A voyage into God
Lovely is your face,
Night Sky, waiting in silence,
Still calling to me;
You desire to be beheld
By one who forgets his soul.
Waning crescent moon,
Goddess of our sky tonight,
You shall fade away,
To reappear a New Moon,
Awaiting your lover’s light.
As the moon receives
Glory from the unseen sun,
So a little soul
In a time-passing body
Receives grandeur from the One.
Light of light within,
Mind illuminating mind,
Beauty of beauties,
Unseen, unfelt, and unknown,
Toward you I turn my face.
God of creation,
Without whom nothing would be,
Uncaused cause of all,
Unimaginably One
Full of possibilities.
Every beauty seen,
Every act of goodness felt,
Every word of truth,
Every deed wrought by real love--
All is pouring forth from You.
Still more beautiful,
Far better than goods we know,
Wise beyond knowing,
More loving than our best loves--
You in whom all things exist.
I call you the LORD,
He who is, Yahweh, our God;
I call you Father-
Mother of all that exists,
Brother-sister on life’s way.
You are my love’s love,
Well beloved by one I love,
Jesus Christ our LORD,
God become flesh for us all,
God dwelling in humankind.
You have shown yourself
In many various ways
Even to me, this soul,
Living in body-space-time
Somewhere in your vast Cosmos.
I looked and I saw
In a moment’s suddenness,
You gazing at me
Through the body-ensouled eyes
Of a carrier of You.
Or did this gazing
Simply remind me of you--
You gazing at me
From the depths of my spirit,
From heaven within a soul?
Ever present One,
In and through all that exists;
Ever living One,
Drawing all back into You,
Both now and eternally.
What is your purpose
In appearing as You do?
To what do You lead?
Is mere seeing your purpose,
And the seeing is complete?
Your ways are hidden,
Your wise plans unknown to us,
Our small creature minds
Too limited for your Mind,
And yet illuminated.
I surrender I,
To You I yield all I am,
For I am yours, LORD,
A little soul in your soul,
One mind within your vast Mind.
I gaze towards You,
Unshaken by not seeing,
At peace in loving
What is known by love alone,
Goodness beyond all our goods.
I gaze because You
Move me to gaze towards You,
In whom I have life,
From whom I receive your grace--
Loving presence all present.
You-I recollect
Ways that You have come to me,
Drawn me in my life,
Present now remembering
How You breathed You into me.
Sacred those moments
When you yet unseen appeared,
Piercing through the veil
Not of yourself, but of me,
The veil that hid You from me.
Divine unveiler,
Revealing and unrevealed,
You who lift the veil
That covers my mind in You,
That seeing I may not see.
How foolish to think
That you are “revealed,” Lord God!
No one tasting You,
No one found lost within You
Could say that you are “revealed.”
Any glimpse you give,
Leads your lover wanting more,
Knowing the unknown
Is far greater than the known,
A mere drop in your ocean.
You the Unknown God,
Known-unknown, seekers’ delight,
Unseen guiding Polaris
Piloting the voyager
Over Psyche’s wine dark seas.
***
Beautiful Psyche,
How blest you are to open
Into unseen depths
Beyond Jung’s unconsciousness--
Unfathomable divine.
Psyche a Cosmion,
Little world within the world,
And world transcending
In all directions into
That which we humbly call God.
Memory descends
Into psyche’s depths to find
And to draw back up
What was known, now forgotten
Experiences long past.
Memory draws up
From the psyche’s hidden wealth
Long forgotten gems
Often containing in them
Sparks of lost divinity.
You were with me, LORD,
But I was not all with You.
You illumined me,
But I overlooked your light
For what then attracted me.
Remember me, God,
To myself, now seeking you;
Make conscious again
Moments of your irruptions,
That I let fall forgotten.
When did I feel awe
At life’s sacred mysteries?
Some events remembered,
Some swim in oblivion--
Now lost or recollected?
To remember what?
What needs to be remembered
Before departing,
That ought to be remembered?
I must search trusting presence.
Psyche must descend
Into its divine grounding
With the help of God
Present and beyond presence
To the conscious, searching mind.
Beholding Venus,
I’m conscious of the planet
And also conscious
That it had been thought a god,
Detected by her beauty--
Beauty arousing
Awe in the gazer’s psyche,
Reminding the mind
Of other awe-filled moments
Bespeaking divine presence.
One glimpse recalls more
As psyche reawakens,
Conscious once again
That You penetrate the whole:
All space-time is within You.
Psyche is flooded
And re-enlivened by You
Present to minds open
To your sovereign movements
In and through all that exists.
What is forgotten
Is awareness that You are
Present forming all
And present in consciousness
As it beholds in wonder.
