Category Archives: niggling quandaries

those mind-worms that eat my mind and sometimes feed my soul

fingers crossed

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fingers crossedOn the edge of change
In the swirl of this, still new, millennium
So much is urgent and hopeful, yet full of tragedy and despair.

All the institutions of the old order,
Economics, education, religion, civics,
Seem in helpless disarray.

Yet there are sprouts of green amid the rubble.
There are prescient urgings and faithful actions
Calling a new world community to life.

What is this, emerging among us?
Could it be a new turning toward each other?
Could it be that a new world is rising, expectantly, in our midst?

So much change, yet so much deep coherence.
It reaches beneath the chaos to sing grace.
My heart is captured by this hopeful, unifying song.

Fingers crossed … I dare believe it might be true.
It certainly is true to my dearest hopes
And ushers in a belief worth believing.

[photo by Pamela Machado per cc 2.0 … Even creative commons is part of this emerging.]

Strange math

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two as oneGod’s math is strange:
In an intimate partnership,
The two become one:
One in love – sharing one love.

And this strange God
Is also One, in intimate partnership
Among the three
One love inviting more into that circle

Even welcoming you and me
Into that very dance
Where the one love extends ever outward
A universe bursting out in deep relationship.

How lovely
And how strange.

[photo by Aftab Uzzaman per cc 2.0]

messy faith

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city scene

If I am honest with myself
My faith is pretty messy.

On grateful mornings my heart sings.
I am wrapped in the peaceful veil of sunrise and birdsong.
I know – I seem so sure – that I am a small part
Of an immense and holy whole.

But other mornings I crawl out of a dull and achy hole.
I look around and wonder how love could be the source
Of such a mess as this.
My eyes seem tuned to all that’s undeniably wrong.

Is it the tilt of my heart that determines what I see?
And what tilts my heart?
Is faith a decision?
And, if so, what does it stand upon?

This postmodern mind of mine
Knows that knowing is slippery.
All, all seems built upon the sand.
I need a rock to keep me from collapse.

Yet, even rocks are made of whirling atoms,
With vast emptiness between each particle.
The solid – not so solid: I am not held up by ‘stuff.’
Instead, I am held by the very force of the relationships between each and all.

Right now, that is a much of a rock as I can find.
I clamber up – and am amazed that it holds me.
It holds me … and isn’t that what relationship most desires?
To be cherished, but not crushed. It is a delicate balance.

 

[image by SJKen per cc 2.0]

unnecessary crucifixion

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crucifixion

Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity – it did not need changing! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.- Richard Rohr

Perhaps …
Could this be true?

The crucifixion was unnecessary.

God did not require it – we did.

It was not God who demanded sacrifice as the gateway to reconciliation.
God’s power to love and forgive was never held hostage to some cruel death.
Love has always been more powerful than sin.

We are the ones who required blood-sacrifice.
We believed so deeply that the price of sin was death
That we would not accept God’s love and reconciliation without it.

So, Christ, who came for reconciliation,
Who came to show us love,
Met our conditions.

God’s desire for relationship was so deep
That God yielded to our obstinate delusions
To prove in ways that only we demanded
The awesome, terrible depth of love.

God does not love us more – or less – because of the crucifixion.
But we can now accept forgiveness
And find a way to receive and return that love.

That is God’s desire – that we would love in return.

God will do whatever it takes to help us find the way to love.

[image cropped from a photo by Steve Snodgrass per cc 2.0]

beyond

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universe in a water dropOf course we use metaphors.
Of course we try to understand the ineffable.
Of course we fall short.
Of course we try again.

Can you explain beauty
Or describe love?
It is all so marvelously immense.

I’m grateful – no thrilled –
To be a tiny part of a universe
That is so far beyond my grasp
And so filled with wonder
And so deeply interwoven.

I’ll never understand.
Isn’t that grand?

[photo by Andrew Kuznetsov per cc 2.0]

Again?

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Sometimes I wonder if God doesn’t get impatient with me …

Again?
Again you fall?
Again you fail?
Again you find yourself in a mess?

Yet there is something
Deep inside me
That won’t let me give up.
That continues to call me to more.

 

What if …
What if that very call is God’s spirit,
Planted deep within?
What if I am made for evolution rather than perfection?

What if the voice of impatience is my own?
What if the slow, insistent urge to unfold,
To turn imperceptibly toward the sun,
Is the true expression of God’s response to my fumbling efforts?

What if the narrative of my life
Is not a fall from grace
But a release into it?
What if that was the plan all along?

Again, I must start anew?
Of course, of course.
Always anew; always more.
That is the call of God.

And if for me
For you, too.

 

[photo by Fadil Elmansour per cc 2.0]

duh

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missing tooth

Just because I stopped believing in the tooth fairy
Doesn’t mean that I must stop believing in God.

Just because I can’t wrap my mind around reality,
Doesn’t mean that reality is as foggy as it seems.

Just because I can’t understand with my head,
Doesn’t mean my heart can’t know.

Just because I can’t control my world,
Doesn’t mean the world will fall apart.

I’m not the center of it all
I don’t have to hold it all together – I’m the one being held.

duh.

[photo by Jessica Lucia per cc 2.0]

about life

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new life

the interesting thing about life
is that you must live it
now

you can’t save it up
or hoard it
or even spend it into debt.
it’s now … or never.

I keep trying to plan it …
but that doesn’t work.
it just won’t stand still while I get it right.
worrying doesn’t work, either.

in the end, I can only live right, right now
and only if I remember to do it
consciously
mindfully
rather than just exist

so
let’s live 2018

see the beauty of the moment
seize the glory of the day
be kind to the earth and all it holds
be present with one another’s hope and pain
be grateful –
grateful for the very goodness at the heart of it all

we are part of that goodness
let us live it
now

 

[photo by Sonny Abesamis per cc 2.0]

unlock my soul

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fistAgain I find myself wrapped tight.
Like a fist, holding only my desperation,
My heart folded in upon itself.

My soul throws up questions
Not in open curiosity, but as a defense.
Fearful of my own foolishness,
I choose to turn away, rather than toward,
And ask for assurances before I yield to trust.

Perhaps it is the sensible thing to do.
Perhaps I can blame the world’s abuses,
As my reason to curl small
Around my own emptiness.

Oh, yeah?
You say you love me …
Prove it!

And you do.

As soon as I release myself enough to notice
A sunrise
A soft breeze
A friend’s smile

You do.
You always do.

[photo by damian entwistle per cc 2.0]