Tag Archives: people

SOUL ARTISTS

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Why spend time with anyone else?

If you don’t know a soul artist
Then take the next best thing – and read them.

A true soul artist can reach you through their books
Extract your heart
And throw it up to the stars!

When your heart reaches those stars
You’ll gain the perspective you’ve needed back here on earth.

Spiritually, our world is dusty and confusing – filled with misdirection –
So why not look around
Search through all the people you’ve ever met –
And reminisce about each and every book you’ve read –
Is there a soul artist there?

It’ll be like meeting the love of your life –
But better –
Glorious, overflowing with joy –
Salvific.

A soul artist can paint a picture of you
Appearing like an angel of God.

Peer into that mirror –
To say: “Yes!”

GOD HAD AN IDEA

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God had an idea –
It was so beautiful
God decided to release it out into the void
Where it took flight
And became everything.

It would take eternity
To appreciate everything in detail
So why not take a single thing – or person –
Taking as much time as you need
And, after a while, some more time –
Waiting for the surprise about what you, at first, hadn’t glimpsed.

Yes, it’s time that makes things (and people) more beautiful –
Just when you’re starting to get impatient – not seeing anything new –
It comes down like glory – drenching you.

Where did this surprising beauty come from?
Was it hiding inside ourselves all along – just waiting for a touch –
Or a light of love
To cleave one’s heart like a gentle sword?

Oh, God, give us a lot more beauty
Than we’re able to, at first, see –
And then give us time to wait for this unknown beauty to open –
Time to discover the “pearl”
That is us!

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.

CLOUD IN FRONT OF THE SUN

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Who is God, anyway?
Is God a spiritual entity encouraging us to be our best
Intellectually, morally, and spiritually?
Is God someone pointing us in the right direction?

My main problem with God involves the influence of certain people
Who also are pointing us in one direction or the other –
People from whom we think we need permission,
Or who provide us with identity,
Or even the permission to be?

When these people merge with God, we get “Religion” –
Like a cloud in front of the sun –
Especially when we’re not able to distinguish one from the other.

All human beings are born with the capacity to experience joy –
And so, from birth, potentially we can embody it –
But then, almost immediately, we find we aren’t seeing beyond our family
(Unless our family’s exceptionally transparent to God) –
So, when we perceive family instead of God –
That is, when we experience a world largely of related people instead of a world of God –
This becomes one of the main sources of our anxiety.

We know God is there – right behind them– just over their shoulders –
As spiritual “light” –
And when we fall in love with that light –
It frequently occurs to us to “hit the road.”
If we do that, we’ll have to leave family, society, and world –
And risk dying for God.

But, if we follow through on this, eventually we’ll get everything back –
God and the world –
Even family.

If we become a “God” person
We’ll be able to “see” God in others –
In all others.

Then, when we’re able to distinguish what’s not God from God –
That won’t upset us –
Because it’s reality
And God is reality.

When we start seeing reality through God’s eyes –
Feeling with God’s heart –
We’ll fall deeper and deeper in love with Love
So that everything turns out alright –

You might even say, we’ll have been “Saved!”

DISTANT TRAINS

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Distant trains whistle low and away
While crows in the treetops are insisting upon their far greater importance.

Jesus says: “You’ve forgotten everything essential about me
Asserting I have the power to ‘save’ you –
When, actually, I don’t.”

Distant trains whistle low and away
Taking people to camps
The same people whose grandchildren have also created camps.

Crows in the treetops are insisting upon their importance
Like politicians who create unreality shows
Designed to lead fools by their noses
Down broad entertainment ramps to political slaughter.

It’s a show mindlessly conducted for a mindless audience
Performed with flourishes of rage and spit –
A show waged against conscious reality
So that God can never be seen.

These lives without beauty are tragic –
But they don’t seem to care
Since, to them, truth is just a commodity for rent
And love’s a word useful for marketing cars.

Yes, love is a word no one dares say anymore
Because it could be taken as a commitment –
And, if so, how could we get away –
Escape unreality –
Escape everything the charlatans have wanted us to accept?

THE NIGHT OF OUR DAY

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People watch other people
To see themselves through others’ eyes –
But since “they” aren’t actually there
All they’ll see are actors acting out
Cheers and jeers.

