Don't say you love me

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”

                                                                         Maya Angelou

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It all starts

With time spent within

Time connecting with our soul

Time hanging out in that place where we are most who we are

Really

That true self

But there is something else in there

God

The Sacred

Call it what you will

That something that connects us with all that is

Big

Bigger

Infinite

I call it God

We carry in us this presence

That makes us Sacred children

When we know our self

And that self knows the Sacred

And they dance

In that place we call soul

Then when we emerge

We come forth out of fullness

No longer needy

No longer needing to prove ourselves

No longer needing to grasp and grab

For

Whatever

No longer needing to destroy or devour

No longer needing to isolate or merge

No longer a naked person

Offering a shirt

Perhaps those we see who are most destructive in this world

Those who must bully

Those who play games

And maneuver, and manipulate

And abandon the old, the poor, the disabled

Are really the ones who are disabled

Maybe they are the ones with cripples souls

Never having found themselves

Never having connected with that

With protects and loves

And allows us to look beyond our self

And truly see

Maybe

Maybe, for all their wealth and power

They have never learned to love

Themselves

Who is the one?

“Now here's a good one:

you're lying on your deathbed.

You have one hour to live.

Who is it, exactly, you have needed

all these years to forgive?”

― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

_______________________________

the unforgiveness we carry

secreted away in our souls

is that which we carry to our death

and on the way toward dying

it is there

a dead weight

making us heavy

but making us less

who is that one

who hurt you so badly

who is that one

who changed the course of your life

who is that one you can’t forgive

and thus who claims you

defines you

shapes you?

erodes you?

destroys you?

it is better to let go now

of all that hate

and anger

all that bitterness

than to wait

until death

is one hour

away

Do something

“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”

                                            Horace Mann

________________________________

we can fill the air with words

we can minimize

we can assault

we can justify

we can brag

we can talk love

and talk hate

with impunity

but in the end

it is all about how we live

if we talk about service but do not serve

if we talk about the sanctity of life, but minimize and oppress others

if we talk about making life better for others, but take away healthcare

if we talk about the importance of being spiritual and ethical, be make all our decisions based on power and wealth

if we talk about love, but do not do acts of love

we are just noise

and our words mean nothing

period

Believe in Love

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

_______________________

It has been a long night

or a short night

does it really matter

after a day of hearing lies piled upon lies

after reading about a handful of rich people, plan to take health care away for poor people

to benefit rich people

after reading so many statement of fear and hate

I am angry and tired

evil keeps winning

evil keeps gloating

evil keeps manipulating, and hiding

and lying and distorting

and it seems as if there is no reason for faith

or hope

and as if love is losing

big time

what keeps me sane

is walking

in the cool of the morning

as the sun first shows above the horizon

walking through a creation that is amazingly beautiful

and complex

what keeps me sane is

watching the sun rise

and feeling its warmth

watching the clouds turn red, and orange then gold

and seeing the colors bounce of the mountains

and set the grass a fire

then faith is reborn

and hope emerges, however weakly

and I can once again

believe

in

love

New is Life

“If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there. We become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you're dying. You're saying: Leave me alone; I don't mind this little rathole. It's warm and dry. Really, it's fine.

When nothing new can get in, that's death. When oxygen can't find a way in, you die. But new is scary, and new can be disappointing, and confusing - we had this all figured out, and now we don't.

New is life.”

                                            Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

_________________________________________

Wallowing in the shit

Of greed and fear

Hate and anger

Slowly sinking into the morass of lies

Pulled violently down by our own essential selfishness

It is surely the way to die

Physically

Emotionally

Spiritually

God is constantly calling us to newness

To new understanding

New love

New openness

But we would rather wallow

“It’s safe” we say

“its more profitable” we insist

“It is how you win” we declare

So God’s new thing spins away on the wind

And we stand

Stuck

Ankle deep

Knee deep

Neck deep in our own mess

And wonder what went wrong

It is not that we are doomed to be here

We have a choice

We can vote in evil

We can give greed “a chance”

Or

Or

Or

We can connect with the God who is love

And we can go where the Spirit blows

And we can feed the hungry

Heal the sick

Comfort those who mourn

Its our choice

New is possible

New is life

To create an enemy

To Create an enemy

Start with an empty canvas

Sketch in broad outline the forms of

men, women, and children.

