Monthly Archives: December 2017

LETTING GO

Posted on by

1

“To be empty of all created things is to be full of God, and to be full of created things is to be empty of God.” Meister Eckhart

We need to achieve a radical detachment from our “ego self”
In order to attain the kind of freedom we’ll need
To “find” God, much less to “be with” God –
That is, a detachment from “power” of every kind, type, and form –
Whether political, financial, celebrity, or personal.

Human beings, by nature, originally were (and still largely are) weak and vulnerable
However, it’s only those capable of acknowledging their weakness and vulnerability
Who’ll be permitted to approach closer to God.

If we let ourselves (that is, our egos) go – that is to say, if we can give up our false selves –
We’ll end up being able to let everything else go also.

More – we’ll not only permit all that to go –
We’ll also be able to let all our traditional “Gods” go too.

To achieve purity of spirit – we need to “want” nothing, “know” nothing, and “have” nothing –
Giving us the freedom to become aware of a numinous “True God”
Who lives “way out” beyond all the standard church and temple gods –
Just like our “true self” can be found only way out – far beyond our tiny ego-self.

BLACK RACE WHITE RACE

Posted on by

1

Think about it –
African Americans have ended up as significantly more “human” than European Americans
Because, as a race, they’ve never had to repress a shameful collective truth about themselves.

On the white side, generations of uneasy immoral feelings, buried infinitely deep
Beneath unacknowledged, and even vigorously denied, racial wrongs –
Has resulted in European Americans ending up as decidedly less human.

The reason African Americans didn’t need to repress their natural humanity
Was because they were the ones who paid the harsh price
Through generations of stolen labor and, yes, blood,
While European Americans, nonchalantly, went about
Keeping everything they could “grab” –
While building a prosperous lifestyle for themselves, their children, and their children’s children
Which they have refused to “see” – much less acknowledge.

This almost complete repression of a sordid violent national truth has resulted
In a serious and tragic limitation of human feeling,
Which, in turn, permits (or encourages) European Americans to repeat,
Repeat, repeat – and repeat again –
Acts of ancestral coldness and hardness –
Eventually turning their hearts, at least in part, to “stone.”

A major problem for European Americans is that there’s no one left to pray for them
Since, for generations, they’ve been unwilling to pray for themselves
Because, during all that time, they’ve repeatedly denied they have a problem –
Which, however, is, and always has been, right there in front of them –
Just ask the white Southern Evangelicals –
Who get angry as soon as this subject is raised –
Still proudly glorying in semi-ancient bronze statues
Memorializing their European American “warrior Christian” hardness!

What would Jesus say
About a white race that continually mars its own spiritual face and heart
Through recurrent harms to the African American race?
Don’t you think that Jesus, by now, would have gotten upset
In the midst of this seemingly unending suffering
By African American fathers and mothers
And their beautiful children?

Now, European Americans, would you please tell me the name of your “religion” –
Could you say it for me just one last time?

POETRY OF NEGATION

Posted on by

1

Attempting to describe God
By analogy to any of the infinite number of creatures or creations
In or outside this world –
Is a futile exercise.

It’s much better to approach God through negation –
God is not like ….
Which illustrates how God exists beyond language –
Even beyond mind itself.

God, however, does accept direct communications from the heart
With its inexpressible promptings of joy.

The best thing about God is all the surprises –
Both good and bad –
That throughout our lives God sends us as “presents” –
Which we unwrap with great anticipation and trepidation.

The last surprise, however,
Is the one that turns out to really be the last!

“BORN AGAIN” – AN INFINITE NUMBER OF TIMES

Posted on by

0

Childhood is the closest most of us will ever get to Christ –
On average, people, as they grow older, become harder, deader in important parts,
And increasingly brittle.

This demonstrates that we may also be moving in the wrong direction spiritually –
So, before we grow any older, we need to consider turning –
And becoming more childlike in our souls.

We need to do this without giving up our lifetime of experience –
Retaining our hard-earned maturity.

The joy and light that, hopefully, will start growing brighter in us –
Eventually could even turn into the “twinkle” of a new-born baby –
A few older people have achieved this – think, for example, of the Dalai Lama
Or another mature person with this kind of sparkle that you might already know.

That would, of course, make one the most mature “baby” – ever –
Since, by that time, we’d have experienced being “born again” –
An infinite number of times.