Prez Donald Trump, Congressional Republicans, and assorted NRA buddies, have allowed open season on Americans across this great land for too long. As school children are hunted with assault rifles, the children may have to lead U.S. supposed grownups to stop the epidemic of mass shootings. I am deeply encouraged by the passion and skill that school children are bringing to the movement to end mass shootings and prevent schools from being battlegrounds or fortresses. May they be the generation that ends the scourge of mass shootings in America.
Please feel free to share this Anti SCHOOL SHOOTING POSTER: Prez Donald Trump – School as Public Hunting Area – Tweeting “Children are DEER to U.S. Most. DEER. Ever.”
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
He ran his won race Not around other men’s tracks But in open fields Into sunsets and sunrises Never looking back As no one affront And know time Where mostly losers must collect Outside The whiner’s circle And still Fodder time Will only Weather win place or show Every champ yon door Will not cry out As sum hoarse race Only to whinny But one race In riding a loan And won for awe Jockeying honor In steed Bye only crossing The finish line In unison As a singular knows Tide for thirst
This poem plays with the tensions between the importance of both our inner experience and compass and our collective outer experience. Self-knowledge and self-awareness are prerequisites for healthy functioning in the world. Otherwise we will be doomed to project our ignorance and misunderstanding onto others, confounding communication and degrading joint enterprises. We must know ourselves and trust our inner experience and instincts, if we are to live our own lives. This recognizes a radical aspect of our own inner subjective experience: that part of our lives is uniquely our own, both in terms of being only indirectly verifiable by others (what’s going on inside) and that our own agency gives us responsibility that cannot be pawned off on others. To some inescapable degree, we must run our own race. Recognizing this freedom and responsibility is the key to winning our own race: Not around other men’s tracks/But in open fields/Into sunsets and sunrises. If we gauge our own lives too much by others’ behavior and the various cascading situations in the world, we risk living lives as mere reaction formations of our environment. While this is a profoundly sad loss for ourselves, it also robs the world of the gift of another real live actor in the play of life. Of course, human life is an ensemble role; we share a collective stage and have intertwining stories. Life is not a horse race, with the inevitable winner and losers — though that may be part of the narrative we act out. In sharing both a collective stage and the power of each to contribute their own role to the play, life is pretty much guaranteed to be dramatic, perhaps somewhat chaotic, and hopefully interesting and fun. Human life begs both individual creative response-ability and a deeply collective attitude and respect for our shared enterprise. A wise ensemble of actors, recognizing the varied roles of protagonists and antagonists, gladly plays their role, not another’s. And as passions rise, the story unfolds. The story is not won by who is present in the last scene, but who are present at awe, wherever they peer. If there is a larger winning in life, it may very well be the solidarity of comrades sharing passions, but not necessarily playing the same roles: In unison/As a singular knows/Tide for thirst. As for that horse race: break a leg…
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
A daze work Over Come Bye sleep Sow few dream catchers Sow many dreams And that’s the catch
This poem is about work, vocation, passion, and burnout. This poem is mournful in that so many dreams go unrealized, uncaught. This poem is a hopeful invitation to pursue your dreams with more vigor, focus and intent. As the Bible so aptly points out, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37) Work is often tiring, as being impelled to do stuff that is tiresome. Enough work and we burnout. Vocations, on the other hand, unleash passions and dreams. With excessive work we miss both sleep and dreaming with our eyes wide open. Vocations both generate dreams and actively invest time and life energy in pursuing said dreams. Still, having sufficient dreams is not generally the rate-limiting factor, unless we are totally burned out. Most often, paying dear attention to those dreams and befriending them with the freshest and best parts of us is what enables us to catch our dreams. May you organize your life in such a way that you are well-suited to catch your dreams.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Hers was a blinding faith Sow bright That it often left her without peer Few could fathom such countenance As she left them smiles behind A grate number are partial To glean faint moonlight Mirror dim reflections Of their dreary world Rather than stare into one such bright star Of such undifferentiated light In discriminate hope From celestial furnaces Most believe Better to be leery Anywhere near foreboding Inclement whether Shoes dropping On roads paved with good intentions Or easy devotion to cynical amasses Having it made In the shade Or even to a void in certitude More at home groping in the dark Than by a blinding faith
This poem is an ode to faith. Faith is metaphysical optimism, the blood that beats through wholehearted living. Faith is only manifest in the mettle of life fully lived, put to the test. Such a way of life is akin to the scientific method, but its subject is subjectivity, metaphysics, a life lived to discover or confirm how metaphysical optimism can transform living. Bold testing is the natural course of faith. Where and how far can faith take us? Empirical skepticism, the fuel that powers the engine of science, is analogous to this bold testing. Yet, scientists, who are subjects themselves, often project their own hubris onto subjective matters, leveling “spirituality” for putting forth bold — unfortunately, sometimes bald — faith assumptions for good living. All the while, there is a nagging tendency to conveniently overlook that there is no such thing as an assumptionless philosophy, even by those subjects operating in scientific endeavors. Yep, as quantum physicists know awe to well, the experimenter changes the experimental results. In “real world” terms this is simply recognizing that what questions we ask determine the answers. We, subjects awe, deeply participate in whatever answers will come our way. I, for one, am much more fascinated by the questions of how we transform our lives through the science of living matters, than simply nailing down the science of dead matter, fixated on predictability and control. Of course, nailing down stuff plagues the human condition in both scientific and metaphysical endeavors. