Mark Nepo is beautiful in his devotional today…
As a child I used to talk to things–birds that flew overhead, trees that swayed slowly in the night, even stones drying in the sun. For years, though, I stopped doing this freely because of what others might think, and then I stopped altogether. Now I learn that Native Americans do this all the time, that many original peoples believe with their childlike eyes right into the center of things. Now, almost fifty, I am humbled to recover the wisdom that believing is not a conclusion, but a way into the vitality that waits in everything. When you can, talk with a child about how they see the world.” Believing is all a child does for a living…” – Kurtis Lamkin (from Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening).
As a child I used to talk to things–birds that flew overhead, trees that swayed slowly in the night, even stones drying in the sun. For years, though, I stopped doing this freely because of what others might think, and then I stopped altogether.
Now I learn that Native Americans do this all the time, that many original peoples believe with their childlike eyes right into the center of things.
Now, almost fifty, I am humbled to recover the wisdom that believing is not a conclusion, but a way into the vitality that waits in everything.
When you can, talk with a child about how they see the world.”
Believing is all a child does for a living…” – Kurtis Lamkin (from Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening).
When you can detach from your beliefs…literally let go of your propensity to grasp and to cling to all those things you were taught you must “believe in order to be saved”…when you can stop believing in your beliefs…
You will believe once again.
You come into this world believing. Believing is a natural grace-gift from the Divine. You do not have to teach a child how to believe…how to trust…how to live in a magical universe of total abandonment to what is.
As we grow up, however, we lose that capacity. It gets judged and found wanting. We replace believing with “the things WE believe.”
It happens in religion all the time. And, before long, those beliefs become enshrined in doctrines, dogmas, and definitive belief systems that we must then discuss, then debate, then disagree, and ultimately divide. Which explains why, in Christianity alone, what began as a little group of believing people – people of the “Way” as they were known – is today fragmented into – I think the last estimate I saw – 35,000 different “Christian” denominations.
What distinguishes each of those denominations? Each believes its beliefs are just a little more “right” than the beliefs of all other believing people.
Is it any wonder why scores of people today leaving religious institutions…are leaving the Church?
When you can detach from your beliefs… When you can literally let go of clinging to those things you were taught you must “believe in order to be saved”… When you can stop believing in your beliefs…
Believing will then become your chosen profession…once again.
