Desmond Doss Sculpture Unveiled

Desmond Doss sculpture unveiled in Collegedale, TN. Doss, a medic, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism on Okinawa.

Awareness

[Originally posted April 6; moved here]

Sometimes you can go through life with blinders on, set on a particular path, sure of where you are and where you are going, when suddenly your eyes open and you have a new awareness.

Thomas Merton wrote of such an experience when visiting the Buddha statues at Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka:

I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything – without refutation – without establishing some other argument …

Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. … The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no “mystery”. All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life is charged with dharmakaya – everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. …

I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguises.

The Communion of Saints

While working in the yard this morning I thought of a couple of letters I received:

“Yet, we are all growing — and if we grow with Christ and let him lead — the final outcome is what is important…. God isn’t finished with any of us yet. We must all stay close to him so that we can be led (not run ahead) of him and thus accept the victory over the adversary that Jesus has made possible for us.”

A second letter said:

“Perhaps this whole experience can help us to understand God better. Moses had to learn humility in the wilderness before God could use him. He had the best education that the times could provide but was too sure of himself, and God put him in a quiet spot herding sheep to learn lessons of humility and patience. Perhaps you, too, Bill, have lessons God wants you to learn before you can be a successful soul winner for him. Don’t be discouraged — be willing to let God lead you — when the time is right and our hearts are right he will lead us to just the spot on earth where we can work for him….”

The first letter was from my father-in-law, the second from my mother-in-law. They wrote those letters 24 years ago. They have prayed in silence since then. They’ve not argued. They’ve not denounced any decision I made. They waited in hopeful love, confident in God’s leading.

That’s the Communion of Saints.