Author: krinvan

It’s a painful reality, frequently denied. Spiritual leaders avoid it; self-help books would rather serve up pablum. It’s similar to how we treat the aged in our culture. We shunt in away, glossing it over with cultural addictions to youth, beauty, and prosperity. We present our best faces on social media, like rouge on the cheeks of a caretaker’s subject.

It is this. Some wounds never heal. Certain emotional and psychic events leave lesions that reopen in both our waking and sleeping hours. I know this from my personal life, but also through connections with those I counseled throughout my career. Here are a few examples.

The Death of a Loved One. How many of us have experienced the loss of someone who was inextricably bound into our lives? Their absence is like a phantom limb, our jangling nerves reaching out for an unconsummated union. It may be the loss of a friend, a spouse, another family member, or (God forbid) a child. It is especially acute when the death is sudden through rapid disease, an accident, or especially suicide. Elizabeth Berrien, founder of Soul Widows, says, “We never truly get over a loss, but we can move forward and evolve from it.”

Trauma. It pains me to remember people I’ve walked alongside who experienced trauma, many of them in childhood. The causes are many: verbal, physical or sexual abuse; neglect; bullying; racism or discrimination. These experiences cast lifelong shadows, a form of PTSD that undermines our lives with multiple symptoms. Even after regimens of counseling, we find we cannot erase that radioactive source completely. As novelist Laurell Kaye Hamilton says, “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”

Betrayal.  Betrayal cuts us to the bone. Too often we cope by becoming emotionally reclusive, fooling ourselves that we are better off alone. These treacheries may convince us that we are not worthy of love and affirmation. We doubt the very core of our divine identities.

Some of us exacerbate our culture’s denial. When we encounter suffering people, we fan the pain through vacuous platitudes. Everything happens for a reason. Look on the positive side. Things will be better tomorrow. Be grateful for what you do have. During my decades of ministry, I trained caregivers to always avoid easy answers. Be a loving presence instead, even if it means total silence.

Is there hope, or is this post just an invitation to depression?

I have a guarded answer. Yes, there is hope, but I don’t believe we can base it on eradicating our pain. Rather, we find it as these wounds become sources of strength, leading us to engage the world in powerful new ways.

One of my heroes is Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest, writer, professor, and theologian who died in 1996. His book The Wounded Healer became a touchstone for my life, and I often quoted his words to others,

Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

Imbedded in Nouwen’s wisdom are three truths that help us forge new strength from these wounds that keep on wounding.

• Acceptance. There’s no shame in admitting that some pains won’t disappear. We are not inferior because we haven’t found spiritual disciplines to completely erase our grief, to “let go and let God” as the simplistic motto advises.
• Vulnerability. Learning to share our pain with others is healing. However, we need to be discerning in how we choose our confidants.  It is most beneficial with those who reciprocate by opening their own lives, allowing us to share our common humanity. We then need to respect this mutual transmission, emptying ourselves to be present for them the same way they are present for us. Avoiding self-absorption is critical.
• Service. Helping others who are hurting can lessen the sting of our injuries. It’s no wonder that those suffering from addiction hear the admonition to serve others as the Twelfth Step of their recovery process. Some people have founded entire movements from the wells of their personal trauma, leading them to missions with wide-ranging impact.

If you have read my words to this point, I have something I want to say to you. I love you, even with all your wounds, and even though we may never meet. I pray that you will turn your wounds into new sources of strength and inspiration. I hope that you will become a wounded healer in this world where so many people are crying out for compassion.

I arrived at the Las Vegas airport before dawn and decided to grab some food before my flight to San Antonio. A sign for breakfast burritos caught my eye. My order was steak, eggs, cheese, and green salsa, filled by a woman who wore a black COVID mask. She deftly browned the tortilla on a large skillet, ladled the ingredients inside, then folded it with a flourish, lifting it for me to see.

“Now that’s a perfect burrito,” she said with a laugh.

