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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

 



'The Virgin of St. John of the Cross', 1953, by Patrick Pye

Kenosis

"In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.
He is so new, his silk skin has not yet
been roughed by plane and wooden beam
nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,
of blue-white milk, of curving skin
and, pulsing in his inner ear, the inner throb
of warm heart's repeated sound.

His only memories float from fluid space.
So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door
broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,
wept for the sad heart of the human race."

This poem by Luci Shaw takes us to a figure at once so natural, so truly child - the mouth working in and out - and yet luminous. The child who is God will grow into the man who is God and never once forsake his humanity, will never be anyone other than truly human, transparent in God, as we are all asked to become. Jesus will always be present in that trusting reality that is true of any birth, so beautifully evoked here, through all the trails and trials of his life, equally evoked here.

Retaining innocence, and the innocence of attention is not easy, difficult it is to relax into our true selves, but it is always the original place from which we can meaningfully start to navigate the world, to allow the pause of being to be the route/root of all our doing. Tuning our inner ear to the heart of whatever presents itself to us, pierce through the clamoring, to cultivate a sense of what is going on here, and its meaning. The better to navigate by, and our present world is not short of clamoring and doing! 'Relaxing into our selves' was a phrase I used in one of my wonderful Feldenkrais sessions this year, that my teacher particularly liked, as you learn to play a particular kind of attention to how you are in the world and micro-adjustments can make such a difference to how you see and carry yourself. Each session has felt like a cumulative renewal in body/mind flow.

One of the many fruits of re-reading this year Kent Nerburn's extraordinary trilogy of books of his encounter with the Indian elder, Dan (that I discussed here: https://ncolloff.blogspot.com/2017/10/journeying-with-indian-elder.html and here: https://ncolloff.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-girl-who-sang-to-buffalo.html) was being reminded of realizing why many of the indigenous people I have met, especially in Central America, have such 'soft' handshakes. Our firm pumping being seen as misplaced self-affirmation, the overweening assertion of 'ego' and again of how even small adjustments in our attention (and how one shakes hands in this case) can yield different, positive responses.

When I realized this, I found myself thinking how much else goes missing from view as I blunder through the world? How do we spend so much time thinking out what we should be doing without ever pausing to ask: what precisely is going on here? Perhaps the salvation of the world hinges on resting into this latter mode more often, more consciously. Practicing the kenosis of incarnation in everyday ways.

This pause to pay attention, to empty oneself of opinions, to be present to allow the other in, in all their plenitude. Such self-emptying, kenosis, is at the heart of the Christian mystery; and, God is present, as the Hasidic saying goes, wherever we let God in. We are all invited to the kenosis that is incarnation: what does it matter, asks Eckhart, if God is born into the world if God is not born within me? 


'The Nativity', 1305-1315, by Giotto

Meanwhile, what another year it has been - work done remotely that continues through the hard work of our partners to reap rewards of resilience as well as of growth. One of my favorite entrepreneurs, who I did 'meet' virtually, was Sylvia Kuria, who grows affordable organic vegetables in Kenya and who we featured in our annual report here:  https://www.argidius.com/en/learning/learning-placeholder-i6023-sylvias-basket-kenya/ 

Droughts, pandemics, logistical challenges, nothing has stopped Sylvia going from strength to strength ...! 

And, the best thank you note we received was from a Mayan-based business organization in Guatemala that acknowledged the gratitude of the ancestors as well as of their current team (or is there actually any difference)? Now when Zoom depresses, I conjure up an image of my office populated by benign Mayan ancestors nurturing us on! Working with them has been a continuous acknowledgment of mutual difference, not least in our conceptions of time! 

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