The Wind Beneath The Wind

By Jock Doubleday

Christmas Day 1997

Nature is the first story. Nature is the true story. Nature's messenger is the child.

Culture is the second story. Culture is the false story. Culture's messengers are adults.

The child's story, nature's story, extends in all directions, to the beginning of the universe and to its end. Adults' stories, culture's stories, are bubbles surrounding particular tribes--bubbles of finite dimensions, finite volumes, that end where the walls of churches meet sidewalks, where boundaries of nations are marked, where well-worn paths end and the wilderness begins.

The child's story, nature's story, sounds a single clear note. Adults' stories, culture's stories, are cacophonous.

Men that some call the descendants of Noah ventured to build a high tower to reach heaven. They were prevented from doing so by a confusion of tongues.

Humankind could not then, nor can we now, reach god with high towers. Yet high towers we build. We believe that the answer to the mystery lies outside us. We believe that, because the answer lies outside us, we may find it with tools.

Science believes that it knows something about nature. It does not. Nature is not the name of the tree. Nature is not the visible tree, its bark, its branches, its needles. Nature is not the beauty of the tree or the scent of the tree. Nature is not the wind that moves through the needles of the tree.

Nature is the force of the tree. Nature is the invisible "filaments of intent" that twine through the tree and every thing. Nature is the wind beneath the wind. Nature is the invisible valuation that creates and governs visible nature. Our science, which does not study values, cannot know nature.

Science and technology are one. Technology can profitably build houses, microscopes and telescopes, but it cannot build towers to reach god. It cannot answer our most precious questions.

Yet towers we build. The higher our towers, the farther from god. Today we are so far from god that we believe that god is dead. In fact, it is we who are dead, though high towers shine.

To feel the wind beneath the wind, to reclaim our lives, we must be "like a child." The sword that Jesus speaks of ("I come not to bring peace but a sword") is not the society-changer but the self-changer. We must lose our lives to find our lives, cut away our cultural masks, let egos, identities, fall away.

Periodically we go into nature to set aside our masks and be as children once again. In the wilderness, at well-worn trail's end, we can hear the one true voice singing. Jesus knew that god and nature are one. Jesus was a pagan.

God is there, in the wind beneath the wind that only a child, or one who has become like a child, may hear. God is not hidden. God is not contained in a labyrinthine mystery that only billion-dollar government science grants can undo. God cannot be "found" with cultural tools of any kind--with words or churches or microscopes or telescopes. God will never be reached with high towers or good science. The ultimate mystery will never be undone, will never be improved upon. It may only be joined or shunned.

Our children are with god now, even as we adults look through the glass of culture darkly. God sings the one true note, but we cannot hear it because we are adding the next level to our towers, the level that we believe will finally put us on god's own level. Our tools vibrate loudly in our hands, our faces are ridged with pain.

On Christmas day, I sit at the foot of a living tree. I sit as a child before it. I am not I. I feel the force of the tree. I feel the wind beneath the wind beneath the needles' dance. I hear the true voice singing.

In the distance, high towers shine.

Who have ears to hear, let them hear.

Merry Christmas.

Jock Doubleday

Director

Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.

A California 501(c)3 Nonprofit Corporation

http://www.SpontaneousCreation.org

director@spontaneouscreation.org