Do you believe in God?
This is certainly a question we have all been asked and asked ourselves. For some, the answer is an unequivocal yes or no. Among the many voices we hear are those who claim to know with virtual certainty not only the existence, but also the true nature of God, and God's intention for humankind and the world. Others assert that belief in God is not only mistaken and irrational, but potentially immoral if used to cause harm.

For many, the answer is not so simple and absolute. After years of reading and hearing the accounts of contemporary religious seekers, I can report that the real question for many is: "Who or what is the God I can believe in?" Those who ask this question seek a conception or image of God that is true to their own experience of the divine and satisfies the demands of heart and mind. The search for new images and stories about God is, in fact, one of the most dynamic features of contemporary religious experience. New concepts of God are emerging that incorporate the profound developments in knowledge and changes in values currently transforming humankind's understanding of itself and its place in the world.

The quest for a God I can believe in begins, for many, when the notion of God received from their religious tradition, family, or culture is no longer persuasive, comforting or inspiring. There is a "death of God" experience. Sometimes this results from the absence of God in a time of critical need - that is, God appears to be either uncaring silent or non-existent. Other times it is a response to a profound experience of sacredness, beauty, or love which calls for a new understanding of God. The quest for a new image of God manifests in two different - but complementary - ways: as the "God of form" and the "formless God."

Many of us are familiar with the wide variety of forms in which God is depicted in the world's religions. People enter into a relationship with the God of form as partners in an ongoing I-Thou experience of seeking and finding, support and intimacy. For such a relationship to be possible, the God of form must embrace qualities meaningful to the seeker. Religious feminists, for example, seek images of God which include the feminine dimension - for a "God who looks like me." Likewise, different images of God around the world embody the diverse values and identities of various cultures.

Religious traditions also affirm a formless dimension of God which is ultimately mysterious and beyond all descriptions. St.. Augustine advises, "If you understand God, it is not God you understand." For the fourth-century Christian theologian Gregory of Nyssa, "True vision consists in seeing that (God) is invisible."

For many, the discovery of the formless God begins with an experience of wonder, awe, or deep meaning which reveals a sacred dimension of reality. It may arise while gazing on the beauty of an autumn forest, sitting under a star-filled night sky, in a moment of love or creative inspiration, or simply marveling at the wonder of existence itself. In these experiences, God is a mysterious ground or presence within and behind all things, not a concrete form or being.

The notion that there is only one true image of God has been the cause of religious strife throughout history. Religious conflict may well decrease when the humility and openness we experience before the wonder and mystery of life encourage us to see belief in God as more complex than a simple yes or no question. In the contemporary quest for new images of God, we realize there is always a sacred dimension of mystery in which all forms dissolve and which also gives birth to a rich diversity of forms.

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Many today are living what I call "mystical spirituality." By this I mean a spirituality grounded in some form of mystical or "peak experience" of the ultimate unity and wholeness of reality. From the mystical view point everything is inter-connected and inter-related, all part of one great community of being. Many of us have had such a mystical experience while in nature. In fact, one of my annual pilgrimages is a trip to Yosemite Park, California, to hike in the High Sierras. On one of these trips several years ago I had an experience which has stayed with me ever since.

Imagine a late August afternoon in high granite mountains, the sky is clear blue with a few white clouds drifting in the distance, the sun is bright and pleasantly warm. I hike for several miles up from the valley, along the bank of a rock-strewn Bud Creek - its water tumbling downhill over huge boulders or settling into deep, hollowed-out rock grottoes. I follow the stream to its source high up in Bud Lake, where melted snow catches in the chalice formed by the surrounding hills. Circumambulating the lake I stop to rest for a while in the shade of a stand of hardy pines at the edge of the tree line. Something inside calls me and I continue uphill, toward the sheer rock face pushing almost straight up, too steep and solid for even the hardiest plants to take root. I walk through a landscape of delicate white, red, and yellow flowers springing from the green carpet of the alpine meadow. I reach the base of the cliff at the boundary where mineral and life meet, where the wandering fingers of yellow and green reach up into gray granite. I find a comfortable spot to lie down among the rocks and look out over the lake and the mountain peaks in the distance. I rest a moment in peace, suspended; open to the vast blue sky and the majestic power of the stillness. In this moment there is no effort, no seeking, no thought, no care - there is simply the awareness of being present, here and now, in this place. Nothing moves. An all-pervading presence fills the space and radiates through the sky, the rocks, the living earth. I relax and the feeling deepens into quiet, unbroken awareness. I am here, in the landscape, part of the scene, nothing more, nothing less. Then in an instant, unexpected but entirely natural, a revelation comes. A voice deep in the sky - or is it deep in the heart? - proclaims: "I am a God of beauty, and this is how we pray."

An ecstatic thrill courses through my body - pure affirmation and joy. Yes, yes! "I am a God of beauty and this is how we pray." The open sky, the towering white cloud above Cathedral Peak in the distance, the dark blue lake below, the green life all around bear witness to the revelation. Yes, it is absolutely clear, true beyond any doubt, obvious, self-evident. This is it! This is what I have been searching for! In this I can rest! Yes, life is beautiful and, in this moment, perfect. Nothing lacking, nothing sought. I am part of this vast universe of beauty, not something foreign, other; but no, I am not just a part, I am this vast universe of beauty. "Thank you" wells up from the core. Thank you for all this beauty, thank you for the body and its senses that make this experience possible, thank you for the whole mysterious flow of life I am blessed to share in, thank you for this saving gift. I have seen the "answer" and I will not forget.

What do I take from this experience? What are its implications? First, I am reminded to be aware of the beauty around me and how much beauty adds to the enjoyment of life. Second, I realize my true human identity as an inseparable part of all things, which brings with it a sense of compassion and responsibility. Third, there is an undeniable sense of being embraced by something larger than myself, that I sometimes encounter as an I-Thou, but which is also not "other" to me. Finally, sometimes amidst the many activities and challenges of life I simply stop to recall the view of Bud Lake and Cathedral Peak beyond as a kind of prayer that sustains me, and sends me on my way again.

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It's all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.

-- Thomas Berry, Catholic priest and theologian

Imagine: 15 billion years ago the universe was hidden in a state of potentiality, possible but not yet actual. Then for some reason -- beyond science's understanding -- the universe bursts forth from nothingness, exploding into being in the Big Bang. In an unimaginable moment of expansion the universe blossoms from a single seed -- smaller than a subatomic particle -- that contains all the matter and energy that has ever been or will be.

Through a dynamic process billions upon billions of galaxies, stars and planets arise and populate the night sky. Five billion years ago, a planet forms around an unremarkable yellow star in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Less than 1 billion years later, the planet's wondrous physical and chemical processes make the emergence of self-sustaining organic life possible.

Over the course of 4 billion years, life evolves, transforming and being transformed by the planet's environment. Millions upon millions of species of plants and animals are born, abide and disappear. And the process of transformation goes on.

In recent terrestrial history, a new creature arises, which is a continuation of its evolutionary ancestors but also introduces new features to the planet (and perhaps the universe). This creature -- humankind -- is distinguished by its consciousness and self-awareness, its emotional richness, aesthetic sensitivity and creativity.

