“GOOD” AND “GOD”

They’re the same – don’t you already know that?

Both demonstrate the moral excellence undergirding the universe
As an “ideal,” as the “perfect” –
In other words, as Jesus’ personal image of God.

It’s also what we want to discover for ourselves
And why we feel so ashamed or guilty
When we do begin thinking about it
Because we’ve neglected or generally refused to work very hard at this
Since moral excellence takes a lot of effort –
Especially since we have to get past all the pleasurable fantasies
That have been so comforting to us.

A direct experience of God is exhilarating –
While the same can also be said of the Good.

Actually, there isn’t any “Big Man in the Sky”
And it doesn’t have anything to do with “Power” –
In fact, it’s more like a “state of being”
That takes significant effort through extended conscious human thought.

In the West, Jewish prophets and rabbis put a lot of work into ethics and morality
And we’ve all been the beneficiaries of their efforts –
While in the East, for priests and gurus, the focus was primarily on Nature and Beauty
Which obviously are good – just not “perfect” –
Especially if it doesn’t result in any deep connection to ethics.

So, the ultimate of both God and the Good is Jesus’ view of “perfection,”
That is, universal moral excellence.

It’s what we “say” we want –
As if such “sounds” can actually issue forth
Out of our very own mouths.

TALK ABOUT THE BEAUTY OF GOD

Jesus and the Sufis believe God is “Love” –
And it’s hard to disagree –
But, for now, I want to speak about “Beauty.”

Older adjectives for God included “Power” or “Knowledge”
Especially in the more ancient patriarchal brands –

All these go low.

Presently, though, I prefer “Love” or “Truth” –
While, like I said, I want God to be experienced as “Beautiful”
With a “knock your socks off” look –
When we do take a look.

Can’t we agree that people dedicated to Beauty
Are God’s people –

People who bring live beauty into the world –
Who’re as natural as Nature –
And possess the openness of children.

Beauty is like the first appearance of Spring –
A “natural” gesture –
A spontaneous smile.

The most valuable, aching, type of beauty,
Is the kind that’s just on the verge of disappearing –
Like cherry blossoms – falling –
A kingfisher’s flash dive into the lake –
Or a kindly memory surfacing later on in a well-lived life.

In essence, Love “reflects” Beauty –
Truth “tells” it –
And the fundamental fairness of Justice “requires” it.

God’s eyelids blink out numerous metaphors of Beauty –
Heart-stopping, if you’re fortunate enough to see one.

Beauty is a dream waiting patiently for God’s entrance into the material world
Or waking up to one of God’s repeated emergences into Time –

Beauty is a “splash” of Life –

Revivifying, spontaneous, fresh!

HOW TO LOVE GOD DURING A CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION AND ACCOMPANYING PANDEMIC

It’s hard to stay focused on God, especially now,
But that’s what I want –
Even though I’m worried about finding food, toilet paper, and other life necessities.

This makes me irritable.

At such times, it’s hard to bring God close,
Especially when worried about society
And that reality show “wannabe” tyrant spewing lies,
False assertions, and made-up facts –
(And I don’t know how to stop him).

I’m older now, and want the presence of God
To become ever-present –
But, don’t know how to do it –
Even though that’s what I want most.

God is everywhere
Especially hovering near my heart –
And mind.

God encompasses Nature and everything above and beyond Nature.

Question though:

Is God present in “man-made” things –
Like tables and chairs – houses – cups and bowls?
My real question is whether God may be experienced derivatively
That is, through “man-made” as opposed to “natural” things?

Then, going even a step further –
Can God be experienced digitally – through the internet –
That is, to what extent can the derivative world overlap with the world of God
Through man-made technologies unleashing algorithms of artificial intelligence
Which, in turn, recreate human-like ideas through the use of intelligent machines
And which, at some point, might get disconnected completely from mankind and life itself
Through a “Singularity”
Or a “Singularity” squared.

