The road to a new way of living.

I’ve started another blog to document my experiences working the soil and building a more just and sustainable world.

Please visit Ground Theory, a chronicle of how I keep myself close to the Earth and its people.

This weekend my family was camping in Gilroy when I witnessed one of the most mysterious and awesome natural events I’ve ever experienced.

In the middle of an afternoon reaching into the 100s, we all sat around our campsite talking. In the middle of the campsite across the road from us was a tree that had grown large without competition from other trees. Some crows had been flying in and out of this tree. The crows had been making a ruckus, caw-cawing all weekend, but never more than a few crows calling out to each other.

As we sat there relaxing, suddenly the tree burst with up to fifty crows cawing and circling the air around the tree. I barely noticed it until a single crow dropped out of the sky and hit the ground on our campsite with a thud. It landed just a few feet from my parents’ tent.

We all stared at the bird that just dropped out of the sky. We all thought the same thing — Is it dead? The crow breathed rapidly, flapped its wings erratically before settling down. A few of us walked toward the bird. It was dying. I could see the life fading from its little body. It looked like an old bird. Soon and quietly it stopped moving.

Our eyes turned to the sky as the crows in the air began to caw in a ridiculous chorus and circle wildly for a few minutes before flying away or back into the tree.

My family was in awe. I stared at the bird on the ground and felt compelled to say a little prayer to myself for its passing spirit.

My sister and her friend went to get a park ranger who later came by and picked up the bird. It had a broken leg, probably from the fall, and it was definitely dead.

No one in my family had ever experienced anything like this. The bird had fallen right out of the sky. More mysterious was the flurry the other crows made before its death and after. My sister joked that maybe it was an elder of their tribe and they were mourning. I said it knew its time was coming, maybe it decided this was its last flight.

The whole event was profound and mysterious. I have an affinity for birds and also try to pay attention for signs. I’ve known that crows can be bringers of omens. This meant something, I felt, but what I couldn’t fathom.

I didn’t think about again until just yesterday.

Two days after the incident at the camp, when we were sitting at home after work, my mother was chatting online with my uncle. Suddenly she let out “Oh my God.” My uncle just informed her that his sister, my mom’s cousin, had just died. She had been sick for several months and her condition had gradually worsened, so they were expecting her death soon. Still it was a huge shock to my mom and her family.

The family is holding the funeral this weekend.

I am not saying I know exactly what happened at our campsite, or what it is that we witnessed when that bird dropped out of the sky.

A friend of mine told me that maybe what happened with the crow means something different for me than what it means for my mom, or my sister, or any of us who were there.

What I do know is that crow is wise and crow is mysterious, and that each spirit passing is a kind of grace.

—

Photo by Patrick Wilken

I pull out of my bag a piccolini of salami from Molinari Deli, a small rosette loaf from the French Italian Bakery next to my office, and a mint-chocolate covered oreo cookie from Z. Ciocolato — necessary supplements when all I brought to lunch was a persian cucumber.

I notice the pigeons staring at me before they flock to one side of the park. I always wonder how they all know when to fly and where to go at the same time.

After I finish I walk back to work, but I get caught by the sound of a cello. In front of Tony’s Pizzeria on Stockton and Union is a brand new parklet — a parking lot converted to public space, this one a patch of empty planter boxes rising up from a wood deck.

Among the cafe tables and touristy couples, a young man with flowing dirty blond locks and a Jesus beard is having at it with an amp, a cello, and a loop pedal. I sit down on the bench that slopes up from the wood and listen to his song trying to make a few bucks to get to the next city. He is good and I am tempted to buy his burned CD for ten bucks. Instead I give him a dollar and make my way back to my office.

The sun is out, the air is cool, and I am reminded that San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit.

As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13

The second reading today. And –

“God has created me to do him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission; I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling”.
— Cardinal John Henry Newman

Quotes my priest during his homily.

To each of us, meaning and purpose in the eyes of that Force
of which we are born.

“For union exists only between distincts; and, perhaps, from this point of view, we catch a momentary glimpse of the meaning of all things.  Pantheism is a creed not so much false as hopelessly behind the times.  Once, before creation, it would have been true to say that everything was God.  But God created: He caused things to be other than Himself that, being distinct, they might learn to love Him, and achieve union instead of mere sameness.  Thus He also cast His bread upon waters.  Even within creation we might say that inanimate matter, which has no will, is one with God in a sense in which men are not.  But it is not God’s purpose that we should go back into that old identity (as, perhaps, some Pagan mystics would have us do) but that we should go on to the maximum distinctness there to be reunited with Him in a higher fashion.  Even within the Holy One Himself, it is not sufficient that the Word should be God, it must also be with God.  The Father eternally begets the Son and the Holy Ghost proceeds: deity introduces distinction within itself so that the union of reciprocal loves may transcend mere arithmetical unity or self-identity.” – C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Dualism and non-dualism is an eons old question on the nature of God that predates Christianity — it is even one of if not the major dividing line in Vedantism (Hinduism). I appreciate the mystery in the notion of God as everything and something else entirely beyond our knowing, God as ourselves and not-us. If God were the sun, we and all of creation animate and inanimate are to God as the rays of light are to the sun, distinct but still of-the-sun.

