INNER LEAF

God’s never “perfect” because God is real

Same as nature –

Same as you.

God’s not limited by imperfection
Since that’s the wrong category to apply to God –
“Perfection” is only applicable to the world of abstractions –
Which only the “unreal” achieve.

Abstractions are “definable” –
God never is.

So if you truly want to experience God
Take anything from nature,
A leaf, for example –
This is not God, obviously,
Yet the leaf belongs to God,
Just like you, if you’re fortunate enough to discover your own
Inner leaf.

GOD IS INVISIBLE AND SO ARE YOU (For Mary)

God is invisibly visible –

Like a leaf from yesterday’s tree
Or tomorrow’s –
There no longer,
And, also, not yet.

It’s the same with our love –
Which gets strengthened both by distance
And absence –
Coming towards you when you’re no longer there –
And, sometimes, arriving before you’ve even come.

God is visibly invisible –

Like a momentary personal “joy,” and, yes, even the primeval “Big Bang”
When everything in the universe that now exists instantly burst out of nothing –
In some sense, aren’t they the same – both an absolute surprise?

It’s the same with how I love you –
Invisible, but more real than anything else in the world.

Running along through innumerable sunny days –
Suddenly, I wake up, next to you.

This is all I want in life –

To be invisibly visible –
Next to you.

JESUS DID IT FIRST

After, spiritually, we’ve fallen fast asleep –
Suddenly, God will open a door
Where, apparently, there had been no door –
And, with a good-natured chuckle, surprise us back to life!

Inside God’s voice may be heard another – more distant voice –
We hear it by being able to glimpse a face
Behind the face of society’s accepted quotidian “God.”

At times, though, it can seem like we’re a leaf floating downstream – just being carried along –
Sometimes exhilarated, at other times, getting stuck –
No matter how fast we go, however, usually we’re pretty passive –
So that what seems to us like “action” – is more like being a stone flung up into the air.

Given this, how much work and courage would it really take
To become fully conscious and fully alive –
To even start such an effort?

It might be easier than you think!
First, just wake up –
And then wake yourself a second time to your highest state of “awakeness” –
Walk to the nearest window
And look out –
If you’re fully “awake” by that time – more than you’ve ever been before –
At that very moment, you’ll get hit “right in the puss” with joy –
Human beings’ natural state.

It takes only a single moment to pass into eternity
Where we come to “life” without passing through a womb –
Avatars call this “life beyond life” –
Jesus called it pretty much the same thing – “being born again” –
But no one has described, specifically, what it’s really like.

Jesus lived through these peak experiences many times –
Especially, and finally, when singing the 22nd Psalm on the cross –
“My God, my God, why ….”

A touch of joy in death – unimaginable –

But Jesus did it first.

FLICKER

When a leaf falls,
It seems to take forever –
No one sees it go –
Yet, one morning, there’s a whole tree
Lying on the ground.

When we’re born, we don’t take up much room
But, as we grow older, we occupy more and more space,
Sometimes, even the entire world,
Later, however, for a variety of reasons, we start falling apart, and, one day,
Fortunately or unfortunately,
Disappear –

But what remains even longer than our bones or teeth?

Love, of course,
Love lasts forever –
Assuming it actually came into existence –
Assuming it wasn’t a lie.

Love is so memorable
It’ll be the last thing the universe forgets
Before finally flickering
Out.