Our pain is bound up in our memories. We don’t see what’s in front of us, we just see strange reenactments of our past. It’s not really our past even, just the things we concluded from our past. Our conclusions travel with us wherever we go. This is what Jesus calls learning. It’s our loyalty to all the stuff we made up. We keep these little statues woven to the inside of our coats to remind […]
The dream is unobtrusive, glowing where no one can see it, following beside me but deep in the ground, visible only by looking straight down through the center of myself, from the inside of my senses. It’s a thought immune to the semi-annual dental check-ups, the unsolicited catalogs that arrive in the mail, the bouts of automotive repair and immune system reconfiguration, and the dangerous lines of cars queueing behind plow trucks that plod along […]
It’s that time again here in the US. I’m increasingly confronted by discussions of politics. They’re coming into the home, the office, the car. Through the heating system, the mail slot, and the grocery bags. And why not? We’re saturated by it right now. The incredible hype of the hero and the villain, the opportunity and the impasse, the failures and the victories. The righteous, the confused, the willing, and the maligned. The pasts, the […]
I happened upon Barbara’s site a few weeks ago when she was mulling over the idea of a second round of Awakening Experiences, and told her I would like to participate. Then I promptly disappeared into the marrow of my life for a few weeks. She pinged me with a reminder last week sometime and asked if I was still willing, and wondered if I would take February 2nd. I chuckled at her unsolicited selection, […]
Our dear friend Hariod asked me after my last post what the word miracle means to me, and as I thought about how to answer I realized my response would very quickly get out of hand in the post commentary. Hence this post. It’s a question I savor answering because I don’t quite know how I’m going to do it. I have a feeling about what I wish to say, but the closer I get to the center […]
Peace taken up by the flesh has a rhythm to it. A field of frozen grass and falling snow, mixed with true inhabitants, will ripple with tongues of steam. Life will move in and out of itself, and possibilities will disperse from their smoky origins, drift into the branches of trees at the field’s edge, and nestle into nooks beneath the boughs. We share a breath that’s always breathing– here and there and all at once– a […]
For the past six weeks I’ve been entrenched in the birth throes of an industrial project, feeling myself slowly succumb to its eye-dimming cocktail of fatigue and necessity. I’ve been watching myself sigh in the hallway, crack jokes over the intercom, eat meals with forks unable to spear anything that wasn’t already mashed, and enter a stupor of gratitude when the person beside me stepped out of the darkness carrying a solution– something half-corroded with wires […]
I read an article the other day about some people who did what all the books said to do and they were explaining in very simple terms how now their every movement opens up before them like a strawberry shortcake snack at the Center for Incredibleness and their every breath brings with it some beneficent manifestation like a phone call from some Swiss lawyer representing a great uncle they never knew they had who made some […]
I’m not so naive as to think I fully understand my own beliefs and feelings, nor to assume they form an exactly rational system when laid bare by attempts at explanation. But in making the effort, I discover things– inconsistencies in thought, many of them delightful(!); powerful feelings that cannot be explained, yet explain much; ineffable inner realms I realize are part and parcel to who I am; or the existence of ideas operating one […]
Hafiz picked me up and drove me out into the countryside, aiming the right front tire for every mud puddle he could find, and filling the rearview mirror with volley after volley of clay starbursts. Then, much to the relief of both my kidneys and the vehicle’s suspension, we came across a dog breeder and popped in to say hello. After a cup of tea and a profound discussion of canine nutrition, she invited us […]
Embracing Forever 