December 9, 2012

I just came across a poem I wrote earlier this year. The Buddhists speak of impermanence and I've often read articles where the authors used this concept to speak about detachment.  If nothing is permanent, they say, then we must not be attached to it because we could lose it and the loss could cause us to suffer. The problem is, one can practice detachment to the extreme and not be engaged in life. In the Catholic tradition, detachment was often spoken of in a similar vein.  Nothing is permanent here on earth because we were created for heaven.  That philosophy led to a denial of the body, fasting, corporal punishment to self, and a neglect of the poor.  We were told their rewards would be in heaven.

So I never liked the concept of impermanence.  I could never identify with the good of punishing the body.  If we believe in a Creator, then we honor the Creator by being grateful for the creation: to cherish life, the plants, animals and other humans.  To honor all things as they are, each bug or tree, baby or elder, homeless or secure, and especially our own bodies.

I now see impermance in a whole new light.  I see impermanence as a call to live in the moment: to cherish the person I'm speaking to and not distract myself by what I will be doing next; to pet the cat on my lap as if that is the most important time in my day, a moment to breathe, relax and just be; to slowly eat my food and be grateful for the farmer who chose to grow organically; to lay in bed and rest knowing this is a time for renewal and tomorrow will take care of itself.

This poem was written at the beginning of March, when the whether can be so unpredictable.

Impermanence

Ice covers the ground.
I risk falling as I walk
to retrieve the paper.
Thus I begin the rituals
of a Sunday morning.

Rain falls in torrents,
as I drink my tea,
work on the puzzles
the paper provides
for my pleasure.

Rain now falls softly,
as I prepare lunch,
resigned to stay home,
when the sky suddenly
lightens, full of promise.

The sun is shining
by mid-afternoon.
I dress and leave
to walk the beach
and ponder impermanence

c)Helen Rousseau