Sometimes in meditation, when my mind is quiet and on the cusp of true silence, a word pops into my head and then dissolves. This past week, I had such meditation, and the word, "Sweetness" floated by, slow enough for me to note it. It's not really a word I use very much, even in December when kitchens are churning sweet holiday treats. I mulled it over a bit, and even wrote it down after the meditation. For a few days, I'd been nursing a small, annoying cut on my cuticle with antibiotic ointment. It wasn't healing. So I sprinkled a bit sugar on the cut, and by afternoon, it was healed. Sometimes, just a sprinkling of sweetness is healing. My meditation went deeper though. than a cut cuticle. It raised the question: Is it possible, even in these unfathomable times of change, to consider a larger sweetness to life? What followed, was one of my favorite quotes from Franz Kafka:
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
Kafka may seem a strange choice for a spiritual reflection on sweetness, but the quote points to the world's joy at your discovery of the World. There is a World of Greater Reality, hidden inside the world of society and culture. Equally, you can reverse the order of this; turn it "inside out", and see that we commonly talk about "world", really meaning the human concept of world, inside a Vast Mystery of World--the Cosmic Order, the World of Greater Reality.
Consider just the concept of yourself as a living, individual body. There is the outward body, enclosed and covered by skin and hair, but that is far from all that is there. "Inside" are more layers of skin, fat, and muscle. Then we have bones, and blood vessels, and life-generating organs. Within those, are phenomenal processes of exchange, connections, circuitry, chemical reactions, and other essential life forms--our microorganisms, "bodies" within "the body". Then again, look to the world "outside' the perimeter of what we name our body. Consider the exchange of breath with one another, and with the complimentary systems of nature, and carbon dioxide/oxygen exchange. Consider our dependency on water, and food, and the elements that are necessary for living. Consider our dependency --at some time or another--on other humans, as well as other creatures.
This is the Sweetness, this wondrous exchange and balance. It can be overwhelming to contemplate its intricacies; it's a lot easier to just think of the world as people, culture and society--what we approve of, or disapprove of--when the World is so much more. Yet, Kafka presents us a World that freely offers to unmask itself. Not only is it willing, it is sweetly excited, even ecstatic, to open to you. As Larry Morris wrote, "What do we really want at this time of the year— beyond the gifts, the lights, the music, the celebrations— but to feel God's sweetness and fire in every cell of our being." The fire is the energy that moves Life along; the sweetness, is the Love the World is freely offering. Why not accept the sweet gift? (Susan Nettleton)
Poetry: https://wordsfortheyear.com/2014/02/11/the-sweetness-of-dogs/ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45530/most-sweet-it-is https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50537/love-and-friendship https://poets.org/poem/just-say