Welcoming Thirst

I sit down with Thirst –

to sip from her wisdom’s deep well –

Mystery within her DNA;

to taste…

to feel…

to linger – sensing invitation in the air;

how she is with me…

how she is a part of me…

Thirst leans her gentle, caring palm on my soul’s door-

yearning to caress me with Union…

with Presence…

with what cannot be seen…

with paradox and liminal space…

with connection and community…

with Love.

She cloaks me with vulnerability,

asking that I bear it for a while

and then maybe for a bit longer.

I implore, with concealed motives,

that what she shares “is not mine to deny another”,

that “I would not want to leave her uncovered

in such a frigid world.”

Saying this, not sure I can gaze into

what vulnerability would reveal within me.

Thirst, “Longing” some call her,

touches my hand with an assured comfort –

loving me in ways that words

cannot imagine or touch.

I am warmed in frozen and

forgotten places of my heart.

Thirst encouraging me to pull from deep places

gift boxes I have disguised in pretty, pristine wrapping.

Gifts, if opened, will usher me into intimacy with

The Divine – if only I would allow –

through sadness, grief, hope, laughter,

wonder, worrying, pain, hurt, awe…

and comfort – comfort in waiting and

in the not knowing.

I begin to understand.

Where Thirst is, so is Presence…

so is Love.

I welcome her as friend and companion…as soulmate,

Wanting to abide in Presence,

not wanting her to leave…

yet loving her in the willingness to let her go.

Then Thirst said, “Rest,” knowing this,

too, is a part of my deep longing. “I’ll always be here…”

her gentle, caring hand holding my heart…

“Rest.”

I closed my eyes and dreamt…

of new freedom…

of new adventures…

welcoming all of who I am – pain and joy

and a heighten sensitivity for why I thirst…

a longing intimacy with Love.

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Uprising

What would you expect when your inheritance is a 

century’s-worth of suppression and not being heard;

Systematically oppressed masked by “this is best for all” 

with a smile on the oppressor’s face.

What would you expect when “freedom” is laced 

with bias and unjust policies?

When the knee of methodical oppression is relentless.

When freedom is only freedom for the powerful and privileged?

As the president says he understands the pain and suffering of the Floyd family…

I scream “How can he?! How dare he?!…

Yet, how can I?… growing up a white male in the south? 

I too was of the powerful and privileged.

I did not have to fear how my white skin was perceived…

So when I presume that I understand…how dare I?!

Still many view those who speak their rage as delinquents and derelict.

Are those who rage into state houses with semi-automatics not the same?

The former – claiming their humanity despite the fear of those whose power and privilege is threatened – the latter.

God does not give us a spirit of fear…

Spirit…bring wind and fire!

Wake us up!

Blow through our injustices so to transform us.

Burn away our fear and hatred – expressed as entitlement and perceiving what is different than “us”, as enemy.

Transform not just our doing, 

but even more so, our being – how we are to be.

“Ruah”…”Breath”… help us be humble, courageous and worthy enough

so that we may die to whom we perceive ourselves to be 

in order that we may become the Truth you call us to be.

conversation of reconciliation

Please.  Come in.

I want to apologize for holding you in such contrary light –

weak, unworthy, an enemy (as was my early teaching),

oppositional, something to be feared…separate from my life experience.

 

Who I am, in part, depends on you, ego.

Still, I try and dissect you from my living – my being.

Denying you is denying the “I am” created within.

So here we are in this conversation of reconciliation.

 

It’s just…when you seek validation from outside sources,

or when you want to be bigger than who you are,

it scares me…frustrates me…makes me suspicious;

always leaves me hungry…is always not enough…always leaves me empty.

 

I know…I have given you away too quickly, too often – hurting you deeply;

Wanting to latch onto anything that would validate my existence – not believing my

existent is validation enough.

I play my part, too in affirming you when you think yourself better than the other…

denying the other of what I seek.

 

I am afraid of becoming too intimate, so I protect us;

I am afraid of diminishment, so I attach to a vision of “more than who I am”.

Living this split ego-ality kills us a bit each day…

inauthentic to who we are…who we are invited to become.