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” The question still remains: in which half of the creeds does faith live? This can only be tested and confirmed by personal discovery, in our living. While there is a lot of truth in the truism that misery loves company, I would venture to say that passionate optimism is far more attractive than life-sucking cynicism. This poem is intended to capture the reactions of living in the wake of bold metaphysical optimism, often through an irresistible pull to live fuller lives, and sometimes by shrinking into the seeming security of smaller certitudes. May you find yourself putting your deepest faith to the test, and in this mettle may you discover many bright and beautiful alloys along the way.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
The last time He punched A time clock It was time to stop A feudal gesture Accept that It got him fired Up to his passions Eyes wide open After halving it awe And feeling dread In the mirror mourning Shuddered into pieces Having watched His life Go bye As hows divided Against won self But now Happening upon him To be Re-billed every moment A knew Yet know longer Buy Sordid clock suckers And boorish time machines Transporting too distant years Never wanting Such promise A-trophy Re: tired Too due much As everything ails In the passed Having shown up Today
This is perhaps an appropriate Monday poem for many of the wage slaves working out there. The first theme addresses one of my grate pet peeves in modern capitalistic culture of most daze experiencing the violence of an alarm clock to get out of bed, usually to work for someone else. The evil genius and efficiency of replacing a human taskmaster with an electronic device in which wee dutifully assure our appointed time as “shown up,” speaks the the successful internalization and colonization of our lives by bosses. Most spend most of their waking hours at a job, or jobs, that most would leave if they felt they could. Many would rather be sleeping. Some may find it difficult to find the difference between a-little-too droning-on working and a-little-too fitful sleeping. We sell ourselves wholesale, some might say prostitute ourselves, for the promise of what remains. This poems overall theme is about trading now for the future. This can be a dangerous busyness — sometimes as dangerous as living fully in the now! The strange paradox here is that the danger of seeking predictability and security in life is often the very thing that robs us of life; while a passion-driven now may bring a careening future routinely beyond prediction, such a future is a more lively and life-filled future than the promise of conventional wisdom’s financial security and touted freedom from uncertainty. The present is uncertainty, and the freedom this entails. Inasmuch as we recoil from uncertainty, we make ourselves vulnerable to the purveyors of branded futures, featuring proprietary properties, that are designed to convince you to sell today for tomorrow — or more commonly, a paycheck every two weeks. Granted, a few folks experience the serendipity of their passions now lining up with their various bosses (or co-conspirators). Still, the inescapable equation is that quality of life is directly tied to how often you show up for your own life, that is compared to pawning your life for money or a boss’ designs on your own. May your life be shown up by an incredible series of presents.
P.S. This is my 500th blog entry. I better watch it or I may be considered productive.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
She was born with two black eyes Living in a whirled Wear her highest aspirations Sore over the lowly color blind As every color whited out Yet she sails the sees of dark and light As two dance freely A bout just us As real eyes Realize Real lies And sojourn truth
This poem is a tribute to awe the positive power, beauty and wisdom that Black women birth into this world. De-spite all of the racism, sexism, classism, and other aspersions heaped upon them, they reveal truth responding to a dominant culture of lies. Even as often dealt three strikes from birth, their two Black eyes reveal a compassion honestly earned, unleashing a mother’s love and a sister’s devotion in a world sorely in need of them. I thank you! May every sacrifice you make return a hundred-fold.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
In her dreams She is wanting To be moved By more than Slumber too slumber Mirrorly to a wake Daze unending With that annoying buzz Thirst thing in the mourning The pique of the day The latest snooze A stay of execution From a commute Never quiet arriving In during The same owe same owe A mounting to nothing Carrion on From dead line to dead line Only hopping To meet your destiny Long the weigh Too the beat Down Of a humdrum In exhaustible work lode Sow being a ware Only dealing With sum strain Of staff infection A little off And on and on and on Without a brake Wading For some kind Of savor In any respect Of a Jōb Well Done Succeeded by rehash for dinner A little bit like Looser For awe that has been urned From dusk to dusk And willing succor For a weak end And easing into won bunk Affording seconds of fuel’s goaled Mine razing At the prospect Too due it Agin
This is a good Monday mourning poem for all of you enduring slave wagers. To me, work is simply doing that which you do not want to do, that which we do when we would rather be doing something else. The conventional wisdom is that there are inescapable compromises that must be made, such as selling large chunks of our life to finance the remains. Wee are part and parcel of this so-called American dream, which George Carlin so aptly observed, “It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it” — that is, if you can fit sleep into your schedule! Frankly, I can no longer afford to go to such conventions, though I’ll meet them half way with the whole whizzed ’em thing.
Having to wake up to an alarm strikes me as one of the great bastardizations of true awakening. If you get up and it is dark out, you might want to make a note of that, hopefully, plenty of notes, see notes!
