I shot Bunny the calf this morning. After feeding her bottles of milk twice daily for nearly four months. Euthanized her – to be more precise and perhaps less honest about something that it took me days to steel myself to do. She had broken a leg somehow and was wracked by arthritis in the other three. She could no longer get up without my help. I found the spot on her forehead that would kill her instantly and pulled the trigger. (I never get used to the silence inside the gunshot when your ears ring and the body falls to the ground, and it seems that time stops. It’s eerie and you want to cry and you are for a little while unclean in every way, a monster to all that look at you.) Continue reading “The Struggle”
God Breaks In
I’m not sure why but today’s reflection posted by Richard Rohr seemed like something worth sharing.
“We are told that Jesus hung out with publicans, tax collectors, and sinners. Perhaps during these sessions of music, laughter, and food fellowship, there were also . . . moments when the love of God and mutual care and concern became the focus of their time together. Contemplation is not confined to designated and institutional sacred spaces. God breaks into nightclubs and Billie Holiday’s sultry torch songs; God tap dances with Bill Robinson and Savion Glover. And when Coltrane blew his horn, the angels paused to consider.
Some sacred spaces bear none of the expected characteristics. The fact that we prefer stained glass windows, pomp and circumstance . . . has nothing to do with the sacred. It may seem as if the mysteries of divine-human reunion erupt in our lives when, in fact, the otherness of spiritual abiding is integral to human interiority. On occasion, we turn our attention to this abiding presence and are startled. But it was always there.”
Perhaps it was the use of the word erupt that took my mind to the people of Hawaii, but I started to think about how even amidst the disasters of life…God breaks in…another way of saying that the sacred is always there. My heart goes out to all those Hawaiians faced with recent volcanic eruptions and perhaps more to come. I’m not trying to make light of the situation. Living in the middle of the North American plate, I seldom feel the earth shake. The only roar I hear is the thunderstorm and maybe once in a lifetime, a tornado. The power of the earth experienced as an earth quake, volcano, or tsunami is almost beyond my imagining. I’m beginning to understand why people of the Hawaiian Islands made sacrifices to appease the God’s when the volcanoes erupted.
The photo of the plants covered with lava in Michelle’s last post seemed poignant to me somehow. It reminded me that nature is tenacious. No matter what events surround us; we pick up the pieces and move on. Perhaps it’s harder to see the other side, when dark smoke fills our view. But eventually the lava turns to soil and plants will thrive in its mineral richness. Perhaps this is why prayers and sacrifices are given, to remind us that the sacred is still there. To hope that we can find the courage and strength to face loss and adversity.
My prayers to everyone in Hawaii for their safety and speedy recovery.
Metamorphic: for all the Wild Ones
For we cannot think like Indians; at most, we can think with them. – Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics
As far back as I am able to think, to remember, which is a kind of thinking, there are memories of places, of plants and animals, of a kind of light and air, the smell of water on leaves, root and dirt, the strange sight of lava flows reaching the sea, the band of white coral touching blue ocean, of roads leading through orchards, of flowers against the sky, of moss-covered rocks and river pebbles.
I have these myths. These are my myths. Continue reading “Metamorphic: for all the Wild Ones”
Hawaii Island Lava Flow Aid
There are disasters happening all over the world, but to lose your home to lava is incredibly final. There is no going back. For anyone who might want to help those families that have lost their homes to lava flows and/or been evacuated from the rift zone this is a good site:
Photo credit: Trevor Hughes, USA Today
Since the Beginning of Time
“Since the beginning of time,” as [David] Kopenawa says of the Yanomami demiurge [Omama] and while giving an account of his life of political struggle against the expropriation of their forestland: Continue reading “Since the Beginning of Time”