(For Kamala, Susanna)
Who is this,
arrayed in white,
washed in blood
unseen
of the unheard?
“I’m speaking.”
And we,
daughter,
are listening:
eyes upturned
in this moment.
Crystal veil
rent overhead:
jagged shards
falling past,
a third of all stars,
held tight
by gravity’s arms
to the bosom
of the center
of the Earth.
How could you know?
You were never told
any different.
You never knew
impossible.
Never mind
the glass.
You can’t tell
it’s there,
or maybe
I can’t tell
it isn’t.
Spiritual, but not religious: too easy.
No escape to Kondo’d closets.
Better: Religious, but not spiritual.
Gratitude for the junk drawer
in which we live, and move, and have our being.
This one sparks Joy.
Meditation on Luke 13:10-17.
Activated here within our spines: ex-
plosive power, rearranging dust. Cre-
ating vacuum, sucking to the center
ev’ry atom at event horizon.
Overcoming calcitrant resistance,
overwhelming gravitation’s forces,
explicating life’s reverberations,
silencing the way we’ve always done it.
Meditation on Matthew 21:1-11.
In scattered fragments, lying close at hand,
May I be open to what life requires:
To rearrange the patterns of the past
And make anew what I will need today.
While blessing all these days that come to pass,
May I hold lightly all that I create,
And listen to the deeper question asked
That all my answers cannot satisfy.
Karl E. Peters writes: “To err is divine.”
This phrase feels uncomfortable to most religious practitioners in the Judeo-Christian tradition. We have been conditioned to think of the Divine as an all-powerful being who has established unchanging standards of truth and righteousness in the world. Peters, on the other hand, identifies “God” as “the creative process working in our midst.”
Biological evolution happens by mistake. Mutations are copy errors in an organism’s genetic code. Most genetic mutations have a neutral or adverse effect on an organism’s chances for survival, but some of them turn out to be beneficial. When a mutation gives an organism a survival advantage, that error gets incorporated into the genetic code and is more likely to shape future generations.
Cultural evolution happens in much the same way. When Jesus invited outcasts into his grassroots movement and challenged established moral and theological standards of his culture, the leaders of his culture regarded his actions as mistakes. The appointed guardians of tradition branded Jesus as a dangerous heretic because he did not practice his spirituality in the “right” way or with the “right” people.
The early followers of Jesus incorporated his tendencies toward inclusion and innovation into the cultural DNA of their movement. These cultural mutations gave that community the independence it needed to survive and thrive after the Roman Empire razed the second Jewish temple in 70CE. Other religious movements survived because they centered their faith and practice in the study of the Torah, rather than the rituals of the temple. These two movements evolved into the religious traditions we now recognize as Judaism and Christianity.
The following questions arise: What creative mistakes are we making in our lives today? How might today’s heretics become tomorrow’s leaders? How might “the creative process working in our midst” be adapting our communities to include new voices and invent new ways of doing things?
Peters asks:
“Are these mistakes mutations in religious thought that ought to be destroyed or might they be something else, a new and helpful way of portraying the sacred? That will be determined not by what I am saying. It will be determined only by how you and others respond, by whether these ideas help you make sense of your own experience in living.”
Karl E. Peters. Dancing with the sacred: evolution, ecology, and God (Trinity Press International: 2002).
Now
is the space between
what is known and
what is new.
It is a constant
coming into existence.
No respecter
of who belongs
or how it’s done.
Some mistakes
turn out to be correct
and vice versa.
Some heretics
turn out to be prophets
and vice versa.
O restless heart, who knows the way
that wanders not, but seems to stray
from end to end, by many means,
as each new crossroad intervenes.
A promise made on one’s behalf
had carved in stone the epitaph
before a babe a word e’er spoke,
or strength from weakness had awoke.
The frailty of a father’s will
bade not the peregrine be still,
for silence would not silence keep
till ev’ry song its harvest reap.
So, following the ancient way,
by trails unblazed in light of day,
from deep to deep, the altar call
makes three in one the all in all.
-Memorial of St. Odo & the Holy Abbots of Cluny
Paternoster
There is a vastness,
beauty,
and logic
in the cosmos
that defies imagination.
I stand in awe
before it
and within it.
Something inside me
yearns
for the same greatness,
beauty,
and logic
to be made real
and observable
in my short life
on this tiny planet.
All I have,
and all I am,
is a product
of this vastness,
and beauty,
and logic.
It sustains me,
even when I forget
and take it for granted.
Perhaps then,
I can find the strength
to let go
of resentment
when others forget
and take me for granted
as well.
I remember this
in moments of peace,
that I might remember it
in days of stress,
and thus be freed
from anxiety:
This vastness,
beauty,
and logic
does not come from me,
did not begin with me,
and will not end with me.
It never has,
and never will.
Living stone
the river of fire
in the Province
Beyond the River
Bound by magnetism,
not gravity;
desire,
not necessity.
Pebbles worn smooth
by the passage of time:
kinder,
gentler.
The lava threatens
everything in its path
that is not
in its way.
Unmaking
the great civilization
in its very act
of creation.
Fire turns to stone,
rests as solid ground,
only when
river meets river.
Hoc est corpus meum.
Et cum spirit tuo.
Critical Mass.
Missa cum populo.
The work of the people
in thrift store vestments,
home-made stoles,
Du Maurier incense.
Kneeling in the cloister
behind the record shop;
Approaching the altar
to receive:
Would you like fries with that?
Crack at coffee hour,
neither more nor less addictive.
Orthodox idolatry,
sacred profanity.
I heard your confession
when it was you
who should have forgiven me.
,_Petr%C3%B3polis,_Rio_de_Janeiro_State,_Brazil05.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Virgin%27s_Monastery_(benedictine_nuns),_Petr%C3%B3polis,_Rio_de_Janeiro_State,_Brazil05.JPG)
Outside. Beside.
Closer than expected.
Too close for comfort.
Gestures and visions.
Function, not nature.
Here, not there.
Grabbing my attention
directing it back:
Beside. Inside.
Height to height,
glory to glory,
deep calls out to deep.