 

Fragility is propagated…self-degradation, self-efficacy, power, and control become

gods.

We become partners in creating a false-self to validate the reason for our existence.

A ruler rises – Fear – to occupy our desolate landscape and dominate our domain;

elevating judgment and duality; making us less by luring us to think we are more…

or less.

 

This is what I am learning – if we try to hold on to who we are…

If we try to keep safe who we believe we are now…

it is only dust,

to be blown away by the slightest breeze.

 

It is in the letting go where we are saved;

in the vulnerability;

in risking that if we lose our life, we will find it;

in the deep trust of Mystery who holds the letting go, vulnerability, and risking.

 

So let go of who you think you are suppose to be…

And I will drop the chains of expectation of who I think I am suppose to be –

Trusting ourselves to the vulnerability of this moment…

Trusting ourselves to trust Mystery.

 

If we lose this false sense of self, then…then…

we will be found.

And we will find ourselves – authentic, true, and free…

discovering within what has sustained our being all along – LOVE

 

LOVE – not removing  inward deserts, barren caverns, or empty chasms

(they are real and life companions) –

but discovering LOVE…with us…within these hard, scary, lonely places…now.

LOVE dwelling within us – our community, our creation, our being…perpetually.

 

And, yes, this gift given…it is a choice.

A grace and a responsibility for sure.

It is LOVE given to do with as we will –

like within this conversation of reconciliation.

 

Cromwell Meadow

Early spring and

meadow flowers greet me with wafts of love –

this is their time;

that’s the way of meadow flowers.

 

Waiting…

through short light-filled days;

through cold rains and beneath blankets of snow;

abiding within death shrouded horizons until their time.

 

We are the uncomfortable ones…

I mean letting life be as it is meant to be.

We work to prolong what is not ours to extend:

pick it, preserve it, in-case it, flatten and dry it…

 

We want to hold on to a rose-colored life;

as we desire it to be;

as we want to perceive it to be;

but this is not life’s rhythm.

 

We’ll work so hard to change a flower’s form –

altering its essence in the process;

forgetting…

a flower is only being what a flower can be.

 

Living only in its time;

blooming in its time;

offering redolence and blessings in its time;

loving the world with presence in its time.

 

Displaying beauty and infusing color;

offering community for creation’s creatures;

giving itself for the good of the whole;

trusting it is part of something bigger…something sustaining.

 

And change persists –

giving way to withering – giving itself to the earth;

loving in a new form…

loving completely.

 

Still the essence and spirit of the buttercup and aster lives on –

within us – a part of our essence now;

something we cannot contain nor hold;

still giving us joy…still loving us.

 

Oh that we could be as the flower,

living fully within our time;

living beyond glass walls of power, fear, prestige or from between the pages of expectation;

relinquishing the work of preserving who we think we are or suppose to be.

 

to live fully – as the flower…

feeling the cool spring breeze,

leaning into life’s storms;

soaking in the sun’s light,

 

Creating and adding beauty to the world,

anticipating our blooming,

offering community;

knowing we are a part of something bigger – giving love…giving love

 

And when it is our time to be here no more;

knowing our essence and spirit lives on in those we have loved;

we will become a part of a bigger whole – Creations community…

in our time.

trying to understand…

Who are we God?

Are we so lost?

Where lies become truth and divisiveness is lifted as unity;

where our leaders unsheathe fear daily.

 

And we justify…

We rationalize…

Contorting facts until

they match our truth.

 

Where one professes his Christianity –

a follower of the one, Jesus the Christ –

yet vehemently attacks the personhood of others daily.

Jesus…you did this?

 

Where one claims to be the chosen one…

placing himself equal with One who lived among us without stain.

one, a mortal, seeing no self-faults…no need for forgiveness.

Followed religiously by those who preached there is only One.

 

Others still, cower beneath the wielding of fear and hate –

selling their souls for the lust of power, prestige and approval;

taking the form of what they fear;

callousness their elixir…insecurity occupying their soul.

 

I am just trying to understand…

Who God is; our faith; what is gospel; who we say we are –

they are true in each moment?

Not to be  – can’t be – dissected from our living?

 

Why is there a need for such division among us?

