Monthly Archives: November 2020

GROWING YOUNGER WHILE GROWING OLDER

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While still young, we become anxious to grow older
Modeling ourselves on nearby adults who seem successful –
Eventually, however, we become older ourselves – inside and out.

But this turns out to be not right!

Later on in our lives, some of us begin a struggle
To become free of our earlier-developed “mature” selves
While an even smaller number manage to actually accomplish it –
By becoming “children” again.

Growing older, at some point we find the need to start over – reversing direction –
Spiritually – getting younger year by year –
Until we achieve the stage Jesus might look over at us –
(Now, perhaps, grandfathers and grandmothers)
And say: “Let the little children come unto me.”

BOOKS ARE MY FRIENDS (For Laurel)

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Books are my friends –
Accompanied by them I’ll never get bored
And if at times I get a bit “down,” a passing title will soon pick me up.

Books surround me with the most thoughtful people who ever lived –
Crowding around in my study
Their intrinsic seriousness and brilliance lifts my room sky high
Ready for long-distance visits to a future “me.”

If a book is empty and brings me down – I quickly put it down
And pick up another.

People without books remind me of deserts without water –
A mechanical kind of survival –
“Clank, clank, clank.”

Books are the sea we swim in
So as to relax by distant shores.

Books are magic pills we swallow
In order to change into someone else.

Books are dreams we can make real
By spending time inside them.

Books will make you an entirely new and different person
If you’re open to opening them.

ALWAYS FRESH

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“I go back to where everything is nothing.”
                                                      Rumi

Along with Rumi, I want nothing – except freedom
And perhaps a friend to point the way to God for me
In place of all the religious “professionals” lining the way to nowhere
And flatterers complimenting us on things we already know.

I want nothing
And the freedom that goes along with it –
I also want a God who still desires being God
Along with a quotidian material world whirring into and out of existence.

I want a freedom that’s fully paid for –
And a love that arrives “out of the blue.”

Speaking of “blue,” I want a lot more of that –
Skies, oceans, robins’ eggs, and Van Gogh blues –
Along with the spectacular “yellows” I’d never seen before visiting Musée d’Orsay.

Nothing is absolutely the beginning of everything –
Nothing is a midnight diner – cars streaming by –
Nothing is music discerned through an almost-waking dream.

Nothing is a God who doesn’t need to be acknowledged as “God” –
Since God’s perpetually fresh!

NOT THE PICTURE BUT THE REAL BEING

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Where is Jesus in this ancient religion called “Christianity?”
Certainly not in a silver medal hanging around one’s neck
Requiring people to nod when passing.

Jesus is not anybody who needs to be worshipped
Since, today, Jesus is you – and nobody else.

If you do decide to “become” him –
Open the doors of your soul and say, “please come in.” 

Jesus is not the world religion created by Paul and institutionalized by Constantine
At which all the good seats have already been taken –
Hypocrites being the first to rush in
Pretending, unconvincingly, like modern-day Evangelicals to be Jesus’ best friends.

When someone decided (who was that who decided?)
To merge the Roman Empire into the name and spirit of Jesus –
He (Jesus) quickly left by a side door – and has never been seen again.

Curators plaster museum walls with pictures of him
Framed with gold and precious jewels –
But Jesus, himself, is back out on the street – searching for God
All over again.

Birds see him
Cats turn their heads when passing
But only crazy people are willing to unembarrassedly acknowledge him in public –
When they see
Not the common-accepted picture – but the real human being!