“His heart is ashes, his hope is cheaper than dirt,
and his life is of less worth than clay,
because he failed to know the one who formed him
and inspired him with an active soul
and breathed into him a living spirit.
But he considered our existence an idle game,
and life a festival held for profit…”
~Wisdom 15:10-12
Long ago, we talked of a conspiracy of love and beauty to stand in the face of the nihilism of the day. Pia had me chuckling in her recent comment when she revived the idea. The world needs this. We need each other. And this is still a good meeting place. So.
Viva la cospirazione!
Starting…. now!
Rainy Haiku
The sun broke through
and made all the drenched forest
glistening crystal.
Why a “conspiracy”?
Because we need a revolution, and revolutions must be planned quietly.
Because we must throw truth in the eye of the lie, but first we must be sure we know what we are throwing, and we know that best when we say these things out loud to one another and share our thoughts and experience (“Where two or three are gathered in My Name…,” even electronically). So we “breathe together” in order to learn, to clarify, to inspire.
(I am a real logophile, and all kinds of poetic thoughts start churning as I consider the etymologies of words, and all their derivations. Right now, I am weaving inspire, aspire, expire, conspire, transpire… perspire?!)
Because “exhaling” connotes “letting go” and surrendering, and we must surrender our own ideas in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit – we must be willing to surrender our entire selves in order to be used by Him. The name of this blog comes partly from the title poem from one of my books. In the poem, I describe my “brush with death,” in which I experienced my own surrender to God’s will in my exhaling – my “letting go” – and found profound peace.
In every moment, the culture is screaming, “TAKE MORE!” and outshouting the silence we need to remember what we are and why we are here. These are the questions that I often pose to people who are seeking something more - What are we? Why are we here? How can we best BE what we ARE?
And if we are only here and now, what is the point? We are only burdensome and loathesome to ourselves. Of course, we are made for more than this, but if we consider our nothingness without Him, all our frantic search for meaning and worth or for an escape for our meaninglessness is seen in stark contrast with our true dignity as creatures loved by Absolute Meaning. But how many know that they are loved? Loved in truth, BY Truth, with the only Love that matters…
This is what I mean by plotting against the nihilism of the day. We will have to chip away at this a little at a time, as we have real lives that take up our time (alas, my time is not my own). But this is a bare beginning.
I am off on a weekend trip as of tomorrow morning, and won’t be back until Tuesday 
But I am confident that you all will keep the conversation going and the conspiracy alive!
I may have a minute tonight to check back, God willing. Meanwhile, ti amo!
Prayer for the “Cospirazione delle Contemplative” (why DOES everything sound better in Italian?):
Father,
creator and ruler of heaven and earth,
you made man in your likeness
to subdue the earth and master it,
and to recognize the work of your hands
in created beauty.
Grant that your children,
thus surrounded on all sides by signs of your presence,
may live continually in Christ,
praising you through him and with him.
Amen.
~ from Christian Prayer, Sunday, Week II, Evening Prayer
For me, this sums up what we are about: acknowledging God as Father and Creator; acknowledging the beauty in which we are immersed, as a gift of His love; living a life of thanksgiving and offering this eucharistic attitude through and with Christ, as a continual praise of His glory.
More “unpacking” of this when I have more time.
The conspiracy is here. It starts now.
I’m in.
honora is in, and bringing cheesecake. (No cheesecake, no in.)
We need someone to bring coffee, and I’m talking real coffee - no cafe americana. No bilge water. Black gold.
I have a few others to invite.
Do you?
It may be like the blind leading the blind, but the darkness in which we so often fumble is His. And His darkness is, of course, preferable to our own light.
