Author: Michael

Satisfaction Guaranteed

July 12, 2014
by Michael
comments 26
Poetry

This poem comes with a Satisfaction Guarantee. That’s right. Here it is, in fact: Your Everlasting Satisfaction Is Guaranteed. In case you’re wondering already– (you haven’t even read the poem yet for Pete’s sake!)– what type of compensation you receive should you find by some law-bending fluke of nature that you’re a twinge dissatisfied at the end of this, I’ll tell you that, too. Anticipating such a question, the Beloved has written the Answer upon an infinitude of hearts, […]

The Gift of Silence

July 10, 2014
by Michael
comments 10
Poetry

We can’t be happy, Hafiz says, until we discover we’re not who we think we are. Then he leans near, whispers… So… how are we going to pull that off? I think he’s going somewhere with this. I can’t help myself: I’m grinning like the operator of a prison search light who’s secretly pulling for the inmates to escape and run riot, waiting for my Friend’s next words to bust through the cell block wall and stride […]

Beam Splitting Wholeness

July 7, 2014
by Michael
comments 24
Science

Our perspective of the world underwent an abrupt overhaul with the development and experimental validation of quantum mechanics, and like whorls in a cloud chamber flung from the site of a detonated photon, a legion of metaphysics spun-off from the diverse array of interpretations and suppositions the field inevitably engendered.  I remember, vaguely, when I read The Dancing Wu Li Masters while taking high school physics.  It was a sufficiently beautiful experience to propel me […]

Scrubbing Smiles

July 5, 2014
by Michael
comments 15
Poetry

The instruction to just be myself resulted in a pretty meandering to-and-fro up-over-and-down there and back again maybe, but maybe not, should I educate myself better or get a few more life skills first type of thing until one day when I was brushing my teeth I came to a scrunchy halt, arm cocked like a frozen piston, and I looked into the silvered plate hung on the wall, the one framed by garishly bright […]

Call Center

July 4, 2014
by Michael
comments 15
Poetry

One night when Hafiz was working the phones, a call came in. The man began by announcing that he had a few questions, as if he were preparing his counter party for a barrage of heavy artillery. The way he said it made it sound like he had a few answers, too. Look, he said, you can’t really know if there is anything beyond this life or not, but consider: if there isn’t a God, […]

Night Breezes

July 2, 2014
by Michael
comments 17
Poetry

Night breezes tickle the chimes we hung, then rise through the leaves above, rinsing away the day’s hours, then rise to graze upon the earthen rays streaming from the crowns of trees, then rise to gather in counsel inside a vast cocoon of starlight. Underground, the bees are sleeping, their dreams sparking along the synapses of flower roots. Tomorrow they will harvest the nectar, discovering the return of all that was given. Life is neither […]

Who Are We…?

June 30, 2014
by Michael
comments 15
Christ / Course Ideas

Who are we? It is perhaps the fundamental question of both science and religion, and certainly of what we call “spirituality”, a catch-all word with which I resonate in steadily decreasing degrees as time passes.  Spirituality is all too often a repository for that which fails to fit nicely into one of the generally accepted practices for knowledge cultivation in our dominant cultures.  Definitions aside, for most of us I think the essential purpose of […]

Volunteering

June 28, 2014
by Michael
comments 18
Poetry

None of us really knows what kind of stunt Creation is going to pull next. The thing to do is avoid being reactionary. If you like to fly, for instance, put on your leather aviator’s helmet, your trusted goggles, and a long, flowing white scarf. Then sneak into the Situation Room and thrust up your hand to volunteer. Don’t worry, They’ll know for what.

Sky Healing

June 24, 2014
by Michael
comments 17
Christ / Poetry

There’s a poverty I sometimes settle into, a clawing for connection. It’s a painful question that picks me out of the world’s line-up of chiefs and princetains, captains and raconteurs, the divas and the daring, and squares me up for examination. Him. He’s hiding something for sure– a limp of some sort, a wound that hasn’t healed, one eye that betrays him with its flickering tic, a slow, creeping failing he strives to ignore. Protectiveness […]

Kindness

June 21, 2014
by Michael
comments 14
Poetry

There’s a kindness that isn’t about doing the right thing, or being good. It’s not about holding the door open for a stranger to be polite, or even nice. There’s a kindness that’s about upping the ante and challenging the status quo, about asking the kind of question that provokes a crisp rebuke from your inner skeptic, that elicits a little wait and see because here comes another sweet dose of I told you so– […]