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A WGREN Meditation for the Week of November 26, 2007

When the Buffalo Calf Woman gave the Sioux the sacred pipe, she said:

This is a sacred gift
And must always be treated in a holy way.
In this bundle is a sacred pipe
Which no impure man or woman should ever see.

With this sacred pipe
You will send your voices to Wakan Tanka.
The Great Spirit, Creator of all.
Your Father and Grandfather.

With this sacred pipe
You will walk upon the Earth
Which is your Grandmother and Mother.

All your steps should be holy.
The bowl of the pipe is red stone
Which represents the earth.
A buffalo calf is carved in the stone facing the center
And symbolizes the four-legged creatures
Who live as brothers among you.
The stem is wood and represents all growing things.
Twelve feathers hang from where the stem fits the bowl
And are from the Spotted Eagle.
These represent all the winged brothers
Who live among you.

All these things are joined to you
Who will smoke the pipe and send voices to Wakan Tanka.
When you use this pipe to pray,
You will pray for and with every thing.
The sacred pipe binds you to all your relatives;
Your Grandfather and Father,
Your Grandmother and Mother.

          From "Mother Earth Spirituality: Native American
          Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World"
          Ed McGaa, page 4.

Let us look at how we pray. Do we pray "for and with everything?" When we enter into the presence of God, do we set the intention of entering on behalf of and in fellowship with the community of all living beings? Our very livingness binds us tightly to all that has life. As we pray, so perhaps do we live. "All your steps should be holy."

Bill Fuller,
Department of Mathematics,
Ohio Northern University

A WGREN Meditation for the Week of November 18, 2007

Most people are on the world, not in it - have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them - undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

          - John Muir.

What is the difference between living 'on the world' and living 'in the world'? To live on the world is to be outside, to see ourselves and the world as separate. To live in the world is to be inside, to see ourselves as members in, and contributors to, a larger system.
      To see ourselves as separate is to become no more than Muir's stone marbles, unable to connect with others - whether human or non-human, animate or inanimate. Without connections though there can be no genuine interactions. Thus we come to live against the world, alone and in competition with others.
      As we build connections and come to live in - families, communities, societies, the environment, the world - we also come to care, to love, to nurture. We become sympathetic and empathetic to others pains and sorrows - we become compassionate. That such connections to animals and the natural environment are possible was so obvious to the Native Americans as to be an unquestionable truth. It is a truth that seems to have become lost in the haste and waste that so characterizes modern life.
      The essential realization though is that whether one lives on or in the world is a conscious choice - there is no coercion or determinism at operation here. Perhaps it is time to reconsider that choice, within our own lives and within our communities.

Mark H. Dixon
Department of Philosophy & Religion
Ohio Northern University

A WGREN Meditation for the Week of November 11, 2007

My mother's philosophy included a belief in the infinite possibilities of life, and this allowed her to open herself to a multitude of ways of celebrating the Divine, comparable to the many Hindu celebrations of the Divine. This helped our family and our Hindu neighbors feel at home with each other. My father, on the other hand, had the gift of questioning everything, even though he too was a traditional Catholic. The answers were not important as long as he kept searching for the deeper and more relevant realities of life, especially in his ever-growing relationship with the Divine.

          Paul Coutinho
          How Big is Your God? (p. 54)

This passage is taken from Paul Coutinho's description of growing up in a Catholic family living in a Hindu neighborhood in India. Each of Paul's parents developed a relationship with the Divine in harmony with his or her unique approach to life. His mother pursued what might be called a way of diversity, while his father followed what might be termed a way of philosophy. What his parents' ways shared was a commitment to deepening their relationship with the Divine. Each of us, when we enter into relationship with the Holy, make certain commitments, most of which remain implicit and only gradually unfold throughout the course of our lifetimes. From time to time it's a good thing to examine our relationship with the Holy and to ponder the questions: What are the ethical commitments I have entered into as part of this relationship? How am I living out these commitments? What are the ways in which these commitments are now calling me to grow? How may I follow their call? Certainly we could take some time out to perform such an examination during this coming week, or we even could incorporate them as part of our daily "examination of consciousness." More important, though, is the recognition that this examination is not meant just for a day or a week. With any luck it is work enough for eternity.

Bill Fuller,
Department of Mathematics,
Ohio Northern University

A WGREN Meditation for the Week of November 04, 2007

"Every world religion, no matter what its philosophical view, is founded first and foremost on the precept that we must reduce our selfishness and serve others."

          The Dalai Lama

At some fundamental level I believe that we do have the desire to serve others, and that we regret our all too common selfishness. The question though is who these 'others' are? This same question arises when H. Richard Niebuhr deliberates on who our neighbors are in the Christian injunction to 'love our neighbors'. Without a doubt our neighbors include our fellow human beings. Do human beings exhaust this class? Niebuhr believes otherwise. Our neighbor ". . . is in past and present and future . . . . He is man and he is angel and he is animal and inorganic being, all that participates in being."

Our neighbor is 'all that participates in being' - the grass, flowers, trees, water, birds, mammals, amphibians, human beings . . . the entire earth! Could the injunction be clearer then - we must care about all creation as we care about ourselves! To do less is to violate our most fundamental nature and religion's most fundamental purpose.

Mark H. Dixon
Department of Philosophy & Religion
Ohio Northern University