You will never find water that isn’t in cahoots with all the other water. Even the last drop of a dried-up lake has the idea of the sea inside of it. A buffalo laps it up. Now what… What I mean is that when you’re quiet, dissolving into the sky is a completely natural thing to do. You could pop back out anywhere, coalesce out of nothing, find yourself in an active hygroscopic nebula, and […]
For a while now I’ve been tip-toeing gingerly around this little tear in the fabric of my whole world and everything I’ve ever known or questioned or waved to from afar or shouted at or outsmarted or dreamed of lassoing with real jute rope or fallen in love with or skipped rocks across or retreated from or tripped over. Every time I ask Hafiz about cashing in what’s left of my heart for whatever it’ll […]
At the clock makers convention we arranged ourselves neatly around a life-sized cutaway of a gravitational escapement, observing the pendulum bearing the maker’s seal that swung to and fro behind a nest of hypnotic linkages, together recalling amidst polite chuckles and knowing nods the virtuous marriage of metallurgy and time-keeping. Not too many really understood what we did… Not too many could even fathom the significance of what was on display… Pretty cool, eh? said the gentleman […]
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 […]
When I see a leaf as big as a baby elephant’s ear bouncing in sunlight, plunged like an open hand into a river of life-giving rays 93 million miles deep, and behaving so mysteriously— responding to the way of things with medicinal colors and chemistries only it can offer, as if flush with a secret I once discarded in favor of concocted ideas of legitimacy that involve passing out cards with my name on them in […]
Jesus is a condiment you can sprinkle onto any moment, to give it life. This is, I think, his greatest miracle. While most condiments come in glass jars or plastic bottles, Jesus comes inside of people. He’s a salt that melts the ice around the heart. He’s a sauce that turns every pain into delectable mystery. When you dunk those french-fried ideas of who you are into him, they become something else entirely… Lotus blossoms. Sea glass. Abandoned […]
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 […]
Everything you see is a trick. And Love is the punchline. These skins are just the charade we need, to remember what can never grow old. Children with eyes overflowing— they don’t tire of hearing it over and over and over again. All those goo goo gah gah faces we make— so certain of our personal contribution to their pleasure… They’re not even listening. It’s what’s in our eyes they crave, that punchline peeking through our […]
When Hafiz had invited me over for a treatment, I guess in my excitement I had imagined a gamut of therapeutic practices slightly more sporting in scope and dexterity than what he’d ultimately prepared. Because after sitting on lounge chairs all day under the shade canopy, sipping iced teas to stay alert, and listening to him chuckle whenever a caravan of clouds sauntered past the revealing sun, or mumble an appreciative syllable when the wind […]
Each of my wounds, every pain, was a withholding. Never mind the reasons. You don’t need ten plagues to make the point if you have the miracle of uncertainty in your life. It teaches unceasingly, without relent. I realized the other evening in the car: the only fear I’ve ever had is a question about what I might be asked to give. Jesus knows this question well—has explored its every angle— but no one can […]
Embracing Forever 