Howard at Rest

Howard has no rant in him, nor does he feel his poverty today. Perhaps because he is free of the yoke of his municipal duty. 

 He woke this morning late, at 9, to the scent of lilac, the cooing of doves, the warm sun shine, and the big blue Colorado sky.  

His mother and his wife have seen fit to outfit a temporary space for him to write and read and reflect, which is all his soul really wants to do.  Howard finds the compulsive need to ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING to be a sort of insult to his spirit, which is more inclined to peace and rest than it is to imposing his will upon the world.   Perhaps he overstated that.

Mainly, it is Sunday, and he has chosen to take the biblical admonition to keep the sabbath as a day of rest, peace, and non-doing, as well as a time to reflect upon the deeper matters of existence, such as: since I am heading toward inevitable oblivion, what should I do with this thing I call my life?

Howard is not sure, and this is nothing new.  This question seems to perplex him more deeply than all the others.  Howard tends to see the material world, or better,  the worldview that the modern American Empire is selling to be a tawdry mess filled with endless commercials for products nobody needs, to be sold in huge stores that nobody really likes to see or be in, and the vast, sad, destitute Faux Chateaus in which all and sundry are wringing their hands over the economy. Howard overgeneralizes here and says this poorly but what he really feels is "What though, is the real economy but soil, water, sunshine, and the shelter of love?"  

This is what Howard sees, and what he knows in his heart is true.  But he is, of course, subject to the whims of the great empire in which he is both subject and servant, and he knows that he must chart a course that "renders unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's and to God that which is God's."  And this is the crux of the matter.  That there is something to be rendered up to Ceasar.  And that there is something to be rendered up to God.

Howard doesn't mean to be so churchy but that is the way he feels today.  And he can see that what Ceasar demands of him is a certain mortgage on his soul.  And he sees that life can be and has been lived more simply and fully than he is able to live it now.  And that there is a means to end this current difficulty in his life within the matrix of society.  But that the means is not financial, or based in the fulfillment of his desires, or even in is work, although he finds that hard to believe right now.  It is, radically, an acceptance of the fullness of life AS IT IS, but with a radical change of the heart.  As the Tao Te Ching says, "Accept the world as it is, and the tao shall become luminous in you."  And Howard can believe that, can feel that, when he is at his leisure, and the weather is fine, and the birds sing in harmony, and his soul is full of love.  But Howard cannot imagine this if he were a Jew lost in Dachau.  For there is great evil in the world, and how can one accept that, if one suffers underneath it?

But today, Poor Howard is somehow free from such disturbances of heart and soul.  He lives somehow in a bliss, in the shower of the love that surronds him, in the benevolence of the natural day.  And he feels that he understands now what Jesus really meant in the Sermon on the Mount, and he shares with with his readers, because it is radical and profound.

"do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 

  "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more cloth you, O you of little faith? 

   "Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or "What shall we wear?' But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Selah