It's all good

It's just the parts that suck.

Rev. Susan talked last week about the large over-arching theme of whether "to save or to savor" the world. It's a common dilemma among people who give a hoot about the social problems that plague this planet, whether in a religious context or a political arena or whatever front you choose to confront. It's impossible to enjoy the pleasures this life affords without facing the ugly problems stemming from the many injustices and imbalances that are seemingly everywhere.

She unpacked the question in terms of the Sufi practice of whirling as a kind of meditation meant to center oneself in a peaceful place. Sufis are a mystical order of Muslims, so I gather their practice starts with an inward focus. Which can be said of Unitarians, too, who aren't particularly know for their mysticism, but who do advocate inquiry as well as action.

All of which reminded me of Rudolf Laban's movement theory, which I used to study, in which almost any human efforts can be observed to embody either "fighting" or "indulging" qualities, depending on the attitude and intention of the human agent. People work, play, walk, talk, dance, eat, cook, you name it, in a combination of fighting or indulging qualities, depending on their attitude toward space, time, weight, and stuff like that.

So take that, Hamlet, to save or to savor (or to fight or to indulge), that is the question.

It was a better than average church service. Thinking these thoughts, I drove down route 23 to the Coop in Clintonville and stocked up on flour, beans, fruit and nuts. It's a very different place on Sunday, country music and middle-class housewives instead of hippies and hip-hop. The clerk confiscated by out-of-date membership card, so no more discount for mister delinquent member. It was a pretty day, so I stopped by the nursery while I was in the old neighborhood and impulse-purchased a couple of salvia, a rhododendron, a redbud, and a dawn redwood (metasequoia glyptostroboides, I'm not showing off, I just like that name). Everything was half-price, so I splurged on plant material. Went home and spent most of the afternoon planting perennials and small trees. Savoring.

Or was it fighting the good fight every gardener relishes? I'm not sure I can save anything by putting things in the ground, adding to the flora of our tiny corner lot in Methodistville, but it's something to do.