Ascension Day 2010

This is Ascension Day, a remembrance of when, as it is recorded in our scripture, the Resurrected Christ who his disciples had known as Jesus "returned to the Father" (because, as I understand it, it was best for their growth as disciples). I also thought of a word recorded as, "...not a sparrow falls, but your father knows it". Indeed this must be so, for there is nothing except the Reality of what-is -- how could it be otherwise?

Sitting in my chair with a cup of warmed up coffee, I noticed there was this stillness -- well, of course, it's a holiday and people are sleeping, cars are not being started -- but it was more than this. I noticed the thoughts there, take blood pressure, put on water to heat for fresh coffee and other things. It struck me, a thought I had many years ago as a young lad, a teen or even a preteen. And the thought (observation?) was that it is not the "thought" which moves my hand or gets me out of the chair. I can, so to speak, shout at my hand to move or for the body to get up - the thought is not the will that makes things happened. It was most pleasant to observe this condition or state, and even as I was "thinking" about this my hand went up to scratch an itch in my right ear -- now, how did "I" do or decide to do that? A moment later, when the radio was turned on to catch the news at 7 AM, I caught the end of a program "Existence", about an essay this Italian philosopher had composed to explain that God is not just the "Good God" but also the "Bad God", and the speaker was using this word "ontology" (which I have never understood or am even certain that the people who use it really understand it, but I think it means to make statements about the way things really are in an objective manner -- as if that were possible!).

Anyway, it struck me, well, yes, of course, doesn't everybody know that? If there is anything, there is only Reality -- which is both bigger and smaller than "God". The Child, as Old Bill puts it, knows with absolute certainty that Awareness is all embracing Love. Remember, Bill was a fellow who had the groundwork for his understanding laid in battle as explosions blew up places he had just been and body parts were flying through the air. The Lady Caramel has an image I like, which I paraphrase as, faith in God's love is such that even though thrown from an airplane without a parachute, one has faith in the momentous reality of God's love. Indeed, she sees the crucifixion in this light, not as a blood sacrifice to atone for sin, but as a demonstration of how far one must be prepared to go -- in order that we do not necessarily have to go that far -- in trust of God's love. Old Bill also refers to this several times, but one as striking as this does not come to mind at the moment. I do recall though the he does refer more than once to the key phrase in our scripture: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani" (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!?!?"