I remember as a little boy watching the Dick Van Dyke show with my parents. Dick and Mary Tyler Moore were at supper and Dick was going on and on about something that had happened at work that day. Finally, he let out a long sigh and asked, 'What's for dessert?'
Mary said, 'We already had dessert--you had three servings!'
'What was it?' Dick asked.
'Chocolate cream pie.'
'Oh darn,' he moaned. 'That's my favorite!'
My favorite quote from Richard Rohr's article on Eckhart Tolle from yesterday's post is
"He (Tolle) is teaching process not doctrine or dogma. He is teaching how to see and be present, not what you should see when you are present."
The Christianity that most of us Christians have been shaped by has long been stunted by too much emphasis on doctrine and not enough emphasis on process. For too many centuries we've been told what to see instead of being shown how to see.
We have almost two weeks left to celebrity the great invitation shot through the season of Epiphany: "Come and see!"
I'm drawn to mindful practice because through it I am being trained 'to see and be present.' Whatever it is we see when we're more present is simply a truer, richer, more complete version of what we might have seen when we aren't present.
See & Be!
It's a gift. It's a process. It's a training. As rudimentary as practicing scales on the piano and as breath-taking as playing Fur Elise. Grace is equally in the grunt work of practice and the epiphanies of presence.
Life's too short to ever, ever eat three pieces of chocolate cream pie without tasting even one bite.