If you are going to sell yourself, I would definitely hope that you get a good price. Still, there is a whirled of difference between getting a good price and a good prize. Selling your own passions, your own heart’s desires for someone else’s notion of productivity is perhaps the real idolness. Far too often, no one can even really identify the specific person whose notion of productivity is being served. Wherever it is, it’s the birthplace of “It’s not my job” and “I’m only doing my job” as workers serve nameless and unaccountable masters, and can’t help, but serve in their master’s apathetic and/or irrelevant image. The bulk of so-called work in capitalist cultures represents an immeasurable opportunity accost of passions passed and hearty lusts lost. Even awe that has been urned echoes in time off, weather having perpetual rehash as eve approaches or dread as eve withers a way in the dread of coming daze.
May you find work indistinguishable from play, an awakening without alarm, and find no idolness in site.
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POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
She stated No one else can do what I do To witch They rejoined Realing in whore Accept that you are a cog You intractable wrench Unfit for cloning round And unstranded She cut out From the puppet tier Knot to be Am ployed As if She were eunuch
This poem is about breaking away from the artifice and inhumanity of the machine, aka, capitalism, which is designed to monetize you in any way possible. When someone discovers the passion of their unique role and contribution to the world, the machine pushes back as it has difficulty incorporating one’s soul eccentricities into it’s standardized system and dehumanized algorithms. Generous portions of creativity easily overwhelm “the way we have always done things” as well as distant, disconnected orders from big bosses. Creativity is so unnatural to the machine that it ultimately creates huge inefficiencies, even amidst its seeming devotion to efficiency. The machine typically finds it much more expedient to grind cows to hamburger than even milk them for all that they are worth. Workers’ humanity routinely suffers the analogous outcome. Creativity that cannot be easily plugged into the machine is ignored, discounted, or actively stifled. In this poem, the sheer stupidity and foolishness of a system that fails to adapt to the unfathomable creativity of the human spirit is represented by the rhetorical question that is the title: Can she be eunuch? Beside the overlayed meaning of the pun eunuch/unique, the definitional absurdity of a female being a eunuch (a castrated male) illustrates how the machine fundamentally misunderstands and misuses the very people it is alleged to serve. The machine is indiscriminate in its castration! Of coarse, such crudeness does serve some people, just not workers within the system. Even though a system well designed to incorporate human creativity and eccentricities could unleash incalculable efficiencies and productivity AND be well aligned with the desires and needs of each of those working within such a system, the capitalist system is not intended to produce the greatest good, particularly the common good, but instead is geared and cogged to produce material wealth for an elite few who pull the levers of so-called industry. Private profit at the expense of human potential and the common good is the only real order of the day in capitalism. The common good is reduced to foolhardiness as it is wide open to being robbed by the capitalistic princes of virtue, greed being the organizing principle of capitalism. Human attributes not easily monetized atrophy in capitalism. Turning humans into cogs for personal profit may very well be one of the better definitions of evil. Robbing others of their God-given creativity and eccentric passions for a few bucks and a cynical acceptance of a diminished humanity is a pathetic way of honoring the countless gifts humanity brings to the world. Courageous creativity, the bold commitment and determination to find a way to be who you were created to be, is the answer to the dehumanizing capitalistic machine. Reveling in the infinitely greater portion of life that is not easily monetized assures a home and hearth for your own humanity and all those who take the time to be present to such gifts. May you find your unique passions and the courage to boldly follow them in their many serendipitous consummations.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
A little bit Of shame Goes along Weigh Too much With blinders Knot visible In a sense Lost To over looking As awe full as life is
This poem is about the overabundance of shame, a tail as owed as time that wags the dog. Shame is one of the all-time popular weighs of controlling others. Shame is a lazy substitute for inspiration. Inspiration comes with a whole lot of work, such as patience, integrity, passion, and compassion. Shame is a seductive shortcut that cheats us out of the beauty full results of worthy effort. In essence, shaming others is shaming ourselves. As they say: you can’t point your finger at someone else without pointing four fingers back at yourself. Relying on inspiration and example is a much better weigh. There is a tribe in Africa where anytime a member commits some offense, they surround them and pummel them with every good thing about them, a wellness practice very telling. Social psychology has well documented that focusing on building assets is more productive than focusing on deficits. The rhythms of the human soul seem to be much more in tune with inspiration and positive regard than shame, criticism, and punishment. In theological terms, this might be simply stated that good is stronger than evil. Traditional religion often betrays this belief by focusing on original sin rather than original blessing; that is, accenting our inherent falling short rather than our inherent goodness. May you readily see the goodness in yourself and others, and faithfully live out of our better portion.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
He knew knot Exactly where He was going As fate would have it Seized by easy convictions Big house Auto, pilot And every won else’s Re-guard Of one self full Filled Buy in And sell out In humanity A sure thing The gold In rule A void Apprehensions Of vassal late Making one’s self The whore of certain knowledge The john of dreams undared Unfailing in his coarse Fining himself Scared to dearth Of his constipated destiny meting
This poem deals with the vanity and danger of pursuing material success and cashing in on conventional wisdom. The good life is all too often pawned off as having fine possessions or relishing in status or celebrity. Possessions have a way of possessing us. In a world where so many have so little, fine possessions can be devilish. Status or celebrity has a way of simply highlighting our own emptiness or hypocrisy in a pressurized or scrutinized existence. Fine possessions and status are typically acquired through the successful use (and misuse) of conventional wisdom, or simply through unmerited privilege. Albeit, celebrity sometimes comes through more notorious means. Still, we all know where this leads: the well-worn hierarchies of winners and losers. In a constipated destiny, everyone knows their place. Predictability (sometimes better known as ‘security’) and fatalism serve as poor substitutes for true daring and bold hope. Well-worn rules (and rulers) of the game leave little but cheap thrills and expensive highs to assuage our stultified lives. The bulk of our lives are leased for weekends. Passionate vocations are bartered for passing vacations. Awe sold for certainty. Dreams pimped for fear of being a sucker, or worse. May you live a life where you are not scared to dearth, settling for mere material finery or tranquilizing status, a constipated destiny, or hellish blandness. May you follow your dreams in a way that literally scares the hell out of others!
