make your life a poem

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

 Walt Whitman

________________________________-

make your life a poem

its not that hard

if your life is written

by the great poet

know that you are a love poem

that you lift up hearts

and pluck souls from the abyss

for your rhyme and meter

are generosity and acceptance

kindness and forgiveness

make your life a poem

defined by the cadence of love

love

give

advocate

resist evil

mingle with the questionable

examine everything

make your life a poem

Anyone can destroy

“It takes no genius to destroy. The creators, the givers, the lovers, the healers - these are the heroes who know - the building up is so much more difficult than the tearing down.”

― Laurence Overmire, New York Minute

_____________________

It doesn’t take effort to cut someone down

It doesn’t take much to criticize

It isn’t difficult to find the problems

It isn’t easy to destroy laws that protect the earth

Or legislation that protects the vulnerable

Its damn easy to cut the poor out of the budget

It is the building up that is difficult

It is hard to love the unlovable

Hard to find that “something good” to praise

It is hard to make the difficult choices that will lead to better health care

Hard to go against those you fear to stand up for the weak

It is damn hard to confront hate

To call out liars

And insist on the truth

It is hard to give

Hard to create something new

Hard to heal

And near impossible to love

Our President does nothing that is hard

He simply flails and destroy

The Congress that supports him does nothing different

Simply allowing laws to be destroyed that did much good

(may put a little restraint on rampant and greedy capitalism)

The American church

Simply attacks

The LGBTQI community

Women

People who are poor

Shaming, insisting on excluding them, diminishing them

Hating them (fundamentally)

For all its talk about following Jesus

It is easier to grasp to hate, to exclude, to judge

Then it is to give, forgive, include and love

It would be easy for me to spend my time ripping apart those I disagree with

Some might say that is what I am doing now

Perhaps that is what I am doing now

Mea Culpa

Mea Maxima Culpa

Lord, whatever we do this day

May it be something positive

Something loving

Something generous

Something life giving

Because anyone can destroy

Only a Sacred Child

Living out his or her inheritance

Can build up.

thoughts on prayer

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”

 Mahatma Gandhi

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

 Soren Kierkegaard

______________________________

Prayer is not the “art of the deal”

It is not a matter of us calling out to all that is Sacred

Seeking to manipulate

Whatever power might be there

To do our will

Jesus made it pretty clear

That God is God

Sacred is Sacred

“Thy will be done”

Paul suggests that when it comes to prayer

We suck

Really!

Not because we cannot mouth the words

Not because we cannot turn a phrase

But because we have no clue how to pray (Romans 8)

Instead he suggests that we let the Sacred in us, the Spirit

Pray for us

With “wordless groans”

When prayer is really prayer it is nothing more (or less)

Than a cry of the heart

Prayer happens when God awakens in us the longing to connect

The desire to be filled

The hope for healing, and forgiveness

Prayer is when those things we cannot put into words

Wing their way toward the Sacred

And when the love of the Sacred finds its way back

Along the bridge of prayer

To change our minds

Our hearts

Our souls

And we are made new

loved back to life

P

“It happens to all of us," I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. "God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.”

 Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix

________________________

it has been a long road

and now that I am no longer young

and perhaps not truly old

I pause, as one pauses before that final climb

to the top of the hill

clarity, that final clarity that only death will bring

is over the hill

and for now

is am merely on the way

a long path behind me,

a much shorter one ahead

and in the stillness

I ruminate

I chew methodically on

the stuff that comes up

good, bad, and indifferent

there are memories that bring joy

and those that bring pain

memories of proud moments

and memories of abject shame

it has not been smooth

this path

there have been far too many moments when I have been over my head

in the ooze and slime and old decay (CS Lewis) of failure

ah yes, there were times when I broke free

and for brief bright moments felt good about myself

and what I was doing

but so many times

when I wondered if I could keep putting

one foot in front of the other

and I have been no stranger to death

the death of hope

the death of dreams

the death of a career, and then another

the death of a marriage, the death of joy

Oh yes, I have done much of it to myself

Although sometimes, life just happens

but for each death

there has been a resurrection

for each ending, there has been a beginning

it seems that God cannot leave well enough alone

(thank God)

and keeps “loving me back to life”

again, and again, and again

if I am “average” I will live another 11 years

what will that “final climb” bring?

what will I do between now and that final then?

How many more holes will I dig for myself?

How many more times will I get lost in the swamp?

What lies along the path?

Pain, joy, love?

I do not know

but this I know

God will keep reaching down into the mess that is this world

and God will keep reaching down into the mess that is my life

and God will keep nudging, and guiding, hinting and helping.

