Sacred Necessities: Simple Pleasures

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Issue 21

In This Issue:

Sacred Necessities: Simple Pleasures
Words to Live By
Poems & Sabbath Thought
Letters
Gardens & Grace Conference
Gentleness and Beauty, Spaciousness and Healing, Stillness and Delight (read more)

FEATURE ARTICLE
by Terry Hershey

Sacred Necessities:
Simple Pleasures

“God has not forbidden us to love the world
And to love man and all his works,
To love it with all the naked senses together,
Every shape and colour, every voice and every sound.
There is a shudder in our blood when we see
The traces of his craftsman's hands upon the world. . .”
Gwenallt (Welsh poet)

“It's not the number of breaths you take that gives you life, but how many moments take your breath away.”
Anonymous

“At the back of our brains, so to speak, there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.”
GK Chesterton

“Moment, ah still delay, thou art so fair.”
Faust

“Every tree and plant
in the meadow seemed
to be dancing, those
which average eyes would
see as fixed and still.”
Rumi

Lynne Twist talks about visiting a potter in Mexico. She admired the pottery, and commented on its beauty. She noticed that the potter had many pots and asked, “How many pots have you made?” The potter was surprised by the question. “Here,” he answered, “we don't count such things.”
The Soul of Money

The newspaper headline was too good to be true. “Experts disagree on how to be happy.”

One side says, “Be focused. Organized. Get stuff done.”

The other says, “Don't do so much. Stop and smell the roses.”

I can picture it. A “my-happiness-is-better-than-your-happiness” bar-room brawl, in the end both sides deciding that happiness comes from kicking the stuffing out of someone else.

This much we know: Like everything else, our culture has turned contentment into some sort of an achievement, a contest, a beauty pageant. And in the end, it kind of defeats the point. It reminds me of the line from John Steinbeck's, East of Eden, “he brought with him his tiny, Irish wife, a tight, hard, little woman, humorless as a chicken. She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.”

Maybe we should opt for the third picture, which comes from a Farside Cartoon. Two cows standing in a field munching grass. One says to the other, “I don't care what they say. I'm not content.”

The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the southern fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.

"Why aren't you out fishing?" said the industrialist.

"Because I have caught enough fish for the day," said the fisherman.

"Why don't you catch some more?"

"What would I do with them?"

"You could earn more money," was the industrialist's reply. "With that you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to own two boats - maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich man like me."

"What would I do then?" asked the fisherman.

"Then you could really enjoy life."

"What do you think I am doing right now?"

So. What's the secret of the southern fisherman?

For me, I put my money on Mary Howitt's observation. “He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower.”

It boils down to this, simple pleasures.
What Rudolph Otto referred to as, “Mysterium Tremendum.” Translated, it means “the bare mystery of simply being.”

Or, in the words of CS Lewis, talking about joy, “I was overwhelmed by spine tingling elation.”

We seem to lose that early in life, don't we?

It is no surprise that Jesus begins all of his parables this way; with a seed, lilies, a camel, wheat, a pearl, a candle. He obviously wanted us to look closely at this world, not some other one. It is here and now, all around us in the most ordinary things, that we find the Kingdom (which he reminded us, “is here”), and that we are in the divine presence.

And here's the straight scoop: being fully alive is a sensual fiesta. Being alive in this world: squarely in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this day.

Did you see the movie Ray (the story of Ray Charles)? There is a great scene when Ray Charles is having lunch with Della Bea, the women who will become his wife. She wonders about his blindness.

Ray says, “I hear like you see. Like that hummingbird outside the window, for instance.”

Della is amazed, “I can't hear her.”

“You have to listen,” says Ray.

Della closes her eyes, hears the hummingbird, and says, “Yes!”

Irenaeus got it right a long time ago. “The Glory of God is man (or woman) fully alive.”

Why are simple pleasures the source of such joy?

Because simple pleasures are the ones that ground us. They connect us to our humanity, they connect us to the earth, to our senses. Because simple pleasures are extremely sensual. And on a spiritual plane, humans are fully alive when we're most in touch with our senses.

There's a great story about a research project with children. The children were put into a room with new toys. The study was to determine which toys they enjoyed most. After twenty minutes or so, playing with all the new toys, the children spent the remainder of their time enthusiastically playing with. . .the boxes that the toys came in.

It makes me giggle just thinking about it.

Children are wired to be fully alive. To see. Wired to derive joy from that which is simple. It is a byproduct of engagement. There is no need for stuff to entertain, or occupy, or preoccupy, or distract. To put it another way, someone once said that miracles are simply being in the right place at the right time. And kids see miracles in simple boxes.

Somewhere along the way to adulthood, something gums up the system.

