Unless You Speak May 17, 2020
Unless You speak I have nothing to say No writing I do will communicate What is. Nor will it find its way To the core of what is, To what really matters To what is true.
True truth. Fractal truth. Pearl of great price truth. Truth that sets us free truth.
I don’t want to contribute to illusions, To distractions, to falseness. I want people to be fed with true food, nutritious to the core, enlivening the soul… unencumbered by ego.
COVID-19 in 2020 April 20, 2020
What will be left when this is all over? What will remain? What will I see when I look Out my window? Will that tree still be standing? Will that squirrel still scurry? Will I be? Still?
I am tossed to and fro One day, it’s to The next, it’s fro I wish this not be the case I wish to find an inner strength A core upon which to stand Firm
But that is not what I find At least not today. I wait. I wait to see the Lord in the land of the living.
Unless You Name Me April 6, 2020
Unless You name me I do not exist
Unless You call me forth “Arise, my Daughter” I cannot be
Unless You breathe into my being Empower the world of my mind To think in love Nothing worthwhile will be said or embodied
Unless I am silent in Your Presence I will not hear your Words of life
And without those words, I am not.
Children in Cages
I can’t move.
The sun has been darkened.
The moon does not shine.
The arrogant reign.
They do not serve Life.
They do not care.
They do not see you
In all things.
In all people.
All people.
All people.
All people.
Christian nation, my ass.
The devil inhabits this
White coating that
my kind have visited on all people
A vale covering difference,
A vale which confuses sameness
with the establishment of dignity
In all things.
In all people.
As if we were its source.
What hubris. Tale as old as time.
Loving neighbor as yourself is not
Re-making neighbor into a reflection of yourself:
Narcissistic, patronizing nation.
Stop. True love crosses borders.
True love does not build cages.
True love does not blame.
True love sits alongside,
listens
takes in
the Stranger in our midst, and
dares
To be transformed by them
In love.
True love faces fear
Inhabits it
Gets tangled up in it
And embraces it out of existence.
With love.
Let me know when that happens
Then I will gladly call this nation
“Christian”.
Women's March, 2018
Sometimes near tears, I marched.
The origin of every man
Is a woman.
And the Earth
Is Mother to us all.
We are all made of dirt.
And breath.
What makes us so
Ungrateful to be here?
Or think that any of us is less
Than a miracle?
Why are we so quick to
Act out our ache on the other
Rather than to take it in
And mourn
when actually... we are all in this together?
Why do we cherish power
Over the other
So very much?
Why would we rather die
Die
If it means staying on top
Rather than let go
And share?
Why do we love the illusion
Of greatness
Rather than the reality
Of our beauty?
Why so afraid?
What are the forces which
Come over some
(and are present in all)
To dominate
To demean
To devalue
To be deluded
That somehow these
Do not shed a light
On our own fleshly demons
Which denigrate
You
As well as
Me.
Why do we so often let the demons win,
When they all but guarantee
A mutually assured destruction
For all that is?
Help.
The Alabaster Jar
She knew. I know. I can tell, she had been in relationship with him in a deeper place, she was connected to him, to his reason to his being to his person She knew him. He was about to die. Anyone who had been listening to him really would have known: it wasn't special knowledge. It was simply that she got it, She received it: Good seed had found Good soil, that's it, and it had sprouted into true knowledge. Not intellectual devoid of soul Not emotional devoid of body It just was, it simply made Spirit-sense.
And so she went to him She looked at him Saw him through the eyes: with that kind of knowing that connects lovers. And he says, Yes, you got it! You understand what's about to happen to me. So few have gotten it-- These scholars, these lawyers here These intellectual sophisticates-- They don't get it. But you do. The moment is now, and how grateful I am to you, for you. I am going to my death-- my death! I am about to feel the worst pain and suffering one could ever feel so your soothing oil does me well. You are anointing me for the task set before me-- thank you for letting my word have its way in you. I am poor right now and you recognize me as I am. You see me. They don't.
