I don’t wanna look.
I don’t wanna know.
I don’t wanna recognize the wrong that happens all around me.
I don’t wanna stand hopelessly by while injustice throws its fists into the faces of those that stand in its way.
I don’t wanna believe that can happen.
I don’t like the crucifixion.
I want to jump straight to the resurrection.
I want the pre-emptive triumph of good. Continue reading
Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. –Rumi
Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it. –Rumi
I’m jealous of Rumi, you know. Such delicious words, slicing through to the very heart of things, letting life ring. A clear bell of a voice – his words are not holders of knowledge, but windows to the very heart of reality. They open me. Continue reading
‘Why do we have to read poetry?’
‘Read it and you will know why. If you still don’t know, read it again.’
Some of them took the things she said to heart, as she had done once when they were said to her. She was helping them assume their humanity.
‘People have always made poetry,’ she told them. ‘Trust that it will matter to you.’
… Some of them did listen. This seemed to her to be perfectly miraculous.”
How do we assume our humanity – as individuals; as societies? What is it about listening to the heart of another that helps to shape our own? What is it about seeing the world through the eyes of another that stretches our soul beyond its stingy boundaries? Continue reading
I must admit that I was a bit taken aback with a phrase in my last post and its implications that I might find God annoying. At such times, I am torn between honesty and the threat of heresy. Somehow, I think that God prefers honesty. In any case … in all cases … I must rest upon that very grace that sometimes seems annoying. Continue reading
“God is beyond our capacity to define because to define is to limit. God cannot be controlled, and therefore God cannot be defined…” – Rabbi Samuel Karff
As one who feels compelled to think things through, this presents a quandary. I want to understand, to grasp in my mind, to anchor my thoughts with carefully chosen words. Yet those very words which are the tools for understanding betray my intent because they are chosen – carefully – to mean a certain thing. They are always too small. Continue reading
I have been spending this week amid the rough and spiny beauty of Big Bend. Watching the sun rush into the morning sky from behind the ridge, listening to the birds as they wake the breeze. Seeing the thorny limbs of the ocotillo silhouetted against a streak of sunlit cloud.
This is wild and lonely country, with a hardened grace that is recorded in the adobe history of common striving. None could make it here, alone. Continue reading
Luke 2: 36-38 There was also a prophet, Anna, the
daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
That whispered voice that speaks with deep authority
The voice that speaks to my inner ear, that warms my heart
That sense of the Almighty, shielded sufficiently so that I can bear its coming
That Presence spoke to me today when I arose from my mat.
Quiet Hope 