I looked at its round curvature and finely tucked edges.

“It is indeed,” I replied with a chuckle. “Fit for a promo video!”

She laughed again, bagged my prize, then handed it to me. I paid my bill and walked away, but her comment stuck with me.

Why? Let me explain.

Mindfulness of the here and now is beautiful, even necessary, and people use various techniques to increase their mental acuity. Meditation, yoga, walks in nature, even apps designed to interrupt our daily tasks and refocus our attention.

Whatever the method, may they help us pass the most enduring test—to find pleasure in the midst of the mundane. To become present as we mow our lawns, change our baby’s diapers, wait at stoplights, or load our dirty laundry. These are the moments that make up our lives.

The woman who served my breakfast may feel that she’s found her life’s calling, but I highly doubt it. Most likely she is performing a minimum wage job filled with a vastness of potential tedium.

And yet, the finely crafted burrito, brandished for me to see! A flash of humor and celebration! With gratitude, I let her enthusiasm enrich my own enjoyment of the moment.

As my plane lifted into a sky filled with clouds, my mind cast back to another person whose presence in his routine lifted the spirits of countless people. He was a toll booth operator on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, northernmost span across the San Francisco Bay. During a year of my seminary education, I used that passage to attend my internship. My return trips coincided with his evening shift.

I would pull up, offer my fare, and he would do two things EVERY TIME. First, he would make direct eye contact. Secondly, he would say, “You have a blessed evening.” Words like that sound hollow if offered superficially. From him they always seemed sincere. And their effect on me was like a tonic, turbocharging the rest of my drive across the bridge, a shining example of how small gestures offered in the crush of daily life can radiate positivity to others.

In one of my most popular posts from 2020, The Unspiritual Spirit, I quoted the late Thich Nhat Hanh about his fellow community members at the International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. These are words worth repeating.

“When we wash dishes…it is to live every minute of the washing. Wash each bowl…in such a way that joy, peace, and happiness are possible. Imagine you are giving a bath to the baby Buddha. It is a sacred act. I have arrived. I am home. Through these two phrases, you can experience a lot of joy and happiness.”

After my return to the Alamo City, I spent the next day planting spring flowers in my backyard. I always mix a blend of potting soils in a large container, running my fingers through the granular dirt, kneading it like a baker. This time, I lifted a handful, remembering the face of that woman at the Las Vegas airport.

I laughed and said, “Now that’s a perfect fistful of soil!”

It’s midnight in Marathon, Texas. I’m lying in the back of my truck, nestled in a sleeping bag, staring at the awe-inspiring night sky. The heavens in West Texas are always bright, but especially here in the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve.

The mission of the Reserve is “to protect the area from the spread of artificial light pollution and promote the use of night-sky friendly lighting practices.” It’s a cooperation between multiple communities, parks, and organizations spanning the US and Mexico. At over 15,000 square miles, it is the world’s largest dark sky reserve.

I needed this break. Call it my genetic makeup, generational trauma, or radioactive fallout from our culture, but I too easily get wrapped around my axle, gripped by a sense of urgency that is certainly self-induced.

Vitamin N (Nature) is a remedy for what ails me. I receive healing doses at beaches, mountains, forests, prairies, even my own backyard. But right now, it pours into me through the slowly revolving night sky.

It’s like setting my inner clock to eternal rather than temporal time. As I do this, the gift of my life’s moments—this miniscule allotment—becomes more precious.

It’s a universal human experience to gaze in wonder at the cosmos, to have our breath taken away by constellations, nebulae, and those distant points of light that represent galaxies far grander than our own.

What is your reaction to these mind-bending moments?

Some of us simply revel in the beauty. Some of us feel a chill down our spines, recognizing the tininess of our lives, a visceral pang of existential humility.