With consciousness comes language, rationality, the possibility of a spiritual life. Human beings seek meaning and develop "meaning stories" that tell about their nature and place in the universe. Human beings seek to unfold their individual potential to its fullest extent in a life of richness, satisfaction and enjoyment. Human beings seek love and nurturing in ever-widening circles of family and community. Human beings seek salvation, some form of resting in the embrace of a Great Yes that supports and guides the individual through life.

By the dawn of the 21st century, a new meaning story is emerging. It arises to answer the deepest questions, needs and concerns, and to satisfy the longings of the heart and mind. The new story is based on a transformative experience of the sacred unity and continuity of all things.

Humankind is celebrated as an integral part of the beautiful earth-community, not its adversary or master, subject to the same physical laws and natural processes as all other life. Human beings discover a species-identity of care and connection, more fundamental than religion, nation, race or gender. This new identity provides a basis for ethical action that promotes the maximum unfoldment of each individual life in the context of the larger whole. The new story calls humans to humility, awe and reverence before the Beautiful Mystery at the heart of existence and present in all things. Humans experience the wide-eyed wonder of the child at the vastness, deep intelligence and breathtaking beauty of the natural world.

The path of the new story values curiosity, openness and questioning, the longing to know and understand. It affirms celebration and sacredness, and the impulse to creative expression.

The individual life journey is enriched by humankind's collective wisdom, the stillness of contemplation and time for beauty. The path carries the seeker beyond dualities of heaven and earth, spirit and matter, body and soul, and self and other into the presence and wholeness of the here and now. The practice of the new story is to honor the blessed privilege of life, its challenges and fulfillments, its mystery and discovery, and to share one's unique gifts with others.

Is this possible or just a dream? In the end, the only answer is that it comes down to each person.

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THE NEW STORY:
GOD AFTER THE DEATH OF GOD
PART 1
By John O'Neill

Your voice is gone now; I hardly hear you.
Your starry voice all shadow now
and the earth dark again...
Now, everywhere I am talked to by silence *1

For many human beings God does not appear to be real. God seems ineffective, and deaf, or at least speechless.... Many still call on God, but few expect a response.... If one cannot properly speak of God because God is a mystery; if one cannot call on God because God does not respond; if second causes are all monopolized by scientific explanations of the present or the future; if the sorrows of the human heart are better remedied by human love than by the divine... then what function remains to that which so many traditions have called God?... The God at the acme of the hierarchy of beings appears impotent, and from that moment forward is silent. Human beings discover, with great pain, their own isolation. *2

MY EYES SO SOFT
Don't
Surrender
Your loneliness so quickly
Let it cut more
Deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice so
Tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear. *3

Somehow, despite the miraculous technological feats that provide us with a comfort and security of life that other ages could only dream of; despite the astounding discoveries of modern science that have revealed the fundamental secrets of the physical and biological universe; despite the exponentially proliferating knowledge in the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology that endeavor to unravel the mystery of human nature; and despite the intoxicants and the constant stimuli intended to entertain and divert us from our cares and anxieties - something (or someone) seems to be missing in the modern world. We have only to look around to realize that there is a "spiritual devastation" prevalent in our time.

Religious and non-religious people alike share a deep distress over the meaninglessness of modern life, the shallowness and fragmentation of contemporary culture, and the loss of a sense of transcendence. Angst and ennui are two foreign words we have come to know well. In desperation, people have sought meaning and identity in nationalism, religious fundamentalism, racism and ethnocentrism, and ideologies as disparate as Marxism and fascism, producing in the process death camps, killing fields, and ethnic clean sings too numerous and disturbing to list. Behind all this is, in the words of a recent popular song, a "God-sized hunger underneath the laughter and the rage." All of these phenomena are the traces of the One who is missing. The silence and absence of God felt by many is summed up most powerfully in the anguished cry of Lie Diesel: "Where was God at Auschwitz?"

An inquiry into the wide-spread experience of the death of God shows that this event is not merely the result of an abstract intellectual process. It is first and foremost a lived experience. One of the most paradoxical aspects of this experience is that just as a person who is absent may be more present in the minds of a group of people gathered in a room than they are to each other, God is often a far more living reality for those who have lost God than for those who continue on in simple belief without confronting the absence. American poet W.S. Mer win captures this experience beautifully in a short poem:

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
Perhaps in no other time
has the longing for God been more powerfully or puissantly felt
and the need of God so absolutely clear.

The recognition of the historical phenomenon of the death of God is not necessarily a call to atheism. For many, the death of God does not mean the loss of the God-experience, but, rather, the failure of a culturally transmitted image of God that no longer rings true. In any case, the experience of the death of God is the defining religious event of our time. It marks the revolutionary eclipse of one world view and opens the possibility of a new one. The central importance of the death of God in understanding our age is affirmed by theologian Robert Alters: "If there is one clear portal to the twentieth century," he writes, "it is a passage through the death of God." The proclamation of Nighties - who saw himself as the Christ-like prophet of our age - captures our situation: "Whither is God?... I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers.... God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

This event, which became a central theme in the twentieth century, could hardly have been imagined a couple of centuries ago. To speak of the death of God is to utter what is, for many, still a blasphemous untruth. Quite clearly, God is very much a living reality in the lives of billions of believers around the world. In fact, these faithful share a deep conviction of, and a great investment in, the ongoing survival of God. For believers in our day, to speak of the death of God may name an external cultural phenomenon or the ideology of atheists or secular humanists, but it does not seem to name a condition shared by the religious believer.

Nonetheless, the truth of the matter is that gods do die when they no longer speak to our experience of existence, our thirst for being, our quest for meaning, our need for salvation; when they become silent in the face of the deepest challenges of our lives; when their absence becomes more apparent than their presence; when the concept of God that we hold, or have been given, no longer matches our experience of the world.

In the midst of the wide-spread experience of the loss of God there remains the deep and innate human longing for self-transcendence, for the assurance that there is some larger Realty to which we belong, and that this larger Reality is holy, sacred, and good. Even if the overly anthropomorphic form of God transmitted by traditional, orthodox religions no longer speaks to many people's hearts, the quest for God goes on. Perhaps the longing for God is felt even more deeply and strongly today than in the past precisely because of the challenges it faces in the modern world. Discovering the nature of the ultimate Reality we call God and finding our true relationship with that Reality is no longer simply a matter of accepting culturally transmitted conceptions and doctrines. We are, in fact, each on our own personal quest for ultimate Reality. We have the richness of the teachings of the past and the ever-proliferating knowledge of the present to draw on, but in the end each of us must find out the secret of this Reality for ourselves.

The contemporary quest for a God who can speak to our time must pass through the dark night in which no answer to our question of God is satisfactory. In that sense, we must each experience the death of an inadequate conception of God in order to experience the living ness of the true God who embraces our lives and speaks to and through our hearts. In the powerful
words of the 20th-century Sufi mystic Hazard In ay at Khan, we must be prepared to shatter our ideal (that is, our concept of God) on the rock of Truth (that is, the omnipresent but ultimately mysterious reality of God). The concept of God that has died for many people is what the philosopher Martin Hildegard termed the "onto-theological God." By this term he means a God who has been turned into a being among beings, a thing among things - God as the Supreme Being. The modern experience of the death of God is, in fact, a profound deconstruction of the God conceptualized as the Supreme Being - God as anthropomorphic, monarchical, patriarchal, static, all-controlling, and "Wholly Other." For some, the silence of the onto-theological Supreme Being is the silence of absence and death, but for others it is the silence of mystery and a new kind of presence. This mysterious presence requires a new and radically different expression in symbols and metaphors that point to an ultimate Reality that is experienced in a form other than God conceptualized as the Supreme Being. The path of loss is, therefore, also the path of discovery and of affirmation As the American poet Wallace Stevens once wrote:

After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future of the world depends.

