own desires?
That’s a really beautiful poem. Helpful, too. I’m not so much struggling with the institution as hoping to communicate to others that they don’t need to swallow things whole, and this really says it.
nice poem. i absolutely love this photo. the disorientation of it is very effective. this would make a great woodblock print.
interesting. i would not have guess you were experiencing this as well, christine — you and i are in the same boat on wrestling institutional religion.
“Experience of sacred presence”. Yes, that’s it for me, too. I continue in my attempt to make good my escape from the need to understand everything rationally.
And the wide angle lens works beautifully.