God Has Left the Building

 

GOD HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

Holiness?

Do we not believe it exists?

Do we believe "holiness" to be a vestigial mental concept of no relevance to our carnal lives?

Is "holiness" relegated to an altar or reliquary or ritual?

Does that mean God has deserted us?  If we sense no "holiness" through the course of a day, what's that say about God, or the world, or us?

God has left the building?

The world supposedly of God's Creation is now corrupt and bereft of any residual holiness?

Or we just don't see that holiness, don't sense it, or maybe we're blinded to it by our goal-oriented busyness.

"Holiness"....seriously?....relegated to something constructed by human hands?....or constrained to some ritual or liturgy?.....or relegated to the past?  

Imagine what life would be like if we were more adept at discerning holiness.  Imagine what the world would be like if more people were willing to accept the possibility of holiness.

"Holiness".....in the routine, in the grasp of a baby, in the blossom of a flower, in an exercise of patience.

"Holiness", not an alien and inscrutable weirdness stuck in pages of scripture, not divorced from our morning chores, but an integral component of each, the foundation underlying all.  Doesn't that seem more reasonable for a world created by a God worthy of any worship?

Look for it, be open to it, just in case, just in case it is there after all, awaiting a respite from our denials.

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Opportunity in the Darkness

 Copyright 2025 Don Ray

Feel free to share.

OPPORTUNITY IN THE DARKNESS

 

We, these nominally freewill individual elements of consciousness, find ourselves in this world of entropy, inevitable death, need, hunger, suffering, and evil.  We exist in more or less solitary confinement, our experience of life singular and isolated, with no way to share the essence of what it deeply feels like to be you and me.  

This might initially seem discouraging, and then depressing, and then abjectly hopeless.  ……but only because we miss the point.  Perceived from a different perspective, a distinct Light becomes evident in the undeniable darkness.

We are placed in a form of existence with boundless opportunity to do good and practice Love.  Yet our individual corporeal existence is all about us, all about our birth, all about our survival, all about our destiny.

We are given ample, indeed boundless, opportunity to do good, to help, to alleviate suffering, to rescue, to heal, to comfort.  Anywhere we turn there is need, which is to say, opportunity.

We do not have to save the world.  We cannot save the world.  But we can save someone or something, and in the process accept the gift of our own salvation.

There need be little torment about exactly what to do.  In this world of suffering the opportunities are boundless.  Raise your children, do a good job, or rescue animals, or shelter the homeless, or serve on church committees, or be politically informed and active.  But for God's sake, for your sake, do something.  There is no single right path.  There is no way for you to save the world.  But there are endless ways to save something and someone.  

That is the nature and Purpose of this world of entropy, to provide opportunity, to provide the Choice.  At its core foundational structure, below the infinite mathematical sequences that can only tease at a pseudo-determinism, resides entropy, the statistically not quite impossible, and hence inevitable, evolution of conscious life, and the inexorable death of that life.  The resulting overall perceived image is a grisly panoply of carnivorous cruelty.  Yet at the pixilated level of the individual elements of isolated consciousness, there we see the Purpose, the beautiful Purpose, the redeeming Purpose, in the opportunity to  choose Love and beauty in whichever direction we turn.  

It is a Universe and Creation of suffering.  It is a Universe and Creator suffering…...all for us, for each of us…..we children being born into what seems darkness because our eyes are still closed, we children of a Light awaiting our Choice to let it shine through us.

Copyright 2025 Don Ray

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Recognizing Beauty

RECOGNIZING BEAUTY

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Homestead creek  07:02

The creek is running!  Barely, but running!  The surface trickle just barely makes it past the wood jam, fizzling out in less than a meter.  There is no sound.  The surface ripples the tiniest bit, making the sky's reflection flicker.  But it's grown from yesterday!...thanks to the remarkable string of daily rains.  Thank You, thank You, thank You for this symbol of the inexorable return of Life in spite of our destructiveness.

As I walked out the back door before sunrise, a coyote concert!  Little family was loud and clear from the south!  Upon reaching coyote point I never saw them though.  Now four mornings since I saw them.  

The mountains had a slow motion cloud fall silently and grayly slipping over ridges from the south, a rare alpine treat.

A couple of bucks in the valley were trying out this year's antlers with each other.

Sublime beauty.  Thank You.  Thank You.  Thank You.

Would anyone read these poor words and experience a touch of that beauty?  Would anyone wish they had been there?

If so, why were more people not up there this morning and every morning?  Why do I not bother describing such scenes to anyone?  Does our limited ability to perceive beauty make beauty boring?  

We prefer adventure and tales with conclusions.  That's a problem if it keeps us from experiencing beauty.  If we cannot perceive the beauty in Nature we cannot discern it in ourselves.  If we cannot recognize loving Creator in Creation we will not recognize our souls as children of that Creator.  The value of Nature's beauty reflects our own value, as we arise from and are integral part of the same Source fulfilling the same Purpose.

A cold indifference toward Nature inevitably is companion to a cold indifference toward humanity.  One either looks for beauty and Spirit in everything or turns from beauty and Spirit in all aspects of life.  

Looking for Beauty does not mean pretending it is there when it is not.  It means having eyes and heart open and receptive to the living Spirit of the Source, especially when it appears in unexpected form.  

Imagine seeing.  Imagine wanting to see.  

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.