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
POEM: Breath of Fresh Heir Each mourning Brings that which is light Though wanting to rest As the whirled spins under my feet I am Still Razed Too my feat Standing on Perhaps a singular word Mysteriously helled Together In God-ordained gravity Until that thirst Breath of fresh heir As awe is knew This poem is about coming out of […]...
I under stood God’s might And might not And in awe probability New That I Will only Fooly see Phase to phase Until awe of creation Come prized my parish
This poem is about dying to see the face of God. This takes two forms: dying when unable to see the face of God and dying if a mere mortal human were to see the face of God. The first form is the traditional form preached about and at others to point out their deficiencies and need for God. I find this form fraught with peril as pedantic and fixated on the lack of God’s presence, the very thing it seeks to dispel! As if God could successfully hide; fortunately, on this account, God is a total loser. God bursts forth from creation, if not well reflected in humans, then from nature. Still, God is a total loser because God cannot reveal God’s full face to humans without literally blowing out our mind and being as humans. There is a protective veil necessary to preserve and maintain human existence. I am far more intrigued with this second form of dying to see the face of God, the Oneness of awe, worthy of my worship. My deep faith is roughly matched with deep skepticism for authority. I want peace and reconciliation in this matter — perhaps even to the point of my matter exploding.
The Judaeo-Christian tradition of dying if one were to see the face of God originates in Exodus 12-23, when Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments from “I am,” the name God chose to reveal to Moses. This is how the conversation is retold (NIV translation):
Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
In a conversation with one of my former pastors related to seeing the backside of God, I noted that this made perfect sense, that is, a carpenter son would have a plumber for a father. His irrepressible grin and laugh reflected the joy that is the infallible presence of God.
For as much as God does, God may seem to do little to nail down God’s intentions at the crossroads of our lives — humans seem much more intent on that! In surpassing logic, God proffers a taught a logical lessen: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Grate! So God expects me to lead my life based on mercy and compassion coming out literally from God knows where?! Of course, there is also that whole ten commandments thing, written in stone no less! In the coarse of life, the Jews expanded this to 613 laws, establishing a firm foundation for eternal arguments. My whole point is this: it is never enough. As my one-line poem matriculates: I often find myself stuck in that awkward time between birth and death. This built in yearning to understand God and God’s creation drives both spiritual enterprises and scientific endeavors. Learning to live into this fundamental yearning, whether experienced as the mystical union with God or a unified scientific understanding, comprises much of wisdom: Until awe of creation / Come prized my parish.
Awe of this wrests in the shadow of an unwholly dissatisfaction. I am deeply intrigued by the profound dissatisfaction with spiritual enterprises, most commonly cited as religion, that live in this shadow. Ironically, in such a critique of religion, this perfectionism and idealism to which religion falls woefully short is precisely that which under-girds religion: the quest for a coherent whole which can bring with it the peace of heart and mind. This common quest is shattered by fundamentalism, weather buy religious legalists or militant atheists. I view such fundamentalism as the grate divide in life, not simply the speak easy surrounding theism.
I am fascinated by the contention often put forward by atheists, that God is a projection of human minds. There is much truth in this. Psychologically speaking, projection is superimposing the ego’s shadow, or incomplete understanding, onto that outside the ego, thereby purporting or inferring a distorted truth. More simply put: “We don’t see the world as it is, we see the world as we are.” Of course, this is neither proof nor reproof in the master debate over theism. This is true whether God’s perish or God’s parish. Nonetheless, projection is a powerful force and critical diagnosis each of us should make to move toward a more robust and healthy relationship with reality. The diagnosis of projection is a necessary but not sufficient condition, the hallmark of never-ending scientific discovery.
The deeper quest in is how do we best move through inevitable projection and, even more boldly, firmly center our self (ego) in a ground of being that will most reliably guide us to an expanding humanity and more accurate under standing of the deepest realities. I contend that the spiritual master Jesus best articulated this in the spiritual practice and commandment (a should) by instructing us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I am unaware of any more powerful and reliable guide to an expanding humanity and more accurate under standing of the deepest realities, whether from a religious or an atheistic perspective. I cite my own experience and the experience of millions of others in testing out this hypothesis with scientific rigor and skin in the game much greater than most of the most articulate purveyors of scientific discovery. Most simply put, if you want to put the God hypothesis to the test and dare experience a glimpse of the awe mighty, this may very well be the closest we can get: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” This existential treat ease rests on authority emanating from scientific rigor applied to our whole life and God deeply roots for us to experience this phase to phase in hour life. In the face of a whirled of hurt, may your life reflect the mercy and compassion that comes from God knows wear.
