Eschatology

:Doctrines about death and its aftermath: 

the body of religious doctrines concerning the human soul in its relation to death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

This is a word I looked into...it struck a cord with me. It is something I've struggled with...in my life , in the past and now...

If there is a promised land and we are seeking that...working hard and long and never, ever rest because our main task is to get there..we cannot rest, we are in ungodly territory, the land of suffering and tribulation(according to some religious teachings), and the sooner we get into the good and perfect future-the better off we will all be.

But there is no place to go. Every time we finally reach the future, it vanishes into the present. We strain toward the future, never stopping to see where we are, never pausing to taste the fruits of our labor.

 Our true nourishment will come when we are successful, when we are rich, when we are saved, when it is our turn. Thus, satisfaction and delight are forever just out of reach!

So we despoil our nest, we ruin our air and soil, because it is all dispensable, we will not be here long, because here is no good, it is not where we are GOING...where we are going is good, holy, free, pure and perfect, it is not here...

Is this progress? Only when we can lie in green pastures and be led to still waters as the Psalmist says...and allow our soul to be nurished? Isn't this the psalm we sing when one dies?

BUT ~What if we are not going anywhere?  What if we are simply living and growing within an ever-deepening cycle of rhythms and seasons, perhaps getting wiser, perhaps learning kindness, passing what we learn to our children.

What if our life is a time when we are blessed with both saddness and joy, health and disease, courage and fear- and all the while we work , pray, and love, knowing that the promised land we seek is already present in the very gift of life itself...

What if this life is itself the jewel in the lotus, the treasure hidden in the field, the pearl of great price?

What if all the way to heaven is heaven?

The gifts of grace and delight  are present and abundant; the time to live and love and give thanks and rest and delight is now, this moment, this day.  Rest in the arms of the divine. We do not have miles to go before we rest, sleep, play, love...Take time now; we are already home.

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence . . .”
― Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water

Set aside a period of time, alone or with someone close to you and walk, bike, sail, nap----anything that allows you, your body to be soothed by the nourishment of the earth. Spend as much time as possible in silence....
I need this, as I am feeling anxious...like I need to do things, get this or that done...but I don't know why..do I just need to be with me???

Yes

and Here is a new recipe to try

Save the Tuna Salad on Rye - KrisCarr.com