My father retells a childhood memory. Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, the summer nights were often insufferable indoors, so he would grab a blanket and go outside to sleep on the lawn. One night, the sky seemed more brilliant with stars than usual. He looked deeply into the pure expanse until he felt overwhelmed, almost scared. But then—even at 8 years old—a transcendent peace settled over him. He had the distinct feeling that whatever had created the universe was living within him as a benevolent presence. He just turned 94, and I swear I can still see that sense of wonder in his eyes.

The heavens have awed us since we first looked up from Oldulvai Gorge, and many great minds throughout the centuries have voiced their inspirations.

Somewhere around the 6th Century BCE, an Israelite wrote a beautiful song. Attributed to David, the shepherd who became a king, it shows how this wonder under the vault of night unites humanity through the ages. Tradition names it Psalm 8, and it contains these words:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Here are some other quotes, just a few out of thousands.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them. – Marcus Aurelius

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night. – Kahlil Gibran.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff. – Carl Sagan

If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day. – Bill Watterson

Those last words, from the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, are prophetic. Just think how a daily dose of stargazing could help us realign our priorities! It could awaken us to that state of mindfulness prescribed by so many spiritual teachers. It could help heal the tragic divisions that have always plagued humanity. Like astronauts who never see Earth the same after viewing it from orbit, we might develop that embracing vision of our shared destiny we so desperately need. I wrote about this in my book Invitation to The Overview.

But right now in Marathon, Texas, under this night sky that extends around the planet, I simply sigh and settle into that middle ground between the ever-expanding vastness above me and the uncharted atomic worlds within my own body.

I set myself to eternal, not just temporal, time.

Selah!

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. – Matthew 27:51

In a scene from Taylor Sheridan’s new series Tulsa King, Dwight Manfredi (played by Sylvester Stallone) visits The Center of the Universe. It’s a nondescript spot on a Tulsa city street that boasts an acoustic anomaly. When you stand over it and speak, your words echo back, and those nearby can’t hear you. Wrapped in that isolative silence, Manfredi admits a sobering fact about his life that he has never voiced in the past.

I’ve been to that spot, following a tip from Atlas Obscura, and I thought of it on a recent trip to Mexico City. We toured the Templo Mayor, ruins of the Aztec’s greatest pyramid. They considered it the axis mundi, the center of their universe. They aligned it with the four cardinal directions, believing that it intersected with levels of both heaven and the underworld.

We then visited the Basilica de Santa Maria de Guadalupe, the axis mundi for Guadalupanos who revere Mexico’s patron saint. Twenty million pilgrims a year journey to this vast compound, passing by the reputed tunic of Juan Diego imprinted with the iconic image of La Virgen.

It’s such a strong desire in human history, our need to stand in places we feel are holier and closer to the Divine. History is replete with examples. Some are natural like Mt. Fuji for Shintoists, Mt. Kunlun for Taoists, the Teide Volcano for Canarian aborigines, or the Black Hills for the Sioux. Some are human made like the Mormon Tabernacle, Mecca for Muslims, the Christian cross atop Mt. Calvary, and the Golden Temple for Sikhs. Some are metaphorical like maypoles, totem poles, or mandalas.

On that aforementioned trip to Mexico City, I marveled at the spell still cast upon Latin America by the Roman Catholic church. It was evident not only on the sprawling grounds of the Basilica—akin to a religious theme park—but in the abundance of the city’s cathedrals, their spires dominating every horizon. With all that money and effort spent, and with all that power invested in a priestly class, I thought of a metaphor in Christian scripture that is still revolutionary.

We find it in each of the synoptic Gospels, including Matthew 27:50-51. “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.  At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.”

That curtain, of course, was in the temple of Jerusalem, called the Second Temple because it was rebuilt after Babylon destroyed the original in 586 BCE. It contained the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant resided, a spot where the Israelites believed the presence of God hovered. It was their axis mundi, and a curtain separated that space from “sinful people.” Only the High Priest could enter the sanctum on Yom Kippur to sprinkle blood as an atonement for Israel’s transgressions.