A prophetic understanding of our present time passionately affirms that the future of the world truly does hinge on discovering the God who can speak to our modern human situation. The intensity of the search for the God for our time means that we are living in what is very probably one of the most spiritually dynamic and revolutionary times in human history. What we could call the "Old Story" about God no longer satisfies many, leading to the "death of God" announced by Nighties At the same time, with the worldwide emergence of fundamentalism and sectarian religious intolerance we see the Old Story being used as a justification for violence, injustice, discrimination, and oppression. Clearly, what is needed is a new religious vision for our time, a vision that affirms the centrality of the spiritual, sacred dimension of existence while also providing a profound sense of how to live as full human beings, embodied in physical form and embedded in the natural world around us. What is needed, in short, is a New Story. As contemporary theologian and ecologist Thomas Berry observes: "It's all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story."

THE NEW STORY

The conviction that we are living in a time when a New Story is emerging is shared by many around the globe. Some have called this the New Age, others the Message in Our Time, the post modern era, or the Aquaria Age. Regardless of what name may be used, the world view communicated by the New Story cannot be merely another philosophical or theological system. It must reach deeper into the human heart than rational arguments; it must enthrall the imagination through an all-encompassing creative vision. It must take the form of a new my tho poetic story. This New Story must give meaning to human life by describing our place in the universe and also guide us in creating a positive future. The emerging New Story addresses all aspects of human existence - nothing is left out, nothing is "unspiritual" or "beneath" its concern. The New Story embraces modern science with its wondrous new creation story (the Big Bang) and its dynamic, evolutionary view of the cosmos and terrestrial life. The New Story affirms the ecological movement's call for humankind to awaken from the anthropocentric that has caused so much destruction to the natural world and, instead, to celebrate our place as natural creatures embedded within the exquisite web of life on planet Earth. The New Story echoes the longing of feminism for the full equality of the masculine and feminine dimensions of life, for the validation of the body as a sacred temple, and for the healing of artificial dualities that lead to separation and oppression. And the New Story seeks a new God Ideal that can speak to people of our time.

The New Story is not a once and for all revelation that descends complete and fully formed from above; rather it is arising from the earth, from the deep roots of the human heart. The New Story is being expressed through the longing and insight of millions upon millions of individuals around the world who have answered the challenge of the Sufi poet Geraldine Rummy:

But don't be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth...

The millions of new myths about God - each true in their own way and each limited by the limitations of their human creator - are, in fact, the millions of faces of the One Being who is both revealed in these many forms and also hidden in the transcendent mystery beyond form. What, then, does the New Story have to say about the God for our time?

*1. Louise Luck, "Vespers" in The Wild Iris, Hopewell, NJ: The Echo Press, 1992, p. 55.
* 2. Raymond Pinker, The Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha, translated by Robert R. Barr, Mary knoll, NY: Orb is Books, 1989, x-xi.
* 3. The Gift: Poems by Hi-fis, translated by Daniel Lad in sky, Penguin Arc ana, p. 277

©2004 John O'Neill

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THE NEW STORY:
GOD AFTER THE DEATH OF GOD 
PART 2
By John O'Neill
THE QUEST FOR GOD

If we consider how we come to our own personal conception of God, we realize that nearly every human being is brought up with an image of God that is given at second hand by parents, religious traditions, and the larger culture. This initial God-concept (what Hazard In ay at Khan calls "the God Ideal") is not a product of a person's own direct experience. Many people remain attached to the God-concept inherited from childhood with little recognition of the inherent complexities and paradoxes and inadequacies this concept entails. For some, however, a time comes when the received God-concept is no longer adequate - there is a failure of the God-concept to satisfy one's need and to speak to one's direct experience. A time comes in our lives when we seek to discover the form of ultimate Reality that is authentic to our own experience. In describing the awakening of this quest, Hazard In ay at Khan writes: "The seeking for God is a natural outcome of the maturity of the soul. There is a time in life when a passion is awakened in the soul which gives the soul a longing for the unattainable, and if the soul does not take that direction, then it certainly misses something in life for which it has an innate longing and in which lies its ultimate satisfaction."