Dip into the unconsciousness well of your own

disowned darkness

with a wide brush and

strain the strangers with the sinister hue

of the shadow.

Trace onto the face of the enemy the greed,

hatred, carelessness you dare not claim as

your own.

Obscure the sweet individuality of each face.

Erase all hints of the myriad loves, hopes,

fears that play through the kaleidoscope of

every infinite heart.

Twist the smile until it forms the downward

arc of cruelty.

Strip flesh from bone until only the

abstract skeleton of death remains.

Exaggerate each feature until man is

metamorphasized into beast, vermin, insect.

Fill in the background with malignant

figures from ancient nightmares – devils,

demons, myrmidons of evil.

When your icon of the enemy is complete

you will be able to kill without guilt,

slaughter without shame.

The thing you destroy will have become

merely an enemy of God, an impediment

to the sacred dialectic of history.

By Sam Keen, Faces of the Enemy

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the faces of the enemy

what do we see there?

what do we fail to see?

those we choose as enemies

are those whose faces we choose to obscure

changing them from a child of God

obscuring “the sweet individuality of each face”

until there is no face

no person

only a stereotype

only a caricature

until there is no face

and we can “kill without guilt, slaughter without shame”

Dylan Roof

The Muslim driver in London

The man who drove into Muslims leaving worship

The young man in Manchester

The ISIS warrior

The American Pilot

Did they, do they see

The faces of those in front of them?

The man with a bat, who beat to death a 17 year old Muslim girl

Did he see her face?

Perhaps the problem is we do not see the faces of those we have chosen to hate

We do not see the pain

The hurt

The hunger

The fear

The love

The hope

The despair

The humanity

The divinity

We do not see a child of God

When we look at that Muslim

Or look at Trump

Or look at McConnell

Or look at “those liberals”

We have stripped flesh from bone

Until only the “abstract skeleton of death” remains

And so we attack

With words

With actions

With knives and guns and bat

We will never come together

We will never have peace

We will never heal the earth

We will never help bring into reality the Kingdom of the Sacred

Until everyone

Has

A

Face

Flawed

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

                                            Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking

_____________________________________________

there are times when we realize

that the fabric out which we are made is flawed

pure and simple

oh, the garment looks fine

but look at it closely

and you will find the flaws

and then you know

that you are merely a “second”

not quite a keeper

it is clear who the keepers are

the one’s whose spouses admire and respect them

the one’s whose children say nice things about them on Facebook

the one’s who are surrounded by friends

there are times when you know

that there is a reason you are fundamentally alone

it is because you are flawed

not in an obvious way

you are smart enough, handsome enough

accomplished enough

but you have not been able to be there

not really

for that spouse

those children

those co-workers

you have been too wrapped up in your agenda

your fears

your need to accomplish

and so life has gotten lost in the living

and love has gotten lost in the loving

and now there is just this

this sitting in your space

surrounded by your books

saturated with knowledge

and being

alone

not because those around you do not want to give

but more because you never to learned to give, or receive

and so the bond was never built

and you are forgettable

and expendable

and when you go

from a job

a town

or even a life

it is not likely

that you will be much missed

you did not intend it to be this way

you did the best you could

they are doing the best they can

but what is left

is uncomfortable space

Oh compassion still lives

and

the connection still holds

but only by the thinnest thread

thank God for dogs

and cats

the gift of not knowing

“The older I grow,

the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

                                                                        H.L. Mencken

___________________________

I swear

The older I get, the less I know

I thought

That at some point

I would know who I am

What I’m good

I thought I would figure out

Friendship and love

At this point in life

I thought I would be sitting

Content on my porch

At peace with my self

But the older I get

The less sure I am

I did it right

The less sure I have something to offer

The less sure that I even know

What friendship and love are

My kids are doing well

But I doubt very much it’s my fault

and they live rich lives

far away

looking back I realize

I have always been an old soul

Always that odd combination of immature

And ahead of my age

The awkward kid

Gifted and successful

But not quite sure how to fit in

Still awkward

Still not sure how to fit in

Still trying to catch what cannot be caught

Still trying to earn what only comes as a gift

Still striving for that which must simply arrive,

(through openness and quietness, through an invitation of the soul)

Still outside the circle

So I sit on the porch

In an amazing place

Mountain rising, sun setting

Snow white, azure blue

Young buck wandering

Quail skittering

and yet the questions linger.

age has not brought wisdom,

just more questions

and some how,

it seems

that is just the way

it is supposed to be!