GK Chesterton's story of the teenage boy granted a wish by a genie: to be huge or tiny. We are all swayed by the appeal of being big, strong and powerful. So the boy chose huge. The outcome was predictable: in a few hours the boy was bored. Because of his size, he walked around the world in only a few steps. Scaled the largest mountains. Like any child 30 minutes after the presents are opened, “is that all there is?”

You see, Chesterton goes on to say, only “tiny people” can celebrate and enjoy life. Tiny people have nothing to prove, no score to settle, no one to impress. They approach each day, not from power, or the need to dominate or defeat, but from respect. The freedom to receive.

Tiny people see God incognito in the everyday stuff of life. The simple pleasures.

The sensation of relief from an endless hot shower.

The comfort of an oversized plush cotton towel.

A big scoop of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

The rich smell of the earth after a spring-rain.

Tears during a good movie.

The lick of a golden retriever.

Filtered sunlight through the morning bedroom window.

Memories of childhood, bacon frying, lilacs in May, Sunday pot roast, and the aroma from my grandfather's pipe.

Here's our conundrum. Simple pleasures are a tough sell in a “never-enough-world”—what with this onslaught of choices.

Why settle for simple when you can have deluxe?

Why settle for dial-up when you can have DSL?

That's what happens with speed, this crush of information with our “can't miss” technology guaranteed to give us more time. In the end we live out of breath and out of time.

And we see less,

taste less,

listen less,

smell less,

touch less,

and savor our own fullness less.

Which begs the question. How do we re-train our own eye (or mind) to appreciate simple pleasures? Is there a spiritual practice that we can incorporate into our lives, that opens our eyes to the abundant simple pleasures that surround us? (Granted, it would be easier with a book, Simple Pleasures for Dummies.)

Let's begin now. Answer this: Can you tell me a simple pleasure that happened / that you enjoyed, in the past hour?

And while we're on the subject, it wouldn't hurt to change the way we talk. We ask, of each other, daily, “What do you do?” Or, “What did you do?” Why not ask, “What surprised you today? What made you smile?” “Where did you see God incognito?”

This we know for certain. There is a connection between simple pleasures and gratitude.

Meister Eckhart says that if you only learn one prayer in your whole life, learn this one: “Thank you.” We can learn the Jewish practice called Shehechiyanu: saying a blessing for new and special experiences. “Thank you God for allowing me to reach this time.”

My first cup of coffee this morning.

Dark chocolate

Willie Nelson

Watching my son dance to the Beatles

Reading by the fireplace

Fresh flowers on the dining room table

Barefoot in the summer

Belly laughter

Listening to the dawn

Planting a flower

Learning a new word

Asking a stupid question

Hug from a child

Watching grass grow

Phone call from a friend

Emailing this article to a friend. (How subtle is that?)

It's not really about happiness.
It's about being awake.

A Zen roshi is dying. All of the monks gather—and eagerness restrained—around the deathbed, hoping to be chosen as the next teacher. The roshi asks slowly, Where is the gardener?”

“The gardener,” the monks wonder aloud. “He is just a simple man who tends the plants, and he is not even ordained.”

“Yes,” the roshi replies. “But he is the only one awake. He will be the next teacher.”

Okay. Here's the self help portion: Instead of racing through my cup of coffee and checking my e-mails, I take my cup and I savor it. I give myself permission. Another person might give themselves permission to buy flowers for the weekend. The act of giving yourself permission to enjoy it. One iris at a time. One cup of coffee at a time. You do exactly what they did in the movie Ray. Stop, and close your eyes. That simple pleasure touched something, it nourished something. And then we make it part of our conversation.

I had something else to say.

It was going to be really important.

But two Western Flickers landed on a tree outside my window. Flickers (a type of woodpecker) are a rare treat around here. Their beauty—they are the color of homemade caramel—is soothing. So, whatever I had to say. . .it can wait.

Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.”
Jewish Prayer

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Terry's Schedule

April 7-17
Oahu, Hawaii

April 23
St. Louise Parish
Single Adult Gathering
kathy@stlouise.org
Bellevue, WA

April 26
Redemptorist Renewal Center
12-2 pm Sacred Necessities
Tucson, AZ
520-744-3400
www.desertrenewal.org

April 26
Franciscan Renewal Center
6-8 pm Sacred Necessities
Scottsdale, AZ
800-356-3247
www.desertrenewal.org

April 27
Casas Adobe Baptist Church
Single Adult Seminar
EvelynW@casaschurch.org
Tucson, AZ

May 4-6
Bandon Dunes, OR

May 7-11
Tampa, FL

May 21-24
Kanuga Conference Center
Gardens and Grace Conference
Hendersonville, NC