A self-contained “I”
Has allowed itself to drop
Consciousness of You
And pretend that it’s alone
In every mental action.
Descartes set the mode
Of a self-contained ego
In a thingly world,
All apart from your Presence
In everything that exists.
The moment I think
You are present in / to me,
No “I” by itself,
No self-contained “Cogito,”
But I-You thinking, knowing.
The myth of the “I”
Separated from the Whole,
Apart from body,
Apart from the Whole and God:
An imagined existence.
O LORD, guide me.
Help me now to be conscious
That You are in me,
In all that I undergo,
Every thought, experience.
Overcome the myth,
The deception of the “I”
Autonomous “I,”
Man as a world to himself
Becomes man entombed in self.
You are ever here,
Present forming each moment,
Present yet beyond,
Never contained nor confined,
Freely acting in and with.
The I that I turn
Towards the You whom I seek,
Is no I alone,
But You in me seeking You,
With all that is in my I.
You in me seeking,
You move me by questioning,
You are moving me
In ways I don’t understand,
Too vast for my little mind.
***
“LORD, open my lips,
And my mouth shall proclaim” You!
I open my lips
And you open them—both and;
You and I in all actions.
How proud I have been,
Disturbed for years by those words,
Thinking in my heart,
“Open your lips yourself, fool!”
I didn’t reflect on their truth.
How foolish was I
When in my youth, I wrote thus:
“I beyond beyond
The beyond,” words engendered
By a mind loosened from truth,
Split from reality,
Imagination took flight
Beyond what is real,
Into a meaningless realm
So praised by many today.
Imagination
Ungrounded by noesis--
Genuine insight
Into the world as it is,
Not as one merely wishes.
How much have I missed,
How many years wandering
In self-delusions?
I’m ashamed for life squandered,
Flights untethered to the Ground.
Our culture deceives;
From earliest years, the “I”
Is made the center,
More real than reality--
“I want, think, feel, take, believe…”
Reminders thrown out--
God ejected from classrooms,
Lest the little ones
Be aware they’re merely parts
In a much greater Whole than self.
Begodding ourselves,
We have become destructive
Of all that is good,
From conception to our death,
We destroy what hinders “Me.”
Self-godded man,
You are so full of yourself,
Empty of reason
Except to make money or things,
To conquer the world or space.
How blind we now are:
Though proclaiming ourselves wise,
We’ve become real fools,
Far more than the “primitives”
Who lived in a world of gods.
For gods set limits,
Unheeded only by fools
Who forget themselves
And their place within the Whole--
Man’s humble yet noble state.
“Did God really say?
But we can become like gods!”
“No, man you must die.”
Death an insulting limit
On self-divinization.
Man would conquer death
And live endlessly on earth
Or somewhere in space
Free to be “himself / herself,”
In a world of their making.
Your imaginings
Are self-delusions, mortals.
You’re not the captain
Of your own fate; you did not
Create yourselves from nothing;
Nor by your efforts
Can you prevent or reverse
Death that comes to all;
The “Captain of my own fate”
Flounders on mortality.
***
You are present; I
Must attend in still silence;
You provoke wonder,
You made me, you reform me,
You order me from within.
You awe me, my LORD,
Far beyond my mind’s dim eyes,
Present and beyond
All that exists in space-time,
Ordering and transforming.
My heart bows to you,
My mind yields to your mind’s truth;
You steer all through all,
And you pilot my soul home,
Into You beyond death’s reach.
You deserve all love,
For all that is lovable
Is rooted in You;
In all acts of love, my God,
May I love you above all.
When I love another,
You, LORD, are loving through me;
When I pray for them,
You, LORD, are praying through me.
You the Beginning and End.
You move me to love
By showing me your Presence
In their beloved soul;
You purify my love, LOVE,
By showing yourself in them.
I tremble before You,
Not fearing your punishment,
Nor awed by power--
Not raw power, but wisdom:
You bring each to perfection.
You seek out the lost,
And give then a home in You.
You strengthen the weak
To do works beyond themselves,
To do more than we realize.
I worship your wisdom,
Knowing-loving all in You,
Abandoning none
To his / her own devices,
Drawing each by bands of love.
Your beauty inspires;
Even when artists don’t know
That You are Beauty,
And You are the true Master,
The Artist of all artists.
Your goodness is so good
That it’s ever-flowing out,
Giving freely to all,
Self-emptying for us all,
Making us anew like You.
You’re at work in us,
But not without us, freely
Cooperating,
You guiding, we following--
Here into eternity.
My words fall far short,
And my spirit longs to speak
In sounds flamed by love,
Sounds from the heart, not the mind,
To praise and love You, Lord God.
