The Harried Mystic

Psuedo-Dionyseus, the Areopagite

The muse draws me to the keyboard. Let fly the random sparks of a quiet afternoon to allow my soul a moment to depressurize:

• To love what you eat is appreciation. To eat what you love is a rut. The former makes us grateful while the latter makes us fat.
• When I am bored, I long to be doing something different. When I am busy, I long to do nothing.
• Over and over, I hear “change is the only constant”. If it’s changing, it’s not constant.
• Just when I get hooked on a television series, the network takes it off the air. It must mean something.
• Gray hair is said to be a distinguished look for men. Hmm. I just thought it meant you’re losing pigment. If it’s so distinguished, why don’t young men rush out and gray their’s?
• In the “new” barbershops, stylists often ask me, when finished cutting and blow-drying, “do you want product?” In other words, do you want your hair to stay put or blow around like the head of Medusa?
• CNN repeats the news incessantly. The BBC is worse. Never has so much been said about so little by so few.
• The real value of that first cup of coffee: it gives me something to balance in those early morning moments when critical parts are still fast asleep.
• I long for the old days when a large cup of coffee meant its LARGE. In the universe according to Starbucks, large is small, and “Venti” is the big one. Apparently, that justifies the price.
• Three things I love about getting older: senior tickets at the movies, senior price discounts for Tuesday dinner at Ihop, and approaching more affordable healthcare coverage (not too far off). It’s all good.
• Proof positive that we all live in “the Matrix”: pharmaceutical company ads urge us, “ask your doctor if X is right for you” just before telling us that side-effects may include embarrassing and unnatural conditions ( you can guess), strokes, fainting, or death. Clearly, they are banking on the fact that, either no one is really listening, or, more likely, no one is really thinking.

Spiritual living is a balancing of the via positiva, or cataphatic theology ( the way of the positive acts and disciplines that are of G-d and Spirit), the via negativa, or apaphatic theology ( what is NOT of G-d & the Spirit) and piercing through empty cliches, and the via purgativa ( the way of the penitent heart).

Let us dance with Sheva and grapple with our fads, follies, fumbles, and funny side along with our more serious celebration of  luminous moments.

© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

A Statue in Bangalore, India of Shiva Meditating