What do you think?
Rate this book
Dancing in the Empty Spaces: Meditations
"Wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove, David Rankin has gifted us with a bracing and telling book of meditations. Bedside reading for those who want to dream well."--Rev. Forrest Church, Unitarian Church of All Souls, New York, NY
"David Rankin's spare words have, for a long time, been a staple for any collector of the best writing in liberal religion. This new and tender collection is a wonderful addition to his elegant and deceptively simple theological writing."--Kay Montgomery, Executive Vice President, Unitarian Universalist Association
Dancing in the Empty Spaces is the product of thirty years of disciplined meditation. It presents a variety of topics, but is purposefully diverse, nonlinear, and devoid of ultimate resolutions. Like Zen, it revels in the mystery of paradox and celebrates the intensity of the present moment. I hope each piece leads to further thought, since the search for truth is truly never-ending.--the Preface
About the Author
Diane Miller writes, "Decades ago, newly minted for ministerial service, David Rankin invited me to come to San Francisco as his assistant minister. I was blessed with an ideal mentor for a beginner in this calling. Apart from his mystifying commitment to a comical-looking manual typewriter in an age of humming IBM Selectrics, David's sermons were a model for how I wanted to write. In an era when preaching was out of fashion, David delivered art from the pulpit and filled the pews with listeners, seekers, and people simply hoping to understand a bit more about life." In addition to San Francisco, CA, David Rankin has served Unitarian Universalist churches in Watertown and New Bedford, MA; Atlanta, GA; and Grand Rapids, MI. He is now a freelance writer living in Moscow, ID.
"David Rankin's spare words have, for a long time, been a staple for any collector of the best writing in liberal religion. This new and tender collection is a wonderful addition to his elegant and deceptively simple theological writing."--Kay Montgomery, Executive Vice President, Unitarian Universalist Association
Dancing in the Empty Spaces is the product of thirty years of disciplined meditation. It presents a variety of topics, but is purposefully diverse, nonlinear, and devoid of ultimate resolutions. Like Zen, it revels in the mystery of paradox and celebrates the intensity of the present moment. I hope each piece leads to further thought, since the search for truth is truly never-ending.--the Preface
About the Author
Diane Miller writes, "Decades ago, newly minted for ministerial service, David Rankin invited me to come to San Francisco as his assistant minister. I was blessed with an ideal mentor for a beginner in this calling. Apart from his mystifying commitment to a comical-looking manual typewriter in an age of humming IBM Selectrics, David's sermons were a model for how I wanted to write. In an era when preaching was out of fashion, David delivered art from the pulpit and filled the pews with listeners, seekers, and people simply hoping to understand a bit more about life." In addition to San Francisco, CA, David Rankin has served Unitarian Universalist churches in Watertown and New Bedford, MA; Atlanta, GA; and Grand Rapids, MI. He is now a freelance writer living in Moscow, ID.
54 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2000
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 3, 2022
I just learned that Loch Ness lake has three surrounding mountains you can hike. In order of difficulty: charity, faith, and hope.
Hope is the hardest.
What is beautifully refreshing about David O. Rankin is that he affirms the human condition without being naive as to the universe’s flaws. The easy thing is to point to life’s pains and suffering and make this your singular focus. The naive thing is to deny anything painful.
It is a rare gift to see the pain of life but also then to acknowledge the beauty and the mystery. To not give up and to maintain hope. He has this unique ability, and this book is a collection of synthesized wisdom on a number of topics.
This is not a book you should sit down and read in one hour. You could easily do that, but it’s better to read one at a time and follow it with some quiet meditation. Like poetry has messages in the blank spaces, allowing the message of these meditations to dance a bit in your mind will leave your dancing.
Quotes
All life is a paradox: a blended soup of changing ideas, a subtle balance of conflicting needs, a fragile alliance of opposing values. The world is a process, a mystery, an impossibility. Limited in our perceptions, and born into an infinitely evolving universe, we are creatures of sheer ambiguity, who grow only through enduring the tension and exploring the boundaries of the unknown. So let us dance in the empty spaces, be nimble and quick, for we are on an odyssey that lasts forever. 1
If we cannot let go, we cannot survive. Letting go is freedom, autonomy, and emancipation. 21
“Everything worth doing in the world is a desperate gamble, a game of change, where nothing is certain.
