Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Sept 8, 2009

Be self-sufficient but not isolated.
When the king of China closed the borders,
Centuries of stagnation and decadence began.

- Deng Ming-Dao (Taoist)

Well, you’re safe. You can’t do it anyway. “Close the borders” that is. We tend to think we can – but we’d have to be dead – and even then there is no guarantee! We underestimate the Mind; we underestimate the Cosmic Unconscious; we underestimate our Self; we underestimate the mystery we call Life.

It is, as the Buddha and Jesus and others say, always the Middle Way. Each of us needs an inner structure to survive. Life is full of events that challenge our basic biological survival, let alone emotional or psychic. Support can be elusive, despite the simple fact that we are surrounded by other life. Some self-sufficiency is simply part of being a healthy human being.

But isolation is like being in a depressed gene pool. Eventually, things begin to break down. Change and variety are a given of healthy Life on all levels. My friend Nancy Roth+ said in her sermon last week that Jesus changed and learned as Life confronted Him, in this case by the challenge of the “Syrophoenecian Woman” figure. “Open up, Open up!” she was saying. “Get a bigger vision!” He did.

Another thing is helpful in this balancing of self-sufficiency and isolation, I find. Blur the lines between Death and Life. The Middle Way incorporates them both.

Brian+