Thanks Keith

This is the center. It is empty. And everything is here. I open my eyes and I find this still place. I close my eyes and listen and I don’t hear anything. Quiet. When I actually get to the place where the mind begins to still, nothing is there.

This is the center. It is full. There isn’t any such thing as empty. It is completely full of everything that could possibly be. All of the universe is here. I breathe in the same molecules of air that St. Augustine breathed, Hitler breathed, Jesus, the Buddha, Nero, Richard Nixon, Virginia Wolf, Gertrude Stein, and my grandparents breathed. The air remains full of witches we burn and those who die at our hand of war, poverty, religion, AIDs. All of us are here, all of us from forever are here in the air molecules of this one breath.

This is the center. It is empty. And I sit inside this empty burial basket, this death shroud that is my skin. I live inside this place and yet there is nothing here. Oh, blood and bones yes, but no soul that anyone can actually measure or physically touch. I am empty inside this shroud and I wait anxiously for something to come and fill it up.

This is the center. It is full. Full of ego and the need to be in the center of everything and of course the only real topic I know is me and my relationship to the world and my observations and my writing and me here in the world I take up all the space that I can possibly know.

This is the center. It is empty. I risk everything, including my sanity, to acknowledge the emptiness of the center of my being.

This is the center. It is full. My mind is cluttered with all the details of life. The need to walk the dog and the cards all over the floor and the ache of my muscles and the mess of my bed and the need to cook dinner and homework to do and books to read and a sermon to write and teaching to plan and life, life, life is too full and I’ve lost the center in all this clutter and untidy doing.

This is the center. It is empty. All that distraction is empty of any real meaning and I turn my head and remember to dance and then everything is okay again for in this meaningless act lies all meaning and the world makes sense in spite of AIDs and war and homelessness and racism and hate and fear and the world makes sense because we can dance in the emptiness of the center and hold the space for each other.