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Poem – snow day

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snow day

Remember that feeling you have
when you look outside
and everything
is covered by snow?

It was forecasted
but they didn’t know exactly
when it would happen –
what time of day,
or even if this day or the next.
But it was coming,
that was certain.

And while you were asleep
the snow appeared,
silently
making everything white,
everything new,
covering the world
with a silent calm,
a soft pure light.

Every prayer,
every reconciliation,
every bridge mended,
every addiction cured,
every honest conversation,
every deep listening

is a snowflake.

The world will change
because we will change it
because we were changed
one
by
one
by
one
a light comes on
and we share it, we shine it.

A new day is coming.
A new day is here.

Poem – becoming sober

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Becoming sober is like
doing surgery
on yourself.
Everything hurts,
because the things that you used
to run away
from the pain
are the very things
you know
you can’t do
anymore.
So you have to sit down
with yourself
and dig deep
and uncover
all the pain
that you ran away from,
no matter how long ago,
no matter how it happened,
with no anesthesia.

Nobody can do this work for you.
Nobody gives you the tools.
You can watch others
with their struggles
and pick up an idea or three
of what might work for you,
but you’ll only know what works
when you try.
It might work that week,
but not next year.
You’re a different person then.

When we drink or smoke
or do drugs or overeat or
blame others or make excuses
we put up walls
around ourselves
so we don’t have to feel.
We become divorced
from our bodies,
from our lives.
We become immune
to the day to day feelings
of being alive.

Being sober
isn’t just about
stopping using
whatever it was that you used
as a shield,
as a crutch,
as anesthesia.
Being sober isn’t about
forgetting
the past or
the pain either.
Being sober is about
being alive,
and facing your past
and present reality
with courage
and love.

Poem Wild

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It is the forest.
It is always the forest,
the wilderness.

The wolf didn’t torment little Red,
the forest did.
The wilderness was something to escape
all those 40 years.
This is the story we are told.

The untamed is the
uncivilized is the
dangerous.
We are told –
Leave the forest.
Leave the wilderness.
Because
There isn’t only wild.
When you are there
you are wild too.
Because you can’t control the forest
or the wilderness.
There,
you
can’t be controlled.

If a tree falls in the forest,
it does make a sound
but nobody is there to hear it
because they are afraid
to be there
afraid of what is lurking
behind the trees,
of finding their true nature
in all that nature.

The forest frightens those
who tell us these stories
because they are afraid we will return
to the forest
inside ourselves.
They are afraid
we will rediscover
our inner wilderness.

They aren’t afraid we’ll be eaten
by the wild animals.
They are afraid
we
are
them.
13
(A bronze sculpture from an exhibition at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, all about how fairy tales are dark. This is about Little Red Riding Hood)

Letter and envelope

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There are those people who are simply the carriers of tradition but yet they don’t hold the heart of it. They are more interested in the rules and the rituals rather than the spirit.

They are the envelope,
but not the letter.
They are the vase,
but not the flower.
There the cup,
but not the wine.

These things need containers to hold them, certainly. How much of the awakening right now is because tradition has kept things going all along, held it in trust for us? It is as if our ancestors have saved up money for us all these thousands of years and now we are finally able to buy what they were saving for. Not only do we finally have enough saved up but finally what we need to buy is available. This is a time of ripening, of fruition, of opening.

The tradition bearers are confused when the younger generation has started to fill the tradition with heart and meaning. They think the tradition is more important – that it must be kept. They are afraid something will be lost in translation and that the unbroken (they think) chain of transmission will fall apart and the efforts of many generations will be in vain.

It is as if a family kept a house up for many years, cleaning it, repairing it, painting it exactly the same way it had been painted thousands of years ago. They have used the same materials that their ancestors used. But nobody lived there. It was a house, but not a home. Then a new generation comes in and says now is the time for people to live here, and the old generation balks. They are afraid the tenants will damage the house – not understanding the house was maintained for this very purpose.

The same thing is happening with faith traditions right now.

New Sabbath

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“Hear, oh Israel, the Lord your God is one.” The Shema.

The goal is oneness of people, of union, reunion, communion, with God.

The hope is for Sabbath every day, the Sabbath without end. This is a sign that the Messiah has come.

Jesus acted like the Sabbath was every day. He worked on the Sabbath, yet took time to rest whenever he could -on a boat, on mountain tops, in lonely and deserted places.

Perhaps that is the answer. Once we start living as if the Messiah has come we will experience our own personal transformation. Once we live this way, we are freed from the old ways of living.

When we don’t, it is as if we are keeping ourselves in exile, wandering through our own personal deserts for far more than 40 years – for our entire lifetimes.

Sometimes birds have been in cages so long they won’t leave, even when the door is left open. Sometimes we are the same – stuck in old ways, so even when we are told we are free we won’t change.

Jesus frees us. Jesus says we are forgiven and loved. He’s unlocked that cage. Now you have to walk out.

So now, act as if every day is the Sabbath. This doesn’t mean do nothing. Your work is your way of serving God. You serve God through your work. But praise God, delight in God’s creation, and rest, knowing that you don’t have to do anything to get God’s favor, because you already have it.

Poem – she left

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She left years ago.
She didn’t walk out.
There were no bags.

She left his comic books and cartoons.
She left his callused hands and callous ways.

He was thin skinned
and thick headed.

He never saw it. He never saw her leave.
He never saw her as anything
other
than a roommate, a prop, a support.