Think of the symbolic power of that curtain being torn! No longer could the Presence of “God” be confined to one place, one time, or one’s people religious practices! No longer do we need priestly classes to intercede for us, acting as conduits to this mystery in which all of us live and breathe and have our being! If Jesus’s only victory at the time of his crucifixion was to release the strictures of any religion that claims exclusivity or requires obligatory rituals, that would have been enough!

I understand the desire to visit sacred places. I have found breathtaking beauty in many such sites during my world travels. But there is much to be said for a Hindu concept. They believe that human beings themselves are the conduits, the pillars, between earth and heaven. That our chakras—nodes of spiritual energy arising in each of us—give equal access to the Transcendent at any given moment. This is another metaphor for the tearing of the temple curtain. It means we can access this grace, this love, this higher and fuller reality while:

• Standing on a mountaintop or in an urban alleyway.
• Viewing stained glass windows or peering through the windshields of our cars.
• Kneeling in a sacred grotto or next to the bed of a loved one.
• Pacing on the rooftop of a skyscraper or within the confines of a prison cell.
• Lying in our cradles or on our deathbeds.

Equal access. Right now. Unshackled from the control of any institution or religion!

Alas. History has shown that most revolutionary concepts are difficult to fully apprehend or internalize. Perhaps we are afraid of the freedom. Perhaps this is why we too often trade comfort for adventure, adherence for rebellion, conformity for authenticity. Maybe this is why we outsource our spiritual authority to others rather than claiming the power within us.

When it comes to the tearing of the curtain, as Jesus so often said, “Let those who have ears hear.”

Selah.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. – Matthew 27:51

In a scene from Taylor Sheridan’s new series Tulsa King, Dwight Manfredi (played by Sylvester Stallone) visits The Center of the Universe. It’s a nondescript spot on a Tulsa city street that boasts an acoustic anomaly. When you stand over it and speak, your words echo back, and those nearby can’t hear you. Wrapped in that isolative silence, Manfredi admits a sobering fact about his life that he has never voiced in the past.

I’ve been to that spot, following a tip from Atlas Obscura, and I thought of it on a recent trip to Mexico City. We toured the Templo Mayor, ruins of the Aztec’s greatest pyramid. They considered it the axis mundi, the center of their universe. They aligned it with the four cardinal directions, believing that it intersected with levels of both heaven and the underworld.

We then visited the Basilica de Santa Maria de Guadalupe, the axis mundi for Guadalupanos who revere Mexico’s patron saint. Twenty million pilgrims a year journey to this vast compound, passing by the reputed tunic of Juan Diego imprinted with the iconic image of La Virgen.

It’s such a strong desire in human history, our need to stand in places we feel are holier and closer to the Divine. History is replete with examples. Some are natural like Mt. Fuji for Shintoists, Mt. Kunlun for Taoists, the Teide Volcano for Canarian aborigines, or the Black Hills for the Sioux. Some are human made like the Mormon Tabernacle, Mecca for Muslims, the Christian cross atop Mt. Calvary, and the Golden Temple for Sikhs. Some are metaphorical like maypoles, totem poles, or mandalas.

On that aforementioned trip to Mexico City, I marveled at the spell still cast upon Latin America by the Roman Catholic church. It was evident not only on the sprawling grounds of the Basilica—akin to a religious theme park—but in the abundance of the city’s cathedrals, their spires dominating every horizon. With all that money and effort spent, and with all that power invested in a priestly class, I thought of a metaphor in Christian scripture that is still revolutionary.

We find it in each of the synoptic Gospels, including Matthew 27:50-51. “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.  At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.”

That curtain, of course, was in the temple of Jerusalem, called the Second Temple because it was rebuilt after Babylon destroyed the original in 586 BCE. It contained the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant resided, a spot where the Israelites believed the presence of God hovered. It was their axis mundi, and a curtain separated that space from “sinful people.” Only the High Priest could enter the sanctum on Yom Kippur to sprinkle blood as an atonement for Israel’s transgressions.