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POEM: Innocence — An Owed In A Sense Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise Her bosom leaped […]...
Her innocence Was immune to their dis ease As be wilder And a tempt However tempered Only to be Dis missed As just A guile
His innocence Deified awe bravery In the face Of accusations summoned As subdude As never a cur to them Posing the quest in Guise will Be guise
Her bosom leaped Skipping to a beat As sir passingly chaste Giving birth in maternal rapture Nun the lass Put out By those racking up Scorn points Holy to be allayed
His heart sang As here the music Faced Temporal forces Craven reseeding To proper gate the race Certifiably birthed In a heil of ballads Or castrating scores Of bullet points Writing Him off In tom foolery or gaiety
Sow There it is In a sense Light as it may be Worth the wait Up till Abated breath
This poem, an ode to innocence, addresses the default cynicism and mistrust in contemporary modern culture. Innocence is suspect. Original sin has much more effective branding than original blessing. The unguarded are as likely to be blamed for violations as violators. Plus, passionate living is often viewed as potentially dangerous. Freely following one’s passions can often be inconvenient or unnerving to others who might prefer a more staid, predictable environment. Exercising freedom, by definition, limits the predictability available to those who live alongside you. Exercise freedom enough to challenge the socializing forces of any given culture and you can expect these forces to provide sanctions designed to exorcise your freedom. Shame and punishment is a poor trade for the inevitable vagaries of free and passionate living.
This poem, with alternating female and male subjects, also confronts gender roles and their over-sexualization, particularly of women. Hyper-sexualization is a major means of reducing free human beings to controllable objects, for the proper gating of the race. Viewing others as free subjects in a shared humanity rather than objects in a controlled environment is essential to the evolution of humanity.
Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of innocence is the shame-free liberation it unleashes. As a child responds freshly to the world unfolding before them, harmony and positive change become more accessible. The maturity of experience can bring a disciplined freedom committed to an innocent wildness and natural generosity, even in the face of powerful shaming and sanctions bidding us to sell our freedom for a slice of the take. May you successfully dance circles around the forces of shaming and punishment, ever inviting others to joyfully join the dance of freedom.
Some say That he sucked The marrow from life And resin ate Down to my bones Blood brothers In what is Not a race To judge knot In won slice of life Or as-certain fine truth From lowly metaphor And in due coarse Don’t wait For meaning found In dried bones
This poem is a tip of the hat to Henry David Thoreau and the value of raw experience and overflowing passions over disembodied philosophizing and moral asceticism. Thoreau’s famous mission statement for his life in the woods is recorded in his book, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods, as follows:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
Life is to be delved into, dived into, not dispassionately observed from the sidelines. The passions embodied in following our bliss are great teachers of both the extravagantly abundant and radically simple facets of life. The greater sin in life is to be bound to material and moral finery at the expense of an uncertain coarseness and careening zest for life. Mistakes will be made, but few greater than resignation or trepidation yielding that which is narrow rather than marrow. May you suck at life and on the marrow find life sturdier.
The starving artist Whose art couldn’t be made Fast enough Fore his dealer Rejecting means Except as accede In awe but name groan Poising as a plant To the extant one can make cents Putting the Monet in monetize
This poem goes out for awe of the artists successfully resist compromising their heart in order to achieve commercial success. Compromising our humanity to monetize our lives seems to be at the core of our capitalist culture. The stark choices between money and people often appear surreal due to the sheer omnipresence of selling out. When sickness becomes the norm, a healthy path seems insane. As Krishnamurti so aptly stated, “It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Art serves a purpose far deeper than “making a living, ” by connecting and re-connecting us to our most primal and highest feelings and aspirations. Art can serve as an antidote to the societal sickness built on wanton conformity and shallow efficiency. Perhaps fortunately, art is often so undervalued that it serves as a ready vehicle for giving freely, de-linked from monetary ventures. Perhaps giving freely seems like an un-fiord-able luxury (perhaps privilege is a more apt word), but carving out spaces and places for that which cannot be bought is at the core of a healthy humanity, and hopefully not merely an afterthought. In perhaps the ultimate irony of artists and their art in a capitalistic culture, the most reliable way to increase the commercial value of your art is to die. Rather than the death by a thousand compromises suited to most modern jobs, artists may literally need to die to boost the commercial value of their work. The gods of supply and demand favor dead artists. Hopefully, artists will be better valued by their enlivening passion instilled in their art rather than the mortifyingly clammy calculus of the marketplace. Starve the beast, make art; and may you find it full, filling.