My faith taught me God desires us to be community.

And why do believers follow this one so zealously instead of the One?

This one who reads Christmas greetings of unity – then attacks, divides,

and sows distrust.

 

A faith sojourner’s voice still rings within my preschool heart:

Mrs. Jackson…

“Be kind one to another”… “God loves everyone”…“We are all God’s children.”

Do we not know the greatest power – Love – already within?

 

And I am no saint for sure.

Needing daily awareness to tame my ego;

daily courage to choose Love over fear

(failure a frequent companion I must admit).

 

I have a part, I know, in applying a healing balm;

Speaking unity into divisiveness – within myself and into our world;

needing the touch of grace, forgiveness, and Love constantly.

So I write this as a beginning – trying to understand…

 

another day…

Another day Dear One,

and my longing for deep Union grows.

 

Another day, and still, guilt and shame fabricate a filtered vision –

perceiving through my faults, my failures, my inadequacies…

Scarcity’s presence always looming;

a veiled reality is all I can bear.

 

Another day and walls of fear separate me

from myself – from others;

from creation;

from You, Dear One.

 

Another day and I numbly embrace culture’s fixed categories and systems –

where control maintains a false security;

where oppression is a harness for perceived power;

where my fear, too, would enslave another within categories and systems.

 

You, though, Dear One… Your vision is veil-less and clear.

You love fearlessly – incessantly;

gazing upon us as Love’s potential – full of infinite possibility;

Your perspective unconstrained and limitless.

 

Unity – Your heart’s desire:

no labels…no categories…no typecasts.

In Your eyes – each moment sacred and new…dwelling in reality’s now;

Each day seeing us as we are – Love…

 

making each day not just another day.

Wake me up…

I feel my heart beating – desire driving me;

longing…aching…for a deeper intimacy;

Still, wanting to know;

wanting to be known.

 

Sensing…tasting Truth.

Wanting to hold its fullness –

knowing this paradoxical impossibility;

dreaming, still, that it might be.

 

My heart’s door open – braving known brokenness,

knowing brokenness will come again –

a portal to Union…Freedom…LOVE.

My little ego would try and convince me otherwise.

 

When I desire control, wake me up God.

When I yield to or live blindly out of fear – wake me up God.

When I am enmeshed in manipulative, egoist sacrifice – wake me up God.

When I do not see others or me as You see – wake me up God.

 

I am famished, hungering for elusive transformation.

Yet transformation – seemingly stagnant – stirs;

in motion, in this moment…in ways I cannot see…in ways that will become.

Wake me up…

 

Help my heart, then, to be quiet so that I may listen.

Help my being wait…not in anxious passivity, but in anticipatory hope.

Help my spirit discern the Spirit’s stirring within…a deep, ongoing conversation.

Wake me up…

Transformation…

Ego and Transformation are having an earnest conversation . . .

Ego, loud and seemingly confident – really, fearful of losing itself;

Transformation speaking from authenticity –

knowing Love, Freedom, and Truth.

 

My soul suspended within the dialogue ;

wishing only to hibernate just a bit longer –

muscles, nervously weak;

instinctively knowing living out ego’s desires is death.

 

I hear Transformation’s voice –

Her hope-filled intonations reverberating within my unknown –

knowing what I do not.

Waiting for me on the other side of threshold. . . waiting…

 

(Deep breath…)

 

What is my compelling desire…truly?

To dare move toward what I cannot fully know…trusting?

To want and to know Love more deeply?

Or to stand firm in perceived certainty – within my walled world view,

never moving closer than what I am now into Wholeness’ warm Light?

 

Am I ready?

Maybe it is the doubt revealed in this question

that keeps me from stepping into liminal space?

Am I willing to trust myself into Transformative Love?

 

Can I handle the gifts She offers?

I suspect not on my own – maybe that’s the point.

Shall I remain here in anxiety and fear’s ceaseless embrace?

Tunnel vision can feel safe…

 

Or will I focus on Love’s glint in Transformation’s eyes?

Will I recognize the hope She holds for me?

How She holds me?

Teaching me to embrace anxiety and fear?

Teaching me to embrace myself?

 

Vulnerability is risky…scary;

something to admire in others.

