Love
the door was always open
he knows the way I take
But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
– Job 23:8-10
message on the beach for everyone who walks by
August Prayer
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
This morning I give thanks
for breath
for breathing
I give thanks for
open windows and
French doors half-opened
and half-shut
This morning I give thanks
for clear glass tumblers
of cold Sebago water
and the crickets
of course and the crows
thanks for the cool
wash cloth
The comfort of hands
thanks for the taste of lemon
and the hair brush
this morning
I give thanks
for the shadow
that lingers a moment
In those trees then
leaves the world
Brokenness – Henri Nouwen
You know something about brokenness. You know about the broken world. You know about brokenness in your country. But most personally, you know it in your more intimate life. You know we are broken people and we suffer very intimate pains. The pain of a desire for intimacy that hasn’t been fulfilled…the pain of a relationship that did not work…the pain of an addiction that is so hard to confess…The secret pain of loneliness that can bite us so much…And what I would like to say to you is don’t be afraid of your pain, but dare to embrace it. If you are wounded, and I know that you and I are, put your brokenness under the blessing.
five poems
Thunder and Wine
“I answered you in the secret place of thunder.”
Psalm 81:7
thick fog clearing
as thunder echoes
across Casco Bay
on Cushing Island
lights go dark
then Cliff and here
in this dim sanctuary
the cathedral bells
won’t stop ringing
no one sees
the stained-glass smeared
by the blood moon light
once again wine
turns to water bread
back to grain
Of God
Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
so that a flood of waters may cover you?
– Job 38:34
what are my chances
when your words
linger and scratch
like wool uniforms
quietly removed
when the orphan
and widow flinch
at your whispered
good night
I’ll promise to lie still
if your light but touches
the water’s edge
there an egret
white as the moon
hunts in the reeds
Creating Myth
Notes on Jack Spicer – 1978
A really perfect poem has an infinitely small vocabulary.
– Jack Spicer
make myth by
destroying myth
then explain
what came before
one final embrace
before departing
into meaning
or a hell of meanings
everything slipping
or sliding
haunted by the poetic
and the laughter
the duplicity
of words
and how they replace
the historical
with an empty
vessel
and though we struggle
to pull them back
our hushed shadows
will not be closed
simply by stating
their closure
My Final Thought of You
It happens often now, forgetting
the words but not the thing
itself.
This week alone the words cilantro,
Curtis Mayfield, actuary seemed
lost, erased.
You, too, are there in a slight daydream,
a glimpse of a waning moon
on a sunny day.
A thunderstorm rises from Mount Blue
not 20 miles away. The birds and I
find shelter.
The stream is silent, hopeful. My breathing
slows as I count to measure the first
strike of lightning.
Three Halves
(in which the seeker discovers
he is that which is sought)
I am on a motorcycle
say a Triumph yes
a Triumph tearing
out of town on a moonlit
night Friday or early
Saturday morning and say
I am passed by a truck
an electrician’s truck
that has no business
passing a man like me
all in black leather
you’d understand
when I pass again
looking back to threaten
the driver flipping
the bird say or sneer
my surprise
that the driver is me
and all those cables
spooled on poles
by the breakdown lane
are mine to connect
or repair or destroy in this
the third half of my life
…make joy out of sadness…
now I understand – the path to healing
Ronald Rolheiser – In his last book, The Living Flame of Love, John (St. John of the Cross) proposes a theory of, and a process for, healing. In essence, it runs this way: For John, we heal of our wounds, moral flaws, addictions, and bad habits by growing our virtues to the point where we become mature enough in our humanity so that there’s no more room left in our lives for the old behaviors that used to drag us down. In short, we get rid of the coldness, bitterness, and pettiness in our hearts by lighting inside our hearts enough warm fires to burn out the coldness and bitterness.
The algebra works this way: The more we grow in maturity, generativity, and generosity, the more our old wounds, bad habits, temperamental flaws, and addictions will disappear because our deeper maturity will no longer leave room for them in our lives. Positive growth of our hearts, like a vigorous plant, eventually chokes-out the weeds. If you went to John of the Cross and asked him to help you deal with a certain bad habit in your life, his focus wouldn’t be on how to weed-out that habit. Instead the focus would be on growing your virtues: What are you doing well? What are your best qualities? What goodness in you needs to be fanned fan into fuller flame?
By growing what’s positive in us, we eventually become big-hearted enough so that there’s no room left for our former bad habits. The path to healing is to water our virtues so that these virtues themselves will be the fire that burns out the festering wounds, addictions, bad habits, and temperamental flaws that have, for far too long, plagued our lives and kept us wallowing in weakness and pettiness rather than walking in maturity, generosity, and generativity.
day #600
Edge of Atlantic 