The quest for God (in whatever form this God may take) is one of the universal human experiences of existence. For some, the quest for God arises out of the experience of the absence of God in a time of critical need - that is, God appears to be either silent or non-existent. Others discover their mystical longing for God and seek a knowledge of God that is adequate to the full range of their experience of the divine. As the quest for God proceeds, the mystical seeker comes to realize that God is, in fact, the most unthinkable concept because the Reality designated by the word "God" is beyond the range of human knowledge and words. And yet there is an experience of a Reality to which the seeker is related, a Reality which he or she longs to know and comprehend more fully. The mystic is caught in the exquisite paradox of wanting both to speak about the nature of God that has been discovered in mystical experience and to remain silent because the Reality experienced is truly transcendent, which means beyond the ability of words and concepts to encompass fully. A wonderful Zen loan captures this predicament when the Zen master advises the student: "Thirty blows if you speak and thirty blows if you don't speak." I am sometimes asked the question: "Do you believe in God?" Of course the questioner typically expects a simple "yes" or "no" answer. When I hear this question, one part of me laughs the same way I laugh when I hear a Zen loan such as "show me the sound of one hand clapping." My laugh expresses the realization that this question simply cannot be answered on the level it is being asked. Attempting to answer the question on the level expected by the questioner - just as attempting to answer a loan based on rational, logical thought processes - implies missing a deeper and truer dimension of experience. In Zen training the answer to a loan is often given not in a verbal formula but rather in some kind of spontaneous action or expression. Such a response demonstrates that the person answering has had a deep insight not only into the paradox inherent in the loan, but into the very nature of reality itself. An "enlightened" response to the loan is a confirmation of a moment of realization or insight and also of the ongoing moment by moment embodiment of that insight in everyday life and being. The surprise created by the spontaneous, enlightened response may trigger off a moment of enlightenment in others as well, just as, according to Zen stories, fully witnessing a single flower petal falling gently to Earth may bring about an enlightened realization. So, in true Zen fashion, I often try to answer the question about belief in God in a way that is unexpected or startling enough to "uproot" the question and bring the questioner into a state of surprise and openness for a new understanding. A wonderful example of responding in a different way than expected is found in a story told about a spiritual teacher from the East who was approached by a member of the audience after a public lecture. The young man came up to the spiritual teacher and stated that he found the talk very moving and affecting and that he could agree with everything in the lecture except for one problem - he did not believe in God. Rather than being offended or attempting to convince the young man of the existence of God, the teacher simply replied: "I don't believe in the God that you don't believe in either." Although the "Zen approach" to answering the question about belief in God can bring about moments of enlightened realization, it fails to provide much conceptual content, which may be what is actually sought by the questioner. It is clear that to answer the question "Do you believe in God?" in a form that has cognitive content, I would need to define clearly what is meant by "God" and "believe." This would take a deep and subtle process of inquiry which the questioner may very well have no interest in. And yet this inquiry is precisely what is needed in order for any assertion about God to have meaning. In order for our talk about God to have authenticity and practical value two things are required: One is actual direct personal experience of the Reality in question. The other is the ability to articulate with clarity and depth what one has discovered about the nature of divine Reality. In keeping with the first of these requirements, the following glimpses of the God of the New Story are based on my own contemplative realization and inner experience. Therefore I will be speaking a good deal in the first person, describing my discoveries on my own quest for the God of the New Story. What follows is an account (logos) about the God of the New Story; it is, in that sense, a ethologies - that is, a theology. However, in attempting to fulfill the second requirement of clear articulation it became clear to me that the best way to speak about the God of the New Story is not in an extended theological narrative, but to provide "glimpses" of different aspects of the God of the New Story as they have appeared to me. The notion of describing glimpses of God reminds me of the ninety-nine Holy or Sacred Names of the wassail in Islam - these are the qualities in which God manifests in the realm of existence. The notion of glimpses of God also reminds me of facets on a diamond; each facet is a part of the larger diamond and reflects the unitary light in its own way. Seeing the facet is seeing the diamond, but not the whole diamond; rather, the diamond in a particularized form. What follows is my attempt to describe facets of the God of the New Story that have emerged in my own inner quest. THE GOD OF THE NEW STORY The new story about God can be summarized in four fundamental realizations that express a credo for the New Story. These are the "four noble truths" of the New Story. (1) There is an ultimate Reality or Ground of existence. The first noble truth affirms that there is some fundamental ground, source, or reality that gives rise to and supports existence. Existence is not ungrounded. There is ultimately something rather than nothing. The final, deepest answer is "Yes." The Ground is what we call God. (2) The ultimate nature of the Ground is Mystery. The second noble truth affirms that the Ground has a transcendent dimension that is beyond the range of human understanding. We stand before the spectacle of existence rapt by an awe and wonder that carry us beyond the human bounds. We discover there is a mysterious Reality at the heart of existence which holds us and which we love, but which we cannot encompass in thought or word. God is divine Mystery, hidden in the Cloud of Unknowing. God is the Beautiful Mystery. (3) The Ground is dynamic and creative and exists in form and formlessness. The third noble truth affirms that the divine Ground is inherently creative and seeks to know itself and express its richness through the forms of existence. The intelligent order and beauty of the universe are expressions of the formless reality that is their source and ground. The God of the New Story is both the God of form and the formless God. (4) The Ground is knowable in its Sacred Names. The fourth noble truth affirms that knowledge of God is possible and that God can be known in the forms that reveal facets of the divine nature - these are the Sacred Names. Some glimpses of the Sacred Names are described below. These are the facets of the God of the New Story that have revealed themselves to me or that I have discovered in my own quest for God. SACRED NAMES: FACETS OF THE GOD OF THE NEW STORY (1) The God of the New Story is the Ground of Being. There are moments when I am overwhelmed by the sheer fact of existence. I exist. The trees and grass and clouds and galaxies exist. You exist. I realize that I am held within and am a part of an unfathomable vast universe of existence, a great community of being. I am thrilled to ecstasy by the existence of the universe around me with its amazing beauty, order, and intelligence. And yet I realize that all that exists around me is the arising, manifestation, or expression of some deeper Reality that is the source, ground, and basis of all things. This Reality can be called the Ground of Being. This Ground is not a substance, thing, or person. The Ground is "there", it is real, and yet it is no-thing. The Ground transcends any forms we know from the manifest world. This realization arises from an experience of transcendence. The Ground of Being is transcendent; the Ground of Being is "beyond" the world. This is the formless God. If you have the experience of the Ground of Being and agree that this Ground of Being is what is meant by the word "God," then the "existence" of God becomes self-evident. This is the New Story's ontological/cosmological proof for the existence of God. When I contemplate God as the Ground of Being I experience both its silence and stillness - the peace that passer all understanding - and its dynamic creativity. The nature of the Ground is to express its hidden treasure of potential being in form. There are two ways I experience the dynamic creativity of the Ground. One form is to experience existence as an arising from the Ground. This is a more Taoist or Buddhist perspective which experiences every one and only here and now moment as arising out of the Ground of Being. In this experience, there is the sense of being fully present in and open to the moment, and to whatever is arising in that moment. There is no concern with past or future, with goal or purpose, there is simply being with, being present to, whatever is arising in the moment. This experience brings a feeling of freedom and an enthralling love for the sheer fact of existence itself. Being present in the moment is meaning enough to make life blessed and worthwhile. The other way I experience existence is as the expression of the divine Ground. I sense that behind existence there is the power of love, that existence is an expression of love, longing, and desire. The creative Ground is inspired to reach out of the unmanifest state to meet itself in the forms of the world - this self-transcendence is the epitome of the meaning of love which is always going beyond the boundaries of the lover toward the beloved. God is beautiful and loves beauty. The manifest universe is an expression of love. Discovering the universe as the expression of the divine Ground also introduces the notion of purpose, of teleology, of some kind of divine intentionality in existence. The intelligence and order of the universe affirm the existence of a Reality that is dynamic and continually bringing forth new and surprising manifestations, a Reality whose nature is creative novelty, rather than sheer chance and randomness. The human longing for meaning and purpose can be satisfied in experiencing the beauty and simplicity of the fundamental laws of the universe and the wondrous unfoldment of the cosmos even if we can never know the whole story of which we are a small, but inseparable part. 2) The God of the New Story is Intelligence and Order, Beauty and Love The Ground of Being has two fundamental aspects: (1) intelligence and order, and (2) beauty and love. Everywhere we look in the universe we find intelligence and order. Science confirms that the universe operates according to an intelligent order embodied in the physical laws that govern the entire universe without exception or deviation (except, perhaps, for what we call miracles). Einstein affirms the ecstatic religious feeling that comes from encountering the order of the physical universe. [The scientist's] religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling... is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages. We can see the astounding order of the universe also in our own physical bodies when we consider how day after day our body maintains its regular functioning - sustaining and rebuilding its tissues and organs, healing injuries and disease by returning the body to its natural healthy and balanced state according to a genetic blueprint encoded in its molecules and atoms. Contemplating the intelligence and order of God we are astounded and amazed. In poetic terms, we discover creation as the thought of God. Our wonder at and deep grasp of the intelligent nature of the Ground give rise to what could be termed realizational or noetic mysticism. The God of order and intelligence is also a God of beauty and love. Once while standing overlooking a high, pristine mountain lake with towering white granite peaks in the background and clear blue sky with occasional clouds overhead, I heard a voice call out from all around me: "I am a God of beauty. And this is how we pray." In that moment I realized that the prayer of God was all around me in the beauty of nature. My response was to pray in return, to acknowledge with gratitude and celebration the blessing of being part of such beauty. Beauty in all of its forms is the way the creative Ground shows itself and its glory. Behind the act of divine self-disclosure in beauty there is the power of love. The love begins in the longing the creative Ground has to experience its potentiality in actuality, for its hidden treasure to be known. In this movement God is the lover and existence the beloved. God's own ecstatic self-transcendence produces the world of form. In a poetic sense we could say that the creation is the prayer of God. In a reciprocal movement, God's love for creation is mirrored in the human creature's love for beauty that leads us back to the divine Ground. The experience of God as love and beauty inspires a devotional mysticism that turns toward the beauty and splendor of God in surrender and prayer and seeks the union of lover and beloved. (3) The God of the New Story is Sacred Presence. Although the Ground of Being is transcendent and no-thing, it is present in and as all things that exist. To see any existing object is to see the Ground of Being arising or expressing itself in that form. As it says in the Quran, "Everywhere you look is the face of Allah." This is the God of form. One of the great errors of transcendent religion is the separation of God and creation. While there is clearly a metaphysical or ontological distinction between the Ground and the manifest universe - this is precisely the meaning of transcendence - there is also a continuity between the Ground and existence, because without the presence of the Ground existence would not exist. When I experience the presence of the creative Ground in all things I am quickened in joy and appreciation. At the same time, I experience the inner relaxation and deep peace that come from feeling held by something larger than myself. In the words of Rilke, I am held by "Someone whose hands infinitely calm hold up all this falling." In the surrender that comes with this holding I enter deeper into myself and realize that the presence of God is not only in things outside, but within me as well. I am the presence of God. That is my deepest identity. I am divine perfection. I am the beloved of God. I can say "yes" fully to myself and my nature. (4) The God of the New Story is One and Relational. The unity of existence (wahdat al-wujud in the terms of the Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi) is the most fundamental truth. What is - the Totality - is unified, one, whole, non-dual. All things are held within the Whole, within the All which is God. This is the universal experience of mystical union and non-duality (tawhid, unio mystica, advaita). God is not the Supreme Being separate from the universe; rather, God is the One and Only Being. And yet the whole is dynamic, multi-faceted, differentiated. The oneness of the creative Ground expresses itself in the multiplicity of existence. And still that multiplicity is held within a holistic unity in which everything is