Sitting on my Ass, or Talking to god?

Semantics: The branch of linguistics concerned with the nature, structure, and, especially, the development and changes, of the meanings of speech forms.

Every 6 months I try to attend a men's 12 Step recovery retreat. It's a two day affair and the leader is always a Jesuit priest with long term sobriety. Some of those guys are pretty whacked out. One of my favorite retreat masters spent some time a few years back talking about prayer and meditation. Really, he was talking about god and how to find that dude or dudette. It's not intuitive for most of us, even if we have a long history in organized religion. We spend a lot of time in our recovery trying to go get god and wrestle him to the ground, and pin him. like we're Bobo Brazil in a Texas Death Match with The Sheik.


He explained how it was possible to find god where god lives. He talked for a while about art and music and nature. He believed that god could be found in those places or mediums. He thought that god was all around us, and not just in churches or books.


"Why do you think monasteries are built in the mountains or in the remote desert or sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean or a lake?" he asked.


Those monks knew where god hung out. If you want to find god best go to his house. Don't sit on the couch and watch The Television and expect god to pop in, unannounced.


"So," I wondered. "I can sit quietly for an hour and listen to music that I enjoy and be communing with god?" Surprisingly, it made a lot of sense. I like to hike. I walk way back into the woods, tiring myself out, then sit down and hang out for a while. I'm not actually doing anything, but it's a great feeling. I feel part of something. I feel like I belong somewhere. Am I being lazy sitting there on my ass, listening to music or the birds or the mighty mountain lion about to sink his fangs into my neck?


More wanderings and wonderings. I am, once again, trapped in a loop of circular reasoning.

It's about being a tiny part of a bigger whole.