Sounds like a dance, doesn’t it? Well, it is the dance. Suddenly the second commandment – love your neighbor as yourself- takes on another layer of meaning. If the interrelation of The Three is a dance, and we are invited in, we must learn to dance together. Continue reading
I love the gift of words.
They romp and cavort around reality, giving me a tool to see its form.
They light the crevices and illuminate the vastness of truth, stretching my mind to new horizons.
True words, words of life, bring me closer to the wonder of what is. Continue reading
And see, once more I am tangled in my own web.
Silly little spider – can’t quite seem to get it right.
I follow the threads as they unfold,
But they keep folding back upon one another.
My feet get stuck in my own glue.
I get wound around the axle and soon I cannot move.
I forget a spider’s web is dependent upon finding the framework on which it its suspended.
It bridges gaps between the limbs of trees or the corners of an eave.
Flat surfaces will not do – there must be a space to bridge.
That’s where you catch ideas: where gaps are open,
Where differences almost converge – and then, on a whispered thread, they do.
It’s when I focus on the web and not the gap that I get tangled –
When I watch myself too closely,
When I worry about the beauty of the web,
Rather than the beauty of connection.
Silly little spider.
And so I sit, a small golem-like creature in the dark cavern of myself, hiding from you, even as I long for connection. I shiver in my hidey-hole – cold and alone, peaking out from the crevice and then quickly withdrawing, lest I be seen.
My fingers are as cold as the stone they touch. My heart has lost its beat, my eyes, grown large, are still afraid to see. I huddle in my corner, closing my eyes and holding my hands over my ears, until I can stand it no more. Continue reading
I am seated back a bit from the fire. Around me are other travelers, all weary from the walk of the day, glad for a rest, glad to be together. We are an odd lot, tossed together by happenstance (if there is such a thing) and by the juncture in the roads. Now, nestled among the trees just off the roads, we sit together.
Those around me who are talkers are telling their stories and I, a listener, am listening. The stories weave in and out among each other and there are common themes and nods of understanding. We have opened our packs and bread has been shared. We nibble at the last of the crusts, for we are full but the crusts are good. Continue reading
Look at the variety of creatures on earth. That demonstrates the wonderful imagination of their creator.
– Hildegard of Bingen.
Just look at the baboon’s butt and the spindly-legged spider and the iridescent humming bird and the waterfall and the mosquito – the mosquito? Hmmm. Why would that buzz through my mind? What wonder is there in the mosquito? Continue reading
A recent post by a thoughtful pastor friend reflects upon ultimate authority – and how it shapes our communities of faith. It made me wonder: when push comes to shove, what is my ultimate authority?
I’ve lived long enough, failed enough, deceived myself enough to know that I need an authority outside myself. I just can’t trust myself to be right all the time, even when I really, really think I am. Yet, there is no other human who meets the criteria, either. All are subject to the smallness of our own souls and our own perspectives. Continue reading
I ask what you want me to do.
But, you don’t really care about that.
It’s what I become that matters most
And I can become while doing most anything,
If I do it with you.
If you can show me how to do that – how to become while doing – I can do anything.
Is that confusing enough? No wonder I wander in circles. Or, perhaps, that is how I walk the labyrinth.
( Sinatra got it right – ‘Do be do be do’ solving the philosophical quandary of the centuries. It is about both – doing and being – one leading to the other, in turn: recursive grace.)
5 2 15
[color added to image from Wikimedia Commons]
stopping at Starbucks
buying time with my coffee
a jolt of relief
Can I do this? Can I find a meditative space in the middle of a Starbucks halfway to Austin? Can I be honest when there are other people nearby?
Its hard enough to be honest when I am alone in my closet – hidden from all eyes but yours. Yet, it is the commitment to find the time, to come, to wait in your presence that somehow, slowly molds my soul to the contours of your truth. So, I will give it a try and hope for a bit of grace. Continue reading
Quiet Hope 
