Time Must Yield to Our Words
Outside, all is motion,
The machinery of change and
Its workshop of unbroken hours,
But we have gathered together
To fasten time to our words.
Narrative and its heuristic truths,
These are what have significance for us:
To describe what is green and what is ripe;
And what has been left behind or broken off;
And what remains with us.
We listen and we hear
And bear witness to one another,
Our testimonies are held together by silence,
And by our words and by our being,
For though outside all is motion,
Time must yield to our words.
Innocence
We are innocent,
because of who we are and who we are not.
We are innocent,
because the future treats us roughly,
and we do not want to grow old.
We are innocent,
because time will not wait for us to catch up,
and past and present stalk us with who we have been.
We are innocent,
because we do not know how to love or be cared for,
and we trust and betray unknowingly.
We are innocent,
because we are playful and challenging,
and do not want to know any better.
We are innocent,
because we long for the other sex,
and are too easily disappointed and persuaded.
We are innocent,
with our unwanted cup of sorrows,
dependent on God’s mercy.
And we are innocent,
because desires rise like lotus flowers from our fallen hearts,
mirroring who we are in our wishes.
Living Waters
All my tears are living waters;
Released unbound upon my face,
But their fall is no dishonour;
They baptize anew this time and place.
All my tears are living waters;
Allowing demure modesty.
As they escape, I am captured
In unassuming honesty.
All my tears are living waters;
Sorrow condensed and then distilled;
The essence of all my fears
Emptied out, transformed, revealed.
All my tears are living waters;
Changing boundaries of who I am.
Emotion flowing broader, deeper,
Beyond my ego’s limiting dam.
All my tears are living waters;
They rise as mist above a stream.
The cloud they form, then breaks and pours,
Confessing all, and chastening.
Birth
A new body.
A radiant configuration
Fresh awakened from womb’s sleep,
Without self or boundary.
Frightened by its own cries,
Assured by loving touch.
The soft skin so easily fouled,
The mind a perfect unconscious knowing.
Born to one father, one mother, one gender.
Kidnapped into time,
Into Earth’s spiral of influence,
By body, breath, and life,
While future players, distracted in the wings
Wait for their prompts and roles,
Their lines and parts forgotten.
The infant’s will to dominate and please
And be placated is already like an instinct.
A born whiner, a complainer;
Surrounded by the chaos
Of human order and intervention.
How can the child ransom its own life
Except to live it?
Yet distant stars twinkle
The greatness of its destiny
And joy at its birth.
The child is true to its small self,
And its long sleep is ended.
For Father’s Day
My father was born shortly before Depression’s decade:
A large catholic family in a small Protestant town.
They had barely enough food, shelter, clothing
To soften Alberta’s northern hardships.
His choleric father, a sour, driven man,
Drilled for water in the endless flat earth
Pummelling holes, inches at a time.
He later apprenticed to be a plumber
At an age when most men yearn for leisure.
Near war’s end, not yet a man,
My father left Lacombe, and joined the RCAF.
But Europe’s slaughterhouse filled its quota
Of youth and death and obedience without him.
After an idle year in England,
He stayed in the service,
Raw summers and white winters
In Chicoutimi and the Alaska Highway,
Studying radar and photography.
Despite vertigo and nausea
He learned to pilot a plane.
Yet his francophone superiors neglected him,
And a cabin fever of wasted energy
Drove him back into civilian life after 14 years.
While in the service he had married my mother,
And fathered three children.
He went into sales: cash registers.
His ambitions were city-sized;
He moved to Toronto, a house in the suburbs,
And won sales perks and awards and bonuses.
After a decade of success he taught sales at a college.
My brother and sister and I were teenagers
When he and my mother separated.
He seem sad and lost for a while,
Then he took dance lessons and dated.
That is already a long time ago,
And I am 42.
Where
Where is the woman I loved?
She is lamed by imperfect explanation.
She pulls herself upright from her bed,
And returns to question the world.
Where is my wandering friend,
Restlessly searching, seemingly homeless?
His footsteps fall in a widening circle,
As he enters the world outside himself.
Where is the poet I loved?
He has retired from the world.
He lives high on a mountain somewhere,
In a monastery behind closed doors.
Where are those in need,
Who had once asked for help?
Clothed and fed and warm,
Often they are still alone.
Where is the hidden Christ?
He is somewhere here among us.
Has he come down from his cross?
Is he larger now, than the world?
Where is my father going,
As he walks with open hands?
He carries a gift of healing,
Sometimes of water, sometimes of wine.
Where are all the words I wrote?
Like tarnished jewels, they are tucked away.
My heart and my memory can not hold them.
I recite them like halting prayers.
Where are the colours of summer gone?
Of its dynasty there remain only fragments.
I wait now for winter’s veil,
For its purity, and hope, and forgetfulness.
This Peace
This peace is a litany, taciturn, wordless;
An impossible, but unquestioned repose.
Suspended desire now renders me speechless.
My understanding no longer pretends that it knows.
This silence is full, yet it answers all.
I feel that I know, because I also am known.
This peace, like a parachute, breaks my heart’s fall.
I trust in God’s grace to let me gently down.
I move with a cloud-like ephemeral presence,
Traveling wherever this wind must blow.
Wherever I land, I will sing my deliverance,
No longer alone; it is no sacrifice now.
A Klee Angel
A friend of mine asked me for an angel.
I did not commit myself easily.
(Making angels is hard to do.)
I knew she was fond of cherubs.
I looked for an art store angel to decorate.
One looked too young
To be a goddess or a guide.
I wanted an angel who had suffered
And who could support me
As my body weakened and my spirit flagged.
Another was too beautiful,
Perhaps too beautiful to be human.
She seemed naive and sexless.
I can not commune with any virgins or cherubs.
I decided to make my own angel.
I bought some plaster bandage,
And formed a homely piece
From wire, plaster, and threadbare cloth.
Not strong, not weak,
Not young, not old,
Not beautiful, not quite ugly.
Yet I feel awe.
I do not know how to meet the gesture
Of an angel.
Do those who care for us
Yearn too much, or shirk and mourn?
Ever weary and falter as we do?
The Marriage Sacrament
Opponents meet on a square stage,
Psyched up, punch-drunk,
Each coached by a Greek chorus of
expectations,
Barely conscious in their corner.
Who has the sure instinct and the firm jaw
To speak the truth without dodging?
Who has the finesse and fine
Moves of a lover, a lioness;
The responsiveness of an animal anticipating risk?
Who can dodge, and hit,
fighting flat-footed in the center of the ring,
Daring confrontation?
