Tag Archives: Life

IT COSTS TOO MUCH TO BUY WHAT CAN ONLY BE EARNED

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It’s more generous than sunshine,
More unstoppable than a runaway coal truck,
And more important than a room full of Presidents.

What is it?
Love, of course, the instant it touches a human heart –
Who or what could stop it?

Every human being has experienced this.

So what’s recently been restricting it to a trickle –
Why isn’t it still fire hose strong –
Rushing and gushing into the world with all the force of a springtime flood?

Perhaps, we take love for granted –
Like air –
Believing it’ll always be there because it’s so essential.

But that would be a mistake –
Because real love is not free –
It has to be worked for.

Since it’s so wonderful, we believe it should be a gift,
So when it’s not –
Futilely, we attempt to buy, and sometimes, even steal it –

This is why a life without love
Often turns out to be so painfully expensive.

THE APPLE OF LIFE

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The snake tricked us
Into eating an apple –
But the conversation wasn’t really about apples.

Instead, the snake whispered:
“Watch me shed my skin
And become something entirely new.”

The snake was happy
About its rebirth,
Viewing it as an exchange of realities –
Life and freedom in return for work and risk.

God never barred the tree of life from us –
We’re able to walk over any time, take a bite, and
Become fully “alive” –
But, after that first bite, each subsequent step needs to be in full reality –
Looking at God – “face to face” –
Letting our “ego-self” die!

Instead of doing that,
We decided to take a long slow route
Out of the Garden –
And around the world –
For thousands of generations –
Enswirled in brilliant denial dreams –

Destined to keep going
Until we get bored enough, spiritually, to wake up
And begin living in “true reality” –

Biting cleanly into the apple
Of life.

GOD IS INVISIBLE AND SO ARE YOU (For Mary)

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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.

FINDING GOD IN AMERICA

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Where can God be found, now, in America?

Certainly not in suburban shopping malls –
Or, out there, stuck in a traffic jam –
And never, ever on cable TV – that’s for sure!

What about in the Friday Night prayers of h.s. football coaches?
Or as reflected in the back-lit jowls of Southern Baptist preachers?

No, I don’t think so.

Since we live in a democratic country,
Might there not be virtually millions of so-called “American Gods” –
Or are they all just egos search-lighting the empty night skies?

We do have a “National Religion” though – a Judeo-Christian composite one –
But it’s been used, largely, to justify wars and our greatest historical crimes.

If, however, we’re unable to find God here in America – at all –
Then we probably won’t be able to find any meaning either –
And, if we can’t find meaning,
We’ll probably end up lost out in the dusty fields of a digital world.

Even though we always faithfully celebrate our birthdays,
Unfortunately, we never take time to reflect on our fast-approaching deathday –
Because, patriotically, we refuse to recognize its existence.

If, however, you can’t think about death,
You’ll probably never encounter God either,
Because, after all, that’s where “the God we know” originally came from –

Life always comes out of non-life,
Doesn’t it?

TENTATIVE ENCOUNTERS WITH REALITY

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Everything – living and nonliving –
Shares, in some way, with God –
Even our sleepy selves.

But this effect tends to disappear
As soon as we experience it –
Yet is the reason it seems so beautiful!

Life appears to be, and is, exquisite
When we experience it slipping through our fingers –

We try our best to hold onto it –
But are able to capture only a few images
In memory or
Imagination.

As we mature, we come to believe
That the mind is “real” –
But this is a lie.

When we dive down into our personal ocean of unreality
Even kisses are only ideas
As we repeatedly lose ourselves in all the infinite dimensions
Of no dimension.

The truth is –

God, and the true self,
May be encountered, only tentatively,
One individual, and one moment,
At a time.

SURFING

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Human beings desire control in their lives –
Which is both a good, as well as a bad thing.

Actually, life is more like surfing –

If you go too far forward –
Or too far back –

You fall in.

It’s the same with our attempts at control –
Not enough, and life starts to fall apart,
Too much, and it can freeze up.

Western culture teaches that we should strive for as much control in our lives as possible
But this has led to embracing a “material” God.

It’s similar, isn’t it, to what Jesus said about the birds –
Which don’t have to worry about what they eat or wear.
Jesus knew people had to work –
But thought it just wasn’t the most important thing.

The paradox each of us needs to solve
Is how to become our “true self” –
The child that’s still able to play –
In the midst of a responsible adult life.

It is a lot like surfing, isn’t it –
Balance being the most important skill.

Playful as a child –
Responsible as an adult.

This takes a lot of practice
Like all other critical life skills.

STUNG INTO LIFE

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We believe it’s impossible to “be like God” –
So, instead, we dissolve into puffy white clouds
And float across endless blue skies.

We’ve also come to believe that it’s impractical for us to “die”
In order to live,
But, on unique occasions, we’re able to do it anyway.

After all, Jesus did it, and not just at the end of his life –
But every moment of every day –
So, logically,
So can we.

Overhead, “death” circles
Like a buzzing blue-bottle fly.

Go away death!
We don’t want to be stung
Into life
Today.

DOWN HERE ON EARTH

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If “life” after life were guaranteed
It might be easier to accept wasting this one.

But are we really so different from the leaves
Which bud, sway awhile in the wind,
And, eventually, join an autumnal heap –

Are they also going to heaven?

Or, rocks, which we know eventually turn into dust –
Will they one day find themselves reconstituted as “heavenly” rocks?

Paul tells us that we’ll have a resurrected body, just not our own flesh and bones –
But imperishable, perhaps hard as emerald.

Other people believe they can go on living – at least in memory –
Which is why they spend so much time building monuments to themselves.

But aren’t we all going to “drop” – eventually – just like the leaves?

And should we complain about this –
Given a lifetime of free activity,
And, hopefully, love –
Hasn’t that been a terrific bargain?

If death is real –
Then, logically, each passing moment is a unique miracle –
With the love we experience constituting our only “true heaven” –
And what we should be praying for –

Especially since – after we pass over –
Love will probably be the only gift we’re permitted to retain.

MOMENT BY MOMENT

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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.

CAN TRANSCENDENCE BE ACHIEVED IN ONE GIANT LEAP?

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Not normally. I think it comes more often in a series of modest hops, skips, and tiny jumps.

Moses went up to the mountaintop and got an entire set of laws for his people – in one trip.
Buddha sat under his friendly tree until, one day, it came – suddenly.

But there’s another way:

Every time you hear what you recognize as the truth – about anything –
Immediately accept it!

It’s not so much that these little truths can add up to transcendence, even though sometimes they might, but doing so strengthens your courage – and that does matter –
After all, experiencing God is not for the weak-hearted.

The same holds true for love, beauty, and justice – immediately accept and affirm them whenever they appear in your life.

This is a spiritual journey deep into the valley of the Holy – that is, the closer you get to God, the more exciting life becomes, the more intense the colors – the more “real” everything appears.

Your conventional self usually resists taking chances like this – especially in traveling towards God. However, the acceptance of a blind stasis, is your real Satan – i.e., the being, force, or energy that desires you to “stop” and “die” in every possible manner.

So, if Satan is “Death,” in all its various entropic forms; God, of course, must be “Life,” as represented in all its amazing manifestations. However, don’t make the mistake that God and Satan reside “geographically” in Heaven or Hell; they live, instead, in your heart where you are constantly having to make choices.

That’s why it’s imperative for you to develop healthy spiritual habits so that, without even thinking about it, you’ll always choose life.

A superhuman leap occasionally may achieve transcendence, but it’s only small steady steps in the right direction that will reliably get you there.