related, interdependent. Everything gives rise to and is sustained by everything. This is what Buddhism calls prat tyasamutp da (interdependent origination). Zen teacher John Daido Loori offers a beautiful description of the process of interdependent origination: Imagine, if you will, a universe in which all things have a mutual identity. They all have an interdependent origination [prat tyasamutp da]: when one thing arises, all things arise simultaneously. And everything has a mutual causality: what happens to one thing happens to the entire universe. Imagine a universe that is a self-creating, self-maintaining, and self-defining organism - a universe in which all the parts and the totality are a single entity; all of the pieces and the whole thing are, at once, one thing. This description of reality is not a holistic hypothesis or an idealistic dream. It is your life and my life. The life of the mountain and the life of the river. The experience of God as relational awakens a deepened appreciation for the sacredness of the relationships that constitute my own human life. I am called to realize the many levels of relationship that span my relationship with the Earth and its life; my direct human relationships of family, friends, and community; my relationship with my own nature and destiny; and my relationship with the creative Ground of all life. Because I am a part of everything, what I do has an affect on the whole. Seeking to live and protect the sacredness of relationship in all of its forms and on all levels fosters a sense of personal responsibility for truthful, authentic, and ethical action, which I experience as the mysticism of prophetic responsibility. (5) The God of the New Story is Embodied. A central task of the New Story is to heal the two fundamental splits that have plagued humankind, especially over the past several millennia. One split is between God and humankind. This split results from overemphasis on the experience of God's transcendence and "otherness." When God is conceived of as "up there" or "out there," as "wholly other," the continuity of being between the Ground and existence - in other words, the presence of God - is lost and God becomes absent. The other split is between humankind and nature. It has been difficult for humankind to attain a caring and balanced relationship with nature when the natural world is seen as created for the domination of human beings, as a "standing reserve" of raw materials put there by God for human use, or as a temporary and fleeting visiting place where the soul works out its destiny in an eternal world beyond the physical. Embracing the natural world fully has also been difficult because it means accepting the finitude of human life, when there is a deep desire in the human being to escape the limitation and mortality of our human nature. These splits have left humankind in an "in-between" place, not fully belonging to either heaven or Earth. The God of the New Story heals this split. Because God is both Ground and Presence, there is nowhere that God is not. God is present in the transcendent dimension, God is present in humankind, and God is present in the realm of nature and the manifest universe. When I experience God's presence in all things, there is no split, there is no absence; I cannot be abandoned by God, although I can still abandon God by forgetting the divine Presence. The God of the New Story is embodied in form; the forms of the world exist through the sustaining presence of the creative Ground and show forth various aspects of the divine nature. The embodied nature of God sanctifies the physical universe - the material universe is holy and "good," not something to be escaped or "risen above." The embodied nature of God sanctifies the human body, the temple of God. An embodied God is a God of nature and a natural God. The sanctity of the body calls forth whole-hearted affirmation of our physicalness and supports a mysticism of embodiment. The mysticism of embodiment embraces the full experience of our physical nature without guilt, shame, or fear - life in the body with its ecstatic pleasures and challenging fragility is the mode of existence granted us for the experience of life. Life in the body is a privilege - "this precious human birth" (Buddhism), the "privilege of being human" (Hazrat Inayat Khan) - and a gift to be fully accepted, fully lived, and joyously celebrated. The mysticism of embodiment inspires us to care for the physical - both our own bodies and the natural world around us. We seek health and balance both within and without. (6) The New Story offers a new Creation Story for our time. Every religious tradition includes one or more creation stories (cosmogonies) that tell about how the universe we inhabit came into existence, what its nature is, and how we humans ought to live in order to be in harmony with it. The New Story's creation myth is the story told by modern science of the Big Bang that brought the universe into existence. I find the scientific account of the Big Bang at least as fascinating, moving, and deeply meaningful as any traditional religious creation story. The modern story of the Big Bang begins with an initial state of non-manifest potentiality. "Prior" to the Big Bang the potential universe was "hidden" in the Ground in a state of potentiality, of symmetry and equilibrium, possible but not yet actual. Then some 15 billion years ago for some reason or through some process - which are beyond the horizon of science's understanding - there was a break in the primordial symmetry. The universe exploded into existence, from its non-manifest potentiality, from "nothingness." Through some utterly unimaginable process of expansion the universe exploded from a single seed - smaller than a sub-atomic particle - that contained all the matter and energy we now see in the manifest universe. As existence emerged from the Ground, the dynamic process of creative evolution brought about the formation of the billions upon billions of stars, galaxies, and planets that populate the night sky. About five billion years ago a planet we call "Earth" gradually formed around an ordinary, unremarkable star in one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. Within less than one billion years of its formation the physical and chemical processes of the Earth made it possible for self-sustaining organic life to emerge. Over the course of four billion years life on Earth has evolved in a dialectical process that is both shaped by and has a transformative affect on the ecological environment of the planet. Through the course of the evolutionary unfoldment on the Earth, millions upon millions of species of plants and animals have arisen, abided, and disappeared. And the process of transformation goes on and on. At a certain point in the very recent evolutionary story of life on Earth a new creature emerged, a creature which is both a product and continuation of its evolutionary ancestors, but which also introduces new features to the life-world of planet Earth (and perhaps the cosmos). This creature is, of course, humankind with its unique quality of consciousness and self-awareness. With human consciousness comes language, rationality, self-reflexivity. With human consciousness also come other features of the human being which are unique in one way or another. These include the human experience of love (which humans appear to experience in a much different and more complex form than other species of animals) and the impulse to creative and artistic expression. Through humankind, self-reflective consciousness, love, and artistic creation become part of the life-world of planet Earth and part of the evolving experience of the One and Only Being. (7) The New Story supports a Universal Inner Path. According to the New Story, the purpose of our individual human life is attaining the maximum realization of our human potential on all levels, within the bounds defined by our personal nature, our capacities and talents, our familial and cultural conditioning, and the opportunities provided by destiny and fate. Each aspect of the individual - the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social - has its realm of potential development and fulfillment. Each of these aspects of the self longs to be fully expressed as aspects of a single, integrated individual life. Every person has his or her own calling and destiny. The goal of each of our lives is to become fully who we are. When we are most fully who we are we are natural and ordinary. Hazrat Inayat Khan often states that the goal of life is to become natural. Zen Buddhism teaches: When an ordinary person attains knowledge, he or she is a sage; when a sage attains understanding, he or she is an ordinary person. When I am existing in harmony with the fullness of my nature I am truly natural and ordinary. There is no efforting to be something other than what I am in my deepest and truest nature. I experience the moment by moment arising of my being from out of the creative Ground. Although the specific destiny of each person is unique, the New Story affirms a common ground of the fundamental human experiences of existence. Through the shared fundamental human experiences of existence, all humans meet on common ground as kin, as fellow travelers in the journey of life, and as members of the same species. We are united in asking the same fundamental questions and sharing similar experiences. We share the same species longing and aspiration. All humans seek meaning, fullness of being, and some form of salvation that allows us to rest in the Great Yes (that is, God), and assures us that our individual lives are sacred and have value. We seek for love and relationship, for meaningful work and action, for the opportunity to fulfill ourselves, and for creative expression of our uniqueness and gifts. Religions arise from the common ground of human experience to answer human needs and concerns. Religions do not descend fully formed from the heavens, but emerge from the earth, from the grass roots of the longing and questioning of humankind. Religions are the collective wisdom of humankind, the accumulated revelations and responses that assure us of the meaningfulness of existence and provide guidance on how to live. And yet, every answer is only one answer; no answer is full and complete and final. Likewise, no single religion offers the final and ultimate story about the universe and the sole blueprint for living. The dynamic nature of the creative Ground insures that answers come and go, but the great questions remain, as mysterious and enthralling as ever - inviting new answers and new forms of the questions. The universal inner path of the New Story is the common quest each of us is on to answer our deepest existential questions and satisfy our heart's longings. The New Story is not the story about particular forms of religious belief and practice, but about the common ground that all these traditional stories share. The universal inner path of the New Story affirms the shared experiences of humankind while recognizing the diversity of traditional paths and the special uniqueness of each individual path, all journeying from, toward, and within the same common Ground. (8) The New Story supports a Holistic and Complete Mysticism. The universal inner path of the New Story is mystical. The mystic is the person who earnestly seeks to know the deepest nature and reality of existence. The mystic is the person who is forever open for surprise. The mystic seeks to see to the farthest distance possible while realizing that there is always something more to be seen. The mystic is the person who loves Mystery, not final answers. The mystic is the person who is able to hold both two poles of a dialectical tension - transcendence and presence, the God of form and the formless God, being and becoming, knowing and not-knowing, satisfaction (rida in Sufi terms) and longing (ishk in Sufi terms) - at the same time without becoming schizophrenic or collapsing the tension to one pole or the other. The mysticism of the New Story is holistic because it embraces all levels of being. The mysticism of the New Story is complete because the mystical journey does not end in the loss of individuality (fana in Sufi terms) and absorption into oneness (tawhid in Sufi terms). The experience of mystical union is one part of the journey, which Hazrat Inayat Khan calls the first awakening or God-realization. The mystical journey of the New Story is fulfilled in the second awakening or self-realization. The path of self-realization brings me full circle, back to my individual, concrete human existence. I am called to the challenge of fully realizing and actualizing my unique human existence on all of its levels and in all of its possible forms. The goal of the inner journey is to become a whole person. The development of the whole person is what Hazrat Inayat Khan called the art of personality. The complete mysticism of the New Story is the path to the fullness of embodied existence within an interdependent universe richly known and forever mysterious. Many forms of the mysticism of the New Story have been mentioned already. There is the mysticism of the formless God that seeks Mystery beyond all knowledge. This is an I-I mysticism in which the individual experiences his or her identity with the Ground of being. There is the mysticism of the God of form that sees God in all things and affirms the unique and existentially meaningful forms in which God appears to each individual. Each individual has his or her own "God Ideal" (Hazrat Inayat Khan) or "God of belief" (Ibn Arabi). Each individual God Ideal is true because that is how God has manifested in form to that individual. And yet, each God Ideal has only a relative truth as an imaginal representation of a Reality ultimately beyond final comprehension. The mysticism of the God of form is an I-Thou experience in which the lover is united with the beloved in love. The New Story affirms that there is a form of mysticism on each level of the human being - physical, emotional, mental, personal, spiritual. The universal inner path of the New Story cultivates the mysticism on all levels of the human being. When all levels of our beings are awakened we attain our fullest individual expression and most integrated wholeness. The spiritual paths of the future must offer a holistic approach that affirms and cultivates the mysticism on all levels of the human being. The mysticism of the body is the fullest possible realization of the potential of our physical senses and embodied nature. The creative expression of the mysticism of the body can take the form of dance, athletics, the full experience of the senses such as the taste of a wonderful meal or the smell of a gardenia flower, and, of course, the most intense form of the mysticism of the body - sexuality. The satisfaction of the desires and potentials of the body is not something to be denied or repressed, but to be fully enacted in an awakened and love-filled way. The mysticism of the mind is expressed in the ecstasy that arises when we have a profound realization, solve a challenging problem, understand some dimension of the operations of the psyche, create music or write a poem. The mysticism of the heart is experienced in the self-transcendence of the love relationship, in service, and in the care for others. The mysticism of the soul is experienced in awakening, realization, ecstasy, joy, sacredness, and beauty. The mysticism of the New Story is a call to prophetic responsibility. Because each of us is part of the larger whole, we each have a responsibility to preserve and enhance the harmony and unfoldment of the larger whole. Living is witnessing, living is embodying, living is serving. Amen! ©2004 John O'Neill