Featured Products

Sacred Necessities:
Gifts for living with Passion, Purpose and Grace

Available as Book, DVD or CD

Put On Your Dancing Shoes
You Are Invited to a Party

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Recommended Books

Spiritual Rx
Frederic and Maryann Brussat

The Soul of Money
Lynne Twist

Lost in Wonder
Esther De Waal

A Private History of Awe
Scott Russell Sanders

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Words to Live By

“I want to know if joy, curiosity, struggle, and compassion bubble up in a person' life. I'm interested in being fully alive.”
Alan Jones

"Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flitter inside my head. To hear them, one must be calm and pay close attention, for their wingbeats are barely audible. Loud breathing is enough to drown them out. This is astonishing: my hearing does not improve, yet I hear them better and better. I must have butterfly hearing."
Jean-Dominique Bauby

“There comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of pretending; when he is weary of being a robber or a Red Indian. It is then that he torments the cat. There comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilization when the man is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man. The effect of staleness is the same everywhere; it is seen in all our drug-taking and dram drinking and in every form of the tendency to increase the dose. Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded senses. . .They try to stab their nerves to life, as if it were with the knives of the priest of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves with nightmares.”
GK Chesterton

“Within hours you will have befriended, if nothing else, a pattern of sunlight on the window ledge, a water stain on the ceiling that has the exact shape of Yugoslavia. Even in the sound of the wind tricking along the outside of the building, you will hear snatches of a familiar song. With all the force of memory and nostalgia, you will search here for scraps of intimacy.”
Richard Selzer talking about the indomitable human spirit passing time in a hospital room

Poems

“. . .an author must gorge himself on ten thousand images to select the magical one that can define a piece of the world in a way one has never considered before. I drove down strange roads for the sheer pleasure of going the wrong way. Stopping the car, I'd slip into rushing mountain rivers in the Blue Ridge Mountains because they were so beautiful and I was so free. . .On the Blue Ridge Parkway, I hiked to a waterfall and discovered a shelf of rock behind the falls where I sat and stared at the hills through rainbows of falling water. Since I'd never seen the world through a waterfall before, I promised my self to honor this moment, its sacredness, its surprising and unconditional completeness. I'd have to live deeply in moments like this, surrender myself absolutely to the duties imagination requires from a writer to make a reader cry out in rapture at the beauty of a lived-in world.”
Pat Conroy

Poem #2

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, when the bird waketh, and the shadows flee; fairer than morning, lovelier than daylight, dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows, the solemn hush of nature newly born; alone with Thee in breathless adoration, in the calm dew and freshness of the morn.

Still, still with Thee, as to each newborn morning, a fresh and solemn splendor still is given, so does this blessed consciousness, awaking, breathe each day nearness unto Thee and Heaven.

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning, when the soul waketh and life's shadows flee; O in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning, shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee.
Harriet Beecher Stowe

Sabbath Thought

“Sabbath implies a willingness to be surprised by unexpected grace, to partake of those potent moments when creation renews itself, when what is finished inevitably recedes, and the sacred forces of healing astonish us with the unending promise of love and life.”
Wayne Muller, Sabbath: restoring the sacred rhythm of rest

Letters

Terry, I'm still shining from your workshop last week. My husband said, “What happened to you?” And I told him about the seminar. He said, “ Well you need to do this more often.”

Hello Terry-I sure did enjoy you when you came to visit St.Joseph Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Idaho. I was the person who made the comment about work...how do you spell it...let's drag that over to play. People at work are telling me I should join you as I kept the people at my table entertained by my interactions with you.
I would love to hear you speak again. I would love for you to come back. If you are anywhere near here, please send me an email with information. Your family is sooooo blessed to have a spirit like yours around. People around you should feel blessed to have you in their presence. Thank you ...SHALOM
Karin Banks

THANKS! PERHAPS THE MOST SALUTARY THING WE CAN BE AND DO...IS THANK FULL! IT APPEARS TO BE ALL BY AND FOR GRACE FULLNESS, ALL IN DIVINE ORDER, FOR WHO EVEN KNOWS WHAT THE WIND IS, WHERE IT COMES FROM, OR WHERE IT GOES, ALTHOUGH MANY HYPOTHESIZE ABOUT IT!
ALL THANKS ALL, AMEN!

