Mind-Body-Spirit, Lie of the Land

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

A Religious Education teacher at my secondary school once compared the task of a land surveyor, in becoming familiar with the lie of a landscape in order to record its features for future reference, to the human spirit’s becoming familiar features of the human landscape. Although he never brought me to religion, he brought my attention to many things which the poet in me would later identify/ interpret and attempt to record, increasingly so as the man in me would experience more of humanity and its existential landscapes.

From time to time I have expressed my personal view that religion has no monopoly on spirituality. Several readers have taken issue with this, arguing that spirituality is derived from an affinity with religion and cannot be seen as a separate entity. Fair enough, but we must agree to differ. My affinity with nature is such that I consider myself something of a pantheist. While I cannot relate to any personification of God, I recognise a sense of something bigger and stronger than anything man-made emanating from my surroundings. Call it spirituality, imagination, wishful thinking … whatever; it is there, a part of us all, whatever our socio-cultural-religious (or sexual) persuasion.

During the present Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, there have been many instances of people in lock-downs around the world being willing and able to put aside their differences and pulling together to help one another. But not everywhere, and not everyone. Many people living alone, for example, feel isolated and all but forgotten, simply left to find their own way through it all; in other words, precious little change from the status quo but from its intensity being raised to a new level.

Whoever and wherever we are in the world, though, few if any of us are entirely without any experience of the power of human love, in whatever context;  it is in that we place our hopes and desires, and on that we draw both strength and resolve to see each day though, whatever it may throw at us. Religion may or may note be a part of the human equation, but it is cannot compete with the fundamentals that may well depart from any religious dogma, nor are fazed by human divisions and differences, but lie at the root of all things and bring all natural life forms into their own; the greater of these being love in all its s various shape, sizes and (invariably) a mind of its own.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, LIE OF THE LAND

Through a long, lonely day

and tears-fears flowing

for all the pain-joy of living,

here, too, love lies

I’ll watch from my window

at birds nesting, chicks

being fed their raison d'être;

here, too, love lies

Friends, neighbours, bridging

any social distancing

with ways to show they care;

here too, love lies

To all life forces, a beginning,

ending and, yes, a sense

of loss, tempered by memories;

here, too, love lies

As the human spirit rises above

any tears, reconciling

with loss on a Bridge of Love;

here, too, life lies

Copyright R. N. Taber 2020