July 12, 2013
Found an at fault used condom, lying on the black
aligatored asphalt out back. It is shocking and revolting, disgusting and
absurd to discover this ugly form of life nestled in a curve, awaiting my
displeasure. Scooped it up with a large stick dropped from the tree, planted on
the ground at my feet for this purpose. A sadness came over me to imagine I had
been lying in bed, asleep, feet away from a couple, trembling in the dark just
a stones throw away from my forgotten dreams. Later a car was over-involved,
with the engine idling, while the girls were primping in the mirror, waiting
for a girl to come out of the house. I bent to the window to reveal my news,
letting them know that someone in their midst may have set up the children for
a fright. Neither one seemed overly concerned and wondered aloud who it could
have been, that evening before, in the dark, out back.
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Each
person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free
of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry, an umbilical spot of
grace where we were each first touched by Universe. It is this spot of grace
that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologists call it
the Soul, Jung calls it The Seat of the
Unconscious, Hindu masters call it the Atman, Buddhists call it the Dharma,
Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis calls it Qualb, and Jesus calls it the Center
of Our Love.
To
know this spot of inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of
identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed
but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhibiting it. This
is a hard lifelong task for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over
of where we begin while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is
not essential. We each live in the midst of this ongoing tension growing
tarnished or covered over only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of
grace at our core.
Mark Nepo
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