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INTIMATE CONVERSATIONS 2:
EARLY MORNING

I sit with you just before morning
You seem not to be person but silent presence
Filling the room like air
Or the invisible mist
        on an ocean morning
        cool against my cheeks
The warm light of the candle flame
Pushes back the night and
Calls the waking sun just below the horizon
The hands in my lap come together instinctively --
        thumb against thumb
        palms resting one on another facing the sky --
A circle
For a moment I allow my life
As the tree outside allows the fall
Friend, I don't think I've said thank you enough

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UNIVERSES

One by one newly discovered solar systems populate our celestial metropolis;
they click on in our star charts and imaginations as the stars themselves
flicker on in the approaching night.

Scientists debate the chances of life on these distant globes hugging their own suns.
Are we alone, unique?
Or is life -- stranger than we can imagine -- easy,
assembling its molecules from the fertile soup of heaving oceans and weaving clouds,
the order of protein and DNA asserting itself like a universal law:
their fragile, spiraling strands replicating themselves forever, if allowed.

Does this cosmic instinct drive itself into consciousness like ours?
Do others, light years away, see and know they see?
Do their lives count for anything,
and does a God watch over their fate?
Where, I wonder, does this leave me
as I sit a few moments this quiet morning alone,
and ponder my own life,
so minute and so magnificent?

