It is in my response to the world that I discover the thoughts most active within me, and it is quite often a humbling experience. The movement stretches and pulls and teases to the surface residual uncertainties and doubt. I have taken in reams and reams of information over the years intended to set me (and all of us) free, which my Undersecretary of Actual Motivations has taken under advisement, and accepted with a begrudging […]
I take the pack of index cards out of my shirt pocket, slide the rubber band off, and lay them on the table. Hafiz has prepared a few placards and set them up at credible intervals. They read, “No Way, José,” “I Sure Hope Not,” “Why, Of Course!” “Prepare Yourself For Tears,” and “Jesus Christ!” I take a breath and shuffle the cards. Place them in a neat pile on the table. The first card […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
It’s only been a few days, but I’m back for more. The life of an addict. My moments have become cracked glass, but there is a hint of honey in my tears. It’s been a bittersweet epiphany: I’m not cut out to be the person I’ve been being. I’m a crash test dummy careening into the wall of nothing whatsoever. For a moment I was full and clear, a moment without the traffic, unfettered, remembering what […]
I love me some Treatises1. Mmmm-mm! I love me some Jesus breakin’ it down, makin’ that holy road clear. I love me some Truth expo-zishuns! I love me some brotherly tutelage, some way pointin’, some little bing-bang dose of reality checkin’. I do, I do, I do– I do love me some Treat-sies… * * * * * 1In the second book of A Course of Love there are four Treatises, the first of which is entitled […]
One of the core concepts of A Course of Love is contained in the statement, “There is no loss, only gain.” While there are a number of contexts in which this sentiment offers an opportunity for a deepening understanding of what is meant by the term unity within the Course, recent events in my own life as well as events observed in the lives of those around me have led me to reflect upon its […]
A self is a heavy burden to carry with you across the desert. Despite being invisible and weightless in principle, it is the often overlooked, but necessary battery of accoutrements that are required to render the self manifest and functional that take their toll. There is the steamer trunk full of historical data, for instance, with its rather robust coefficient of sliding friction across the hot sand– the modern take on an old classic, a […]
Embracing Forever 