God will keep picking me when I fall down

And if necessary, keep resurrecting me, when I am buried in the rubble of my own making

And this I know

When I hit the top of that hill

And look over to the other side

God will be there again, with one last resurrection, and one last surprise

_________________

‘when the evening gently closes in, and you close your weary eyes

I’ll be there as I have always been, with just one more surprise”

                                                            Contemporary Hymn

I am therefore I think

I am

Therefore I think

It is not always good thing

There are times when it feels as if there are a thousand TV blaring in my skull

All of them on a different station!

There are times when it is like a whirlwind

And I cannot grab

One cogent thought out of the chaos

At other times my thoughts simply fail

Slipping away in to oblivion

Lost

Like the mountain in the clouds of winter

Names, dates

Appointments, tasks

Gone

In the twinkling of an eye

And oh the thoughts that come

“you are not enough”

“you failed”

“you are not loved”

“you need to quit”

My brain is a bully

No doubt about it

And O the feelings it generates

Fear, anger

Hopelessness, helplessness

Sometimes I think my mind

While trying to define me

Causes me to lose my self

Drawing me away from my heart

Drawing me away from my soul

Someday, perhaps,

I will learn to live from the heart

Not from the mind

Someday, perhaps, although probably not today

I will learn to listen to the prompting of the Sacred within

Rather than the voice of my unreasonable reason

Perhaps someday, I will learn to “step away from the brain”

“be transformed” I am exhorted, “by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12)

The only way that is going to happen

Is if I learn to quiet the mind

to have a calm brain

where the storm is quieted

and I can hear a single drop of rain

land on the pond

hear the ripple of the waves

the song of the sparrow

the cry of the hawk

where the chaos is stilled

and the cry of the heart is heard

“the mind is now stilled

hear the loving call of the Sacred

I am now at peace”

let God

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking.

It doesn’t matter how much profound wisdom we possess about created spiritual beings; our understanding cannot help us gain knowledge about any uncreated spiritual being, who is God alone. But the failure of our understanding can help us. When we reach the end of what we know, that’s where we find God. That’s why St. Dionysius [5th/6th century] said that the best, most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.

                                                                                    Richard Rohr

______________________________

Bless our little concrete minds

we are soooo uncomfortable with the unknown

with that which we cannot totally define

cannot totally explain

but how do our finite minds understand the infinite

how do we explain a feeling?

or the irrepressible surge of the Sacred

in our souls?

it scares us

this vastness

this mystery

And so we try to contain it!

anyone have box?

and some tape?

So we create ideology, philosophy

and worse yet, theology

but all we manage to do is

make God small

we squeeze the Sacred into our mold

we create God, as some have said, into our own image

and all of a sudden God is about rules, and dogma

and religion replaces relationship

and certitude replaces mystery

and faith becomes striving

and inclusion becomes inclusion

and acceptance becomes judgment

We take Jesus

Word become Flesh

The one who points us toward the mystery

And we try to tame him

Jesus was wild and weird

and said things we do not understand

and walked a path we cannot truly fathom or follow

but we want to distill him

to capture him, own him

we might as well try and catch the wind (or the Spirit)

The Sacred is indeed difficult to embrace and hold

sometimes we simply have to accept

that we don’t know

we don’t understand

that for all our striving to understand,

we may be wrong

and in that moment of uncertainty

we are forced to let go of all certainty

and let God be Love

In the morning when I rise

Grace isn't about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace - like saying, "Oh, it's OK, I'll be the good guy and forgive you." It's God saying, "I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”

 Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

__________________________

In the morning when I rise

In the morning when I rise

In the morning when I rise

give me Jesus   (African American Spiritual)

each morning when we rise

we have two choices

we can be defined by the world

or we can be defined by the Sacred

in the world we are defined by

money and power

possessions and influence

in the world we are defined

by labels and titles

with the Sacred we are defined by love

we are defined by One who makes all things news

Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way

for in our own weird way we have Secularized the Sacred

giving God attributes which are ungodly

making God a judging retributive being who counts our

ills, and holds them against us

who controls us, manipulates us with fear

and threats of eternal damnation

who demands performance, or else

turn or burn

but in reality God is love

God is a parent in whose eyes

We are wonderful and beautiful

Albeit a bit flawed, and perhaps a touch naughty and willful

But God persists in love

Persists in forgiveness and generosity

In the morning when I rise

I do not, therefore

Want to embrace the world

With its hate and greed

With its demands for performance

In the morning when I rise

I want Jesus

I want grace

I want love

I want it all

So that secure and loved

I can walk through my day

As a Sacred child

Open, vulnerable

Giving, forgiving

Caring and yes

Loving

It’s a much better way to live!

the Great ones

" The great do not regard themselves;

look not for godliness

... in a self-conceited man.