Where could God be in any of that?
My biggest problem now, though, is one of forgetting –
Because I get distracted by so many things
And lose touch with God – repeatedly.

How can I make fresh contacts with God – and hold onto them
More than a few seconds?

I want God to come into my heart and remain there
I want to hold onto God with determination
To fall asleep repeating God’s name,
And wake up with the joy of God on my lips.

I want other people – coming into my presence –
To feel God –
Like a spiritual surprise!

I want you – reading this – to find God
Coming like an eagle straight through your eyes –
Down into your heart –
And then, lifting your feet high up into the air,
You’ll begin feeling ecstasy
While quietly nibbling away on tiny bits of “Diner Mystic.”

HOW EVE BECAME GOD AND SAVED THE WORLD

At first, Eve was a happy animal –
But one day she ate a piece of fruit
And, spontaneously, split in two.

Instantaneously as a result of this split,
She found herself outside the garden
Looking back at her happy self still inside.

She experienced herself “naked” – out in a tough world –
The fault of her newly-found “consciousness” –
A “mixed power” she had acquired through “seeing herself.”

Of course, the story doesn’t end there –
There’s both good and bad in the gift of consciousness –
For example, she was able to trick all the still unconscious beings
And take anything she wanted –
But it didn’t take long for them to join her in this newly conscious world.

After thousands of years of humans tricking one another
And getting pretty much nowhere –
One day, one of Eve’s descendants decided to “become herself” – i.e., her “true self”
And stop working so hard at trying to trick the rest of the world.

This descendant became her true self by mimicking “God” in human form,
And, as a result, became willing to lead human beings out of their ego-delimited world –
But, just before she could accomplish this,
Adam intervened by saying: “Get back, woman!”
The world is not finished with tricky male egos yet”
We still have a long way to go” –
Adam enforced this command with a warehouse full of iron patriarchal laws,
Male-preferenced customs, and an infinity of direct and indirect physical threats.

This worked!
So well, that Eve was compelled to step back from her new God-gifted freedom,
And, as a consequence, the world fell into Male-Ego Hell –
Which eventually got so bad that even Adam began to get scared
And thought he might want to invite Eve back into a more active role –
But Eve said “No” –
“Not me.” “Not now” – “unless and until you admit you’ve been a jerk” –
“And a violent jerk, at that!” –
Adam refused to admit this, and so the entire world died.

The end.

An alternative ending is Adam did admit he’d been a jerk –
And allowed Eve to re-gain her freedom –
Free, she looked around, and thought, again, it might be time for her to embody God –
But only the kind of God a woman could believe in:

A God closer to Nature –
A loving and family-friendly God –
A truthful God.

This God was entirely a female creation –
So that when Eve determined that her God was “good”
She was able to immediately step into her waiting role.

Eve became God, as a human being, much like Jesus had done in the past –
And, as a consequence, took her turn at saving the world!

The result was that men eventually became happier (even if reluctantly),
And the earth and all its other inhabitants – animal, vegetable, or mineral –
Were saved
Because Adam was willing to step aside
And allow Eve to become the kind of “God,” in human form, she best understood.

Now, all the beings on earth live happily, including all the Eves and Adams –

This is the second, and fortunately happy, ending.

MEMORIES LIKE MOUNTAINS

Joy jumps up – almost out of nothing –
Hope also arrives from nothing.

Nothing is eternal as love –
And nothing is as unbreakable as truth.

All night long, beauty remains a dark One –
Until morning, when it shatters into a trillion different colorful images.

As we grow older, memories become like mountains –
Mainly lying behind us –
While ahead only a few sparkling streams remain to cross.

While still young, though, Nature called out to us like the children we were –
Bursting with life – and with love taken for granted.

But as we age, our attention migrates to ever greater abstractions
Which become steadily easier to understand and accept
Than those earlier complex bursts of childish life-love.

SEA OF WHITENESS

Western people live in a sea of whiteness
Like they’re on a big ship traveling from one white land to another
Observing colored people only from a distance
Through tiny portholes, and then only
Dimly.

