Wisdom Brings It Home

Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom has built her house,

she has set up her seven columns;

She has prepared her meat, mixed her wine,

Yes, she has spread her table.

She has sent out her maidservants; she calls

from the heights out over the city:

“Let whoever is naive turn in here;

to any who lack sense I say,

Come, eat of my food,

and drink of the wine I have mixed!

Forsake foolishness that you may live;

advance in the way of understanding.”

Sometimes, when I think I don't understand, I really do. If we are willing to open our ears, our hearts and even our minds, understanding is available to all. In the great wisdom of the world, we have been provided naturally with the means to make sense of our surroundings and the environments in which we find ourselves. This Proverb makes clear some of the ways to understanding.

The video here is the inter-denominational community of Taize, France offers a sense of the ineffable, the mystery of all that comprises wisdom.

Being "open" is simply a matter of being present and available just one more time than we are "closed." Just once more

Days for the Dead

"Celebrations and festivals are necessary for society and for the individual. They are about cultural identity, life  transitions and personal identity." --Mooncakes and Hungry Ghosts by C. Stepanchuk and C. Wong

Around the world societies and individuals celebrate, commemorate and remember. In doing so, festivals of many places serve tradition, often ancient. Festivals and other remembrances serve to connect us with our past, with the face that was before our self existed; they are links to the ancestor, or to the great intelligence and wisdom of the community. By linking the living with the dead, many cultures celebrate a sort of 'day(s) of the dead.'
The Spanish cultures have their Day of the Dead; the Indonesians (Balinese), their Day of Silence, the Bengali of India observe a festival called, The Day of the Dead. In China this is called the Qing Ming Festival. Its date is determined by the Lunar calendar; this year it will be observed on April 5, 2011.
Its origins stretch back at least 2,500 years. Sometimes it is called 'sweeping the graves.'
In Hong Kong, Tiawan and within the official Ethnic minority regions of China, Vietnam, Thailand and established communities abroad, the festival endures; however the Communist party of mainland China has only recently reinstated the official observance of this ancient tradition in 2008 .

Written in a reference style, the easy reading text, Mooncakes and Hungry Ghosts: Festivals in China by authors C. Stepanchuk and C. Wong, tell a bit about this and other events part of the calendar year. The authors while describing these events, write, "to experience a festival... you are required to set aside all day-to-day worries and cares in favor of a mood of make-believe and masquerade... For a time, we play the game of, "as if," freeing our mind and spirit, dissolving the laws of time and space, standing on the borderline between belief and disbelief."

The authors note that these festivals may be cathartic to the participants; they give rise to much appreciated levity. After all, a good laugh is uplifting; the festival may as well connect us with the past, or with spirits in a purposeful worship.
There are, the authors note, local variations to the major festivals. Regardless of the possible regional variations, these festivals share a common religious root. "Chinese festivals have a strong religious background, even though many are highly secularized today... there still is the strong belief in paying homage to spirits today."

So it is that, we, in many places throughout the world honor, remember and memorialize those foregone spirits. In doing so, we also play out an important reality in each life, that is the inescapable connection of time and the limits of our known, mortal life. Paradoxically, most often participants in  ritualized events are comforted by these festivals, many of whom express themselves with tremendous joy and enthusiasm. We continue to celebrate.