Looking through Sacred eyes

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”

                                                          John Joseph Powell

____________________________________________

Looking in the mirror we see it all

The beauty perhaps

But it is most likely that we see

All the warts and wrinkles

The sagging chin

Every flaw jumps off the glass

And our eyes reflect back

All the emptiness and fear in our souls

Most of us (with rare exceptions) cannot appreciate ourselves

We are our own worst critics

And we cannot see our own beauty

But sometimes someone

Looks at us with the eyes of love

They see what is best

And they think we are wonderful

Beautiful

And we mostly believe it

And when that someone is God?

Ah

lost and found

“Most people felt lost after high school. Sometimes I felt like I'd never really been found in the first place.”

                              Lish McBride, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

__________________________

In the dusty dying moments of a life

there are wonderings

an adding up of columns

debits and credits

doing the math

does it add up, this life?

have I made a difference for good,

or have I blundered through life,

like a drunken hit and run driver

doing more harm than good?

have I become what I was meant to be?

who was I meant to be?

do I even know?

what that true self looks like

plan A in the book of life?

have I followed my path

or merely let others determine who I am?

it is all a mystery

and perhaps that is the way it is meant to be

one day

one step at a time

left foot

right foot

left foot

breathe

being nudged by the Sacred

standing in the rain

saying

“here I am

in this moment

doing the best I can,

doing what I care about

not really lost,

just on the way

to somewhere

All roads lead to us

“When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast; but it isn't vast. It's all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there's a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy's driveway connects with yours, and you'd be surprised by how few roads it takes to get there.”

                             Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

___________________

like it or not

we are all connected

like it or not when something happens to one

it happens to all

when a person gets shot in Virginia

the road to that baseball field

leads to the end of my driveway

when a person loses their insurance

my well insured life is left more vulnerable

when someone is angry

it hurts us all

when one is joyful

we are all to rejoice

it has been said many ways

no one is an island

we are family

we are the body of Christ

and so we must speak with care

act with care

when there is a tear in the fabric

we cannot widen the wound

we cannot make it deeper

for our own benefit

the pain of the family

cannot be exploited

instead we must treat this “body” gently

we must treasure this family

no member is expendable

not the crazy Uncle

not the cruel father (or politician)

not the inebriated cousin

not the poor

the hungry

the naked

the imprisoned

the oppressed

the minimized

we must what we can

as best we can

for we are all connected

all roads

lead

home

Hate is so convenient

“...I want my spirituality to rid me of hate, not give me reason for it.”

― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

________________________

oh

no, no, no, no, no

hate is so convenient

I can hate people who area different creed

I can hate people whose words are different

whose skin is different

whose way of thinking is different

and thus I protect myself

for “they” are clearly

out

and I am clearly

in

if I don’t want to hate

I can hate the haters

and convince myself of my own spirituality

oh

no, no, no, no

it doesn’t work that way

my hate is not different from their hate

hate is still hate

and it still destroys

it still feeds upon itself

and yet

there are this injustice

there are these lies

there is the choice to value money and devalue people

and I don’t know what to do

with those

responsible

how can my spirituality empty me of anger, disgust

how did Jesus stumble painfully to the cross

battered and covered with spit

and say

father forgive them

they know not what they do

today you will be with me

in

paradise

life can be deadly

“I once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze.”

         Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

___________________________________

life can be deadly

day in and day out

life dictated by a scheduler

encounters in which nothing

(or little) happens

A mind disengaged

A heart disengaged

Putting in time

Finger on the time clock

In

Finger on the time clock

Out

and yet there is the mountain

fresh with snow

and the wind

scented through the firs

and the sunset

Sacred grandeur

Ah!

For those moments which God

Caresses our eyes, our nose

Our face

Our heart

Life

Restored

Many kinds of death

“When the star dies,

Its eye closes; tired of watching,

It flies back to its first bright dream.”

