When Jesus counseled us
To be “born again”
He didn’t mean just once –

Because it doesn’t take long
For a new self to freeze
Into a mask.

What he was saying –
Since God is absolutely free,
We, also, need to be.

Each moment should be experienced as a new birth,
So that our prior selves do not have the power
To bind us back into the past.

Love won’t arrive through habit or rote –
It always needs to be free!

That’s why, as we grow older and gain greater experience,
Jesus wants us, simultaneously, to spiritually regress –
Not just back to when we were a child –
But all the way back to when we were newborn
Where the subjective world begins again –

All our lifelong experience
Joined to the bud of birth –

A life occurring afresh –

Moment by moment.