This week I have been contemplating two quotes from very different 20th century writers. Each quote--separate and apart from the complete philosophical orientation and context of the authors-- struck me as unusual approaches to expanding our lives in this new phase of the Pandemic. This "phase" is new because of the experience we have gathered in our almost 2 years under the Pandemic threat, the extraordinary success of vaccines and the early promise of new treatment for Covid 19. At the same time, we shoulder a collective awareness of viral mutations and seasonal surges as ongoing possibilities during the years to come. Moving beyond the trauma and fear of the last 2 years is not going to happen by denial or dismissal of the continued threat, nor by suppressing all that we felt and experienced in the process--both gain and loss. But neither can it be a continued one-pointed focus on contagion. The world grows more complex. Moving beyond these years of Pandemic requires expansion.
For those who nurture their spiritual life, that expansion is spiritual expansion and it is the expansion of consciousness. We participate in the healing, renewing activity of life at this time, in the place where we are, as active spirituality--willing to grow beyond what we have known and trusting an unfolding Good. Here are the quotes for a Sunday contemplation on expansion, this November, 2021:
"So many things fail to interest us, simply because they don't find in us enough surfaces on which to live, and what we have to do then is to increase the number of planes in our mind, so that a much larger number of themes can find a place in it at the same time." José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)
"What we think is less than what we know; What we know is less than what we love; What we love is so much less than what there is; and to this precise extent, we are much less than what we are." R.D. Laing (1927-1982)
Consider a broader expanse of love, love that feeds new planes (even dimensions) of involvement--widening, spacious themes that spark new ways of knowing, ways of responding, flowing from our minds and hearts. (Susan Nettleton)