Think of the symbolic power of that curtain being torn! No longer could the Presence of “God” be confined to one place, one time, or one’s people religious practices! No longer do we need priestly classes to intercede for us, acting as conduits to this mystery in which all of us live and breathe and have our being! If Jesus’s only victory at the time of his crucifixion was to release the strictures of any religion that claims exclusivity or requires obligatory rituals, that would have been enough!

I understand the desire to visit sacred places. I have found breathtaking beauty in many such sites during my world travels. But there is much to be said for a Hindu concept. They believe that human beings themselves are the conduits, the pillars, between earth and heaven. That our chakras—nodes of spiritual energy arising in each of us—give equal access to the Transcendent at any given moment. This is another metaphor for the tearing of the temple curtain. It means we can access this grace, this love, this higher and fuller reality while:

• Standing on a mountaintop or in an urban alleyway.
• Viewing stained glass windows or peering through the windshields of our cars.
• Kneeling in a sacred grotto or next to the bed of a loved one.
• Pacing on the rooftop of a skyscraper or within the confines of a prison cell.
• Lying in our cradles or on our deathbeds.

Equal access. Right now. Unshackled from the control of any institution or religion!

Alas. History has shown that most revolutionary concepts are difficult to fully apprehend or internalize. Perhaps we are afraid of the freedom. Perhaps this is why we too often trade comfort for adventure, adherence for rebellion, conformity for authenticity. Maybe this is why we outsource our spiritual authority to others rather than claiming the power within us.

When it comes to the tearing of the curtain, as Jesus so often said, “Let those who have ears hear.”

Selah.

The year was 1944. Many people in Amsterdam and Rotterdam were starving for lack of food under the Nazi occupation. There were only so many cats and dogs that could be eaten. But in the province of Friesland, the rural area where I lived with my family, we were well fed. After all, we were farmers.

We very much wanted to share our provisions with hungry people in the major cities, but the Germans had decreed otherwise. All the food produced on farms, with the exception of what was needed for personal use, was conscripted and sent to Germany to support their war effort. The Germans were efficient in their administration. Every Dutch farm animal was registered, and the assigned number was then shipped to Germany. Enforcement was brutal.

And that is why Mr. Hoekstra paid us a visit in 1944. His job was to register all the newborn animals. That spring, our three sows had delivered remarkable litters—forty-five piglets in total.

I still remember the beautiful, sunny day when Mr. Hoekstra came to our home. It was my older sister who first saw him in the distance, pedaling his old bicycle. She quickly told my dad who sent my two older brothers into the barn.

I need to digress for a moment to let the reader know that in Holland, the house and the barn were all connected under one roof. The front of the building was for people, the back part for the farm animals.

By this time, Mr. Hoekstra had arrived. He gently leaned his bicycle against the house and used the door knocker to announce his presence. It was my father who answered. 

“Hello, Mr. Hoekstra, what brings you here?” said my dad with feigned surprise.

“Hello, Mr. Boonstra, you know that I’ve come to do the annual registration of all your livestock.”

“Yes,” said my dad, “but before you get busy, why not come in for a cup of coffee? My wife has just baked some delicious butter cake.”

“Sure,” replied Mr. Hoekstra. “I’d be honored.”

And so, Mr. Hoekstra came inside for coffee and baked butter cake. He and my dad had known each other since grade school, so they exchanged pleasantries. Meanwhile, there were awful squeals coming from the barn. Mr. Hoekstra pretended not to hear, but there was a big smile on his face, confirming his philosophy that what he didn’t see wouldn’t hurt him.

After a second cup of coffee and another piece of butter cake, it was time to complete the registration. Mr. Hoekstra thanked my mother profusely, and then he and my dad proceeded to the barn.

