The Song and the Flame

Well… hrm. I have another decision to make. This Sunday will be the third Sunday of the month, which I’d said was going to be my major festival. Problem is, I’m still not sure what to do and feeling more unsure about this than about just concocting weekly “something to do”s. And nothing’s being decided at TC; barely any discussion is even happening. So I’ve gotta make a decision on my own.

I had initially planned to start this month, but I think I might phase this one in a little more gradually. I’ve only had two weeks to get used to the basic “do something on Sunday” routine, and I may need to get into that a little more before committing to a major festival schedule. Maybe reevaluate next month.

Minor festivals have been going… as well as could be expected under the circumstances. I felt a little rushed because I had to do it in a specific window during bread baking and had limited time. Tim was a bit underfoot, and sort of interrupted, although this was my fault for not alerting him to what I was doing. I was nervous because I wasn’t in the habit of doing religious stuff so openly in front of him (I was relatively quiet about it, but he was still right there, you know?). I had connection problems that prevented me from accessing the prayer I’d intended to read off the second week. I was tired, tired, tired, both weekends. But it was a good start, and you know what they say about practice. I feel like I’m well on my way.

“My pursuit of spiritual truth is not about religion as much as it is about relationship. It is not about intellectualizing God’s commands, but about internalizing his truth within my heart as well as my head, an understanding so deep and intimate that it affects not only my thinking, but my behavior as well.”

–Susan Cosio

My first reaction to this was, “Hey, that’s really nice. I should post it on my blog.” Then, as I was typing it, I wondered if it wasn’t a little bit of a strange thing to apply to my own path, which is becoming fairly orthopraxic. Right actions, not right beliefs.

But then I thought about it some more and decided it wasn’t so odd. Being about actions and not beliefs doesn’t mean that I’m intellectualizing and not internalizing, not pursuing the relationship. I think that’s a trap that can be fallen into, but not one I’ve fallen into yet. In fact, if you think about it, this statement is extremely applicable. After all, those right actions are geared toward… maintaining the relationship. The understanding sought is to understand, to internalize, to just know with the depth and intimacy and certainty that comes from long association, what those right actions are.

So I’m back to it being really a pretty neat statement.