Prepare Him Room...

It came back to me this morning... just on the heels of telling Jill how, despite the delicious energy boost I get from morning coffee, it does pose a challenge at times. Before I "know it" I'm flying down the mental highway, completely in my thoughts, strapped in to the vehicle of an idea, a scenario... sometimes I love where these take me and then other times I find myself working ahead or obsessive about some potential problem or difficulty. The more clearly my mind paints the picture , the more I feel the pain, frustration, fear... Then, gratefully, I snap "out of it"... or back into the present. I shake it off wondering if we really need to have Starbucks every day of the week.
Well, anyway... it came back to me this morning, this invitation from Eckhart Tolle -- inviting me to listen to the quiet. The suggestion was to enter the present more fully by listening to silence, considering how despite its no-thingness... silence is a kind of fullness, a spaciousness that gives all other sound and stirring -- a place to be. To turn our attention into the depths of silence is to reach out for the presence of God -- the one whose present presence... envelops us, embraces us, offers a home in which to live.
What came back to me was this mantra... Silence without, stillness within.... each time I allow it to return me to the open spaces, it feels like a gift. I thought about that this morning and immediately felt like sharing it.
So, this Christmas -- to people like us and all those mired in the fears and frenzies of daily living, I commend this little mantra: Silence without, stillness within.... Silence without, stillness within.... may it help to create space for you, a place for peace and new life to be born.
I bless you all... with the kiss of Christ.
Merry Christmas

painful and glorious

How glorious it is - and also how painful - to be an exception.

--Alfred de Musset

"Prayer is dreaming in league with God..."

Thank you Heschel

open your present

... each moment is a gift

Open

Your

Present

(haiku)

If you think you can,
brace yourself against this Wind--
til foolish, you fly.

For my niece... Oh, That Kid...

Oh that kid...

Bring it on!...

complete dark unpredictable
unfathomable depth
cause I've got this
light...
she's a real being
just about 60 some odd miles away
with some pavement and stoplights, a Starbucks,
three or four towns, a speck on the map
a broad swath of land in between --

a surface I can move across
among a million trees with names, duney mounds
and sand, a lake to either side
and a river or 2 --
that's really all there is between us.

Soon she'll be getting into a car
maybe even barefoot on a summer day with just enough gas
winding along a prayer, a long boyfriend walk and talk for practice and a song
blinking a few times and pulling into my driveway
into my life with its

shadowy, cool constriction,
every offbrand sham
I've accepted as the prize --
till she rushes in with the bright smiling news
I've got it! I found it! Here it is!

... but for now I'll rest in the premonition
completely aware that

I've got this life -- in mine.
She's living out there ...
discovering, dreaming, putting it on pages for people to hear
my niece showing the world who knows what
opening hearts, hers first, stepping into the tall
timeless dance with God, swaying, saying
oh that kid --
bring it on, bring it on

It feels good

It feels good to feel good and
that is why I am feeling bad
about feeling bad when I do.

I'll be worried if you worry, my
own might even become a concern, because
I know for a fact that one
needs to feel free to feel free
and when we can or when we
do those around us feel free too
-- to feel good about feeling good, left
to wonder what wondering on that all
day long might do.

Cheese Please

Cheese please.

I've had my meat -- too bloody chewy, red death in a faraway
place, air freight made straight to the plate -- no thanks.

But Cheese, creamy life in wheels and shavings, oozing out
the sides, spread it on my days while I strain to hear that sacred mooing.

Cheese please, with a history of a life well lived one slice
at a time, that could've been curd, stayed cool in a cup all
clotted up -- plopped into the ripe-center of my melon
mornings or chilled in a glass, cold milk, that's class, drink
thick white love one sip at a time and leave it on your lip.

Cheese please... with the cow left in it and her long summer
day musings, the farmer with dreams of catnap's after lunch
and the sprawling yard with muddy clumps, the carpets of teaming
grass they lived on, the birds flying blessings overhead breathing blue
into their lungs, their lives, my cheese, my glorious cheese.