You kiss my spirit,
You embrace my inner heart;
You make me your own,
Chastely yours, divine Lover,
In time for eternity.
What can death be, LORD,
But trustingly yielding all
I am, all I love,
To You alone, my Lover,
Taking me into yourself.
May your Body, LORD,
Be a foretaste of death’s trial,
A foretaste for me
As I surrender myself
At the altar of your Love. Amen,
—Wm. Paul McKane, OSB
20 January 2020
Night Sky, waiting in silence,
Still calling to me;
You desire to be beheld
By one who forgets his soul.
Waning crescent moon,
Goddess of our sky tonight,
You shall fade away,
To reappear a New Moon,
Awaiting your lover’s light.
As the moon receives
Glory from the unseen sun,
So a little soul
In a time-passing body
Receives grandeur from the One.
Light of light within,
Mind illuminating mind,
Beauty of beauties,
Unseen, unfelt, and unknown,
Toward you I turn my face.
God of creation,
Without whom nothing would be,
Uncaused cause of all,
Unimaginably One
Full of possibilities.
Every beauty seen,
Every act of goodness felt,
Every word of truth,
Every deed wrought by real love--
All is pouring forth from You.
Still more beautiful,
Far better than goods we know,
Wise beyond knowing,
More loving than our best loves--
You in whom all things exist.
I call you the LORD,
He who is, Yahweh, our God;
I call you Father-
Mother of all that exists,
Brother-sister on life’s way.
You are my love’s love,
Well beloved by one I love,
Jesus Christ our LORD,
God become flesh for us all,
God dwelling in humankind.
You have shown yourself
In many various ways
Even to me, this soul,
Living in body-space-time
Somewhere in your vast Cosmos.
I looked and I saw
In a moment’s suddenness,
You gazing at me
Through the body-ensouled eyes
Of a carrier of You.
Or did this gazing
Simply remind me of you--
You gazing at me
From the depths of my spirit,
From heaven within a soul?
Ever present One,
In and through all that exists;
Ever living One,
Drawing all back into You,
Both now and eternally.
What is your purpose
In appearing as You do?
To what do You lead?
Is mere seeing your purpose,
And the seeing is complete?
Your ways are hidden,
Your wise plans unknown to us,
Our small creature minds
Too limited for your Mind,
And yet illuminated.
I surrender I,
To You I yield all I am,
For I am yours, LORD,
A little soul in your soul,
One mind within your vast Mind.
I gaze towards You,
Unshaken by not seeing,
At peace in loving
What is known by love alone,
Goodness beyond all our goods.
I gaze because You
Move me to gaze towards You,
In whom I have life,
From whom I receive your grace--
Loving presence all present.
You-I recollect
Ways that You have come to me,
Drawn me in my life,
Present now remembering
How You breathed You into me.
Sacred those moments
When you yet unseen appeared,
Piercing through the veil
Not of yourself, but of me,
The veil that hid You from me.
Divine unveiler,
Revealing and unrevealed,
You who lift the veil
That covers my mind in You,
That seeing I may not see.
How foolish to think
That you are “revealed,” Lord God!
No one tasting You,
No one found lost within You
Could say that you are “revealed.”
Any glimpse you give,
Leads your lover wanting more,
Knowing the unknown
Is far greater than the known,
A mere drop in your ocean.
You the Unknown God,
Known-unknown, seekers’ delight,
Unseen guiding Polaris
Piloting the voyager
Over Psyche’s wine dark seas.
***
Beautiful Psyche,
How blest you are to open
Into unseen depths
Beyond Jung’s unconsciousness--
Unfathomable divine.
Psyche a Cosmion,
Little world within the world,
And world transcending
In all directions into
That which we humbly call God.
Memory descends
Into psyche’s depths to find
And to draw back up
What was known, now forgotten
Experiences long past.
Memory draws up
From the psyche’s hidden wealth
Long forgotten gems
Often containing in them
Sparks of lost divinity.
You were with me, LORD,
But I was not all with You.
You illumined me,
But I overlooked your light
For what then attracted me.
Remember me, God,
To myself, now seeking you;
Make conscious again
Moments of your irruptions,
That I let fall forgotten.
When did I feel awe
At life’s sacred mysteries?
Some events remembered,
Some swim in oblivion--
Now lost or recollected?
To remember what?
What needs to be remembered
Before departing,
That ought to be remembered?
I must search trusting presence.
Psyche must descend
Into its divine grounding
With the help of God
Present and beyond presence
To the conscious, searching mind.
Beholding Venus,
I’m conscious of the planet
And also conscious
That it had been thought a god,
Detected by her beauty--
Beauty arousing
Awe in the gazer’s psyche,
Reminding the mind
Of other awe-filled moments
Bespeaking divine presence.