Alternatively, people project “ego selves” –
And then peek out to see how it’s going
Even though their “true self’s” hiding behind that “outer self” –
Patiently waiting for its turn to surface and come to life –
Typically, however, a lot of time can be wasted in waiting –
Sometimes, one’s entire life!

So, people look at other people
In order to “see” themselves –
But this is a poor substitute, isn’t it?
For seeing ourselves
Since only by confronting and accepting the painful “ugliness” we harbor
Can shards of true beauty start glimmering and shimmering through –
Resulting in the human being we’ve always had the potential of becoming –
Appearing, at first, in the night of our day.

 

A FRENZY OF JOY

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Countries are like big shoes and little shoes
Walking around –
Some without too much direction and others with almost none at all.

Countries are also like lips
Some used to mock, others to kiss –
While the rarest of all can sometimes even be poetic.

Some countries have long memories and others almost none at all –
The latter due to centuries of unacknowledged crimes against others.

People themselves can also be like shoes, lips, or memories –
But, in spite of that, all are capable of dancing when the music starts.

When the music starts, there is no “I” and no “you” –
There’s only a “whee” caught up in accelerating circles of joy.

Logically, this means that dancing should be more popularly encouraged –
Whether in culture, play, or spirituality.

The elderly keep time by nodding along –
Tapping their toes.
The children, however, run riot – attempting to imitate the adults’ complex steps
As well as all their motions and emotions –
Resulting in a wild, yet oddly calm, frenzy of joy.

 

EVERYONE WANTS THE SAME THING

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Everyone wants the same thing –
A good community for their children to grow up in
And, if their descendants so choose, the same place for future generations.

People want a meaningful God to worship –
A God who encourages goodness, spontaneity, and creativity.

People want love between husbands and wives to be and remain real,
And freedom for their children to “be themselves,”
Along with friends who they’re happy to spend time with
As well as an openness to joy – (not just satisfaction or happiness)
But pure joy.

They want to experience the world getting better
With violence, nihilism, and hatefulness falling away.

They want their intellectuals to have common sense –
While still preferring to “think for themselves” –
And they’ll take all the time necessary to sort through
The value of what they’re presented with
So as to make intelligent-loving decisions.

Everyone wants the same thing –
Good neighbors – (next door, county, state, and country) –
And they’ll also want to know that, as they age, they’ll be on a natural arc
Of becoming more loving, more wise,
And more accepting of others.

Finally, they want God to be their best friend –
A God who’ll walk out ahead of them, pointing out what’s good,
What they should seriously treasure, and, ultimately,
What’s important to be retained for life beyond our physical life –
The one we can’t now see or experience, but hope will be there
When it finally comes time for us to go.

ONE LAST WALK

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One last walk
One last kiss.

Memories flutter,
And then lose clarity before fading.

Bright colors disappear
Sounds go mute,
And then, the final train arrives.

Yes, memories come and go
Like dreams –
But it’s all a big fade now –
Night sneaking up on us.

Most people have exited
And the band’s stopped playing –
Apparently, the party’s over.

Yet, after a brief time, surprisingly,
Everything starts repeating itself –
Entire city neighborhoods disappear –
And then reappear with new people, new buildings.

Tell me –
What does this new world want?
Where is it going?
And what, if anything, does it care about
Now?

PEOPLE ARE AMAZING

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People are amazing, aren’t they?
Endlessly surprising!

Right now, they’re coming over a hill
Wearing a variety of colors
Speaking multiple languages –
And excited about many things.

Yesterday they were children
Now, they’re the entire world.

We thought we knew who and what we were
But, over time, everything’s changed –
As if in a dream.

There are parents – but they’re not our parents any more –
And there’s the house we grew up in –
But, now, it appears entirely different.

Reality is deeper than dreams
And yet, because of “time,” it’s still a kind of dream –
Once, we believed love could last forever – as real as the sun –
Yet, now we know, it often fades despite our best efforts.

As we grow older, we also grow calmer –
And this can be good in its own way –
We know we no longer can hold fire in our hands –
And our eye’s intensity is also fading.

Yes, dusk is nice –
Lavenders filling up our lives –
Distant odors –
A train whistle – far and away –
Unimaginably poignant.