“You know,” my dad said, “it’s really discouraging how poorly our three sows did this spring. One of the them even ate a number of her litter.”

Mr. Hoekstra didn’t say anything. He carefully counted the piglets and meticulously marked the number in his book—three sows, twenty-one piglets.  He continued registering the other farm animals, then shook hands with my dad and pedaled away on his dilapidated bike. 

Once the coast was clear, my brothers finished their assigned task. It took some time to catch the additional twenty-four piglets and reunite them with their proper moms. When my brothers finished, it was their turn to go inside and enjoy some butter cake.

Some of our citizens starving in major cities eventually found their way to Friesland for relief, so I often wondered. Could it be that a few people are alive today because of Mr. Hoekstra’s visits across our region in 1944?

Tony Boonstra is a Presbyterian minister who is a lifelong learner. Born in the Netherlands, his family experienced the oppression of the German occupation. Immigrating to Canada, the family spent its first two years working as migrants in the sugar beet fields of southern Alberta. The family then moved to Northern British Columbia where Tony spent his teen years working on the family dairy farm. Graduating from Calvin University in Michigan, Tony taught in elementary schools for eight years. He then enrolled at McGill University where he received his theological degree and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. He has served congregations in three provinces, and for the last 15 years has specialized in transitional ministry. Tony and his wife Bonnie have been married over 50 years, and raised a large family which included a number of children they adopted. Tony enjoys gardening, reading, writing, and guest preaching in churches of various denominations near his home in Ottawa.

There are people with stellar IQs who are short on common sense. People who exhibit genius within the narrow bandwidth of their expertise but lack any breadth of cultural literacy.

Conversely, there are human beings who will never be labeled brilliant by societal standards but who startle us with insights about life. I know this firsthand as father to a special-needs son. Kristoffer often voices simple nuggets of wisdom that awaken me to what is truly important.

I believe there is one definition of intelligence that is sorely needed in all of us. It is the ability to get outside ourselves and our given culture. The ability to see our reality in time and place, then respond (not react) to it with a fresh, objective perspective.

Sociologists say that when it comes to our cultures, we are like fish in water. We swim in the conditioning of our upbringing, our genetic makeup, our juncture in history. Often, we never rise above these determining factors. We never decide what to claim and what to reject, what to shed and what to make part of our flesh. Examples are rife in our world.

• People who adopt the spoon-fed religion of their tribe or nation, then wield it as an exclusive truth that trumps the faith and beliefs of others. James Fowler, in his Stages of Faith, called this Stage Three—Synthetic-Conventional Faith—a closed mindset that prevents us from celebrating the mystery of spirituality in all its diversity.
• People reared with a righteous sense of patriotism, an idolatry of their country’s identity and flag. American Exceptionalism is a tragic example, but history is replete with similar examples of dangerous nationalism.
• People indoctrinated with racism, sexism, or homophobia who never rise about the fear that promotes their exclusion and hatred.
• People whose skin color or class has afforded them a privilege that traffics, consciously or not, in systemic injustice.
• People raised to put their trust and security in material things.
• People trained to gauge their worth by the hollow standards of power and prestige.

In the Christian Gospel of John, Jesus has a clandestine meeting with the Jewish leader Nicodemus. He says to him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” (John 3:7) It’s a pity that these words have been coopted by Christian fundamentalists as being “born again,” a pat phrase that means conversion to their brand of Stage Three Christianity.

I see them as a deeper call to wake up, to be born outside the determinates of our lives, to recognize the timeless existence of Source’s liberating presence that permeates everything around us.

When this happens, the scales fall off our eyes in a kind of conversion experience. I believe we ALL need this transformation. It helps us evolve into citizens of the world, not just the territories of our genetic and cultural conditioning.

This is hard work. It begins with a sobering analysis of our own habitual thinking, our prejudices and privilege. It often requires repentance, amends, even restitution. But the resulting freedom is well worth the effort!