Hi Mr Hershey, I wasn't sure if you read all your mail that's sent to you, but I really appreciate you and all you have done for me. Every once and awhile I get some great mail & love to send it to ones that have really influenced my life. It's all about sharing the great & small stuff !! Have a blessed day
Jan Wilson (from Arlington Cascade Valley Hospital)

Terry—I had a great time. How I live was reinforced. I am happy to say, as I age, I discovered the treasures of happiness, silliness, contentedness, day dreaming (a favorite) and grace. You reminded me of Tim Allen — and I laughed all day — except when you made me teary. Your sense of humor tickled my funny bone. I imagine you must see the beautiful garden beyond the broken garden gate — I do. Bless you

Terry, One of the most enjoyable Employee Reflection Days yet. Full of good life-affirming thoughts, and very funny. Glad you came, come back again. You should come to church with us some time; we are LDS (Latter Day Saints). That would give you a lot of new material for the humor aspect of your presentation.

Hi, Terry! Good to see you at SAM in Phoenix! I hope all is well with your soul and well with your garden! I have been working vigorously in mine each day for a couple of hours before going into church. I wanted to let you know I received a special “word of grace” today as I worked in my yard. Just as you have made friends with dandelions, I have now made friends with clover. It is abundant this year since we had little freeze during the winter. A lot of it is growing in the Liriope and is a real challenge to get out so I just decided to love it where it is. I even picked a clump and took it in the house! The blossoms are a beautiful lavender. I got my super magnifying glass so I could see it up close and personal. It has beautiful darker lavender veins that run vertically down into the snow white throat which is touched with hints of lime green at the bottom. It is really quite lovely. I decided then and there, “It's not for me to worry about!” We have become friends! On Monday when my work in the yard began, I received another “word of grace”. I am doing a wonderful Lenten study, “Wilderness Wanderings” by Marilyn Brown Oden. This week it suggested praying in a new way so the Spirit nudged me to do as the pastor at Christ's Church in the Valley suggested last week: Spend one hour listening to God. I wondered at the time how on earth I would manage that during this extraordinarily busy week recovering from one trip and getting ready for the next. As I was working in the yard, I asked God if this would count. The reply was, “I am after a quiet heart. You don't have to be sitting still.” Whew! Was I glad to hear that! I wasn't sure if it was really God's answer or just wishful thinking so I asked again. Got the same answer. Today as I was working, the hymn “In the Garden” came to my mind. For over an hour, as I worked, it rolled over and over, word by word, phrase by phrase. WOW! Did I hear from God, or what!!! I need to get it written down while it is still fresh on my mind. I tell you all this to say THANK YOU for your stories which have come to mean a lot to me and the “words of grace” you have given me. God bless your gardening!!!
Carole

Gardens and Grace
Kanuga Conference Center

Don't miss this conference!

Gardens and Grace:
Gentleness and Beauty, Spaciousness and Healing, Stillness and Delight
May 21-24, 2006

Kanuga Conference Center
Gardens large and small, wild and manicured are extraordinary containers for life-enhancement and spiritual growth. This unique conference, in an exquisite garden setting, will provide breathing space; time for solitude and community, time for relaxation and restoration; time to learn about and to cherish the natural world. Inspirational meditations and workshops, teaching and input, sharing and celebrating will encourage a deepening of faith, hope and love. Come and see how the garden grows!

Speakers include:
Esther de Waal
Rev. Philip Roderick
Rev. Terry Hershey

Some of the workshops offered:

Body Prayer:
The gentle interplay between heaven and earth
The Cardboard Band:
Contemplative Christian chant with an Afro-Celtic flavor!
Still Walk
(A walk of awareness around the lake at Kanuga)
Soul Gardening
(Lessons the garden teaches us to live fully and with passion)
Prayer and Healing in the Garden
Creating a Sanctuary Garden
(practical suggestions for making a sacred space, applicable to small or large gardens)
The Garden and Sabbath
(slowing down and stillness)
The Gift of the Garden
(spiritual, emotional, social benefits)
Garden Design Workshop
(nuts and bolts basics to consider for personal gardens and for Church memorial gardens)
Caring for the Earth
“Pledge allegiance to the earth, and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports; one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water, with liberty, justice and peace for all.”
- William Sloane Coffin
Labyrinths and the garden

Workshop Information

Double room occupancy $395 / Single room occupancy $485 /
Commuter (locals in the area of Kanuga) $225 /
Participating spouse $325 / Non participating spouse $245 (for meals and lodging only)
Online registration
www.kanuga.org
Call Kanuga (828) 692-9136

Located in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Kanuga offers the natural beauty of 1400 wooded acres and a 30 acre lake, comfortable accommodations, delicious meals, a well stocked bookstore and free time choices including hiking trails to mountain overlooks, meditating in the labyrinth, walking the John Barr Fitness Trail and relaxing in rocking chairs by the fireplace.

Special scholarships available.
Airfare discounts from Fifth Avenue Travel at 888-696-8200.

Thanks for visiting with us!

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