Thursday, August 21, 2008

On Bread and Wine

The bread and wine are yin and yang. Not that bread is yin and wine is yang, but that bread is yin and yang and wine is yin and yang. Dual oneness. Oneness that is not sameness. The physical and spiritual aspects of existence.

The bread and wine represent the physical requirements of life in the world, yet, in this place, and, with awareness, in every place, they remind us that there is more to life than eating and drinking. The bread and wine are the elements of life, and of life-beyond-life. They are life, and they are life becoming Life, life becoming alive in the deepest, best, truest sense of the word.

How we live determines how alive we are. The spirit with which we eat and drink—the awareness, the mindfulness, the knowing-ness—opens us to the possibilities of life in each moment of living. The bread is the bread of life. The wine is the elixir of life. The bread and wine are the essence of life lived to the fullest, and ask us with each bite, each sip, why are we living, what does it mean to be alive.

It is not enough to live. We must also become alive. We must bring life forth in ourselves and one another. And so, we eat and drink together, communally, not privately, and endeavor to be the right kind of company. Together, we eat and drink in order to take up the work of becoming aware of what it means to be alive, and to live as those who are alive in each moment.

So, we eat and drink here as a way of participating in an intentional metaphor embracing the physical and spiritual aspects of life. We eat to live and live to do what? Live to serve life how? The bread and wine awaken us to the importance of knowing what is truly important and aligning ourselves, our lives, with it, in the great integrity of being. Yin and yang, physical and spiritual, coming together in us, becoming apparent in us, being made real through us. Life being brought forth in life: Incarnation. The true work of soul.

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