How did Jesus describe this freedom in that conversation with Nicodemus? “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” In a mysterious and beautiful way, this is a powerful image of liberation.

Kristoffer recently said, “Dad, there will never be peace unless people change.”

Amen! I could phrase it another way. There will never be peace until more people are born again into the ENTIRE human family, not just their tribe or nation.

Are you next?

It was my privilege this past year to write and edit Texas Naturally! The Rise of the Texas Master Naturalist ^TM Movement. The book celebrates the 25th anniversary of our movement’s founders – the Alamo Area chapter based in San Antonio. Since those early years, the phenomenon has spread throughout Texas, the United States, and even internationally. Over 20 Texas chapters graciously assisted me in highlighting their projects. Here is a link to download a copy. I wrote it with the hope that it will unite Texas Master Naturalists across our state and spur even greater creativity. Again, many thanks to the people who received a complimentary hard copy of the book by supporting a crowdfunding campaign for the Alamo Area chapter’s Junior Master Naturalist program!

History has proven that chaos is the framework for most human endeavors. We have more chaotic moments than moments of serenity or peace. We have more sorrows and difficulties than experiences of Christ or Buddha consciousness. This chaos has reigned throughout human history.

So, hope is rather odd for me. I do not hope for blissful moments. I do not hope for rapture or some sort of anomaly to relieve me. Instead, I wish to experience the chaos. It is only in these experiences that we become mindful of the nuances we often miss due to anger, anxiety, or shortsightedness.

I find hope right in the midst of chaos. And what gives me hope at this particular juncture of history—ecologically, spiritually, socially—is that so much of our chaotic behavior has awakened us to be more reflective as human beings. What was once covered up, dressed up, even nurtured to appeal and appease, has now been laid bare.

For instance, when the previous president of these United States was sworn in and began his term, a new brand of chaos came through the woodwork of our society. It was more blatant with what it felt and believed. It stripped away the veneer to expose what lies beneath our smiles, our hugs, our neighborliness. It was the trigger, the opportunity for many with certain vitriolic beliefs and ideologies to come to the forefront and do more damage.

What gives me hope is that since that time we have also seen a resurgence among progressives, an equal uprising, a push back. We’ve seen people who were quiet in the past now saying what they are unwilling to tolerate. And this has brought new hope.

For instance, many African American mothers, fathers, and grandparents—folks who believed that their lives would always be marred by the system, that they would never see the hammer of justice come down—have a new sense of hope. Maybe now that the thermostat of what we feel about each other has been turned up, we will get somewhere! Maybe voices that were long silenced will now be heard! Maybe new alliances will be formed in the work for justice!

More and more young activists are addressing racism, inequality, injustice. This brings hope to all generations. So, in one way, I think that the array of tragedies we’ve experienced—from having a president who was narcissistic and autocratic, to the pandemic which broke down a lot of civility—have helped us discover what is truly beneath our skin. In this chaos, we are seeing it, hearing it, feeling it in a new way.

One of the terms people have used about me is prophetic iconoclast. There have always been those who cried out in the wilderness, speaking of the shape of things to come. John the Baptist was one, utilizing the chaos of his time to point towards a balanced way of living. MLK, Jr. was one, always lifting up his vision of what we can be if we make the effort.

Prophetically, what I see is a sort of Armageddon on the horizon. Archaically, this has always meant a cataclysmic war between good and evil, heaven and hell, the righteous and unrighteous. I see it as more complex and elegant.

We have witnessed the mutation of a perverse American iconography and its adherents. Relegating people to some future heaven or hell was not enough for them. They have now transformed their movement into one that uses violence and threats of violence. This new version of “Christian nationalism” seeks to arm itself not with righteousness, but with weapons of steel. They are not just fighting our words. They are now fighting our flesh.

While prayer and legislative responses are important, there has to emerge a righteousness that is willing to match that nationalistic ideology. And I have hope that this is already happening! I think what we are going to see is a very chaotically fed-up society that will become more progressive because they are willing to match the vitriol with a bright new movement of justice.

