Category Archives: Realistic Pointers 2015

The Truth of Wonder

Consciousness (when being conscious of consciousness itself) can stumble upon states of consciousness that we commonly call “wonder” or “awe.” It takes a bit of poetry to communicate from one person to another the deeply inward experiences of wonder. Following is some poetry on this topic. I like this particular poem because it summarizes the vast scope of wonder. The structure of this poem uses the overall metaphor of a Land of Mystery in which there exists a River of Freedom, a Mountain of Care, and a Sea of Tranquility.

The Land of Mystery

We live in a Land of Mystery.
We know nothing about it.
We don’t know where we have come from.
We don’t know where we are going.
We don’t know where we are.
We are newborn babes.
We have never been here before.
We have never seen this before.
We will never see it again.
This moment is fresh,
Unexpected,
Surprising.
As this moment moves into the past,
It cannot be fully remembered.
All memory is a creation of our minds.
And our minds cannot fathom the Land of Mystery,
much less remember it.
We experience Mystery Now
And only Now.
Any previous Now is gone forever.
Any yet-to-be Now is not yet born.
We live Now,
only Now,
in a Land of Mystery.

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Contemplative Truth

My best friend in high school was a fan of the President Harry Truman. He liked Truman because he talked bluntly and stuck with what he had to say no matter what others thought about it. Truman had a reputation for uttering hard sayings. “Give ‘em hell Harry!” was a popular saying going around at the time. Some interviewer asked President Truman what he thought about that saying. Truman replied that he thought the saying was a bit misleading. Here is his famous reply, “I only tell them the truth, and they think it’s hell.”

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Becoming a Revolutionary

“Realistic Living” is a revolutionary category, for most people, most of the time, are in dread flight from Reality.  Obsolete and mistaken notions rule our living, but we nevertheless cling to what has become familiar.  So realism can be dreadful.  But Realistic Living is also a joyous category, for being our authentic being in our real situation is a happy journey into our true humanity.  I nurture my realism from ancient religious sources, but I also nurture my being from those sources that best describe our contemporary world in vivid, unvarnished ways.

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