The beloved becomes an equal,
A knowing enemy, who round after round
Puts all of themselves into the fray,
Exposing weakness, going beyond anger and vanity
Into a new forgiveness, a new respect.
Each falls, almost beaten,
Barely able to stand and face their adversary.
Finally they catch their breath.
Purified by sweat and exhaustion they embrace.
Both are uncontested winners.
The Fall of Babylon
When Babylon’s false edifice truly falls,
And its rampart of broken words collapse.
We will not grieve for its tumbling walls,
Or mourn that its reign of division has lapsed.
For words will no longer enclose and divide,
Their meaning deception and separation.
Speech will no longer merely ornament and hide
In foreign parsing and blinding partitions.
Every word and thing will truly speak,
Sounding forth to name itself.
Its articulation no longer irresolute or weak:
All will then be known like tolling bells.
When I Saw the Future
One morning I woke up and saw the future. It was very excited and seemed to be running around in circles. I could see that it wanted to be friends. I thought that it was too much for me and I asked it to go away. It would not be put off and came with me everywhere. When I imagined what life would be like with it, it did not seem to suit me.
Eventually, we got talking, and went out for a beer together. It was pretty entertaining and told me some wild stories. It said that it had some great adventures in store for me. When later, at home, I sobered up, I found that the future had moved in with me. It was disruptive and rude. It cleaned out my fridge and would not stop eating. It said that it was hungry. My cupboards were bare. I told it to leave–I was starving!
It ignored me, then went to the living room and lay down in the middle of the floor. I thought that it would just take a nap, but it slept around the clock. I couldn’t wake it up. Days and weeks went by. I couldn’t even move it. Eventually, I forgot about it. I was glad that I finally had some peace.
When it finally woke up, months later, it seemed to be running circles around me again. It would not stop or go away. Finally I said: “Get out of my face!”, and swung out and tried to hit it. Nothing. A few more wild swings. It had disappeared. I was angry, but relieved.
Time went by. Every now and then I imagined that I saw the future, hiding behind a tree, or getting out of a car. I think that it waved to me from a bus once, but I can’t be sure. It might have been someone else’s. I’m much older now, and I kind of miss it sometimes. Occasionally, I feel that it is following me around. Some of the things it said have come true.
I Plant My Seed
All day long
the sound of traffic,
every kind of speed and motion,
lights and signals everywhere,
and the beating of my heart.
The sky seems restless and indifferent,
but whatever is rooted will grow
and sustain itself,
protected by the night.
Suns and stars and constellations
send light from unimaginable distance.
A light meant for the future
–light that must travel so far.
I plant my tiny seed
beneath the broken soil.
Should I surrender my small portion?
No one has asked for it
and it is no sacrifice to keep it.
I will remain here
between the sky and soil,
as if rooted where I am.
Fidelity (for Gabriel Marcel)
What presence was I was welcoming
And confirming at that moment?
What was it that defamed all laurels?
What was it that blew gently like a wind?
What was it I touched when I reached out?
What was it, so perfect and vulnerable, like a flower?
What was it that washed through me like a whisper or a mist?
What was it that so unburdened me, that I could love once more?
He Will Never Leave Us
He will never leave us.
His soul is the green of springtime.
He will never leave us.
His thoughts are the blue of the sky.
He will never leave us.
The blackness of the soil is his doing.
He will never leave us.
The red horizon is his greeting and his blessing.
He will never leave us,
Yet every blossom is his final word.
He will never leave us.
Each tree and forest salutes him.
He will never leave us.
He has hidden the road, but walks with us.
He will never leave us,
For love is his classroom.
He will never leave us.
He is the moistness of decay and of life.
He will never leave us.
The sun is a candle in His room.
He will never leave us.
He fashions the days to His use.
He will never leave us.
For death has become his friend.
He will live forever,
Until our passions become His.
Saturday Pilgrimage
My father goes on a pilgrimage each Saturday.
He wakes early and
follows the signs in all directions.
Each house he visits
has a makeshift shrine of neglected objects;
the traces of lives
cast off on the tables and lawns.
Though they only show their poverty
he searches for the inner riches of souls.
Sometimes he is cheated
by the stinginess of his own heart
and returns home empty handed.
Other times he returns with his purchases,
overwhelmed by beauty and treasures of generosity,
and love beams from his heart and from his hands.
Meeting The Angel
The angel descends, and slowly
becomes our own most inward yearning.
Such an intimacy is pure and strange.
Though we are ignorant of their working,
it is they who help us to
understand what it means to be human.
Masculine and feminine are familiar to them,
and sex and thirst are easy to comprehend,
but our volition perplexes the angels.
Ambition and anger confuse them,
all unbecoming acts of dark stigma,
complacency, and forsaken love.
Yet the angel understands both our
vulnerability and constant need for renewal:
how our identity must be made and unmade.
Though the angel sometimes mirrors our
own insubstantiality and elusiveness,
we have not taught it forgetfulness.
Each human being points to their own private north,
the compass of their heart constantly changing,
but the angel points to the future, to what must be.
Their instructions are often falteringly perceived;
the intention and meaning remaining unclear
until the soul matures.
Great is their reverence for us, yet it is we
who must discern what is significance,
and what is error and shadow.
Sometimes this is more than we can bear.
Indifference and false yearning
can make our future lapse and fade.
II
As each of us is one among many,
our angel is one among many spirit beings,
perfecting the mirror of imagination.
They live in an invisible sky,
more populous than the earth,
each one the servant of God.
They are co-incarnate with us.
Our lives are their devotion.
They remain with us and within us.
They do not sleep.
Their time and their knowing are different.
They live in the genius of virtue.
We are transparent to their sight.
What is new for us
was known to them long before.
They take us from point of being
to point of being, mirroring our future
and our becoming, beyond all events.
Theirs is not the mirror of expectations,
but the hope and fantasy of our own heart,
burrowing into our will and reason.
The angel points to our future,
to beginnings and to endings,
to our past and to our redemption.
They remind us that our future is glorious,
yet also that death waits for us in silence,
where lives are completed and unmade.
III
The day’s sun rises with us.
Each of us waking and rising,
turning to the world, turning from sleep.
Turning in doubt or uncertainty,
turning in silence or conviction,
turning and turning.
Turning toward one another,
then turning away,
each of us turning to our own direction,
Our questions revealing
our purpose and our emptiness;
the wonder in us that must be fulfilled.
Our thoughts begin fragmented and broken,
finite and incomplete.
Understanding has no home in us.
The angel bears us forward,
each question becoming wider, deeper,
defying what was known.
The circumference of the soul
slowly expands, calling
heaven and earth to answer together.
Meeting us where we are in life,
meeting that in us which burns.
Giving us peace.
The angel is a way station of our knowing
entrusting us with wisdom,
returning us to the world and to our tasks.
IV
The novelty and scale of our errors
draws the angels closer to us.
Their lamentation echoes everywhere.
We look to ourselves for meaning now,
and mark our own intentions.
Never have we been so free of supplication.
We have made a new world
of cause and effect and explanation,
fettering our devotion.
We seem to have had a long season
with little rain from heaven, yet we
have not been troubled by this dryness.
We have built dams and flooded the fields,
harvesting life and power and free movement,
–it has become our world.
There are so many of us now.
We distract one another with our coveting,
gathering what must be returned.
The angels rejoice at the flowering of plants
and trees, the movement of fish beneath the waters,
and each animal resting in its hidden lair,
the multitude of beetles and of birds,
of sylphs and salamanders, and
all the silent workings of life in balance.
They always knew that the earth was round,
how the mountains were formed,
and the source of rivers.
The angel knows that all creation speaks:
the voice of every species and lifeless thing,
speaking in gesture and in beauty.
The angels are pleased we have named so much,
yet what is this silence now emerging?
Have we abandoned what must still be known?
All false doubt and certainty must subside.
The angel listens to each of us,
or how would they know how to meet us?
The angel is not deterred by our ignorance.
When we reach the tabula rasa of the soul
the angel will write upon our listening heart.
IV
The angel comes to us,
whispering into our dreams,
our sleeping, and our silence.
A selfless shining
without preoccupation or smallness,
wordless and presently aware.
They understand the wilfulness of children,
their desperate and questioning trust,
the trial of their spite and affection.
Watching from a secret and invisible threshold,
they witnessed our first steps,
and listened as we become oblivious to them.
Must the child forget the nearby presence,
the endlessly patient blessing,
its confidence and its hope for us?
The guardian of our identity and
of our freedom,
the angel will seldom trespass.
VI
Our sins sleep in us,
mute, like statues,
but hidden and unseen.
Past misdeeds and banal wilfulness
shadow our intentions.
Our conscience is fragmented by neglect.
The angel is distanced
by our apathy and denial,
our aloneness and indifference.
When the angel hails us,
our docile slumber ends
––we waken and flail!
Captive and unredeemed,
the angel wrestles with our desires
–to make them more free.
Both trust and instinct fail us now.
We have nowhere to return to,
but to ourselves and our intentions.
The soul is bound in ways
we did not know.
Confusion and trial are the result.
What was empty compliance or
avoidance and vacancy,
becomes stark self-reproach.
Untying a knot requires great skill.
Such is the angel’s prowess!
—a nascent will-to-change emerges.
The perpetual obsession with self
slowly becomes interest in what is other,
a welcoming of the world.
The soul becomes transparently open,
united with spirit,
resonant and whole and complete.
untitled
I feel briefly overwhelmed.
What is the cause of this weakness?
It is not because the world has overpowered me
or because I am not rested or prepared.
All is well with me.
It is not humility or even repentance.
It is that there is a greatness inside of me
and I do not know if I am equal to it.
Summation
I have been an arrow guided in and out of error,
spiraling blindly toward a restless target,
possessed and dispossessed by wrath and grace,
randomly salvaged by wholeness and by peace.
Thought the sun and stars move where they will,
flesh and desire brought me their ordinary pleasures,
my feet and hands move as they were meant to move,
and those who are around me give me refuge in their virtues.
At Death
When you die
all your deeds will rise
before you
as if awakened from a sleep.
What was kind and wondrous
will greet you like a friend and
truthfully resound,
and what was without feeling for others
will rise up
and accuse you of betrayal.
What is in your heart will
no longer be secret,
and all of your thoughts
will speak aloud.
May you then meet the being of light
whose greatest hope for you is that
you will empty yourself in compassion,
and be without fear.
He will remind you
that the past and future are given
to you in trust.
You must then
judge yourself with courage
and with contrition
for the benefit of all beings.
May those you have loved,
both those here and in the afterlife
help you, and guide you away
from any loneliness
that would darken your soul.
And may your body be filled with light.
Where We Are
Where we are is a moment in time
Where we are is without precedent
Where we are is a dangerous place
Where we are is troubling and lonely
Where we are is an ongoing struggle
Where we are is a tragedy and a comedy
Where we are has been brought on by success
Where we are is a trial and error
Where we are is what the moment demands
Where we are is an ongoing dialogue
Where we are must not be left behind
Where we are is everyone’s business
Where we are, God only knows
We are with the world above us, beneath us
We are with the living and the dead
We are with the beasts and the angels
We are with the silent, patient earth.
We are with one another
We are with enemies and friends
We are with the seen and the unseen
We are going onward, backwards and forwards,
We are going to decide the future
We are going to make amends
We are going to start all over
We are going back to where we came
We are going to grow together
We are going to where we have never been.
Christ
A god without beginning became
the new Adam,
and a brief life, in ending,
became the new story of God and man.
Christ entered the breach between
heaven and earth.
Through his timely death
all was reborn.
And so began a constant harvest,
the threshing of souls
in the heart of Christ, a silent,
almost
imperceptible emancipation.
A redemption without measure,
an endless beginning,
all creation waiting and receiving him,
Moving with an unearthly certainty,
open, undefined;
a trust we are unable to comprehend.
Reborn through the mystery of his love,
changing and being changed,
blessing and enduring;
a constant lifting of veils.
Out of the firmament of silence
the greatest deeds are spoken;
a life lived in fullness and in wisdom.
Yield, and stand firm.
Trust,
and go forward.
This is the working of Christ in us.
Our life is a seed and a parable.
Righteousness and compassion,
–these are our ears and eyes.
You have heard your life calling.
He is the one who sent you,
and who waits.
You must remember him!
All of Creation
All of creation
Calls out to be known.
Now, it is not only God
That knocks at our door.
The blessed multitude cries out to us,
Simple and naïve,
Plain and unadorned,
Abandoned, yet ever receptive to us,
Calling, and yearning for a love,
For a love.
Each thing proclaims its own uniqueness,
That it is humbly worthy,
Testifying to itself and its attributes,
Begging to be known,
If it would please us
—to be known.
With a consciousness humbled,
Stripped-down, yet incomplete
Each living thing,
And each mute and motionless substance,
Every transfixed article and stubborn object
Calls out to our consciousness
To be known
—to be known.
And, loveless dullards that we are,
Sleepy, indifferent, lame-minded,
Hypocrites of the soul that we are.
Dense, hardwired automatons,
Single-minded self-interested fools;
Selfish, flat-earth worshipers of senseless sensation
and meaningless icons of the mind
Restless revellers of paralytic boredom;
Empty broken-hearted cast-out-of-Eden sophomores;
Half-brained false witnesses to untruth.
Our doctored testimonies yield
NO EVIDENCE OF GOD!
And this is what we call our life.
And this is what we call our life.
And yet our salvation and our
Redemption is near.
Our new-found self-awareness
Is at hand,
All around us,
Ready to greet us
Closer to us
Than we would dare
—than we would dare
Say hello to what
You were indifferent to and greet
The SELF, so LARGE and WIDE
That you have ignored.
So subtle, yet not so elusive
Not so elusive as ourselves
—as ourselves.
Spirit tends toward smallness
This I know—yet can not explain.
Such is the nature
Of the great soul of the world:
The inbetweenness of identity;
The strident humility of uniqueness;
The mutual abasement and accommodation of creation;
The contented play of the many and the multitude;
The each-in-itself, in-its-own-way, in-its-own-place.
Each shining artefact of God
In its singularity and in its many aspects,
Waits, not quite hidden, yet largely
Undiscovered and unmapped,
Waiting to be known.
Waiting to be known.
We see our own loneliness and separation
There, in the abandoned not-myself
—that seems so blank and neutral,
So indifferent and easily analyzed,
So passively manipulated,
So purposeless, so dead and not-alive!
O, if the heart could see.
If only the heart could see!
Collapse
One day they all just left the hive
And went somewhere to die.
Their life had collapsed.
They refused to continue living in their home.
There were all kinds of reasons.
I think that they just committed suicide.
They wanted to tell us something
And it was the only way.
Some considered that perhaps
the pollen of the flowers was becoming sterile.
Others said that the habitat
of the wild bees had been lost
And their tame cousins in their little boxes
could not bear the stress of modern life.
Parasites and viruses,
Pesticides and fungi,
Genetic meddling,
Climate change and
Electromagnetic radiation;
A failing immune system.
The long siege of the 21st century.
The bees had seemed to be happy
in their little homes
and even seemed to thrive.
“Why did they have to die?”
People asked.
“What will happen now?
And what will become of us?”
Conspiracy/Black Ops
I
Thoughts fall from the sky,
like weapons that soon will explode.
They intend to kill as many people as possible.
Thoughts of mass destruction!
Evacuate! Evacuate!
Stop the thoughts! Stop the thoughts!
But there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
They are vicious and relentless,
but they do not fall,
They are suspended in the air.
I cannot grieve in advance—only panic!
When will they fall?
Where will they explode!
II
The truth will step forward.
It is standing there in the line up.
It just has to be pointed out.
The truth will step forward
and be acclaimed.
There is no one else that can do the job.
The truth will step forward.
Will it do so voluntarily?
Does it have the courage?
The truth will step forward
—that authored
so many anonymous rumours.
The truth will step forward and
deceit will retreat into the shadows,
fearful for its life.
I Saw That the World Was Green
I dreamt that you were surrounded by flowers.
It cheered me to see you
smile because you were glad to see me.
Your love and the sky were vast and intimate.
I was sorry that I had forgotten that,
and I saw that the world was green and alive.
I imagined you showed me a portrait of your mother,
(admitting that you weren’t a very good artist).
You had captured an essence of her,
a part that had refused to surrender.
She was seated at the dining room table.
All was set and in place.
Then I noticed cut flowers were the centrepiece;
an offering without a name,
a grace that did not have to be said.
Then I listened quietly to the Earth.
To Her anger and broken solace.
I could not admit what She wanted to hear;
That Her grief was my own and that
I felt the same pain.
Then I heard you repeating “forgiveness”, “forgiveness”
as a question or a prayer, asking; “How?”; and “If?”
—that all of those named would reconcile,
And that silence would lose all of its anger.
I Was in a Burning House
I was in a burning house,
The house in which I nearly died.
That burning house was my ego,
My selfishness, lust, and unforgivingness,
Homelessness has given me back my freedom.
Love has given me back my self.
I will build a new house
Which is safe and cannot destroy itself.
The time to change is at hand.
You are the God
Who I was warned about;
The God who leads me on,
Who makes captive and makes free.
The God Who dwells within.
The Redemption of Faust
Faust was recently reborn as a female.
She had been very busy in her previous life
—Getting into all kinds of trouble
When she should have known better.
The devil was upset when she was able to ascend
After a restless life full of intrigue,
Murder, deceit, and seduction,
Indifference to the suffering of others,
And abandonment of responsibility;
She had been a maniacal, ambitious, and oversexed fool,
A puer, a dreamer, a bringer of despair.
She was able to witness her folly in the afterlife,
With Gretchen, who forgave her.
She saw that she perhaps
She had done some good along with the harm:
Overcoming the floods by constant vigilance and effort;
Countering the blundering Mephistopheles by
Refusing a passive life of ordinary comfort;
And living out her destiny,
However flawed and regrettable it was.
She had not meant to be cruel, but she had been
Obsessed with novelty and power
—As if by a magical spell.
She made a commitment to steer her life
Away from her previous temptations.
The world to which she has returned
Are her past fantasies and ideals fulfilled.
Nature is now completely subjugated
And what may have seemed magical two hundred years ago
Is now commonplace.
What can she do to break free?
Can she find the Eternal-Feminine in her heart?
Can she undo the chaos brought on by her selfishness?
Can she and Gretchen make a new world?
Bridge To The Future
This new bridge will be made by our walking,
Defying both fate and what we think is real.
A subtle cosmic parlour trick is breaking
Down laws of time and habit like a miracle.
You have not walked this bridge before.
It is like a pasture open wide in all directions.
What you sow by your own steps becomes core,
Your willingness—your discretion.
To live the next two thousand days
Is a summons to fortitude and valour.
There is not a day to waste.
We will not wait a thousand years.
Do not say to the moment that it must last.
We will not be allowed to hesitate.
It is chaos—we spin too fast,
Yet no one can make the summons wait!
You have not heard it all before.
Something unknown is breaking through.
Wolves and angels are at the door:
The bully; the crone; the old love; the new.
In these moments we are all weak.
We can not say what we need to without crying.
But it is not necessary to speak
More than a few words to what has been dying.
What falls apart we must leave like dust.
Nothing heavenly stops our forward motion.
What once was seen as blind faith or empty trust
Is now our bridge, our sacrifice, our communion.
For Marilyn
You and I,
We travel in circles,
Round the block,
Round the city,
Here and there.
You and I,
We circle each other,
Round and round,
In questions,
In conversation,
In embrace.
You and I
Are part of a circle,
Equidistant from the center that
We keep circling around.
I meet you there too,
In the center,
The center of our being,
Where we can be together
Without movement, or question, or hurry.
God is Looking Large for You
God is looking everywhere to find you,
To see what you are doing.
Maybe you are kind of embarrassed
To hear that, but
He is really interested.
Maybe you’re not up to much.
You’re really not proud of yourself.
It’s not a good time for you now.
That’s OK.
He will find you right where you are.
He won’t ask you any questions
Or put you on the spot.
He’s not going to show you up
Or put you down.
He just wants to say hello to you
When you notice Him.
It’s Not Unusual to be Crucified
It’s not unusual to be crucified,
though most people talk about it
as if it’s a bad thing—
All that useless pain to no end.
It begins by being pulled apart
from who you thought that you were
until your heart dissolves,
and your identity is broken.
Then what seems like wrath or mercy
descends upon your trembling and insignificant life
until the seemingly limitless pain
rinses clear and pristine
And your phoenix hopes
(which you thought had died)
return, poignant, transcendent,
demanding more of you
than you could ever imagine,
And you are chastised and grateful
for the entire experience.
Saving God
Hold still the hands of this old Clock,
Its mindless motion has lost heart.
Tic Toc. Tic Toc.
Wind them right back to the start.
Gather up the tired shards of Time.
Restore Creation’s birth.
Remember the First Design,
Before Heaven shattered and fell to Earth.
Remember the Morning Light
Before the Beginning’s waking hours.
When even the angels were not yet ripe
For adventures such as ours.
O—That happiness is come again,
For God will not remain alone!
We are like the stars and constellations
Kneeling down before His throne.
We ourselves must begin the new day.
As if we were starting over.
Not to leave Earth, but to stay
Here, in the moment, with Him forever.
Make Room For the Miracle
All my dreams are fallen,
Fallen to Earth,
Fallen from the tree of life,
Like spores from heaven.
We are made for times like this.
We were born to live these times,
In them, through them, with them.
We are meant to be here.
Heaven has no interest now in our excuse.
It is the Earth that needs us.
We are the seeds of heaven
Activated by these uncertain times.
The miracle that we need now
Is our capacity to love.
We were born to care deeply,
To toil in this garden.
The comfort that I’d hoped for
Left for the day.
My lazy heart
Wanted to go back to sleep.
Now reassurance comes in
Like a bird flitting nearby,
That I invited
To enter into my soul.
Can I Trust You With My Heart?
If I give my heart to you
Will you give it back to me?
Will you change it in strange and unexpected ways?
Will we delight with surprise and astonishment?
Will we recognize ourselves?
When you give your heart to me
Will that unfamiliar trust amaze you?
Will that bold absence of requirement and measure
Suspend all time and intention,
And break you open wide?
And even if this is what we want,
Could we keep it to ourselves?
Would our secret and forbidden pact
Prove our separateness?
Would we be able to share our joy,
Our retreat from loneliness,
Our uncontrived passion and contentment?
If that perfect moment comes to us,
While the past is silenced,
And the future is fully embraced,
Will you still love me?
Will you know who I am?
As we enter this mystery together and separately,
This awareness beyond words,
Where knowing is only union,
Will you recognize me,
Familiar as I am?
Because my smallness frightens me,
And all seems precious and fragile and tender,
And each living thing so temporary and undefined,
And I am so uncertain
In this world, so large and unknown.
Teacher
I would like to teach humility,
But that is impossible.
I could teach resistance.
I could teach stubbornness.
I could teach wilfulness, spite,
Irritation, annoyance,
Contempt, disgust,
Anger, and disciplined selfishness.
I’ve shown promise (and creativity)
In the pretence of cooperation,
The appearance of goodwill,
And feigning compassion.
I could show you how to make
Self-justification work for you
No matter what the situation
That happens to be confronting you.
I have a gift for holding out,
For systematically saying no,
For denial,
and not giving in.
I’ve become a master at
“I couldn’t care less.”
“You can’t make me,”
And, “To hell with you!”
I would reveal working principles
Of behavioural intervention
And covert manipulation,
With convincing proofs and remarkable anecdotes.
I have good, all-round knowledge to share
About how to evade responsibility,
Getting away with doing the minimum,
And making others afraid to ask for help.
I have constantly found new ways
To stonewall my own heart
Over many years of practice
With a quiet, unspoken arrogance.
So I am not really able to teach humility.
And I’m not that much good at repentance either
So you are pretty much on your own,
But I wish you well.
The Party That I’d Plan For You
I see the truck has pulled up.
It’s bringing the party supplies and the costumes.
It’s looks like El Dia de los Muertos and Valentine’s Day together.
Everyone is getting ready for the celebration.
It is a sad occasion, but we’re happy to be there.
People are dressed up like skeletons, and Grim Reapers.
A few are dressed like priests or nuns. Some like angels.
Some folks have chosen togas.
Others are just wearing their street clothes.
The Dixieland band is getting started,
Slow, solemn, and mournful, but still upbeat.
The clowns have put on sad faces.
They are doing elegant improvised dances amidst the crowd,
Just to loosen people up and get them in the mood.
Elsewhere, Jesus is saying,
‘Set another place at the table.’
No one is complaining there,
But it’s not what you would have expected.
The Buddha is wandering around,
Chuckling like the Dalai Lama.
He thinks the whole thing is funny.
Your friend Jim is finishing up your portrait.
He wants to show it to you, but I think
That he made you look too young.
Even though you have had to wait so long,
Nobody seems to want to answer your questions.
They either pretend that you are still sleeping,
Or try to get you to join in the celebration.
Eventually, you ask someone, “Is this for me?”
—Though it all seems to make no sense.
I overhear, as I am coming toward you.
“Yes”, I say, “it’s for you!”
She Was Gentle
Marching along the sidewalk with her crutches,
Or marshalling her power chair through crowds
She hoped you wouldn’t jostle her or get in her way.
She was a force in motion, anxiously aware,
Yet she moved gently too.
Questions were how she fought or befriended you.
You had to be brave to answer.
She wanted to win you over, to make you pause,
To hear you, to make you confess,
But her arguments were gentle too.
When she was young, her brother would tease her
Just to make her giggle.
I liked to tell her funny things.
The nurse said she had a ferocious laugh.
But her laughter was gentle too.
She was relentlessly inquisitive.
She rarely stopped her threshing of thoughts.
How to separate the gleanings?
Her objectivity was demanding,
But her mind was gentle too.
She was socially vulnerable, prone to worry.
She’d watch you, and scrutinize your response.
She could be defensive, shrill, an open wound,
She wanted you to be gentle too.
She feared that God was a brute,
Arrogant, harsh, and indifferent,
Watching from His judgment seat.
She loved Christ,
But she wanted God to be gentle too.
She wanted to be loved,
And she was fierce in loving.
For her, love explained a lot
About the way the world should be,
And what it lacked,
But her loving was gentle too.
I could not turn her away.
She always wanted to give more.
I was often inconsiderate when I was young,
More focused on myself,
But she was gentle,
And she made me gentle too.
She saw Nature as an interconnected web,
Wondrous in its overall design,
Magnificent in its details.
Life is not always gentle,
But she was gentle,
That gentleness was hers.
March 19, 2011
Michael’s Computer
Michael’s computer passed away last Tuesday.
Suddenly, of a failed hard drive.
The computer had provided Michael with
Many years of selfless and dedicated service.
It will be remembered for its
Careful final drafts of poems,
Its precise spreadsheets for the church,
And countless emails, searches, and downloads.
No funeral will be held.
In lieu of flowers the owner would appreciate any copies of
Poems or financial documents he wrote in the last year
Be sent to michaelf.1@3web.net
Grief Was Stalking Me
Grief was stalking me even before you died.
It would cut me off on the way to work,
Or suddenly show up in the mirror while I was shaving.
I declared a truce early on.
When I tentatively raised the white flag,
I could see its black flag waving in the distance
Grief cornered me when I was alone and defenceless.
It grabbed my attention when I watched the news.
It ran like a 24/7 infomercial:
‘FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY’
It was not sneaky.
It was only telling the truth.
Grief knocked on my walls in the middle of the night
When I thought that it should be sleeping.
When I said, “We need to talk.”
It replied, “There is nothing to say.
That is just the way it is.”
Grief has been a strange companion.
When your death was approaching
Grief became more civil, more compassionate.
I wasn’t expecting any kindness then.
It had my full attention.
There was no avoiding it anyway.
The day you died, grief softened.
It was tender then.
It knew you so sweetly.
Now I do not mind its interruptions.
I seek it out.
We talk about you.
Memorandum
To: Mr. God
From: Michael Ferrel, Union Representative
Date: April 3 2011
Re: Change of Job Status
The purpose of this memo is to notify You that Your job description is being modified. During the ongoing transition period some of Your duties may be subject to change. Your work as Executive Director and Creator of the Universe is gratefully acknowledged. We are pleased to inform You that You will continue to serve us in Your capacity as Supreme Being. As before, You will be responsible for Research, Innovation, Engineering, and Development, as well as General Supervision and Implementation of the Divine Plan.
The anticipated changes are due to recent initiatives by groups of mortals who are requesting greater input in World Direction.
We will continue to keep You informed of any specifics, as they arise, particularly of any significant reorganization or structural changes.
We gratefully appreciate Your cooperation in this matter,
Yours Truly,
Michael Ferrel,
Union Representative
Not Drowning, But Waving
Never a strong swimmer, caught in the undertow,
Your illness took its course.
Have you lost your fear of drowning now,
Having followed the river back to its source?
In the end you simply took on too much water,
Silently flooding and feeling adrift.
No starlit compass to guide you on later.
No way to measure the final risk.
We watched and helplessly waited
While you sank beneath the engulfing tide.
Your once-salvaged body abdicated.
Abandoned and left, it was washed aside.
But now I see you near a spectral waterfall,
Sometimes floating, sometimes wading.
The water does not bother you at all.
You are there in the distance, waving.
Playing Scrabble
Games involving gambling and risk
Didn’t interest you in the least,
So we didn’t play board games much.
To you, pulling a surprise card or rolling the dice
Seemed a pointless waste of time.
Though others often found them enthralling,
Building hotel empires or sinking battleships
Was not something that you liked to do.
Scrabble was your favourite game.
You could take it seriously.
It meant taking command of those small letters
In order to create a strategic position,
And baffle and impress your opponent.
But that game never really appealed to me.
Having a large vocabulary,
It just meant frustration for me.
What I could express with those tiny wooden blocks
Just made me feel helpless, and often bored.
My father was a master player.
Of course, he knew all the rules and their exceptions.
It was almost like he was cheating.
I played him sometimes, but rarely won,
But I enjoyed seeing him get so excited.
Perhaps he is with you now.
(Though you never talked much in life)
You probably have some new interests in common
Besides me, and my restless, uneven life.
Perhaps you sometimes hear my prayers,
Or my thoughts assembling on a page.
Trying out different combinations of words and feelings,
Trusting that the right one will come along to complete a line.
You knew the force of words.
Always asking people questions,
Trying to get them to open up.
So we put aside our games and contests.
They only distracted us from each other
And the conversation that we always wanted to have.
The Music Between Us
The music between us
Is not distant from the world.
It enters into us.
We are its instruments.
I hear our song everywhere.
A celebration of our life together
One life almost past,
One still living.
I sense you in the darkness
Between the night stars,
And hear you humming out the key
For me to follow and join in.
I did not lose you.
No, I found you again.
The tune that I thought I’d forgotten
Keeps coming back to mind.
Watching Poets On TV
Sometimes poets are inserted
in-between commercials.
They have interesting faces.
The camera likes them.
They speak in small rooms,
often coming from great distance to
recite a handful of poems.
We watch the audience
share the poet’s trance.
They clap when each spell is over.
When the poet is sitting still,
the camera closes in
and touches them.
You can almost take their pulse.
When they take the stage
they gather momentum, pacing urgently,
or breathlessly drawing us in.
From the closet where we keep
our useless and unused things,
they share disappointment and wonder.
What the poet brings
no factory can make,
and no one has offered for sale.
Sometimes the small screen makes
them appear as large as they really are,
Away from the small rooms where they write.
Apocalypse
The Great Conversation in which all may speak
The Great Work in which all can participate and contribute
The Great Classroom in which all can teach and all can learn
The Great Remembering through which we will come to our senses
The Great Forgiveness in which all can have mercy.
The Great Reckoning by which profit and loss are erased
The Great Forgetfulness as our attention and care go out to each other
The Great Door of Salvation that opens and invites everyone in.
The Great Alchemical Fire that purifies through sacrifice
The Great Tree of Life that is forever sprouting green
The Great Raft which can carry all lost beings home
The Great Journey that finds its destination
The Great Healing of time and loss and sickness.
The Great Secret that is whispered and disclosed.
The Great Annunciation by which all are called
The Great Resurrection in which death becomes a celebration
The Great Communion in which all becomes the bread and wine.
To The Angels
You who watch over us,
Can you help us remember who we are?
For a long time we seemed indifferent to our fate.
Not knowing that we might be led.
We made blind and incremental steps,
Without any notion of the distance required.
We were exhausted by pointless efforts,
By our fluctuation and haste, constantly
Trying to recreate infinite small pleasures.
We broke acknowledgements with you,
And became incoherent to ourselves.
Much still remains outside our fearful boundaries.
Do you regret that we fail to hope?
That we perceive danger everywhere,
Yet allow such disorder and unseemliness?
We have dishonoured ourselves long enough.
Soon we will lift our veils.
Is it not time to remove all masks?
Fate took us for fools,
But you did not accept our sightlessness,
Continually working toward our emancipation.
You have prepared us for freedom.
All obstacles and difficulties were only
To help us to train on the goal.
Once, we did not know that we had a will,
Or what its true vocation was,
Our wisdom tarnished by lack of use.
But the time of regret is over.
Our shadowed tasks will soon brighten
And illuminate all that we do.
Here at the stark crossroads of time
Our choices will culminate in change.
Lamentation can have no purpose now.
We may feel anger for a time,
Bitter over naive pretences of the past..
Yet soon we will rejoice, startled by new perceptions.
How well you have hidden yourselves!
For millennia we have gone without a proper mirror.
Now, we will be able to see ourselves through you!
Our science has only been a child’s toy.
Yet soon each thing will be newly catalogued in spirit.
Light will find its way into every corner.
Why were we constantly repeating our mistakes?
Compassion was always our greatest deficit.
We now must seek clemency with each other.
We were distracted by indulgence and misfortune,
By the confines of our own thoughts,
Always preoccupied with immediate concerns.
Now, when our need for Grace is urgent,
You finally show us our true nature,
Calling us to new tasks and to celebration.
Divine Hospitality is constantly changing guise.
We are being invited to strange new worlds.
Hidden doorways are being opened.
Thoughts now sprout in our hearts like seeds
Allowing us to conceive of mysteries
Buried beneath the surface of time and sense.
Our loving attention is required.
Our response must be as unconditional
And reciprocal as the invitation.
We can remember the whole
While listening in silence,
Discovering strange new laws.
We will accept and give thanks,
healing and sharing together,
Preparing ourselves to begin anew.
Grace pours down upon us like a steady rain,
Coming to alert, yet also to pacify.
Do not be afraid!
All is brightening.
We see by first light, but many still sleep.
The world of the many and the few must end.
Each of us has been sorely restrained.
We defaulted on ownership of ourselves.
Now we must turn to you, our intercessors.
You can make clear our common path.
We are coming to a marvellous fruition,
Radiated by the sweetness of innermost being.
We are called to be dutiful mystics.
If we had but a flake of your vigilance
We would have wings with which to fly.
Without your overt guidance and support.
Life proceeded with dullness.
Now a litany of joy has been unbound.
Now reason must topple.
It has no faith, no substance.
It must become transubstantiated.
We will make way for a chastening of the senses
And a cleansing of the heart,
As you assist us in our awakening.
We are to be a new incarnation,
United with the Earth,
Reconciled with each other.
We lost so much through separateness.
Our feeling mostly of pleasure or pain.
Now we will learn impartial feeling.
Pain and pleasure will only explain our desires,
Learning what we fear,
And what will satisfy us.
Feeling will unite, not divide us.
And will and reason
Will follow.
Prodigal Son
The prodigal son is coming home.
He does not even have a loaf of bread.
His small fortune has been lost to games of chance.
His purchased lovers have lost interest in him.
He is homeless, like a refugee.
The belly that he once filled with wine is empty.
No one speaks his native tongue.
He is not religious–he never was.
Even now, he is only concerned about himself,
But he is aware of his loneliness.
He is almost like a fugitive.
No one cares to know his name.
The foreigners are indifferent to him.
He knows his life has been displaced,
He feels shame and trepidation.
The harvest has been poor and the famine will continue.
There is no one he can appeal to here.
He is alone.
He knows that he made bad choices,
But the consequences are worse than he ever imagined.
He thinks of his mother, who died so long ago.
He knows that she would be disappointed in him.
He argued with his father.
What contempt he felt for him then!
How hard it was for the man to surrender a part of his wealth.
“I would be happy with any part of it now”, he thought,
“He can not deny that I am his son.
Even if I deserve nothing, he can not refuse me.
I will ask to be his servant.”
It is a long journey back.
Farmers let him take some feed from the sows.
He is a sight to be pitied.
People avoid him or send him away,
Yet he is resigned in a way that few can understand.
When he finally hears men speaking his own language,
He rejoices–he is no longer a trespasser.
He can hardly wait.
The prodigal son is going home.
At Golgotha
Time must pause and bow.
The world rests upon His outstretched arms.
He is in eternity now.
He receives death like a sacrament,
Taking it fully into Himself.
He has nothing to repent.
His body has become a chalice.
He does not suffer any more.
He is wholly sacrifice.
His corpse fills with light.
Time itself declares a truce.
It is the end of world night.
He will weave the future with the past.
All will answer unto Him.
His countenance is vast.
Turn My Heart Around
My mind is peopled with thoughts.
I push their conversation away.
I talk to myself,
But is it more like a prayer.
I don’t know how I became confused.
I lost my way again.
It’s not unusual for me
To forget what is whole and good.
I long for an encounter
Where I can respond as one voice,
Where who, or what I meet
Becomes as mysterious and familiar as myself.
A whisper or a song
Might turn my heart around,
But I need to be drawn out,
Or touched in some way.
With my imagination I reach out
To touch and know the world.
It changes.
It is no longer indifferent
The genius of the soul
Is that it can see beyond itself,
Yet always, always
Might find itself there.
Jesus/Insomnia Poem
Two hours after midnight, I wake.
There are no boundaries or horizons.
All is dark and still.
The hour is confessional,
Yet I’ve done nothing wrong.
I just want to be alone for a while.
I could pray–and turn myself in,
But I’ve already done that.
I’ve been spending the reward ever since.
I don’t need to make excuses.
I learn from my mistakes.
That’s why I keep on making them.
If I were a criminal
I would set myself free.
That’s what I intend to do.
The Secrets Police
When they first learned
that I’d planned my escape,
they went mad.
It confounded them.
I had outed myself.
“How can he do that?”, they said,
“Impossible!
“He’s just a regular guy.
All he does is write poetry.
Now he is leaking vital information.”
Slowly, I’d infiltrated their system
and learned all their dirty tricks.
How they twisted the mind with new distractions.
How they invented new flavours and sold them.
How people lined up to have their lives appropriated.
Their search warrant was only a piece of paper.
What they really needed was
a mission statement or an article of faith.
