Out kayaking today with my son, came across a colony of insect-eating Sundew. Beautiful!

Beginning of September, sunny, warm water, my son took this picture of me. He was taking picutes, I was paddling. hmmm...

There were lots of people on the beach when we set off, but within minutes we were all alone on the far side of the lake. 

Aquatic abundance
we kayak through
insect chitin

Visited with Brett last night. We talked about spiritual growth, the things we inherit from our fathers, the influence of genes, childhood experiences, our own expectations. Brett said that it is hard to love when we have unmet needs. Is this true? I thought about my own need for a place to belong, for acceptance, for reassurance that I am valued. Are these needs keeping me from agape, from the selfless thoughtfulness and confident love that is the Christian Ideal?

On the other hand I get overwhelmed with people. I need to retreat, to be alone, to nurture sabi, to accept what is.

I have been reading Zaadz member blogs. All these fellow humans living out their lives struggling with the contradiction of choosing to transcend, and having to wait for it to happen.

I thought of this pine tree I saw on the west coast a few weeks ago. Such beauty in hardship. It is hard to live when the nutrients are scarce. It is hard to love when the nurturing is hard to remember.

 

Another thing I talked with Brett about was morality. In the Integral Christianity pod we have been talking about what it is that would mark Integral Christianity from any other flavor of Christianity. Some of us agree that "right and wrong" changes depending on the context. I have been reading the Language of God by  Francis S. Collins  and he makes a big deal in that book about the "moral law", arguing that it is a constant in the universe like gravity. So in the same way that gravity will cause different reactions depending on the context (a rubber duck will fall to the floor but not to the bottom of a bathtub full of water) the "moral law" will cause different reactions depending on the context (a rubber duck can be a great toy - a good thing, or pollution - a bad thing, depending on if it is in your bathtub or in the ocean.

Now Jesica Davis has been writing on her blog about gossip, about her commitment to refrain from participating in it, and just how difficult it really is. Jesica is writing amazing stuff about this. She is engaged in a moral dilemma on more than one level. She is trying to figure out what she should do in a situation where she is confronted with the shallowness of middle class culture and her own desire for significant conversation about important topics.

I told Jesica's story to Brett and he mused on it for awhile, and then said something like, "I don't spend too much time on morality, you can get hung up on it."

What the heck did that mean?

I asked him and together we explored what is behind morality. I finally concluded that from an integral perspective there are different morals at different stages. In the early stages (Beige through Blue) differentiations, distinctions, rules, and "fitting in" are very important, in fact your life often depends upon it. But as you progress though the orange and green stages the "black and white" clarity begins to break down. And with a break down in clarity, comes self-doubt. I have experienced this in numerous areas of my life with issues that I used to be completely sure about.

For example, when I was in my twenties I accepted the challenge from a passionate pro-life activist and wrestled with the issue of abortion. The strength of this man's logic and his powerful rhetoric convinced me that fetuses were human beings, and that it was wrong to kill them. During my time at university I began to wonder about the sheer number of people on the planet, our greed for resources and our belief that we have the right to propagate other species out of existence. The moral issue shifted from a question of the value of a human fetus, to the relative values of human fetuses and whole species. All the evidence now suggests that we are directly responsible for most of the extinctions of species on the planet during human history. The sheer numbers of greedy people are devastating the biosphere. This is wrong.

Jesica's experience with the Westside moms is fascinating because it touches on this very same issue. These moms are so insulated from the stark realities of their middle class impact on the world that they spend their time consumed with ego-centric concerns about their babies, their real estate situation, and fine tuning their posh diets.

Jesica makes a judgment about these moms, and then wrestles with her judgment. We are taught that we should not judge others. But is this really a sound teaching? My latest theory is that we should not judge people unfairly.

For instance, I can imagine that one of these Westside moms is concerned about her diet and that of her baby because she is a responsible human being who wants to be healthy and give her baby the best chance to succeed in life. This is admirable.

Maybe Jesica's responsibility is to help this mom see that while it is good to be concerned about her own health and that of her baby, it would be even better to be concerned about the health of the planet and how her food purchases effect the environment.

This language of "better" implies a moral judgment. But it is a judgment that would help both the mom and the environment.

Jesica's desire to deepen the conversation with these moms is an example for all of us who are seeking to transcend and include the stage we are in. Moral development is important, but to come back to Brett's comment, there is something even more important, and that is to connect with that which is behind morality.

...And that is a subject for another night.

This post is for those of you I invited to check out Zaadz who are wondering what the catch is.

The answer, or part of the answer, is clearly articulated by Siona in her blog:

http://siona.zaadz.com/blog/2006/9/so_what_does_zaadz_actually_do

There really is no "catch' but Zaadz is a business, and as businesses go...it looks like they are on the right track.

Had a long conversation with James today about everything from raising kids to what you do when you hit that wall in mid life when you think, "is this all there is?" I shared my conviction that sabi is a way past that. And I really do believe it.

But if that is true, if I am learning to hold life lightly, to accept and be grateful, to notice all the beauty, then why is my life still touched with so much anxiety? It made me realize that despite my intellectual belief about how I should be living, despite my embrace of sabi and the great depth of being it allows, I still spend a great deal of time in old patterns.

I keep thinking of something Michael has tried to show me, the return to a vision, the resetting of the internal clock, the touching of the touch stone. If I am to be a wabi sabi man, a soul in awe of every imperfect moment, if I am to really let go into this motion, this stream of subtle beauty that is poetry, that is the rush of delight in passing on, this wandering beyond control, beyond safe explanations, if I am willing to see that much, then I will have to keep humming that vision until it is stuck permanently in my head. I will need to strum that chord until my very being echoes it back. Unless I am willing to do this, my anxiety will keep surfacing, I will keep being grounded on the rocks in the stream, instead of slipping around them.

The middle of life is a fast water time and the rapids are intense. Epictetus is calling me to that stoic shore, that place where I can handle it by not handling it, by actually taking my hands off the controls and letting the universe be as it is, in spite of my need to understand it.

Richard