What is love? Is it not a wild and sublime speculation that can end in ecstasy or despair?
...If I refuse to play the game, if I refuse to risk myself, if I refuse to throw the dice, I am never really alive. 23”
It is not enough to believe in God, even with the purest doctrine, the ideal creed, and the highest devotion - to the point where we are nominated for sainthood. Instead, we must express our faith in explicit action: in building paths to effective remedies, in structuring a better society, in responding to the perils of our time. 29
“Time does nothing! It is an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with something and capable of being filled with anything.
Time does not tell - we tell.
Time does not cure - we cure.
Time does not drag - we drag.
Stop cheering or blaming time, when we are the heroes or the villains! The vessel is ours to pour into, and the drink, sour or sweet, is our own concoction.” 31
I prefer the modest joys, the understated incarnations, the distilled moments of simple pleasure that are sneaky blessings to everyone: the capacity to play and to be renewed by a restful sleep…the delicate slender fingers of an infant child, the color of sky and sea and the vast complex of hues that melt through the eyes…the aloneness of solitude that stirs the mind in new directions, the muted meanings that each of us finds in the cycle of life and that hold fast through the fearful rhythms, and all of us the subtle and lumbering awareness that pulse in us - for which our hearts sing their joyful “Amen!”39
The great fruit of individualism has decayed into the mush of self-infatuation. 46
Hope is the hardest.
What is beautifully refreshing about David O. Rankin is that he affirms the human condition without being naive as to the universe’s flaws. The easy thing is to point to life’s pains and suffering and make this your singular focus. The naive thing is to deny anything painful.
It is a rare gift to see the pain of life but also then to acknowledge the beauty and the mystery. To not give up and to maintain hope. He has this unique ability, and this book is a collection of synthesized wisdom on a number of topics.
This is not a book you should sit down and read in one hour. You could easily do that, but it’s better to read one at a time and follow it with some quiet meditation. Like poetry has messages in the blank spaces, allowing the message of these meditations to dance a bit in your mind will leave your dancing.
Quotes
All life is a paradox: a blended soup of changing ideas, a subtle balance of conflicting needs, a fragile alliance of opposing values. The world is a process, a mystery, an impossibility. Limited in our perceptions, and born into an infinitely evolving universe, we are creatures of sheer ambiguity, who grow only through enduring the tension and exploring the boundaries of the unknown. So let us dance in the empty spaces, be nimble and quick, for we are on an odyssey that lasts forever. 1
If we cannot let go, we cannot survive. Letting go is freedom, autonomy, and emancipation. 21
“Everything worth doing in the world is a desperate gamble, a game of change, where nothing is certain.
What is love? Is it not a wild and sublime speculation that can end in ecstasy or despair?
...If I refuse to play the game, if I refuse to risk myself, if I refuse to throw the dice, I am never really alive. 23”
It is not enough to believe in God, even with the purest doctrine, the ideal creed, and the highest devotion - to the point where we are nominated for sainthood. Instead, we must express our faith in explicit action: in building paths to effective remedies, in structuring a better society, in responding to the perils of our time. 29
“Time does nothing! It is an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with something and capable of being filled with anything.
Time does not tell - we tell.
Time does not cure - we cure.
Time does not drag - we drag.
Stop cheering or blaming time, when we are the heroes or the villains! The vessel is ours to pour into, and the drink, sour or sweet, is our own concoction.” 31
I prefer the modest joys, the understated incarnations, the distilled moments of simple pleasure that are sneaky blessings to everyone: the capacity to play and to be renewed by a restful sleep…the delicate slender fingers of an infant child, the color of sky and sea and the vast complex of hues that melt through the eyes…the aloneness of solitude that stirs the mind in new directions, the muted meanings that each of us finds in the cycle of life and that hold fast through the fearful rhythms, and all of us the subtle and lumbering awareness that pulse in us - for which our hearts sing their joyful “Amen!”39
The great fruit of individualism has decayed into the mush of self-infatuation. 46
March 7, 2011
2001 Meditation Manual
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews