Too often
Grace rambles
Unnoticed
Through my days
Until I pause
To brush the leafy edges
Of a bush
Or notice that
The air is cool in my throat
Or see a cloud unfold
Across the blue
When an ordinary corner of life
Catches on my senses
And peels back
The wonder of today
I rush to gratefulness
Or it rushes to me
It helps me see abundance
Here
And here
And here.
More than enough
To overflow
My soul.
Mystery
Cannot be captured
By the mind.
Instead, it
Captures
The heart.
Dogma
Can never really
Compete
With love.
photo by pixel_unikat from Flickr per CC BY-ND 2.0
We are experimenters in the holy, as well as subjects of the experiment. – Daniel Snyder
Perhaps it is time for a holy experiment.
My bruised soul
(bruised, in part, from my own abuse)
Has had some time to heal.
My ears have quieted
And the voices that pounded
Or even softly, persistently insisted
Have eased their harping.
The ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’
That have constrained my quest
Are not so loud, just now.
Their absence gives me room.
If I can trust the frameworks
Of a loving truth to guide me –
A truth I cannot claim,
But can claim me, instead …
Perhaps I can risk
A holy experiment.
Perhaps I can let go
And risk the fall to hope.
Hope is a risk, you know.
It does not let you cling to certainty.
It does not let you cling, at all.
It requires an open hand and heart.
I feel as if I have been scaling a cliff
But my fingers have lost their hold.
I can no longer even see the ground
And so, I tumble, down and down.
Fearful of a fall to the death of all I know;
Of all my self-constructed assurance;
I fall into the dark and groundless silence.
Yet somehow, I feel my soul reorienting
Catlike, turning with my feet to the ground
Not knowing, even, how I know to turn.
Is a soul made like that?
I would not have let go
Except I could no longer hold on.
There are, sometimes, those
Unavoidable, necessary falls
That take you, though resisting,
Into a different frame.
The shell must crack
Before the new life can emerge.
It’s just so hard to be grateful
For that crack.
Could it be that every death
Leads to a bigger life
If we will but allow
The breaking of the shell?
Could it be that the deepest truth
Is that death is not the inevitable end?
Could it be that it is life, instead,
It what is inevitable?
Is there, perhaps, an inevitable beginning
As love invites us home?
Photo by Carlos Ebert retrieved from Flickr per cc 2.0 Quotation from Snyder, Daniel O.. Praying in the Dark: Spirituality, Nonviolence, and the Emerging World (p. 66). Kindle Edition.
Fear
Evokes Anger
And Retreat
And Despair
It is too much in my face
It is too much in the voices
That call to me to join them
In the chaos
It wants to steal my soul
And yet
And yet
There is still beauty in the sunrise
Even yet the giggle of a child
Can break my heart
My lover’s gaze can feed my soul
I will not give them all of me
Those voices of chaos and fear
Those calls to join the fray
That try to evoke both fear and guilt
To steal my life
One distraction at a time
This moment
I will pause
And breathe
And give thanks
For there is much to be thankful for
The very idea
That what I value
Is at risk
Confirms that I value something.
For just a moment I will turn my eyes
To see the preciousness of life
And deny the chaos
That would rip it from me
With the grip of the very fear
That claims I must protect it.
Fear will not help.
Anger will not keep it at bay.
To retreat is to leave the joy behind, as well.
Despair is capitulation to the foe.
But joy
And beauty
Are waiting
If I will but shift my gaze
The source of hope
Is a move from fear
To gratitude
photo by Pascal Gaudette retrieved from Flickr per CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Through the miracle of the clock
We strive to move a bit of sunlight
To the other end of the day.
Our bodies
And our babies
And our pets
Comply more slowly
Having other ways
Of experiencing time.
But they adapt.
The cows in the field
Don’t even notice.
It is not a change for them.
Nor for the crickets
Or the owls
Or those pesky barn swallows.
They continue to dance
Within the arms of another.
While we are torn away
To march with commerce.
We sit within the steel frames
Of our creations,
Obedient to the demands
Of our responsibilities.
Our possessions
Which, by that same mechanism,
Have somehow turned
And seem to possess us,
Claiming the bulk of our time.
So, each spring we lose an hour
Only to find it again in the fall.
And we carry the facsimile of control
Into one more year.
Sometimes I envy the cows.
photo by marneejill retrieved from Flickr per cc BY-SA 2.0
What does it take
To receive a gift
Graciously,
Fully?
It takes attention
And an open heart.
It means suspension of judgement,
Looking away from my gain
To your generosity.
The object in your hands
Is not the true gift.
It is the offer of your attention
Calling to mine.
It is your heart, whispering …
‘I want to connect.
I want to honor
Your presence in my world.’
It is the open palm,
The heart extended,
That whispered longing,
That holds the beauty.
And to give a gift?
You must release it, tenderly.
It is an offer
Not a consummation.
When a gift is truly given
And received fully in return,
Two hearts are exchanged.
photo by Eva retrieved from Flickr per cc BY-NC-SA 2.0
Enough!
I can no longer watch the news.
Reporting catastrophe
And catastrophe to come.
My heart is worn out
With borrowed distress
And requisite panic
And inevitable dissolution
And the ones who claim to save me
Only send me further into the abyss
Feeding me fear and guilt
And hopelessness
The monster has come out of the closet
And seated itself beside me on the sofa
It is picking its teeth,
Having fed itself upon my soul
The powers that be
Seem all too powerful ...
But are they?
The whisper of that very question
Brings a breath of hope.
When I think that I must save it all –
Democracy, my nation, my community
And, of course, my privileged place within it
My arms are much too small.
But when I remember
That my friends are here beside me, still
Their presence holds my heart
And their eyes speak tender affection.
They remind me that the furor around me
Cannot steal my capacity
To share beauty and laughter and love
Or even to share comfort and grief
And it is
Enough.
Image by Jeremy Brooks retrieved from Flickr per cc 2.0
Are we getting our
Comeuppance?
Or is it a
Comedownance?
Are we finally understanding
That ‘exceptionalism’
Was just another way of saying
We’re better than you?
And can we finally let go
Of the myths that are destroying us
And find, instead,
A home within a community?
‘Above’ is a lonely stance.
‘Greater’ is not so great.
‘With’ holds a bit of hope
And a more flexible strength.
It lets me, too,
Off the hook
And back into
The stream of life.
I am not required to be
Exceptionally good
Or exceptionally brave.
Perhaps, now, I can be neighborly.
photo by byronv2 retrieved from Flickr per CC BY-NC 2.0
There was a woman
Who lived her gift fully
Whose fingerprints on the world
Helped to create the picture
Of light
Holding one sweet edge in place.
Whose breath
Still brushes up against my heart
Though she
Herself
No longer breathes.
There was a woman
Who did not let
The voices of disdain
Stop her gift
Even when her own doubts
Too often echoed
Those false frames.
She gifted her presence
Flaws and all.
There was a woman
Who gratefully accepted
The gifts of a broken world
And counted them sufficient
To sustain the fillagree
Of glistening life
For just a while.
Counting her own brokenness
Enough to offer
In return
A reedy pipe
With holes enough
To let the tune.
Sing through.
This is the anniversary of my mother’s death. She would have made it to 100 had she lived two more years but 98 was quite enough for her and she left us with a wink and a smile. The photo is my own.
The earth, it was said,
Rested upon the back
Of a giant turtle.
That turtle, in turn,
Rested upon another,
And another,
And another -
Turtles all the way down.
Others said it rested
Upon a succession of elephants.
For others, it was
The shoulders of Atlas
That held it firm.
But, of course,
Now we know better.
It is held by myriad attractions
And by movement.
And my own particular world
Is held by its own attractions,
And repulsions,
And mutual beliefs and stories.
We tell ourselves
That there is such a thing
As corporation, or school, or alliance
Or country.
We build walls around that idea -
Actual walls of brick and mortar
Or even steel.
We think those walls will hold it firm.
For they rest upon the earth.
Which rests, of course,
Upon a giant turtle.
Or is it the shoulders of Atlas
That will keep us from falling forever?
Surely there is some strong man
To whom we turn to make it all secure.
...
I’m grateful that my kids
Watched Ninja Turtles
Rather than a Mighty Mouse,
Who comes to save the day.
Turtles, seeking wisdom from a rat
Working as a team, finding allies,
Without a single hero -
It’s the start of a better story.
Not so much turtles
All the way down
As turtles all around.
Not perfect,
But a step into a better myth.
photo by Wally Gobetz from Flickr per CC 2.0
Quiet Hope 