I want it awe
Yet what do you no
What measures
Must we take
From emanate ripples
He helled the earth in his hand
Of what intimated
Of know consequence
A dinky mount
To sky ward heavin’
Hoping only to rock the whirled
Impelled to sea
In escapable gravity
Never in visioning
That there is
None boulder
In his pond-erous
And Sisyphean weigh
Casting all he once held dear
As flippin’ grovel
Into an unbroken mirror
As just
Hanging in
Con centric circles
Learning too a bridge lessen
As a bait
Waving less and less
To say good buy
As their reach is their largesse
Only to leave us
With an eerie qualm
And little
If any thing
To take
To the bank
Shoring up any pausible hope
Un-availed by the human I
Wither or not
As poetry
Reduced to pros
As awe things reckon
As precisely quota’d
A praising every angle
Bent on wane
Every thing
That is
Having fits
The scale
Leaving us
The lit-less
And immeasurable whoppers
The won with abacuses and slyed rule
Counting upon the inevitable apple
Fallen from trees on shore
Given too fruity beaches
With nothing
Better to do
A Newtonian uni-verse
As if
Dispatching
A lagoon squad
In sum kind of egression analysis
In a bounty us pool of data
Free from water
Fishing
In err
With out-land-ish loch
On learning
Of fall-ibility
Grounded in certitude
Agitated a bout
Tsunamis of certainty
And faintest freedom
Fueled agin
Too buy too
An arc
Reliant up on
Being largely stoned
And heading south
All the faster
To murky depths
Still
In this abyssal life
Wear there is
Every thing but
Life re-sides
In a soul place
For awe
As be-wilder-ed
Knot mirrorly a void
A stones throw aweigh
As be guiled
Cursory-ing like a sailor
Skimming the mirror surface
A mist watery solutions
Crying out
Over an abyss
All armed a bout
Drowning in what
We are trying
Too divine
What you can count on
Ripple™
In hitting one’s bottom
Throne down a well
As per cent
100 proof
Making a wish
Of scientific rigor
Sow rarefied
As iron out
Of awe that is mist
Worshipping statutes
That no copper can enforce
Nailing the truth to dead wood
Caskets and buckets
Lowered
Hung out too dry
Bailing out
Awe that is well
A tempting
Sow perverse
Amiss under stood
Plunk rock band
Billowing out
In con sequential
To sum
So poor tending
The easily fluttered
And shirking
That beneath us
Or sow a peer
Do be us
As it may seam
Take me littoral
And fathom deeply
The coast of freedom
Fore who knows
More of that which swells
Those who lead
Unfetid lives
Learning their keep
In this
Life unearth
Or those who undertake
Properly measured lives
In a dogma eat dogma whirled
Vainly exacting an incalculable prize
On each and every won
For in
The sweet by and by
It is
Better to be
Taken in
Than taking out
Rulers
And measuring cups
In the see of life
This poem goes out to my friend, Toby, who in a conversation a couple of evenings ago inspired and quasi-commissioned a poem (and blog entry) around the metaphor of fathoming the ripples from a stone being thrown in a body of water. In our conversation this was about measuring the effects of our actions, specifically social justice actions, as to the effect they have on the world and its inhabitants. The hope was to better harness this knowledge in order to parlay it into more effective actions.
This poem tackles a familiar theme of mine: how a fixation on scientific-reductionistic methods weigh too often rob us of access to deeper meanings. So, here goes:
Most of my life, my working assumption has been that if other folks just knew what I knew that they would act congruently with me. I don’t put much stock in this assumption anymore. Hell, much of the time, I don’t even act congruently with the knowledge with which I have been blessed. I have spent many moments and years projecting my sense of rationality onto others. I have spent many moments and years projecting my favored modes of rationalization onto others. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that reality is deeply ordered and that this order is accessible, even more so than we usually think. I am still cursed with the double-edged sword of an abundance of right opinion. Still, I have come to more deeply appreciate that we act more out of our emotional sensibilities, which are profoundly molded by our self-interest, whether that interest is privileged or disenfranchised. I view our emotional sensibilities and the sum total in our life of our various privileges and disenfranchisements as the primary drivers of our actions, over and above our routine thinkings. In fact, motivational and behavioral research shows that the primary causal direction of changed attitudes is from behavior, not knowledge. In other words, our attitudes change more from changing behaviors than changing knowledge. This is caught up in a matrix of cognitive dissonance, where we have a powerful need to make sense of our lives as it is at any given moment, and rationalizations supporting any given status quo are favored. Changing what we do, voluntarily or involuntarily, shifts our attitudes much more robustly than even large changes in knowledge. This undergirds the suggestion of “fake it til you make it,” recognizing the power of cognitive dissonance to drive our attitudes and thinking to match our behavior. While this may seem inauthentic to some degree, simply compare it to the endemic hypocrisies represented by vastly incongruous knowledge and beliefs with our behavior. This also gives a tip of the hat to the classical liberal paradigm of the importance of environmental conditions. Our own personal collections of privileges and disenfranchisements, either personally or socially, are weigh more important to making sense of our behavior than cataloging, or even changing, our knowledge and beliefs. In sum, knowledge is routinely over-weighed in behavior change and social change.
My view is that plumbing the nature of our own privilege and disenfranchisement is a much firmer foundation upon which to build a life-affirming world. This self-knowledge can generate powerful insights into others and is a prerequisite to empathy. Reflecting on both grace (unmerited privilege) and unjust relationships (disenfranchisement) can leverage the attitudinal changes necessary for a better world for all. Mustering the courage to let go of unmerited privilege when it perpetuates unjust relationships, and change our behavior accordingly, even if it feels uncomfortable and scary, will align our lives at a deeper level of comfort and peace. Knowledge will follow. Knowledge will catch up to our passions. Life-affirming knowledge is wisdom. All other knowledge is unnecessary clutter, actually confounding the manifestation of wisdom. Where a whole heart rules, all is well. Living in won’s head can foster a perversely dangerous idealism, disconnected from the world of the living. If this strikes you as in any weigh anti-intellectual, you may want to delve into my blog — I speak from experience.
