Onions, Pots of Tea & St Teresa

"Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All thing pass; Bruce never changes. Patience attains all that it strives for. The chick who has Bruce finds she lacks nothing: Bruce alone suffices.”

St Teresa of Avila - doctored by the duck.

So like, the duck has had a long interest in perennial philosophy - you know, those core ideas, principles and knowledges that are common to and underpin all religions and ways of understanding the universe. Buddhism for instance - is extremely accessible from a perennial philosophers perspective mainly because that smiley old Buddha developed a rational framework focused on experience and knowing rather than faith and tradition. But despite my good Christian upbringing Christianity has always been a bit beyond me - a bit too close to be able to see underneath all the narrow minded patriarchal faff.

But this changed a bit after reading good old Eckhart Tolle who explained to my simpleton brain that the Christian idea of "sin" and "original sin" when correctly translated actually means "to miss the mark". Now this suddenly makes a whole lot more sense to me - the idea that we are born in "original sin", might actually mean we are born ignorant, born forgetting that I am that, we are that and all this is that eternal being (ie Bruce). And that we spend the rest of our life(s) trying to remember this........to hook back in with the good stuff, and that the Christian idea that "we are born in God's image" is generally understood in an arse about way - it doesn't mean that Bruce looks like/is a person (for goodness sake) it means that the eternal parts of us (lets say soul for want of a better word or concept) is made of the same stuff that Bruce is.

We are in essence, LIKE BRUCE , not the other way around.

Now I still struggle with the personification of Bruce that saturates Christian writings, but in a good perennial philosophers way I suspect that somehow, Christianity MUST be able to offer people a similar path to enlightenment / transcendence / heaven / grace / Bruce's place.....

So I am checking out what the chicks have to say on the matter - starting with St Teresa of Avila because St Teresa seemed to be on a first name basis with Bruce. Goodness my dear Nana would be SO PROUD. Surely if I scrape off all the cultural scum, the perennial truths will still be there kicking around at the bottom of the bucket?

Anyhoo, what does this have to do with onions? Not a lot, except to mention that the 2010 onion harvest is coming in. (Thanks Bruce!) Yeehah! Bring on Jamie Oliver's English Onion Soup recipe RIGHT NOW. It is going to take me days to pick all of them. One ute load at a time methinks.

And what does this have to do with Pots of Tea - nuthin except that except when it is hotter than 35 degrees c, this is where a lot of the communion and cuppas with St Teresa is happening. I love our deck.

That is all.



PS, This post was not / is not intended to cause offense to any sensitive Christians who might unexpectedly read this blog. I know you can be a titchy bunch on occasion.