Rigid people

This week I encountered once again a chap at work who is very narrow minded and rigid. He’s inflexible and I must have some of that nature in me. I know I do and that’s what burns me about him. This morning after rising I looked outside my window and there on the ground was a little bird, laying on his back, feet pointing toward heaven. He was stiff as a board. I wondered if he had flown into our window and died. I’ll bury him later, but then I mourned briefly his passing. I’m connected to all that is. There is nothing that is that is not connected to me. When I become rigid I forget that. I love the Tao te Ching and the wisdom of Lao Tzu. He was a holy man, a saint who lived before Christ.

When alive, the body is supple, yielding.
In death, the body becomes hard, unyielding.

Living plants are flexible,
In death, they become dry and brittle.

Therefore, stubborn people are disciples of death, but
Flexible people are disciples of life.

In the same way,
Inflexible soldiers cannot win (a victory).
And the hardest trees are readiest for an axe to chop them down
Tough guys sink to the bottom, while
Flexible people rise to the top.

Christ was flexible and when Christians become inflexible they do not imitate Christ

His voice

Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice.–John 18:37

What is the truth? I don’t hear the voice, but I sense it in the silence of my prayers and in the silence of my life. Martin Luther King heard his voice. All the great prophets have heard that voice and it has moved them to speak. From silence they have been moved to act and speak. I think Mahatma Gandhi must have heard that voice too.

I think Jeremiah Wright heard that voice too. Pastor Wright spoke prophetically about an America that the status quo doesn’t want to see or maybe they can’t see. The pundits and the politicians have reduced life to a sound bite. Mysticism is seeing with the eyes closed. In the 81st chapter of the Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu writes:

Sincere words do not sound nice,
Nice-sounding words are not sincere.
Good men don’t argue,
Argumentative men are not good.
The wise are not learned,
The learned are not wise.

Wisdom does not inspire the accumulation of goods;
Living for others makes for a full life.
The more you give away, the richer you are.

The Tao of heaven is to benefit, not to harm.
The Tao of wisdom is to do your thing, but not to compete.

It seems to me that those who criticize Jeremiah Wright do so because of blindness. They are not at fault. They cannot see nor can they hear.