Piled in the back of the station wagon like a bunch of soft toys juggled by a mischievous hand, the children listened intently to the banter of the adults in the front seat. Bob Kagen, looking fondly over the pastoral landscape stretching beyond Botsford Hill Road, inhaled deeply and proclaimed that there was nothing like the smell of fresh cut grass. Ollie slapped the steering wheel and bellowed a large laugh. Taunting his buddy, he replied that what he smelled wasn't grass at all, but horse manure. The rollicking back seat thought that the gaffe was hilarious, but being a child from suburban New York, I wasn't sure I could tell the difference either.
It can be easy to misidentify something we're not familiar with. When we trust in our own limited experience it's easy to get things wrong. Then there's a need for someone to get us back on the right track. And that's the point of the gospel message this morning. John the Baptist, with fire and brimstone, has come to show us to the true road. "Make straight the way of the lord," he professes, and a page later, "He must increase, but I must decrease." And like the Zen story of the monk Hotei pointing to the moon, the Baptist is only a finger pointing back to our original path.
Some get caught up thinking about the particulars. Who is this wild man that corrects our ways? What is the point of knowing the difference between increment and excrement? And who is this other we do not know? Yet, Eckhart Tolle explains that: "The truth is far more all-encompassing than the mind could ever comprehend. No thought can encapsulate the Truth. At best, it can only point to it." Blogger Myrko Thum says analyzing the pointer is pointless. We don't need to find, nor can we find, the Christ outside of our true self. "Turn your light inward," Dogen Zenji said, "and you will illuminate the self." Only then will you know what's horse s__t and what's not.
love, always,
pia
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