02/15/07

What’s the greater miracle, coincidence or design?

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It comes down to right relationship. To doing right by one another. To living the moment well. And, by way of implication and extension, all moments flowing from this one. We live in this moment so as to impact all moments for the good of all. Which means, of course, a restriction of the freedom of all. The good of all restricts the freedom of all. I am no longer free to act with my best interest in mind when I am concerned about your best interest. How does my best interest impact your best interest? How does my good interfere with your good? What is good for all? What good is money if I am not free to spend it in ways that are good for ME?

Right relationship puts ME on an equal basis with YOU. We care about each other as much as we care about ourselves. If you haven’t tried to fly that kite in a while, take it out and see if you can get it air borne. It’s easier to talk about flying it, and leave it in the top of the closet or hanging from a rafter in the attic or a beam in the basement. We are sure it could be flown, but not today. We’ll wait until we get all our ducks in a row and everything squared away and our lives just like we want them to be, then we will go fly the kite.

The practice of right relationship, with its restriction of our freedom, of our good, for the sake of the freedom and good of the other, is a kite that will not be flown. We will not live together in ways that are mutually good. I will not sacrifice my good for the sake of your good. Power and control are about my good over yours, or yours over mine. Position determines the advantage. If I have something you want or need, you will have to give me something I want or need in exchange for it. What’s fair is fair. Tit for tat. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Pork barrel politics. Politics. Getting more for you than you give to them. Winning. Coming out ahead. The way the world works.

The practice of right relationship is a spiritual discipline. It takes us to the heart of what is important, discloses our demons, reveals covert resistance, exposes hidden agendas, puts everything on the table, and invites us to consider what we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of the other’s good. It is, as you might guess, eye-opening. Much easier, much less disconcerting, as you might guess, to leave it tucked quietly away in the closet, or the attic, or the basement, for someone else to find, and fly.

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How we live in the moment has implications for all the moments flowing from this one. How caring can we be, here and now? How compassionate? How genuine, authentic, real, true? How clearly can we express who we are and how it is with us? What impinges upon us in the moment? What pressures are being brought to bear on us by the moment? What colors our sense of the good? What are we trying to get in the moment? Gain from the moment? Do with the moment? What is at stake in the moment? What needs to happen? What governs our sense of what needs to happen? Toward what shall we live in the moment? Whose good is served by the good we serve in the moment?