My good friend Lisa brings this text to my attention in a different frame of light. She mentions it as we talk about finding purpose and meaning in life.

Lewis suggests that each aspect of Creation exists for a specific relation to God to come into being. We are each created as distinct beings for a specific reason. Our existence is separate from God in order for our own sense of reciprocal love, our relationship to everything around us, to exist as a sort of necessary wavelength in all of Creation. We are called to live because there is a need for our energy to be in the universe.

Distinction is then an imperative of God — our existence is filled with meaning and purpose in the eyes of that Force of which we are born.

It is important that we remember this.

This time I approached Lent as a way to clarify my life — to focus my actions and intentions. Instead of making sacrifices to abstain from goods, sweets, or whatever temptation, I made certain promises to myself. While I haven’t fulfilled all these promises yet, what matters to me is that I am at work on them.

I made promises for my body. I am taking better care of myself, exercising, and eating well. I made a promise for my mind and now I am reading what stimulates me. Most important of all, I made promises to my spirit, to live for what I care about, to live by my heart and not sell myself short. So I am being proactive about doing the work I care about and having faith in myself. I have a vision for my life and I am making it real. I am choosing to take up the cross of living my life as meaningfully as possible.

I have come through this desert and it has changed me. I have learned.

It is at work in me still.

On April 15, 2011, my only sister was wedded to the man she loves. In the light of a quiet church and the eyes of dozens she walked smiles in the arms of Dad and Mom beside her. A traditional wedding, so many came, barongs and bouffants, like we’ve all been waiting for this. Before God’s open arms, tears, and blossoms the two clasped hands to join our families.

The formal holiness of the day was broken with another holiness of open bars and raucus feet in the evening. Weddings are the kind of events that bring entire villages together. Beyond my sister and our family, this was for all our relations. Even before invitations, we’ve been ready to dapper up. Aunts and uncles preen. Cousins we grew up with sneak in bottles. Young nieces and nephews skirt around the tablecloths and flashing lights. We dance.

It is a rare occasion that brings together all who have come into our lives. Mostly, a wedding is a good excuse for a feast. We brought the village, roast pig and all.

1.
Lent is a time of clarification. My priest points out that the church has chosen the gospel readings for this lenten season for the catochists who will be baptised and enter the church on Easter. The readings on Jesus revealing himself — the transfiguration, the healing of the blind man, his proclamation that He is the one called the Messiah to the woman at the well — are all meant to teach the catochist what God offers to those who have faith. For those of us already baptised, the readings are a reminder of what Jesus has promised us.

I thought about how Easter is the pinnacle celebration of Christiandom — the sacrifice and the rising up from the dead of the Savior, Jesus Christ. So Lent is the time we come to meet our beliefs, question them, strengthen them, a kind of spiritual cleansing before the time of celebration.

2.
This week’s gospel was the story of Jesus raising his good friend Lazarus from the dead. My priest said that this is a reminder that Jesus is the source of all life.

3.
This is not dogma. I try to reconcile my understanding of Jesus the man and Jesus the Son of God. It is probably the crux of this faith, that we believe Jesus was more than just a man.

In college a teacher taught me that we are all a unique expression of the universe. Humanity is the self-conscious aspect of the universe manifested in our material existence. And each of us is a manifestation of a certain aspect of the cosmos, a certain wavelength or vibration that had to be expressed in a life. I am the physical and spiritual manifestation of the aspect of the universe known as Adrien-ness.

Jesus, then being God, yet also a man, was the physical manifestation of the Source, the everything. That in all the aspects of the universe that could come into being, the Source must also come to being, and that was Jesus Christ.

4.
On a separate note:
“Pray for one another that you will know the love of God so deeply that you forgive the worst wrongs done to you.” Father Bill Hane

I have always had problems with the Catholic Church — it’s history of prosecution and oppression. I understand the difference between my faith and religious dogma, which is how I am able to continue being a devout Catholic and a queer man. My faith calls on me to act with forgiveness and grace. That even the things the Church has done that have hurt me, I can forgive. It is not easy, but it is in my heart to forgive. Even colonization, even homophobia, even persecution. It takes great love for me to forgive even the worst things that have been done to me, and that is what I am called to. To live in great love.

For almost a whole week now I have been exercising every day. I’ve been needing energy recently but I don’t drink caffeine — my solution? Exercise and eat more fresh fruit and veggies.

Tonight I made a quick salad of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, brocolli, and carrots. I even made a quick honey mustard vinaigrette. It was delicious. I had a tamale for the main and then prepared a small brownie with fresh raspberries, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce to reward myself for a good work out.

Today I felt more awake during the day than ever. I am taking care of myself, paying attention to my breath, my body. It is a large meditation.