May you find a weigh in life that lifts up both yourself and others.
He axed me What are your demands Other than justice Or saving life? Claiming that We must shed light On just said Shady distinctions I mirrorly pronounced That the win blows And we no knot wear Such goest In this Ruth-less whirled Whither fallowing Long the weigh In grave deliverance Or Idol metings And hollowed turning Led to goaled As wee are ruled out In is capable Voiding this cryptic rout Wear even The wise crack Quipping us Beyond what said As inevitable Ran some Never the less A firm I no people Who are experts In every thing for sail Filling the echo chamber With rounds and rounds And shots for the hole shebang Who wouldn’t know just us If it Peered before them Un-less Creating an impression As passing wind A harness for the people Those political wins Properly rigged As canvassing In every dialection That exclusive rationale Making everyone wont to yacht Just saying Utterly finished With such stale heir And wads of dollareds For which the winds of change blow Only wanting to go somewhere Wear I can Breathe Just as The win
This poem is about means and ends, and the dangerous complications of focusing so much on methods and techniques that the intended ends are no longer produced by the means. For example, much ado about the Occupy movement focused on the perplexity about the apparent lack of specific demands. Nevertheless, if you asked most any American what the movement was demanding, most of what they perceived was accurate. Fix Wall Street; resist injustices with your whole body and soul — this might be one fair interpretation. However, the distractive powers of the concrete are usually sufficient to keep one’s feet from hitting the concrete. Getting caught up in the details can allow us to quiet effectively bend those details to our own privilege and self-interests. If we keep our eyes on the prize, details will remain details, and how we get there becomes, well, details. Still, even Wall Street, in its seeming Teflon vacancy, may appear immune to hanging the big picture upon. You have to bring your own faith, they are sold out. There is little argument that the Occupy movement has changed the political winds. Who doesn’t immediately recognize and resonate with the framework of the 99% versus the 1%, and what justice demands?
The pragmatism of the world usually carries the day. Courageous idealism, breeding hope and sacrificial solidarity, carries generations. For the pregnancy of ideals to be borne into the world, they need to be carried to term, long-term. The political riggings of short-term wins offers tempting short-term relief and the lure of incremental change. Still, the winds of change will carry any riggings as it will; the pragmatism of politicians will follow any political wind. Such is God’s genius, that even the most conniving politician will eventually, even dutifully, follow the political winds. The purpose of the citizen is to be the wind. The patience, passion, and wisdom necessary for the good life can never be nailed down by technocratic solutions. Whether the most “civilized” political compromise or outright crucifixion, a vital human heart cannot be built or destroyed by the best and brightest minds machinations nor the most-well-trained minions. The spirit enlivening humanity comes and goes freely as the win. Our way of life is literally a way of life, not an end to be achieved. In the inescapable and quite capable dynamism of life, the means and the ends are, in fact, the same. Daily living in a courageous and just fashion, no matter how unfashionable, is the truest currency of democracy; the rest is derivative, that is, follows.
I listen To that which speaks A bigger In feeleds of dreams Wanting more Then words Aloft from fences Of unsatisfying breadth And stealy calculation Dis passionate mines As inevitable ballbusters Descending from bona fide guise Even handed lines Powerless as me pick-up As I have not There be little left Of right And wrong Targeted means As I am Made to feel That I have Gone nuts Sow detached Over looking My groan Up cast For what have wee To sphere On earth Like broken vassals What have I too loose As a flea wagging doggedly In treating me too stay As a thorn in my pause As if I was lyin’ Or some thing Crying out Give it arrest Only wonting Hang round Like sum constellation price For nebulous reasons Orbit The bull it points Forsake of the cause Professoring each reaction err he As if I am Missing inaction And it’s time To grow a pare Seceding where others have flailed More than a head Of their times Boosting their future For this is how They roll Off the curve Into the streets Overwhelming every buy way And what have anew Thorough fair for all And rout in justice As we due it owed school Where truth metes feat In tuition Of life
I’m publishing this poem and blog post instead of going to a meeting. I’m not big on meetings. And I’m getting smaller with each passing day. About the only meetings I go to are activists planning one thing or the other. I tend to avoid even these meetings. Unfortunately, I generally find them unsatisfying. Fortunately, the outcomes of these meetings are not sorely changed without my presents. Over the last year or so, after the occasional meeting, I have quipped that I only go to a meeting once a season just to remind myself why I don’t go to meetings. I have been to countless meetings in my life, as a recovering professional planner. These activist meetings fare above the average level of meeting satisfaction — though that might not be setting the bar very high. This situation is captured by another saying of mine: that isn’t beneath me; it’s behind me.