But, I know…

I know I cannot bear to stay where I am…

 

A deep trust-infused prayer slips silently past my lips.

Courage begins to encircle anxiety and fear.

I find myself, now, at Transformation’s portal.

I lift my foot. . .

It’s time, isn’t it?

It’s time, isn’t it, Dear One?

To lose myself a bit more;

my created self, that is?…

It’s time to let go.

 

I do feel grief welling up –

another end of whom I think myself to be.

It’s hard to leave a dwelling place;

where cloaked authenticity is the norm – comfortable…

but not really real.

 

Ego is afraid of losing itself, right?…

of sliding into nothingness?

The fear of possibilities is stirred, is it not?

that we might not belong;

that we might be worthless;

that we might be unlovable;

that our life is only a shadow and a whisper…a vapor;

that our life might not matter;

that we might awake to find all this to be true?

 

So we do what we can to hang on to our manufactured selves;

unwilling to risk the letting go…

of submerging ourselves in the waters of unknowing;

of free-falling into trust;

into who we might become.

 

We desperately grasp onto whatever gives identity –

praise, power, possessions.

We live a surface life.

We create an alternate self –

convincing ourselves our masks are skin and bone.

Addiction, attachments, shame, violence –

by-products of living out of who we are not.

Knowing – soul knowing – these are not true definitions of who we are.

 

It is only in the losing of ourselves, we are found…

 

So it’s time again, isn’t it, Holy One?

To respond to this perennial invitation;

to open clinched fists;

to bathe in the waters of unknowing;

to free-fall into trust;

to remove suffocating masks and breath freely;

to lose ourselves.

 

Knowing You are the heart-holder.

Knowing You are Love on my skin and in my bones.

Knowing the paradox of

grief transformed within joy;

falling as being lifted up;

letting go as being held;

losing myself as being found;

abandoning a created-self as discovering my authentic being.

Knowing I will be found in ways I cannot fathom.

Knowing I will be loved by Love into a deeper understanding and unity…

 

It’s time again, Dear One, isn’t it?

lost…and finding

Its subtleness is like a drug –

“busy-ness” consumes each next moment;

each next minute;

each next hour;

each next day.

 

I have followed the imperative paths of the next task

until I become numb to the contours of my own life.

Rote living has become rote.

I do not recognize home.

I do not recognize the essence of who I am.

 

Awareness awakens me…“I am lost.”

 

Lost in accumulated expectations;

Lost in incapacitating emotional muck;

Lost in debilitating relational upheaval;

Lost in exhausting, ego-feeding energy spent.

I am so far away from myself –

dissected from my soul.

 

Sunset approaches…

 

I am writing into darkness.

I am writing on the edge of what feels like non-existence,

sitting within midnight’s realm…

Where you cannot see me;

where I cannot see myself.

 

I am writing into pain –

not that which is felt by flesh,

but deep, description defying pain,

residing in the essence of our being…

boring its way toward the surface.

 

I am writing into shame and anger,

learned and unmerited,

placed on shoulders by others…by me;

anger birthed from guilt and this shame –

the denial of which turns to fear, bitterness, and hate.

 

How vulnerable it feels when our pain is exposed.

How vulnerable to name our anger, guilt and shame.

How vulnerable it feels when moving from invisibility to authenticity;

questioning our existence instead of living as if we don’t;

remaining in consuming darkness when it would be easier to flee.

 

I am so thirsty;

so hungry for lived truth.

I long for Home…

longing for Light in darkness – pre-dawn hope.

 

It’s time to let go of all that expectation would have me be –

who I am is enough in this moment…

will be enough in becoming.

It’s time to embrace darkness and pain…

the welcoming of which leads to wholeness.

It’s time to rise with life scars engraved into my being…

symbols of being truly alive – hidden by cosmetics no more.

It’s time for a grateful heart, knowing I am not alone –

held by both community and Creator.

How vulnerable it feels when you live fully into others and into this world.

 

And this is weakness?

I would suggest otherwise –

 

I am writing into freedom –

through the darkness and pain;

letting go of all that expectations have planned for me;

letting come all of whom I have been created to be.

being found daily…