EPISODE 169: Wooden Ships
What is a person’s duty toward the world? Do we “owe” the world our efforts and our action? If not exactly, then how are we supposed to relate to the world? “How shall we then live?”
This cast talks about Meister Eckhart, who for my money was never wrong about anything. I just never find myself disagreeing with anything he ever said. Or maybe just one thing.
Eckhart preached a sermon in which he said, “What is reaped in contemplation is sown in action.” Gosh, that sounds good.
Yet it’s the only statement he ever made that I can’t get on board with. This is because I don’t think it’s true.
Well, maybe it’s a little true, as in the fact that you sometimes do things spontaneously on the outside after having gone inside. You might do something good on the outside that’s really “an inside job” (Don Henley). But you sure can’t plan it. [No use “Making Plans for Nigel” (XTC).]
In any event, what real impact does anybody ever have — that’s not overturned later — when you set out to do something. I mean, Eckhart was condemned by the Church, for crying out loud. Eckhart! — who is universally regarded, seven centuries later, as the “noblest Roman of them all”, the Christian mystic par excellence.
I would take my stand with… Crosby, Stills & Nash. And get on board one of those “Wooden Ships”. Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik79Jw7GqH0&w=600
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