acim.org/acim/chapter-18/the-...
They say huge doors turn on tiny hinges--the little willingness is that hinge---but we are talking HUGE, COSMIC doors and itty bitty teensy weeny hinges. I seem to remember a scene in the movie, "Milagro Beanfields War," (ahh...New Mexico...) where a guy kicks out an earthen plug between a resevoir and his beanfield. A dramatic watering of his field happens sytematically as the water traces the trenches separating rows of young plants until the entire plot is saturated. I actually went looking for this scene, so indelibly etched in my mind, but could not find it in "Milagro Beanfiled Wars." I may have seen it elsewhere. Or maybe it is a fantasy--maybe it's my creative contribution to this movie that lacked such a scene. It definitely improved it in my mind's version. Again, the little clot of dirt is the willingness. A mere gesture of consent, a flicker in the mind of clay allows the alluvial spate of spirit to bring life to baked earthen illusions, allowing mighty beans to reach down with roots and up with fruits into a three-d matrix of dry, broken 'realationships-in-waiting.'
New Mexico. New Mexico. Oh enchanted land of hot, dry earth, cool blue mountains, and clear, refreshing streams, a land in my mind, a land where I once lived--where I had a brief affair with the Sandia Mountains, blue-violet skies, and happy brown people who had nothing else to live for but to be happy people in New Mexico. I'm excluding Area 51 here--or the Canyon De Chelly gift shop (hey 4 corners is 4 corners!] or Rozwell--we do not know what's there. Yes, but the rest--especially some nice neighborhoods in Albuquerque and all of Taos and Santa Fe, other than the places that have priced me out or over-built. The Land of Enchantment--where everything is only like I remember it. No one can take this away from me, other than me, by going there and actually buying a house someplace and dealing with New Mexico. We are BOTH wondering what this has to do with "the little willingness."
'Where there is a willingness, there is a way' to make sense of absolutely anything--except why the little willingness is perhaps more challenging than an August afternoon at a Las Cruces craft fair. See, if I do 'the thing' [become willing to invite God into any and every picture] it is all over...it ends what has dominated my mind since birth. The chatter, gripes, worries, nascent fears, dreaded unravellings, irritating shortfalls, over-demanding long-falls, failings and guilty chambers, locked and bolted against even my memory--all this goes rapidly from history, to dim awareness to nothing at all. It is replaced by something completely different--or familiar, as the case may be. New Mexico is a place that only exists in my head. If I examine it experientially, inother words, if I actually go and LIVE in it I will realize that New Mexico is still safely locked in my head and has nothing to do with "New Mexico" on the map. 'Willingness' is the small movement of mind to bring the two New Mexicos together. It is the 'deconstruction project' of removing a tiny loco-linkage in my brain that wants-to, has-to keep the two entities together and yet different. It is a non-sensical dogma. It makes me wax endlessly about a spiritual land out of space and time that 'is' and 'is-not' a place in the desert southwest. It is insanity--yet, a favorite past time.
Albuquerque, John Nichols' novels about NM, Clark's clay and turquoise colored condo, cliff dwellings, Zuni jewelry, Hopi religion, views from the Sandia Tramway at sunset. and whispers of the ancients at 3 Rivers Park, [honestly, I think I heard 'Clear out white-boy!' muttered by a pile of petroglyphs; they seemed serious,] these keep that flimsy membrane of unwillingness intact. One must manage this situation with some delicacy (like a red chili laced chocolate bar). "Return to the bridge, Phil."
For-real, many times, life is sweet and the idea of turning it over to God (look where it got Jesus) can be frightening. So there is some misperception--God is more along the lines of 'life more abundantly' and therefore, not to be avoided. Let's be clear, I still like the cliff dwellings, but I need to forgive both New Mexicos and therfore myself for inventing them. There IS a Land of Enchantment
between Carlsbad Caverns and 4 Corners Monument which is NOT in my head and which can only bless me if I actually go there, willing to let the Spirit guide me where it will--other than that, it's just make-believe and I have to assess the 2500 dollar, 5 pound, bear-claw, polished turquoise and silver dollar necklace on its true aesthetic merit. Will I wear it to Ike's Diner? The Abilene Free-Fair? Should I unload it at the Mud Creek Antique Mall? Can I get a hundred dollars for it? [Ha!, maybe 50...!]
29 июн 2024