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BEING HUMAN BEING

The answer for angels is not enough,
the earth of flesh and death and love
has its own law and its own joy

Praising God is done in a body,
supple and fragile,
part of the same fabric
that nurtures it and takes it back in the end.

Our common human bond
runs through the pain of birth,
the longing for the mother's safe arms,
the father's brilliance and security,
the independence of the first steps, the first "no"

It winds through dreams of what could be,
attended by satisfaction and disappointment,
the inevitable losses and gains
that challenge and sustain the waxing core
The path traverses the fear that shakes our inner cosmos
and the hope that arises yet again as each breath

This precious human birth is not easy
sometimes its only support is sheer inertia,
the unconscious wisdom of the stomach
with its churning acids extracting what we need to live,
the ceaseless pulsing of fluids through veins and tubes;
survival and endurance inscribed in every cell

But then there is shattering beauty
the mouth shaped by awe, the eyes glowing in wonder,
the heart springing into blue heavens
even as it descends deeper into the core.

The ground of this earth is what is shared,
our species knowledge,
the birth, love, joy, hope, fear, sorrow, loss, death,
the wisdom and foolishness that are our history and destiny

Our song arises from this ground
to the angels and our God above
to the earth and our God below
to all who come this way, our ancestors and children
to all things animal, vegetable, mineral
to the ones beside us and the ones we miss,
to the ones easy and hard
to our Mother and Father God and what is beyond.

Surely no song without the notes --
just as surely no notes without the song
To sing our lives, smaller almost than nothing
To sing what is larger than all size
To sing with depth and joy
because we have no choice but to sing.

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A KAYAK ON THE HUDSON

Each stroke sends a tiny whirlpool down the river's flow,
the water turns a moment inside the funnel
then returns to the unbroken brown-green stream.

A spring breeze glides along the Hudson water's face,
slides south with the current, over
the ocean tide pushing north up to Troy.

The double headed paddle slices the water right and then left,
with a small twist of the wrist – right and then left –
a familiar ordered pulse ticking the morning hour away.

I watch the kayak floating lightly on the water with hanging white clouds above:
I know my life will end, and my children's, and their children's too.
I know this flow will continue as it did for centuries

Before we thought this earth is ours. I imagine ancestors I share no blood with --
my relations, still -- who took time from fleeting lives to sit by this river,
to feel spirit quickening April trees again before turning toward home.

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KIN
Bright yellow dandelions stretch toward the light,
the light shining bright on spring leaves,
on new white flowers in the undergrowth,
the sky,
a blue emptiness --
the wayfarer travels through fully in the scene --
the flaming green caught by sunset in the distant meadow,
the silver-blue Hudson River flow moving south with the wind,
a bird calls out of the stillness:
everything discloses itself,
its own unique song words cannot conjure sight of this but the heart
can hear the closeness of kind,
can feel in itself the branches of the white birch overhead
feathered green and fluttering,
the red-winged blackbird

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UNIO MYSTICA: THE DARK NIGHT

My love, be patient with me and wait;
I don't want this time to end --
I love this passing moment,
I love this bitter-sweet pain I refuse to surrender,
I love these tears that Buddhas never cry.
You insist and pull me toward you,
into the solitary, motionless night --
so dark and sweet, and so terrifying --
but I rise to flee back into bright
time, my second home.

Like all nights we have met together --
aroused in the thrilling rhythms of two in love
or finally still in the sleep of union --
I know this night will turn to light again,
as I know this dark heart
of all light never moves.

My love, you are here now,
I would fuse with you in a perfect embrace,
I would vanish with you in the dark flash
of final delight, between memory and expectation.
But, my love, something in me doesn't want to die yet;
I want to prolong this deepening twilight,
I want to marvel at our exquisite disguises
of lover and beloved a while longer.

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INTIMATE CONVERSATIONS 1:
EARLY MORNING

Let us converse now,
you and I, in silence;
let it be a prayer between two.

Yesterday the bud
on the rose bush in the garden
was hard as a small red stone;
this morning it is open to the sun.

Last night the milkweed pod exploded
and cast its white stars
into the slowly brightening sky;
I watch them drift free,
searching out a fertile spot,
carried on the same cool morning air
that fills my bay window where we sit.

Believe me, I don't love the gravity
that warps everything inward,
like a black hole swallowing itself forever.
My friend, let me unwind before you,
let me unwrap the miles of self,
peeling away the layers to find the core:
it is the meat of the nut that is sweet,
that nourishes, and grows itself again.

I know you hear me,
but you are mostly silent;
I feel your breath warm around me
like the breathing spring that opens flowers;
you wait for me to bloom in my own way,
assure me that patience
is often greater than will.
There is no hurry to end this time,
no need to prolong it either:
so be it - let the day begin, I am awake now.

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WHAT SHOULD I DO?

A Buddha sits
under the green shelter
of a white-barked tree,
the sky is beautiful blue
with wispy white clouds,
the air is mild,
the fingers of the breeze
caress yellow and purple flowers
and carry a small bird
through the waiting space,
grasses all around
bend their heads in prayer,
a small spider moves on many legs
across his lap
as it goes on with its spider life,
a leaf falls,
a brown horse with its rippling muscles
and long, dark tail
laps up the tender grass
as farmers work their fields in the distance

A perfect moment -
tender, sweet, still -
he sits content,
eyes open or closed
it makes no difference,
his hard journey finished,
fulfilled in this moment,
nothing lacking, nothing sought,
his satisfied eyes close gently,
his body part of the solid green earth,
part of the sky overhead

Ah yes, he thinks,
I am at home at last
I don't need anything more,
nothing can be better than this
I never want to leave
I have found my joy, my satisfaction, my life:
What should I do?

His eyes open gently again,
his gaze falls upon a
small yellow flower -
one bud wide open,
others still to bloom -
they smile at each other

And then he knows:
somewhere there is someone
who seeks this beauty too,
I will take this precious flower to him, to her
and he will smile, she will smile, too -
that is all

He bows to the earth, the tree, the sky
and with a solid, unhurried step
begins walking the path back
to where his friends are waiting.

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PASSAGES

I admire the passages
of family and friends -
critical moments,
beautiful, precious times,
hard decisions,
the obvious path -
a year of changes, for sure

Some go looking for new adventure,
some for what seems missing,
some need freedom to grow, and space
some seek what has been lost so long
and some move forward with light step

For some, the time of fulfillment comes
and the calm after,
not always comfortable
because of the stillness -
I am, after all, a person of action!

What to do next?

Begin something new
let desire have scope -
there is a call that guides,
gives strength and hope
and the peace that moves with all

I mark my own seasons
I watch the rise of passion and calling,
open wider to my horizon
holding the exquisite
believing and hearing the wonder
setting off again

The Hudson River tide moves, going in and out
days flow by the moment
Earth turns once again around the Sun
change carries everything along

Is it a play? A great song?
Composed, or playing itself?
I know the rhythm from the beginning
this rhythm we share, this slice of time
moving together, my friend,
at your side

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PATTERNS

The water that flows
even as it yields
its surface to the wind

the plants that grow green,
the hawk and the moon,
the walls of tile and brick

there is an order, a pattern,
wisdom and light,
there is love behind it

the flow is an ecstasy
that moves through air
and rock

something simple,
something complex,
of cells or stones composed

born of man or God
or the irrepressible
force of life

that forms itself in greens and golds,
in the blue of water, snow, or sky,
in dark shadows across the land

steeples and minarets reach up
as do trees and rock
their longing reflected in form -
the eye of beauty sees

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GROWING THE BODY OF RESURRECTION
For Hadiya

We grow ourselves day by day
mostly hidden from view -
deep in the mountain's veins -
like the crystal's silent accretion
one molecule at a time.

