This Week’s Quotation:
It really comes down to this. Generosity is the source of all virtue. As you are connected to the generosity of all Being that dwells within you, you are nourished from within. The generosity at your core feeds all the rest of you. It emanates from you. There is pleasure in that emanation. As Olympic racer Eric Liddell wrote in The Disciplines of the Christian Life, later told in the movie Chariots of Fire, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” The human soul knows pleasure as the love and wisdom of Being pours through it. Nourished from within, you can appreciate that the cycles of creation are already bringing you what is rightfully yours.
Becoming a Sun p. 278
The Pleasure and Fulfillment of Being
Author, Becoming a Sun
My mother told me as a child that Welsh people love to sing and that there is nothing so lovely to listen to as a Welsh choir. A week ago, for the first time in my life, I heard one live. It was at a local church in Laugharne, the Welsh town where Dylan Thomas wrote his radio drama, Under Milk Wood.
The Corran Singers performed life-affirming songs with great heart. A young tenor from the Welsh National Opera performed, Rhodri Prys Jones. My mother would have loved it.
Rhodri filled the church with his passionate voice. He sang at the top of his lungs for the mayor of Laugharne and for the modest assembly of mostly local folk who turned out.
It seemed to me that Rhodri sang—in a wonderfully exhilarating way—out of proportion to the setting. It was a little wooden church in Laugharne, but he sang for the opera house. There was joy all over his face as he gave it all he had. He radiated the pleasure and fulfillment of his Being in expression.
That’s how I want to live. How about you? I want to sing for the opera house, write poetry for the world, and speak for a football stadium. I want the pleasure and fulfillment of expressing all of who I am—all my love, all my joy, all of what I know. And yes, I’ll think about how to do it in a way that fits the immediate world in which I live. But I’m giving it all I’ve got. I’m leaving it all on the field. I want to feel His pleasure as I live.
What does it mean to become a sun?
Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.
5 Responses
ME TOO! We’ll fill two opera houses ! Megathanks, David. Love, Tom
Your very alive description of this Welsh singer is, in itself, a generous gift to us the readers of this blog. One cannot help but delight in, and be energized by your appreciation, your recongnition of fineness and vibrant energy, and the celebration of a gifted and passionate human being.This energy is contageous. I know it is this life filled reality through the truth of you and the truth of me and and all others on this planet which is both an inspiration and a balm to our very souls. May we joyously expand and extend this experience of pleasure and fulfillment ourselves, moment by moment, day by day.
Yes, I want to give it all, put it all out on the field of life. We each have a great reservoir of creative substance to bring into the world, so let’s do it! This is how life is meant to be lived.
I resonate with you – this past week I had the pleasure of addressing 18 Architectural students from the University of Cape Town who especially came to learn more about the ‘human-scale organic’ building design of the Novalis Centre where I work everyday and how it’s design is applied to teaching and learning. What unfolded was an hour of ‘adult education’ in a way that these students had not heard before – I somehow knew I had to give away my latest and highest knowledge of what I know to be true. It appeared that they were blown away and the senior lecturer asked whether he could bring another group of students on another day. I have felt elated this whole week from this seemingly ordinary meeting, knowing that something powerful and extra-ordinary occurred.
My father had the most incredible tenor voice – before he married my mom – he sang in operas and cathedrals up and down the entire east coast of the US. After he and mom married, he decided that he should have a job that kept him at home – but he was still invited to sing at churches and cathedrals in Maryland. In the 40’s it was not cheap and easy to get recordings made – but we had Dad right there. After we didn’t have him near, over time I lost the sound of his beautiful voice in my head. But there are some tenors that come close – my housemate sent me a video of some young tenors in Italy – their sounds are not dad’s sounds – but the heart that is my dad’s is there – the beauty is there – the grace is there. My father was a generous Being – I am so blessed that we chose each other as father and daughter.