Sometimes when the door slams and the house wobbles, we forget the stew bubbling happily on the stove. We forget the scent of roasting carrots. We forget the light dancing softly on the candle. Sometimes when the light turns red and two horns joust in reply, we forget the fresh cut flowers on the passenger seat. We forget we were celebrating an abiding love. We forget the other reasons for this plane are moot. Sometimes […]
When asked to explain the self, the Buddha demurred. How would this help? Likewise, a trusted computer will not look too closely at division by zero, not because it is impossible, but because of the hypnotic ramifications. Caught in its beguiling web, the self resists clear understanding. Better to consider the photon. When a filament of refined metallic earth is filled to the brimming point with a humming sweetness, or space itself collapses into an incredible, […]
Christ is a friend best made before you try and set things straight in the world, because that’s a tall order usually involving such experiential delicacies as walking through fire, negotiating with fanatics, imbibing poisoned tonics, standing trial before a stadium-sized jury of the bitter and scorned, writing defiant op-eds no one understands, being shoved out of a slow-rolling car, or spraying something minty into your mouth right before doing something reckless as a last […]
After a day of cotton skies and bituminous questions about my fate, a gap appeared in the sky and sheets of light rained down. Leaves glowed like stained glass, the air trembled softly in the trees as it awoke from its slumber, and a butterfly took flight. Grace is like that, just a flicker of brilliance, a single data point that destroys years of careful correlations but brings the mountain into view. When I beheld […]
Sometimes I get the feeling everything so far has been a few of us stragglers wandering around this old museum just before closing, picking up little polished stones one-by-one and pewter sculptures and moon rocks and animal claws and ivory eye sockets and a fake cutlass and playing make believe and telling each other all sorts of cute fictions about ghost conjuring and sunken ships and people who eat nails or swallow flaming swords while God has […]
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 […]
If you make a plot of human population over the past few thousand years, the results are– well listen, let’s speak plainly here, as friends who have not the time for posturing or taking offense: the results are startling. If you are inclined towards levity you may even have a chuckle as you gape at the steeply rising curve and reflect upon the multiplicative industriousness of the recent age. Experts in prognostication and the statistical arts such as […]
“The way will be muddy and seemingly alone, even when you find yourself in crowds, even when all the refugees are funneled together through a narrow pass. You will find yourself trying to avoid being crushed, trying to avoid being left behind, trying to avoid being starved, trying to avoid being plundered. You may dream of blue skies and sunlight, but your path will wind beneath overcast skies and sprinkling rain. You may dream of virgin […]
That longing at the center of your being is Hafiz and Christ, the Buddha, ten thousand angelic beings, my mother, your great great Uncle so and so, the not so famous one, his pet Lhasa Apso Louie, along with everyone you’ve ever loved and ever will love and all their friends and neighbors plus a few party crashers and so on and so forth– hell, it may as well be Love Itself!– shouting and waving […]
One day recently I stepped outside into a hive of birdsong. The sun was filtering down between the branches of trees at the edge of the yard, and the birds were dotted amongst the boughs, positioned instinctively behind leaf and shadow. It was like entering a Bev Doolittle painting that had come to life. Soprano spirals curled into the air, sounds that had been scribbled by the practiced hand of a master, as if Matisse […]
Embracing Forever 