Life is a fast-moving river. You have to pay attention to keep up! Last night I received the news that state-wide, eight pm curfew has been put into effect by the governor of Arizona for all residents…for the next week, the announcement said. There are riots in many of the cities of the United States. Swat teams have been deployed with tear gas, rubber bullets, Billy clubs. Suffering is ratcheted up to a burning peak at this time. COVID 19 has unleashed Pandora’s Box of the ills that afflict humanity, giving rise to heartbreak upon heartbreak.

Fifty years ago I might have taken to the streets to join the protesters. Now, I turn toward radical acts of the contemplative life. Meditation, prayer, small devotional rituals, creativity, singing, writing, praising divinity—these are my personal revolutionary actions. So are cooking, walking, sky, star, and moon gazing. Being in communion with loved ones is at the top of my chart of revolutionary actions that make a difference in the world. These actions nourish our world because my heart tells me so; because my radical intelligence is affirmed by my gut knowing and all the deeper intuitive wisdom of what is true.

This strange time in which we live begs for our radical knowing; it begs for our contemplation, which happens in ordinary life, not sequestered and alone in a cave or on a mountaintop (although that’s okay too), but here and now in whatever we are doing or not doing. Yes, not doing, which is another vast and sacred possibility.

My blog posts are dedicated to those contemplations and not doings that occur in ordinary life, which can lead at any time to prayer, to upsurges of creativity, to poetry and song, to a silent peace beyond concepts, to the wonder and awe of our noble witness to the incredible play of the Divine unfolding the cosmos and all that exists within it.

I’ll be talking about contemplation and the creative inner life on June 9 at 7 pm at the Saturday Night Talk series in Prescott, live on ZOOM. I hope you’ll join me. You can get there by clicking here. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4900587108.