Manna

Dear Friends,

When the Jews were escaping from Egypt and wandering through the desert for 40 years, they ran out of food. Moses put in a complaint with management, and they were sent bread from heaven (a precursor to the idea of the Messiah, born in "Bethlehem," the house of bread). When they saw the white cakes on the ground, they asked, "Manna?" -- What is it? Then "manna" came to be used as the name of the miraculous nourishment.

In a sense, all the world is nourishment from unknown sources. It is all a gift from heaven, whether it seems to arise outside us or inside us. It can be helpful to ask afresh, "What is it?" There can be no ecological awareness, let alone ecological action, without a deeper appreciation of what the natural world is. But what is it?

The answer in our sense will not come from physics or botany. Nor will it come from mythology or theology. The answer will come when we change our actual sense perception to allow in more of the world in its expressive radiance. Then it becomes truly nourishing.

Starting today, we'll work for a few weeks with practices of seeing, hearing and touching. Please have a small, aesthetically uninteresting stone with you for group, such as an unremarkable bit of gravel. It should not be a stone with a strong emotional association. We'll see if we can shift it a bit, from being a thing toward being our true bread.

with love,

Michael