White people can be cruel at times – without thinking about it –
About the pain they cause –
While still relishing all the societal buttons and levers
Designed especially for their personal use.

They can’t see into the past
Because, for a long time, they’ve been living off its fruits –
They also can’t clearly make out the present because, to them, it’s wholly white –
And the future promises to be more of the same –
That is, if they have anything to say about it.

What could change?

White people’s souls could become more humble – more human;
Christianity could begin disconnecting itself from the tight grip of capitalism;
Or the old Gods might get re-shuffled – into surprising new patterns.

One day, however, Nature might commence a long and serious talk with us
Sometime before the human world comes to an end
When, from that vantage point, all our political and racial differences
Might no longer appear to be so great
After all.

 

 

THE CAROUSEL

If you don’t believe in God –
Believe in Nature.
And if you don’t believe in Nature –
Believe in the Works of Man.
And if you don’t believe in the Works of Man –
Don’t worry, the next thing’s gonna come ‘round anyway!

If you don’t believe in dancing angels –
Then look up and enjoy the birds,
And if not them – have a good night’s sleep –
Wake up refreshed –
And something will touch you without your even having to try.

The world we experience on a daily basis is like a shadow inside a closed hand –
And that hand is a broken walnut
The wind’s been blowing through –
A wind that, like a breeze of death, is able to knock anything over.

So, instead of that, think of life as a carousel –
Gorgeously spinning round
Playing children’s songs, decorated with colored lights –
And carrying splendid wooden horses moving up and down.

This is what it means to be a child again – living in the present –
And, perhaps, even to be an old man like myself – right now!

GOD IS NOT PERFECT

God is not “perfect”
Just as nothing alive is perfect.

The only true perfection is death –
Anything alive cannot be perfect, by definition, because life’s constantly changing.

Think about nature, is any of it ever “perfect”?

Jesus was never perfect so long as he was alive –
He only achieved theological “perfection” after his death.

Thinking about achieving “perfection” will only make you unhappy –
Why would you want to be unhappy?

The interior “judge” you’ve been trying to satisfy by perfection is a dead spirit –
Why would you want to be dead?

Be as imperfect as you really are –
“Alive” –
And as happy as you can be!

Perhaps even “joyful” –
If you’re not afraid of leaping into reality –

A reality filled with life.

POETS AND GOD

Great poets desire to express the inexpressible
And that’s why the greatest of them – spiritual amateurs all –
Reach for the Divine.

Early on, Christianity got rid of spontaneous poets
And replaced them with orthodox priests and ministers –
And this is why, eventually, Christianity evolved into a religion of rationality –
A religion without fresh poetic inspiration.

People on a long journey towards the holy, however,
Want their favorite poets free to “sing” to God
Because they understand that spontaneity
Is essential in expressing spiritual truths.

Once they’d given up holy ecstatic singing,
Western poets, over time, increasingly became colorless and dull –
Proving that poets need the energy that can be imbibed
From the “living juices” of a “living God.”

In other words, artists (which all true poets are)
Require a subject matter that is “colorful” – “packed with life” –
Like the Divine (the “face” of God)
And Nature (the “back” of God).

In sum, to have the experience of God remain “fresh” –
God needs poets who are willing to reach out to the Divine –

So, tell me, how did Western poetry ever get so far off-track?

HOLY CORRESPONDENCE

Some poets enjoy exploring beauty in nature –
While others prefer “punching out” big ideas.

Some poets muse about where we came from –
While others look ahead to where we might be going.

Some poets get depressed and lie down in their cups –
While others become, and sometimes remain, righteously angry.

But the greatest poets – the truly great ones –
Look right into the face of divine nothingness
And express the inexpressible.

The truly great ones fall so deeply in love with the Holy
That they write shy “spiritual letters” to eternity
Which sometimes provoke surprising responses from God
And anyone fortunate enough to stumble upon this holy correspondence.