We grow ourselves day by day
like the butterfly
whose orange and black wings
are hidden in the silky sheath,
hanging seemingly unchanged
from a branch in the garden.

Have faith in the wounds
that penetrate our opaque shells -
as the farmer's plow
opens the earth for seed -
the wounds that turn
our guarded insides tender
and fertile for growth.

Have faith in the power
that pushes fragile seeds, sun-seeking,
through the dark and heavy earth.

Have faith in the light
that fills the new moon's darkness,
the sliver that grows, almost imperceptibly
night after night,
into its true form.

This is the way we grow:
by choice, by chance, by design,
by fate, by faith -
in all ways our life is rendered
into an undying fragrance,
the sacred fragrance that perfumes eternity.

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THE COURSE OF LIFE

In predawn silence, empty and full, I
Welcome fresh snow fall, the river's deep flow
Even under thick ice, while through dark sky
Waves of birds pulse before the coming glow;
New day calls me from winter sleep and dreams,
Back to my place upon this circling stage,
To the rhythm in veins and bones that seems
More real than stone or the advent of age,
Back to family and friends turning too in
An unceasing fire that lights memory
And hope, and warms all our days from within,
Back always and only to one story:
Spread these arms round what they can never keep,
Bare this heart to all life and final sleep.

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THE TURNING
Holiday Poem

We sit in our bay window before dawn Looking out over the tops of the trees, Beyond the church steeple in the park across the street

A fresh wind blows in from the east Hinting at the sunrise to come

The stars breathe their waning light into the night sky
And sparkle off the white blanket on the ground
As the sky dissolves from deep purple to crimson

Hand in hand we watch the never ending turning
Circling with it silently ourselves

The quiet current of blood, the steady pulse of breath
The eye lid's quick blink to cleanse the windows of the soul
Everything moving with a wisdom of its own
We are ready for another year, another day, another moment.

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Eternity Now

It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as the butterfly floats in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come; it is now.
Now is eternity; now is the immortal life.
Here this moment, by this tumulus, on earth, now; I exist in it.
The years, the centuries, the cycles are absolutely nothing;
it is only a moment since this tumulus was raised; in a thousand years more it will still be only a moment.
To the soul there is no past and no future; all is and will be ever in now.
-- Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

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Look Under Foot

"The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world."
-- John Burroughs (1837-1921)

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Unity with Nature

I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my heart to the earth, the sun, the air, and the distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the earthÕs firmness -- I felt it bear me up... I thought of the wandering air -- its pureness, which is its beauty; the air touched me and gave me something of itself. I spoke to the sea: ...I desired to have its strength, its mystery and glory. Then I addressed the sun, desiring the soul equivalent of his light and brilliance.... I turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite colour and sweetness.... Touching the crumble of earth, the blade of grass, the thyme flower, breathing the earth-encircling air, thinking of the sea and sky, holding out my hand for the sunbeams to touch it, ...thus I prayed that I might touch to the unutterable existence infinitely higher than deity.

With all the intensity of feeling which exalted me, all the intense communion I held with the earth, the sun and sky, the stars hidden by the light, with the ocean -- in no manner can the thrilling depth of these feelings be written.... The great sun burning with light; the strong earth, dear earth; the warm sky; the pure air; the thought of ocean; the inexpressible beauty of all filled me with a rapture, and ecstasy.... I held out my hand, the sunlight gleamed on the skin and the iridescent nails; I recalled the mystery and beauty of the flesh.... I hid my face in the grass, I was wholly prostrated, I lost myself in the wrestle, I was rapt and carried away.
-- Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

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I am a God of Beauty
By John O'Neill

...the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine
beauty of the universe...*1

Imagine a late August afternoon in high granite mountains, the sky is clear blue with a few white clouds drifting lazily in the distance, the sun bright and pleasantly warm on the skin. You hike for several miles up from the valley along the bank of a rock-strewn stream tumbling downhill over huge boulders or catching in deep hollowed out rock grottos before spilling out in swirling flows and dancing white spray. You follow the stream to its source in a deep mountain lake, the transparent blue snow melt caught in the chalice formed by the surrounding hills. After circumambulating the lake you stop to rest for a moment in the shade of a stand of hardy pines at the edge of the tree line. After resting a while something calls and you continue up the side of the chalice toward the sheer rock face that pushes almost straight up, too steep and solid for even the hardiest plants to take root. As the trees disappear you walk through a landscape of delicate white, red, and yellow flowers springing from the green and brown carpet of the alpine meadow all around. You reach the base of the sheer cliff at the boundary line where mineral and life meet, where the wandering fingers of yellow and green reach up into gray granite. You find a comfortable spot to lie down among the rocks and look out over the sky and mountain peaks in the distance. You rest a moment in peace, suspended; open to the vast sky and the majestic power of the stillness. In this moment there is no effort, no seeking, no thought, no care -- there is simply the awareness of being present, in this moment, in this place. Nothing moves. An all-pervading presence fills the space and radiates through the sky, the rocks, and the living earth all around. The feeling deepens as you relax into quiet, unbroken awareness. You are there, in the landscape, part of the scene, nothing more, nothing less. Then in an instant, unexpected but entirely natural, a revelation comes. A voice deep in the sky -- or is it deep in the heart? -- proclaims: "I am a God of beauty, and this is how we pray."

An ecstatic thrill courses through the body -- pure affirmation and joy. Yes, yes! "I am a God of beauty and this is how we pray." The open sky, the towering white cloud above the peak in the distance, the dark blue lake below, the green life all around bear witness to the revelation. Yes, it is absolutely clear, true beyond any doubt, obvious, self-evident. This is it! This is what I have been searching for! In this I can rest! Yes, life is beautiful and, in this moment, perfect. Nothing lacking, nothing sought. I am part of this vast universe of beauty, not something foreign, outside; but no, I am not just a part, I am this vast universe of beauty. "Thank you" wells up from the core. Thank you for all this beauty, thank you for the body and its senses that make this experience possible, thank you for the whole mysterious flow of life I am blessed to share in, thank you for this saving gift. I have seen the "answer" and I will not forget. I will seek to proclaim this truth through my life, in word and deed.

*1. (Robinson Jeffers, quoted in Robinson Jeffers: Poet of California, by James Karman, p. 146)

© John O'Neill 2004

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The Lover of Nature

"Your real lover of Nature does not love merely the beautiful things which he culls here and there; he loves the earth itself, the faces of the hills and mountains, the rocks, the streams, the naked trees no less than the leafy trees, -- a plowed field no less than a meadow. He does not know what draws him. It is not beauty, any more than it is beauty in his mother and father that makes him love them. It is something much more deeply interfused--something native and kindred that calls to him.

A great many people admire Nature; they write admiring things about her; they apostrophize her beauties; they describe minutely pretty scenes here and there; they climb mountains to see the sun set, or the sun rise, or make long journeys to find waterfalls, but ... Nature is not to be praised or patronized. You can not go to her and describe her; she must speak through your heart. The woods and fields must melt into your mind, dissolved by your love for them." -- John Burroughs, Riverby, 1894

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