Day 078b: Rekindling the Flame … (July 01, 2019)
It was somehow blessedly appropriate that I had this extra nugget of sedentary solitude before commencing the portion of the Path that I had already tread once before – almost as if The Way was giving me an extra chance to sit & soak it all in before setting forth once more; almost as if She was reminding me to re-mind myself that this was a new journey altogether; that even though the route would indeed be similar, the motives with which I set forth and the messages that I would receive hereafter were & would be all freshly born … And what better way to symbolize such a recognition than by entering St. Jean’s church once more to light one more candle before journeying onward?
“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was actually & truly good even for ourselves. And we have fulfilled the danger of this precept by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world – to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity – our own capacity for life – that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the Creation itself has been stifled. And yet there is now no doubt that we have been wrong and that we must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption; namely, that what is good for the world is the only result that can in any way be truly good for us. And this shift requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; that we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in humble awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in & of its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.” ~ via Wendell Berry
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