All posts tagged: Knowing

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 […]

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.

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– […]

The Unnavigable Journey

June 19, 2014
by Michael
comments 10
Christ / Course Ideas

I’ve been reflecting lately upon the nature of knowing- of knowing anything at all.  How exactly do we come to know?  And what is it that may be known?  The context for my reflections is not a vacuum, but my life, and the way that my deepest desires have driven me to wrestle with questions of meaning, purpose and identity.  As is unavoidably the case for each of us, I have had to answer the […]

Half Time Talk

June 16, 2014
by Michael
comments 13
Christ / Poetry

However you came to this point, however you made contact with your inner geometry, whatever brought you to the point of finally placing all your stock into who you are, into that infinitesimal droplet of radiance lurking in your chest of which you’ve but caught fleeting glimpses, not yet even knowing what they might be, it doesn’t really matter. You’re here. Let’s leave it at that. However you came to this point, all we can […]

Song, Uninterrupted.

May 25, 2014
by Michael
comments 13
Christ

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 […]

The (nth to) Last Temptation of M

May 21, 2014
by Michael
comments 27
Christ / Course Ideas

Roughly a week ago I wrote about acceptance and not looking back.  It was fun.  It felt good.  I felt whole, and alive.  I was aware of a nurturing Invisibility with which I was joined, as if I was wading into a body of water that has no opposite shore, shaking my arms loose, wiggling my head around, and generally preparing to dive forward and start doing a Michael Phelps impersonation at a right angle […]

Over the Edge of the World

May 17, 2014
by Michael
comments 21
Christ / Poetry

A glowing vector shot across the sky, the last, illumined fragment of a shattered world, screaming in octaves of fire and dissolution. I peered into the majesty left behind, into that gathering field of stars and distances beyond measure, of potency and shimmering songs, feeling its Invitation draw the life within me to the surface the way the moon pulls the water up through stone beneath the land, the way tears rise to the surface […]