"The liturgy of Roman Mass still gathers a people from age to age, so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made. But from Asia come ancient, bland choreographies, ceremonies not based upon progress or time or moral perfection, but upon the experience of the moment, the balance of chi, an invisible Art Nouveau.
Sometimes my morning walk will take me through Mountain Lake Park in San Francisco. The lake is natural, prehistoric; now endangered. California Indians once lived thereabouts. It was there the Spanish explorer de Anza set up camp in 1776, having climbed on foot from Sonora, Mexico. It is there, early in the morning, I find conventuals of the moment, Chinese widows and widowers in pastel sweat suits interacting with the vacant air; they are rehearsing the rituals of tai chi, their faces lifted toward the brightening sky. I envy them this dumb articulation. It is not prayer. It is balance. But it is complete. The gestures are complete. Slowly. patiently revolving in the moment, as purposeful, as purposeless as butterflies."
