Open Door Closed Door / Advent Day 4

Which doors to our heart do we keep open. Which are closed, nailed shut? Which doors do we sit beside, carefully monitoring what comes in? Which are like the gates of the Buddhist monasteries before which pilgrims sit meditating for days before the enclosure is opened from within, and the pilgrim is invited to join the seeking, meal-sharing community?

A friend Marilyn told the story at last week’s Chalice Circle at UUFF about being at Plum Village, the Buddhist visionary Thich Nhat Hanh’s community in France. Every 15 minutes throughout the day, a bell would sound which could be heard everywhere, and each person would stop what they were doing, stop their conversation, their reading, their writing, take note of their breath: "I breathe in, my body relaxes; I breathe out, I smile."

I decided I was going to cut back on the crap that I have delivered to my "in box" over the internet. But as I peeled through it before breakfast this morning, it wasn’t overwhelming. Don’t we owe it to ourselves and our children to know, for example, that George Bush remains this morning undeterred in his threats and blame of Iran, despite the rebellion in his Intelligence services, which revealed yesterday that Iran has been off the "bomb" for at least the past four years. This in the face of Bush’s World War 3 quip from six weeks ago, against those who would not join the US in leveling sanctions against the Tehran regime. You would have thought he’d do damage control and let the focus shift to something the GOP is better at growling over, such as undocumented people (now even the left is calling these unfortunates "illegal aliens"). Bush/Cheny may yet get to start a third Mideast war before it’s all over.

Is this worth reading about? Does this help us live, and love, and care for one another?

I think so. If only to set out what a bottom line of "adequacy" in the craft of reporting. Last week, listening to the KCRW "Left, Right and Center" podcast, I heard Bob Sheer’s (of Truthdig.com) insightful critique of the press corps which trudges after the candidates, drinking in small town bars at night, sharing gossip, offering up for their editors Iowan nuance and insider insights, but failing utterly to look at the large issues of history, how and where common people live their lives, what is happening to the world on our watch. Immediately after his brilliant rant, moderator Matt Miller asked Tony Blankly of the Washington Times about a gathering of press corps and Mike Huckabee inside the beltway over a lunch, and three minutes of Iowan nuance and insider insights resulted, directly in the face of Sheer’s critique. Sheer jumped back in and nailed them.

He’s exactly right! It’s so hard to stay focused on the substance of our political life together. What about corporations and climate change? What about changing the American lifestyle so that we can live beyond peak oil? What about creating a sense of community together, rather than exploiting differences in opinion on Abortion or Muslims or Homosexuality to gin up fears and angers on deadline for election day? Instead of having a conversation among ourselves which matters, we allow the politicos to drink and gossip together for our delight or disgust, and let the war continue, let the economy feed the rich, and let the oil companies destroy the future of our planet.

And the religious or spiritually attuned, feel overwhelmed by the sadness of all this. They turn to prayer, meditation, and other practices in order to recover a sense of self, or God’s presence above the fray.

But aren’t we making the same mistake that all escapists make – those who do TV or Paris Hilton or alcohol or false religion or sports to feel better – about the sacred. The sacred isn’t an idea, it’s a way of living together in the real biological community called Earth. Part of it is the wonderfully resiliant political realm created for us by the Jeffersons and Madisons, salvaged at great human expense from the Hitlers and Pol Pots. And now from the Blackwaters and the Exxons. Aren’t we allowing the slackers in the media to annoy us to the point that we stop paying attention. And when we stop being able to "stay awake" Haliburton steals your wallet, and your keys, and locks you out of your own home.

"Keep alert," Jesus says in one of his famous parables, (Luke 12: 36): "Know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into." Maybe some would say that our preparation for the Winter Solstice, the Christians season of Advent, isn’t a time to have hands sullied with the matters of the world. I’d say, like anyone waiting for a rare wild animal to come down to drink from the stream at dusk: "Quiet. Watch."