With each breath the possibility exists that your heart will no longer merely window shop along the shores of Eternity, sneaking peaks into that vista of marbled light, self-tending gardens and pain-free childbirth, imagining with aching joy all the wonders doo-dads and luxuriant, long-lasting features that you probably can’t even begin to comprehend that come standard with the Wholeness package, but will pull open the door, step inside and ask itself, really ask itself, to […]
Once, when he was still learning his craft of ushering the anxious and doubtful from the shadows of falsehood to the river of poetry at the center of their own being, and in a well-intentioned effort to raise the general morale, Hafiz gave away two court-side seats to the Explosion of the Sun. Because, as we all know, sometimes having something to look forward to can make all the difference. In this particular case, the […]
The construction of bridges can lead to the forgetting of rivers and the strengthening of commerce. In this way, thoughts can erect theoretical scaffolding to cross safely the tidal pools of the heart. This is far more efficient than wading through marsh and muck each morning, once in each direction, to pick up the day’s fresh batch of metrics. Less smelly, too. One day I was walking the planks when a great wind came up […]
Here in the Meanwhile, on the shores of Forever dotted with the charcoal stumps of forgotten fires, the mossy walls of collapsing wooden shanties and various debris of antiquity, such as: half-buried edges of glass, torn diary pages, ice picks, the bones of dead birds bleached by the sun, and a curious face caught in sepia, the faint notes of song drift past on the breeze, pastel tones that have nowhere else to go and so […]
I remember once when I was a boy, wondering if my knee would ever heal. A baseball slide on hard-packed dirt had torn it open. Then I had fallen off a bike. Mashed it into the ground in a soccer game. Made a heroic dive across the playground during PE. Every few days, the same. Finally, infection set in, and with it came the reality of an uncertain outcome. The improvement from one day to […]
What will it be like to Remember? Rumi advises we give up on this question1. My American football analogy goes like this: this is not a first down that we’re after. We can call out the chains and ask for a measurement, but the umpire will be dumbfounded and probably feint. Our questions are all boats without bottoms. The instant replay, on closer inspection, will reveal ten million angels on the nose of the football […]
The other day I had some old friends drop by for a visit– unannounced. I was sitting in the plaza having a sandwich, reading or reflecting or some such thing, when Depression slid one of the free chairs out from beneath the table, making a real show of it– dragged it along in a gritty clattering of metal across stone that sent all the pigeons fleeing, and then flopped down like a rubbery fish. Unshaven, […]
I’ve never really known quite what to do with my hair. Were I pressed upon by violent circumstances, fighting to defend the fort or preserve the realm, this would be of no account. Instead my life sprouts daily, like weeds in a field, matters of no consequence that require careful attention, a trained eye, and defensible motives– matters best handled, as the world well knows, by well-ordered professional-looking people who instill confidence in others and keep […]
Time’s ruse is that it appears to pass. Every appearance, even voices, are a special effect. These echoes of the Invisible deceive me not. Every instance of drowning I endured came in the flood of something special. Show me the One who never speaks, and I will fall to my knees and listen, unmasked, mute and reverent. Change is the right-hand man of time, his charlatan enabler, the fragrance of sweet liquor hanging in the […]
I don’t believe there is any greater power than that of an idea, deeply held, and slowly it is becoming clear to me that all we behold is the product of these generative seeds. In the three books of A Course of Love, Jesus speaks frequently about ideas, and in a passage that I love he says, “Giving ideas life is the role of creatorship.” This statement comes in a section of the Dialogues– the […]
Embracing Forever 