The Rev. Dr.  Heiwa no Bushi is a Buddhist-Christian monk. He has advanced degrees in philosophy and systematic theology. He also received training in both Mahayana and Daishin Zen Buddhism. He places his teachings under the moniker of “BodhiChristo,” which means “enlightened Christ,” an amalgamation of the two rich streams of Buddhism and Christianity. You can read his book (co-authored with Krin Van Tatenhove) called “The Six Medicines of BodhiChristo” by downloading at this link.

I’m waiting my turn at the Goodwill Clearance Center on San Antonio’s south side. This is the last stop for unsold items. Their odyssey began in foreign and domestic factories, then on to retail stores, closets and drawers in countless homes, and now to the bins before us—a downward spiral of detritus. It’s a scavenger’s paradise with purchases offered by the pound, where an average pair of shoes costs about a dollar. As workers wheel in the flatbeds of jumbled objects, we wait for the go signal like we’re standing at the starting line of the Oklahoma Land Rush.

Suddenly, I have a vivid memory.

I was with a group of community organizers in Mexico, working to build a children’s center on land that had once been part of el dompe, Tijuana’s municipal landfill. We had journeyed deeper into the wasteland to witness the daily activities of pepenadores (garbage scavengers) who comb through the mountains of refuse—entire families retrieving metal, glass, wire, cardboard, even food scraps. Rumbling garbage trucks continued to arrive in convoys, the air thick with clouds of acrid smoke.

The week prior, I had taken a load of my own junk to a landfill outside Los Angeles. As I surveyed this scene just a few miles from the California border, it struck that the economic status of a culture is certainly evident in its midden, its piles of artifacts that will entice future archaeologists.

I heard some children laughing and saw that they were hitting something back and forth with large sticks. I smiled and looked closer at their play object on the ground. It wasn’t a ball; it was a dog skull picked clean by maggots.

Back to that moment at the Goodwill Clearance Center. The staff shouts a go signal and we swoop in to look for treasures. For my part, I’m in search of used shoes or jeans, since my own pairs of both are worn and threadbare.

Why choose this place for my shopping spree? Call it a quirky conviction. I hear so many people bemoan the scientific reality that global warming has changed our weather patterns, leading to droughts and placing scores of animal species on the brink of extinction. The problem seems so enormous that it begs the question, “What can Ido as one measly individual?”

Surely, we can vote for political candidates that espouse green principles. We can volunteer with local organizations that work to protect our environment. AND, we can examine our own lifestyle choices, making those small changes that, when combined with the similar choices of others, have the potential to make an impact.

We can cultivate native plants in our yards, offering waystations for pollinators. We can convert sections of our water thirsty lawns to xeriscapes. We can buy more fuel-efficient vehicles or make the switch to electric. We can analyze our consumer habits in all areas, asking “how much is enough?”

Which brings me to clothing. For decades, my family and I have purchased 80% of our attire from thrift stores. Our motive is more than just saving money. It is based on our knowledge that the garment industry is one of our planet’s primary polluters. We also know that the U.S. exports roughly 700,000 tons of unsold secondhand clothes to developing countries. That tonnage suppresses local industry, with one estimate in Kenya showing that a secondhand garment costs five percent of a new one. Local industries simply can’t compete. The sheer amount of this textile waste ends up accumulating in these foreign locales. For instance, on the outskirts of the Ghanaian capital, Accra, lies a 30-foot mountain of rotting clothing articles, many of them with name-brand tags once worn in the U.S.

Back to my scavenger scramble in San Antonio. It’s a lucky day for me. I find more than what I’m looking for, and I admit to a bit of indulgence. I go away with a used pair of Vans and Adidas tennis shoes, plus a pair of khakis just my size.

Total cost: $5.25.

Clothing by the pound, not the ton.