I told them I was willing to answer fully,
but only if the questions were not scripted.
When they put their cuffs on me,
I threatened to talk at all the wrong times.
This made them squirm.
They had to let me go.
They were paralysed
by the blunt and direct force
of my questions.
They could not turn them around.
But when I told them,
“I will go viral!”
They laughed and said,
“Go ahead, that’s what we want!
Who cares!”
I realized what they said was probably true.
The poets will just have to wait
for the official announcement,
when it all collapses in on itself,
and we all confess the secrets we already know.
The Body Is A Place To Be
The body is a place to be.
I use it to
touch and see,
hear and sound and move.
It knows in special ways.
It is beautiful.
It is where I feel.
It is my center.
Without it I can not
compose myself
or bring order into my life.
Without it I would have no sail or rudder.
I would sink into an ocean.
I would be homeless.
My body is a fine instrument.
I use it to measure the distance
between the past and the future.
It is never wrong in this respect.
My senses extend my mind
to places it can not go alone.
They are not accessories or ornamentation.
They only sleep at night.
Without my body
Where would I be?
How could I meet you?
How would you know I was listening?
I use it to carry me,
my scattered soul,
which is constantly going out,
and going in,
seeking the known and the unfamiliar.
My body marks the place
where I left off and begin.
It holds the stars in position.
It does me good.
That is why birth is a celebration, a reunion.
Its successes are all brief,
though memory harbours its remnants;
a new sound or colour,
a novel taste in the mouth,
a comfort, a pleasure,
someone to hold,
a run or a climb,
a day of work.
It suffers
the difficulties of aging,
harm and hazard,
hardship and disease,
pain and anxiety,
dullness and lonely hours
when shut off or disengaged.
Do not blame the body for sin
only because it was
found at the scene of the crime.
When called upon
the body shows its nobility.
The Buddha recognized this
when he decided
to remain seated under the Bodhi tree,
until his purpose was realized.
Christ knew this too,
stumbling,
picking himself back up,
shifting the weight that was
too much for him to carry alone.
Be good to the body.
Why make it an enemy,
a jackass, a mirror for vanity?
It is a temple
where all worship begins.
It waits, only to serve.
Jesus/Kite Poem
My cross is a trinity
of paper, thin sticks, and string,
a makeshift, fragile article of faith.
I pray for a gentle current.
Sometimes I wait all day,
but the moment does not arrive.
Yet when the breeze is full and firm,
my cross becomes a playful communion
of earth, and wind, and sky,
and my heart lifts up with joy.
The Way To The Mother
Why is the way to The Mother filled with such sorrow,
with failed love, forgetfulness, and death,
even while each life is something bright and shining?
I am learning to walk through stone walls,
and read men’s hearts at a distance.
I am inventing questions that have never been asked,
and finding answers that can not speak.
I can enter the realm of death
as if it were close at hand,
and at night I have visits from parallel worlds.
During the day I learn how
to make love from scratch,
and how to swim alone and without fear
in an ocean of hungry predators.
I keep discovering new and living
saints and apparitions that the
Church has not yet recognized.
I am learning how to transfuse my blood
with the courage of others,
and soon I will have the power
not to fear my own rage.
But my memory has become so poor
that I forget the purpose of my own life
and what it was I was going to do.
All the dirt from the hole I have been digging
is still piled up beside me.
It seems I have rejected so much.
But when I am overwhelmed
and my heart begins to keen aloud
I am comforted by The Mother.
And I see that there is nothing much that is new,
and what was strange,
again becomes bright and shining and secure.
Snowball Fight
(It is snowing outside as I write this)
It would be wonderful
If we could all meet and
Gather up freshly fallen
Poems with our hands,
Forming them into instant
Round and ready
Little missiles of joy,
Ready to hurl at someone,
(They will never see it coming,
-as if out of nowhere!)
So that suddenly,
They’re overcome with passion
And want to get back at the person
Who threw the poem at their head.
Marilyn 2012
Here, clocks do not stop.
One thing replaces another.
Each day has a sunset, and a noon,
and a slow awakening of the sun.
Memories erode, but I repair them.
I remember you with love,
and touch you with my mind–
The rhythm of palsy in your shoulder,
the humid warmth of your hands,
the beseeching quality of your voice.
When you are more forcefully present–
Is my soul more visible then?
Your disciplines all have changed.
The world must be inside you now.
Knocking at the Door of My Soul
I am called by silence in timeless night.
I can not give voice to anything.
I can only listen.
I must go to trial.
I am charged with weakness,
neglect, unlovingness, denial.
I argue.
I confess.
I must sleep until dawn.
What Faith Is
Faith is the distance you must travel on your own.
Faith is the map that gets you out of the mess.
Faith is what pulls you out of bed in the morning.
Faith lets you rest and close your eyes.
Faith buoys you up when the waves are overwhelming.
Faith can give you strength for eternities of time.
Faith is the box car that homeless people travel on.
Faith is the straight line that winds through life.
Faith is something you thought you forgot.
Faith precedes memories of who you have been.
Faith is the finish line, the celebration of victory.
Faith got you started, but doesn’t brag about it.
Faith lets you forgive yourself for broken promises.
Faith honours every good impulse you ever had.
Faith is what leads you out of the labyrinth.
Faith is the string that pulls you along.
Faith is the secret your soul confided in.
Faith is a community and the familiar sense of home.
Faith followed you through all the mistakes you made;
the STOP sign, the Road Closed, the Under Construction.
Faith lets you start over, even at the end.
Faith is the Silence that calls your name.
A Century of Forgiveness
This will be the century of forgiveness.
It is a work in progress, blatantly needed.
We will start with the most recent crimes.
The ones that have not yet come to trial,
And slowly work our way backward.
Eventually it will all blur,
–Who did what to whom.
Even if you do not presently believe
That you have blood on your hands
Time will stop for you and wait.
Some day a beggar will come to your door,
Asking for a cup of forgiveness.
You will hear yourself say,
“Sorry, I need it all for myself.”
Only later will you realize your mistake.
There will be no court.
We must judge ourselves.
Our emptiness will indict us.
There can be no appeal.
Humility will make way for a compassion
That we are not now able to comprehend.
Bad Mood
My words are rusty this morning.
My thoughts creak.
They all got stuck in one place.
Now they won’t move.
My feelings are stubborn.
I don’t like myself right now.
Nothing is good.
I’m usually handy at this kind of thing.
I tried a few things from some how-to-books.
Nothing seems to work.
I don’t want your advice.
I don’t feel like being patronized right now.
I know that you mean well, but I’ll get over it.
Let me work it out.
I’ll be fine.
Cosmic New Thresholds 