What great honor she bestowed on him That she would "waste" this precious oil on him. The time is now, and right for its use. It's not a depletion of resources for its own sake-- that is not love: that is, in fact, nothing. She would gain nothing. It is meeting the moment in the moment with what the moment deserves. It is looking in Jesus' eyes and knowing him-- the real him. Seeing him for who he is and honoring him, Loving him for what he has done and what he is about to do for the world.
March 2010
Are You My Mother?
Your words came in through my left ear
like warm milk with honey
Traveled through the left of my body
and made their way to the center
of my being
The sunlight brought out the gold
silky milky liquid laced with gold
I drink again and again
curl up
and go to sleep.
March 2002
“They have taken him away, and I don't know where he is”— Mary Magdalene on the First Morning
They Have Taken Him Away
They have taken him away
Placed him in a box
On a shelf.
They have taken him away
They have understood him.
(Phew! that was a close one.)
They have taken him away
Fit him into their schemes
Used for their own purposes
Blinded again by their longing to be first
Needing to prove that they are not last.
They have taken him away
Packaged “For Sale”
for the world to see
And then they wonder why
No one believes.
They have taken him away
Beat him to death
Suffocated him with their categories.
The One who entrusted himself to the arms of Mary
The One who even entrusted himself to me,
as I anointed him for his burial.
Categories blown.
They have taken my Lord away
Wrung him,
draining him of his power
As a means of power over.
They have taken my Lord away
from the halls of power, the churches,
the classrooms
All seek to understand… maybe
But not be understood
All seek to know
But not be known.
I would prefer 1000x over being with the ones who
Want to outright kill him
Than the ones who domesticate him
And commit slow-cooked murder through an everyday
Pseudo-Kindness.
Passive hostility.
Who are you?
May I never know.
Where are you?
With those who are humble in heart.
I never want to box you in
As if I ever could
I never want to understand you
As if I ever could
But if I could taste you
I would love you
If I could be touched by you
I would be set free.
August 2017
Liturgy
All other judgments will destroy me, but Yours.
Yours restores me.
All other judgments will burn me to a crisp, but Yours.
Yours refines me.
All other judgments will drown me, but Yours.
Yours cleanses me.
All other judgments will render me naked, but Yours.
Yours clothes me.
All other judgments will cast me out, but Yours.
Your welcomes me.
All other judgments will kill me, but Yours.
Yours raises me from the dead.
All other judgments will pulverize me, but Yours.
Yours bears fruit.
All other judgments signify my end, but Yours.
Yours is my beginning.
November 2016
You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. -- Anne Lamott
Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2013 -- Dining Hall Series
Ode to Tilapia
(Disclaimer: Any similarity to book titles or famous literary lines, living or dead, are purely coincidental)
You come to us
Dressed in your garb of the nations:
Japan, Jamaica, Swaziland
You are the Tilapia of a 1000 faces
Tilapia East and West, Vol. 11
Tilapia and the Underworld
The Art of Tilapia
Hail to thee, Tilapia!
Hail to thee, Tilapia!
In the beginning was Tilapia, and Tilapia was with god, and Tilapia was god
Tilapia est in tres partes divisa
It was the best of Tilapia and it was the worst of Tilapia
When alone in the dark I was screaming
Who's here?
I heard, "Call me Tilapia"
Okay. I will, I actively imagined: O Tilapia, Tilapia, wherefore art thou Tilapia?
To be Tilapia or not be Tilapia, that is the question
O Tilapia! my Tilapia!
Hail to thee!
Hail to thee, Tilapia
Where have you gone?
Did we eat you?
Oh. Sorry about that.
The end.
“Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
Perhaps I am even afraid of my strength, and turn it against myself, thus making myself weak. Making myself secure. Making myself guilty.
Perhaps I am most afraid of the strength of God in me. Perhaps I would rather be guilty and weak in myself, than strong in Him whom I cannot understand.”