turning the secular into the sacred...

[Peter Kropotkin]

I finished reading my book this morning, ''St. Francis''
by Kazantzakis..... and the book is about the saint
who was named Francis.. an Italian lad... died in
1226..

and the quest laid out by Kazantzakis is this,
what is the path to god? and Francis path was the
hardest path of all... of seeking god in every road, in
every alley, in every forest and mountain... that was the
entire point of Francis "journey" to seek god..
and he suffered, he suffered at every point of his
life in seeking god...and one of the unsaid part of
this book is this, not everyone can make the journey
that Francis did.. for the vast majority of people,
they do the "human'' thing which is not to seek god
but to seek out the trinkets of existence...
money, fame, glory, titles, material possessions,
power....but most people are too lazy to even try to
gain this minor goal....for most people, just living is
enough... to be educated, vaguely, and to have
a family, a wife/husband, to have a modest shelter,
to own a car and white picket fence and a dog name rover....
that is about how ambitious people are... just reaching
for the basics of existence....and to seek out something more
than just this basics? Most people don't have enough imagination
to even think about this choice...and here most people stop.....
not to go beyond just the basics of existence...

but some, some want to go beyond this low hanging
fruit of existence... to become/ to seek something
beyond just making a living and raising a family...
and in fact, most people are shocked when they hear
that there is something beyond their own journey...

but these people are seekers of something outside of,
or beyond this level... they want to seek a deeper journey
into existence, into meaning...and so, some seek knowledge
and some seek wisdom and some seek, grasp, even god....

this human need to go beyond our original ''programming"
of being a worker bee, of seeking out what it means to be
human is considered to be dangerous by the state and society....
and thus strongly discouraged... but we do it anyway...
it is, oddly enough, a compulsion we have to go beyond
just the basic existence of modern day life...
to seek out what is there is beyond, not just going through
the motions of modern life...

Francis walked outside of ''proper" existence.. he didn't get married,
he didn't have a job, he didn't have a home.. he wandered from
town to town, preaching his "mission" which is, ''seek out god''

but today, we are no longer children of god.... we are, to
be fair, we are young adults...and today, we must stretch out
our hands and begin the long seeking of who we are....

I am Kropotkin and I seek out... knowledge, truth, wisdom
take your pick as to what my seeking out has been....I have
spent my life seeking.. I have made no attempt to become famous
or be rich or have titles... the most money I have ever made
in one years is $33,000 a year.. barely below poverty level....
and I am ok with that as I haven't search for the trinkets of
existence...my goal was a deeper one....to become human...
to go beyond just merely being animal or animal/human....
but to become fully human.....

but what has interested me of late is turning the secular life
I lead into a sacred life...to make the secular days and nights
of my existence into being something that is sacred, but not
religious....I am not seeking god or the means of St. Francis...
spending my life in poverty, although realistically, I have
spent my life in poverty.. but what I am trying to seek out
is how I am to spend my days as a human, not as a being seeking
out the means of food, water, shelter, education and health care...
but having my existence, my secular existence becoming
sacred...not in seeking out god, or religion, but
in seeking out the highest possibility for me as a human being....

I think the best way to think about this is the Japanese
tea ceremony....or the Japanese act of shooting an arrow....
which is turning these secular acts into sacred acts...
that is what I am aiming for... turning acts of the secular into
acts of the sacred....

Kropotkin