01 November 2008

I AM THE JOURNAL


When at a Buddhist shrine in Nara, Japan, recently (Oct. 2008), I purchased a blank-paged book and had the monk shown in the photo write something in Japanese calligraphy. Then I wrote this haiku:

In my blank journal
monk writes fluid calligraphy
--I snap quick photo

Perhaps the blank journal is metaphorical of our lives. Surely the Preface is already written, but to what extent is the remainder of our lives a tabula rasa ready to be written upon? The question, then, is to what degree does the Preface prefigure the remaining plot and character development?
Sometimes I feel my life-plot was written ages ago and I am passively/actively observing its narrativization--written in exotic calligraphy in my Journal--of a life in which I strive to be a Conscious Co-Worker of the Divine Plan.
The story denouement is nearly always anticlimatic, for the main action occurs in the middle of the Journal, in the present. That's where I am now: in the always-present, not entirely cognizant of the meaning of the calligraphy. But, that's acceptable, because I am the Journal.

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