Eminence does not consist in

... outward show and vaunting words, ...

nor dignity in hauteur and pretension. "

- Shaykh Sa'adi Shirazi

_________________________

where do we find the great ones?

the ones who touch hearts and souls

and carry others through the terrors of this world?

look not to the corner office

nor the pulpit

look not to the capital building or the White House (especially not there)

look not to those who preen and boast

who stand in front of thousands

preaching or ranting

nor to the ones who wear the accessories of success

and gather all things to themselves

look instead to the half way house

the homeless shelter

look to the classroom

and that dank kitchen in the basement of an old church building

look at the bent body, in the veteran’s hat

at the grandmother shepherding her grandchildren

look in the places where the “least of these” are served

and look toward the quiet ones who humbly attend

with compassion and kindness

with acceptance and encouragement

with love

look for those, not with shiny gold veneers

but for those with deep souls

who reach out their hands to

the lost, the poor

the ill, the agitated

the dirty, the ragged

the addicted

the immigrant

look to those who reach out to the vulnerable ones of this world

and in doing so

touch God

for to such belong the Kingdom

with hands empty

“That which we die for lives as wholly as that which we live for dies.”

― e.e. cummings

_________________

He lived for 93 three years

my old friend

when but a spritely 90 he asked his doctor how he was doing

compared to other men his age

“they are in the ground” his doctor said

“well I will not be in the ground” he replied

“I will be soaring in the skies”

life and death

we are so often confused

thinking that the life for which we fight

is life indeed

when instead it is a sort of death

and we think that death

that dark specter

is something to fear

when instead it is a sort of freedom

it is a funny thing

that the more the we cling to things

the more they cling to us

and weigh us down

and so we plod, we plod

unable to soar

our self turns in on our self

and we are trapped

living for self we die

but when we let go

better yet, when we not only let go

but offer that to which we have clung, to others

we are able to travel light

and love given become love returned

hope given becomes hope returned

dying to self we live

This is God’s economy

Where giving we gain

Where losing we win

Where dying we gain

God must be at least a little bit weird

And yet in a strange way we know

this way is true

when hands full

we find that what we grasp decays

when hands empty

we can reach for the stars

and “catch the joy as it flies” (Blake)

until we are healed

Of all the times - Time be the recorder,

Of all the things - Time be the robber,

Of all the sorrows - Time be the healer,

Of all the powers - Time be the taker.

                                                Unknown

___________________________

On this fall morning

as morning struggles to arrive

I sit and stare at windows which are dead eyes

staring back

There is nothing there,

no mountain dusted with snow

no golden aspens, fluttering in the breeze

just blackness, unrelenting

and yet I know the mountain is there,

the aspen too

somewhere the sun creeps slowly toward the horizon

and this dark moment will pass

in this timeless moment

when the world has stopped

in this difficult moment

when it seems as if nothing will change

as the darkness of hate and greed seem unrelenting

and it feels as if it will be always night

never morning

we must look beyond

time is relentless

as relentless as that sun that soon shall rise over

the jagged teeth of the Seven Devils

It feels so shallow to say, “this too shall pass’

but it shall

and that Force which drives the universe

that Power which set time in motion

that One who envisioned and created us

that One who loves us

is in time

and those who think their momentary triumphs

of hate and greed

will stand

are mistaken

for although what we do now

is written into the fabric of the universe

so that the very soul of creation is imprinted with our acts

for good or ill

time moves on

and what is, passes and goes away

empires and buildings crumble and fall

and with them the arrogance of human kind

power comes, and goes

and comes and goes again

even the arrogant who smugly strut and smirk

will find, someday, their power gone

their hands empty

and perhaps, perhaps, their souls lost

and sorrow too

for time is the healer

it is not just that we forget the pain, the hurt

the loss, the defeat

it is truly that over time

love and light gently flow over and around us

through us

slowly filling the empty places

easing the pain

calming our hearts

until we are healed

it is not that all sorrow flees, is cured

but it is healed

transformed

and becomes a doorway into what is next

Thank your creator God

Thank you heavenly father / mother

For bringing your loving presence into time

and help us to know

that all will be well

in time

enemies within

“Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see -egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.”

 Al-Ghazzali

____________________________

Who are our enemies?

It is the Muslims?

The immigrants at the border?

Is it people of color,

Or those whose sexual orientation is different from mine?

Who do I need to fear?

From what do I need to protect myself?

Against whom, against what do I need war?

Perhaps the greatest enemies lie within,

and are those inner trolls of the soul

that blind us,

numb us

mislead us

Perhaps the greatest dangers are those things

that ooze up, out of our inner swamp

the greed and lust,

the lying, the abuse of power

unless we understand who our true enemies are

we will kill what is good and kind within us

we will erode out souls

and then we will join the crass throng

that calls good evil, and evil good

and crucify the true self

on the cross of blind desire and fear

and kill justice, and equity

hope and joy

and kill love

at the same time

there is another path

there is a better path

where, in meditation, in silence, in prayer

we come to that place

where we see ourselves clearly

and walk the path of truth, generosity, and love

Thomas Merton once said “I die by brightness and the Holy Spirit.”