Of course, when I refer to meetings, I mean formal meetings. I like meeting with people, just more informally. I like planning, more like conspiring, for activist actions. I’d rather meet and conspire with activists at actions or in social settings without any driving agenda. Or, afterwards, just catch the gist of what may been accomplished, in a few moments. Then, see how I might participate. I find myself on a steady path of wanting to live more organically; that is, with a minimum of man-made organizational structures. My bullshit meter has become quite powerful. I find that formal meetings, by either design or effect, draw out our more base instincts of wanting power/influence and control over others. This tendency enmeshed with what I view as an over-intellectualization of the issues at hand poisons my experience. Of course, I am a recovering abstract intellectualist; and I deliberately practice avoiding taking that first proverbial drink of the ever-sought perfected ideology or strategy. I feel that I have found some balance between my head and my heart. I find most meetings stifling to my heart. My deepest yearnings are for our broken hearts to pour into the streets for the healing of the world. I suppose this is way too messy for the powers that be. I have studied the ways of personal and social change for my whole adult life, and with increasing frequency my heart overturns my distinguished head. I guess that am slowly gaining my anarchist credentials, which, of course, means not relying on credentials. I am deeply intrigued in exploring collective action without relying on cumbersome formal power. I am finding increasing peace on the margins of power, even the margins of activists’ power. I strongly suspect that nurturing the ability to sustain peace even at the margins of formal power is, in fact, a form of informal power of which humans could use more. May you be empowered to follow your dreams.
Alex created A work of art And Another Each infinitely improbable In possibility incarnate Bound only By certain desire One in many
This poem is a mini-manifesto on art and the artistic process; hopefully, inducing some inspiration and incarnating some guidance. Surly, art can be enhanced by rarefied skills. Still, art at its core is a work of heart. Art is democratic in a sense; anyone willing to dance with desire and possibility can cast a vote. Art is abundantly fair in that you can vote early and often in this existential dance called life. Ultimately, the whole of our life is our work of art. Of course, critics also abound. Those who can’t do, teach; those who can’t teach, criticize. We all have areas of our lives where doing, leading by example, being the change we want to see in the world, devolves into mere teaching. Further, we all have areas of our lives where teaching devolves into mere criticizing. Some don’t even have the passion or self-awareness to even choose what they do, and instead of living, their life is lived for them by the forces surrounding them. The freedom in creating art is bound by certain desire. As certainly, our desires and passions are unique, not identical to any other. In expressing our unique selves and perspectives, art is both intensely personal and inescapably social, an expression of our experience as one in many. Some claim that all art is about God. I think this means that all art is an expression of our experience as one in many and our relationship with the whole, the One, of which some call God. Of course, many artists are reluctant to speak of God directly, often for very different reasons. Some view the One as unspeakably beautiful and speaking falls short, even more so than our tentative art or lives. Some view any formal relationship with God, often referred to as religion, as a source of unspeakable horrors. I suspect that the views on this are as diverse as the art and artists daring to ponder such stuff. Neither this poem, nor my rantings, are intended to serve as some ultimate guide to political correctness, though my life inescapably expresses a particular perspective. While this poem is not overtly political — a little unusual for my poems — I tend to view artists as inherently political, mostly because artists make lousy slaves.
On a different note, some may wonder if the names I use in my poems are based on real people. Sometimes they are; usually they are not. I tend to select androgynous names, both as a way of avoiding sexist complications and as another way to pack two meanings in one. Authors often write about what they know. As a man, I often simply write from a male perspective; thus, I more often choose male characters. Of course, sometimes I choose a character’s gender in a way that challenges dominant gender definitions and stereotypical views of masculinity and femininity.
His hole life He refused to get carried away Keeping his emotions in check A promissory note Just enough to cover his pallbearers
A noteworthy life, one that is lived wholeheartedly, is not without passion. Life: it’s all in the risk. The point of life is not to arrive safely in your grave. As Helen Keller so aptly declared, “Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.” A life reserved is a life lost. We must loose our life in order to gain it! In my first short story as an adult (yet to be published) a character is recounted (after his disappearance and murder) as saying “he suspected that God had little interest in us being saved, and is infinitely more interested in us being gloriously well spent.” In the movie Steel Magnolias, the character Shelby says that “I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” Her mother is giving her grief as she is newly pregnant and terminal. There is always room for another baby in the world; it’s the adults that make it crowded. In this life, may we all be newly pregnant, for we are all surely terminal. As we are all present in this awkward period between birth and death, may our soul be bared before our body buried.
As I poor myself Out into the streets A pasture for the people At ease with just us Weather soon becoming A torrent of change Oar that which trickles our fancy A tributary to humanity That no’s know bounds And has no interest in banks
This poem is about that which makes us human, which can run still and deep or as a raging river. Much of life is somewhere in-between, yet hopefully that which reflects our passions and fancies.
This poem also weaves this being human into community. We cannot be fully human alone. Or better said, we are more fully human in community. This may take the form of joining hands and hearts in working for justice or simply enjoying the company of others. Such accompaniment breeds further humanity.
Since being human tasks us with the never-ending paradox of needing to be more than human, we face an eternal question of choosing growth or decay, participating consciously in the unfolding of life or feudally try to hold onto what is passing by. Humanity is furthered when its members are self-transcendent and when humanity transcends itself. This perpetual opportunity and call for growth seeds a certain rebellion into any status quo. There are always frontiers to cross, new lessons to learn, and new experiences to take in. The most vital moments in life cannot be banked, and this poem concludes simply with a bank shot. The true currency of life is not money, status, or power, but courage, hope, and kindness. And life is never so exacting that there is not change left over…
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