                                           Dejan Stojanovic

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there are many kinds of death

deaths that are as final a death

deaths that sneak into existence

killing you without

a clue

the death of innocence

and dreams

where what you assumed

proves false

and the destination you anticipated

becomes unreachable

I sit on the porch

on a cool day

watching the mountain disappear

behind the clouds

and realize that this is not

what I expected of life

it is better

it is worse

it is fulfilling

it is disappointing

sometimes I strain to see the mountain

hidden there

and strain to see

what has been and what will be

I put one foot in front of the other

But some days

I am tired

And my eyes can no longer seek

And they close

A little death

As dreams fade

Shattering

With luck

With time

New dreams

Will come

Or not

Staring into Space

“In an age of hope men looked up at the night sky and saw “the heavens." In an age of hopelessness they call it simply “space.”

                                                                         Peter Kreeft

___________________________________________

Sometimes,

he thought

we simply lose the mystery

she becomes not love, or passion

not a beautiful things whose depths hold

treasures

but merely a lover, a wife

someone who secrets we no longer seek

each day becomes

merely routine

boxes on a calendar to be marked off

endlessly

the sun rise is merely the sunrise

it just comes, and comes again

and then goes

gold to gray

and life, well life

is no longer about wonder

and dreams

no longer about love

but about responsibility, and pain

and angst

and we grow tired

and we no longer gaze into the heavens

but stare heavily

into space

Slow Down

You may have seen the bumper sticker that says, "If you lived in your heart, you'd be home now." Now normally, little bumper stick thoughts, especially spoken to me as wise spiritual advice, enrage me. I listen nicely, while fantasizing about poking a fork into the person's head, like a baked potato. But whenever I see this bumper sticker, it spritzes me into hope. It reminds me that there is a place in me that is warm and safe and gentle, unlike my usual pinball mind explosion of fear, judgment, doom, blame, and corrective thoughts on how other people should behave better, and a structured plan for how they can begin to do that.

                                                                                      Anne Lamott

___________________________________________________

Sometimes we just need to slow down,

Take a few breaths

And settling into our hearts

Snuggling down deep into the fabric of our being

Much like we snuggle down in our favorite chair

With a good book

This is the place God lives

This is the warm and safe place

This is where

Everything quiets

All the fear,

All the anxiety

This is where I can hear

More than my own voice

More than the voice of that bully who lives in my brain

More than the voices of my critics

Here in this still place

I can hear God

Gently whispering in my ear

“I love you”

Beatitude people

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it." —Richard Rohr.

_____________

The images flutter on the TV screen

Websites throw headlines in our faces

Designed to shock, and even mislead

We look around us and see anger and bitterness

We hear people who should know better ridicule an aging Senator

Who deserves better

We witness violence in our streets

Violence in our homes

We hear people once friends eviscerate each other

This is America

This is the World

Trump, ISIS

Turkey

Terror in London

It takes its toll

Unless we disassociate our selves

It hits us where it hurts

Not our in pocketbooks

But in our souls

We not only carry love in our hearts

We carry pain as well

And pain like love must be expressed

Love trapped, dies

Pain trapped grows

And if we do not find a way to transform it

Into compassion, forgiveness generosity

It becomes the gift that keeps on giving

And pain begets pain

Violence, violence

Hate, hate

This the is the Good News

When the Sacred is awake

And prowling through our souls

Pain is transformed

And we become,

Beatitude People

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We have a choice

To nurture pain and be part of the problem

Or to transform pain

And be part of the solution

What is it going to be?

Asking the right Questions

“Why do you pray?" he asked me, after a moment.

Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

"I don't know why," I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. "I don't know why."

After that day I saw him often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!"

"And why do you pray, Moshe?" I asked him. "I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”

                                                                                      Elie Wiesel, Night

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I ask a lot of questions

A lot

Of

Questions

I am not sure they are the right questions

I am not sure I hear the answers

Or perhaps I hear them, and simply don’t understand

That is just the way life is

Why do bad things happen?

Why do leaders lie (when they don’t have to)?

Why are we so addicted to power?

How can people justify their mistreatment of the vulnerable

Why can’t I be the person I want?

Where or where is love?

I wish I knew the right questions

I wish I could find that inner place

Where the answers live

For in those questions

And in those answers

In that dialog with the Sacred

I will find

Myself

I will find

Love

I will find

God

And perhaps I will finally know

How to be in this world

As a sacred

child