Let us be drawn by the light into that place

Where we see what is real, and what is not

Where we see that is good, and what is not

And move from life to death

And in that dying to life

Have been overwhelmed and undone by the Sacred

And given rebirth

As a child of God

Be an epiphany

The way to any universal idea is to proceed through a concrete encounter.  There are a number of ways to say the same thing:  The one is the way to the many, the specific is the way to the spacious, the now is the way to the always, the here is the way to everywhere, the material is the way to the spiritual, the visible is the way to the invisible… we live in a fully sacramental universe, where everything is a pointer and an epiphany….

                                                                        Richard Rohr

_____________________________

How do we find the Sacred?

How do we find meaning, or peace, or hope?

How do we find love?

Sometimes it feels as if we must somehow transcend this present moment

that we must leave this particular moment behind,

lose ourselves in mystery

to connect with such deep realities

and yet

and yet

perhaps we have it all wrong

Perhaps the answers are not hidden

up there, out there, beyond the stars.

Perhaps the answers are right in front of us

in a child at play

in a stormy fall morning,

in the touch of a hand

the material is the way to the spiritual

the visible is the way to the invisible

everything is a pointer and an epiphany

Jesus was a pointer to the Sacred

An act of kindness a pointer to love

A fall leaf, painted orange and red, a pointer to Sacred creativity

I need to see Sacred everywhere

In everything

In everyone

But more, I need to understand the profound fact,

that I too am a pointer

and that people need to see the Sacred in me

in the way I laugh, play, serve, forgive, give

in the way I love

It is difficult in these times

when we all feel so powerless

to remember the “Scandal of the Particular” (Walter Brueggemman)

that this is how God has always worked

through Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Jesus, Peter, Paul

and now

through you and me

may our lives be a pointer

and an epiphany

keeping going

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

― Winston S. Churchill

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

― Confucius

_______________________

Why keep fighting?

Why keep spending so much time an energy

When the power of the Presidency,

The power of Congress,

The power of the very rich,

Mean that they can and will ignore what is right?

Why keep trying to change minds, and hearts

When no one is willing to listen

When everyone is entrench

When misinformation and propaganda

Have enslaved so many,

Causing them to support what is fundamentally, evil?

Why keep trying to lift souls up,

when they are so very busy wallowing in the swamp,

supporting the unsupportable?

Why keep going

when it is clear that greed and the lust for power

are more influential than generosity, compassion, and love?

When even the sacred fellowship the ekklasia, the Sacred gathering

Has now become a insider club marked by fear, exclusion, judgement and even hate

Why?

Because

Because God is love

Because if we are open to Sacred presence

We can be the light in the darkness

We can be the mustard seed

The pinch of yeast

If not us, who?

If not now, when?

The light appears to be flickering

in danger perhaps, of going out

the places from whence the light should shine

have become dark holes

sucking goodness out of the world

be we cannot give up

For “we know that for those who love God (the God who is love, not the faux God) all things work together for good

Not all is good

Not all will be good

But even out of the most horrendous times

Good can come

But it will only come

through those who are willing to stay connected to the Sacred

through those who remain open to Sacred Presence

it will only come

as the “God in us” oozes out through our words, our attitudes, out actions

we may be going through hell

keep going

True Community

Extremists at both ends of the political continuum have more in common with each other than they do with the vast majority of people from their own constituencies.  What they share is leveraging any opportunity to discharge their denied and festering pain, hurt, and feelings of smallness or powerlessness.

                                                            Brene Brown,  Braving the Wilderness
_______________________

We live in a world

In a country of extremes

I know, sometimes I live there

On the end of the spectrum

But most of the time I live in the middle

Confused, angry, disconnected

And really, really sad

For in trying to celebrate collective values

And pain

And hope

We have ended up dehumanizing and objectifying each other

We have reached the place where our bonds with one another are counterfeit

Based on the fact that we hate the same people

This is an intense bond, it is gratifying

We are caught up in it

Just watch the faces behind Trump at a rally

Or think of our own delight when one of “them” is shamed and defeated

Hate is a fuel that burns fast, and “leaves a trail of polluted emotion” (BB)

We must learn to choose

Not the bond of hate

Not the bond of ridicule and shaming

But the bond of love

The bond of shared pain

The bond of shared hope

The bond of gathering on a Sunday morning and experiencing real community

Sharing real joys, and real hurts

The bond of being captured by something bigger than ourselves

Be it Harry Potter

Or the Seahawks

Or love

Especially love

We need real community

The community of hope

The community of love

You want false community

Go to a Trump rally

Or to many churches

You want real community

Go to a homeless shelter

To a family gathering

To a community potluck

To a fourth of July parade in a small town

To a concert

To a funeral

To a wedding

Community is to be found

And it, ultimately

Is what will save us