Her accomplishments rendered him speechless,
more impotent than he already was,
self-depreciating, self loathing.

A man isn’t a man just because of his age.
A husband is more than someone who is married.

She left him,
left him in her heart,
sad for his emptiness
his neediness,
his brokenness.
To try to fix him was to take away his power.

She left him
to his own devices –
Playstation, computer, and tablet. Action figures too.
Maybe they will help him to grow up.
Maybe one day he will learn from his
mistakes
instead of celebrating them, sickly
by repeating them,
over and over and over and over
and wondering why nothing ever goes his way.

She left him,
because she woke up,
and kept waking up
next to him.
His daily drunkenness on his own failure,
his addiction to his own pathology,
sickened her.

It threatened her.
It threatened her.

Like an alcoholic fresh out of rehab,
his ways threatened her
sobriety,
her awakening.

She left, because he threatened her,
not with words, not with fists
but with his very being.

Poem- What is Your name?

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What is Your name?
Not the name of Your disease
not the name others have called You.

Your name that is
Special and star-like
Blessed and beautiful,
Your name
for You alone?

It might have been a long time
since You have heard it.
It might have been never.

The names others have given You
might not be true
might not fit
in the same way that
hand me down clothes
Don’t.

In the same way that
sometimes You have to
make Your own clothes
stitch
by
stitch
to have something
that fits
sometimes You have to
Discover
Uncover
Recover
Your name.

You might not be the name
You were given at birth.

You might not be
mother, brother,
day labor, CEO,
friend, failure
gambler, penny pincher
mentally ill, stable
ex con, confidante.

The names that stick to You
(or are stuck on You)
out of relationship
or habit
or job
or history
or health
might be a part of Your name
or Your name might be
Entirely apart
from them.

What is Your name
Your true name
deep inside Your heart
small and bright and solid
And beautiful?
Immovable
Unchanging
Eternal
like the stars
like the sea.

The vastness of forever is inside you.

Find Your name
And You find Yourself
again
or for
the first time.

Your eyes reveal what is inside you.

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Your eyes reveal what is inside you. They are the lamps of your body. If they have light within them, then that is a sign that your whole being is filled with light. If your eyes are filled with darkness, then it is proof that your whole being is filled with darkness. Be mindful of the light within you. If your whole being is filled with light, then your spirit will shine forth like a lamp does.

LK 11:34-36, MT 6:22-23

Root of it all

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There are a thousand hacking away at the branches of evil to one striking at the root. – Henry David Thoreau

But where is the root? How can you find it, buried beneath all that dirt? You can’t see it. It is down deep. Do you have the tools necessary to dig that far? Do you have the strength? Or is simply looking for it the answer?

So many people try to treat the symptom rather than the source. They attack the outcome. They run around in circles, never resting, because they don’t hack away at the root.

I want to cure cancer by preventing it. Not by drugs, but by better lifestyle choices.

I want to solve the pro-life anti-abortion debate the same way. I believe in better birth control through better self control.

I believe the cure for poverty is the same as well.

In all situations, accidents happen, but they are a minority. We can’t blame outside circumstances when the problem often starts inside.

We cannot keep living our lives passively as if someone else is going to rescue us. We can’t wait for a hero, a superman, or a Messiah.

Our parents, our schools, and our churches teach us this pattern. Sit down, shut up, and an authority figure will do all the talking and all the thinking. Our job is to parrot back what we have heard. Deviations from this are punished by shaming or shunning. We are told to stop talking or told to leave.

It is time for us to occupy our lives. It is time to be adults in more than name only. It is time to look behind us for lessons and to look ahead of us for repercussions. We can’t run on auto pilot anymore.

We have met the enemy, and he is us. – Pogo.

We are the ones we have been waiting for. (Attributed to Hopi elders)

We are the problem and the solution.

Waiting for a hero

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Maybe people are waiting for the Messiah for the same reason they are sick all the time. They think somebody else is going to rescue them. They think they don’t have to do anything about their lives. They stay children, stay passive, stay asleep.

They refuse to take care of their health, and then they are surprised when they have a chronic disease. They pray for a miracle. They expect the doctors or God to save them. How is this any different than how we live, waiting for the Messiah to make the world better? In both cases, the power is in our hands. It requires daily work made up of thousands of tiny bits of effort, not a sudden one-time push from an outside source.

Jesus didn’t want us to live like this, dependent, expecting others to rescue us. Jesus tells his disciples (that is us, by the way) that they (we) have the same powers he does. We are able to heal through our faith. We don’t have to wait for the second coming. We don’t have to wait for a Messiah.

God didn’t want the Jewish people to have a king in the first place. He didn’t want them to have a person over them. He didn’t want them to give away their power. They insisted, and God gave them what they asked for. Their history with bad rulers is well documented in the Bible.

The idea of the Messiah is that he is to be the best king. The interesting part is that Jesus came to do away with the idea of kings. He said to not have anyone over you but God. Jesus came to restore the true Ruler, who is God. Jesus came to erase the mistake of letting a person rule. Jesus came to erase all hierarchy.

Even Jesus doesn’t want to be in charge. Jesus isn’t going to come again to save you. Jesus came to tell you that you have all the tools you need, already, to do what needs to be done. Don’t think you are up to the task? He says you are. Just thinking of the possibility of making the world better is the tiny spark that is needed. It is the mustard seed.

Jesus says you don’t need to be saved. Jesus says you aren’t lost.