FOCUS | From the Editor
Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” We can venture that by “rich man” he meant any human being entangled with possessions physical, psychological, spiritual—that is, all of us. But why is it so difficult for a “rich man” to reach the kingdom of God?
Few have answered this question with deeper insight than Meister Eckhart. And so this Winter 2013–2014 issue of Parabola both begins and ends with the medieval German theologian and mystic. In our opening essay, former Parabola editor David Appelbaum explains that, for Eckhart and for us, the path to freedom is found in “unbinding the attachments that constitute one’s preferences, desires, or inclinations.” To find God, one has to empty oneself of oneself, to make room for God to enter. Or as Jesus said, “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly.”
And it seems the only way to do that is to try and try again: daily practice. Throughout this issue, we see inspiring, even heroic instances of women and men working toward inner freedom, one moment at a time. There is Grace Dammann, M.D., survivor of a horrendous auto accident, now in a wheelchair and training to be a Zen priest; there is Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who understood that it is better to give than to receive and who gave away his money like candy; and there is writer Mark Nepo, who through three poems expresses wisdom earned from his own trials.
Author and musician David Harp describes a letting-go sixty years in the making, with roots in the London bombings of World War II. Elsewhere, we read of Jane Goodall’s struggles to experience chimpanzees in a new way; of sculptor Simon Verity’s inner and outer work on a great cathedral. The road toward liberation is never easy, but there is help available all along the way. As Meister Eckhart says in our closing piece, our ultimate freedom is “God’s desire” for us.
May this issue of Parabola help and accompany you as you walk your own road toward freedom.
—Jeff Zaleski