One glimpse recalls more
As psyche reawakens,
Conscious once again
That You penetrate the whole:
All space-time is within You.
Psyche is flooded
And re-enlivened by You
Present to minds open
To your sovereign movements
In and through all that exists.
What is forgotten
Is awareness that You are
Present forming all
And present in consciousness
As it beholds in wonder.
A self-contained “I”
Has allowed itself to drop
Consciousness of You
And pretend that it’s alone
In every mental action.
Descartes set the mode
Of a self-contained ego
In a thingly world,
All apart from your Presence
In everything that exists.
The moment I think
You are present in / to me,
No “I” by itself,
No self-contained “Cogito,”
But I-You thinking, knowing.
The myth of the “I”
Separated from the Whole,
Apart from body,
Apart from the Whole and God:
An imagined existence.
O LORD, guide me.
Help me now to be conscious
That You are in me,
In all that I undergo,
Every thought, experience.
Overcome the myth,
The deception of the “I”
Autonomous “I,”
Man as a world to himself
Becomes man entombed in self.
You are ever here,
Present forming each moment,
Present yet beyond,
Never contained nor confined,
Freely acting in and with.
The I that I turn
Towards the You whom I seek,
Is no I alone,
But You in me seeking You,
With all that is in my I.
You in me seeking,
You move me by questioning,
You are moving me
In ways I don’t understand,
Too vast for my little mind.
***
“LORD, open my lips,
And my mouth shall proclaim” You!
I open my lips
And you open them—both and;
You and I in all actions.
How proud I have been,
Disturbed for years by those words,
Thinking in my heart,
“Open your lips yourself, fool!”
I didn’t reflect on their truth.
How foolish was I
When in my youth, I wrote thus:
“I beyond beyond
The beyond,” words engendered
By a mind loosened from truth,
Split from reality,
Imagination took flight
Beyond what is real,
Into a meaningless realm
So praised by many today.
Imagination
Ungrounded by noesis--
Genuine insight
Into the world as it is,
Not as one merely wishes.
How much have I missed,
How many years wandering
In self-delusions?
I’m ashamed for life squandered,
Flights untethered to the Ground.
Our culture deceives;
From earliest years, the “I”
Is made the center,
More real than reality--
“I want, think, feel, take, believe…”
Reminders thrown out--
God ejected from classrooms,
Lest the little ones
Be aware they’re merely parts
In a much greater Whole than self.
Begodding ourselves,
We have become destructive
Of all that is good,
From conception to our death,
We destroy what hinders “Me.”
Self-godded man,
You are so full of yourself,
Empty of reason
Except to make money or things,
To conquer the world or space.
How blind we now are:
Though proclaiming ourselves wise,
We’ve become real fools,
Far more than the “primitives”
Who lived in a world of gods.
For gods set limits,
Unheeded only by fools
Who forget themselves
And their place within the Whole--
Man’s humble yet noble state.
“Did God really say?
But we can become like gods!”
“No, man you must die.”
Death an insulting limit
On self-divinization.
Man would conquer death
And live endlessly on earth
Or somewhere in space
Free to be “himself / herself,”
In a world of their making.
Your imaginings
Are self-delusions, mortals.
You’re not the captain
Of your own fate; you did not
Create yourselves from nothing;
Nor by your efforts
Can you prevent or reverse
Death that comes to all;
The “Captain of my own fate”
Flounders on mortality.
***
You are present; I
Must attend in still silence;
You provoke wonder,
You made me, you reform me,
You order me from within.
You awe me, my LORD,
Far beyond my mind’s dim eyes,
Present and beyond
All that exists in space-time,
Ordering and transforming.
My heart bows to you,
My mind yields to your mind’s truth;
You steer all through all,
And you pilot my soul home,
Into You beyond death’s reach.
You deserve all love,
For all that is lovable
Is rooted in You;
In all acts of love, my God,
May I love you above all.
When I love another,
You, LORD, are loving through me;
When I pray for them,
You, LORD, are praying through me.
You the Beginning and End.
You move me to love
By showing me your Presence
In their beloved soul;
You purify my love, LOVE,
By showing yourself in them.
I tremble before You,
Not fearing your punishment,
Nor awed by power--
Not raw power, but wisdom:
You bring each to perfection.
You seek out the lost,
And give then a home in You.
You strengthen the weak
To do works beyond themselves,
To do more than we realize.
I worship your wisdom,
Knowing-loving all in You,
Abandoning none
To his / her own devices,
Drawing each by bands of love.
Your beauty inspires;
Even when artists don’t know
That You are Beauty,
And You are the true Master,
The Artist of all artists.
Your goodness is so good
That it’s ever-flowing out,
Giving freely to all,
Self-emptying for us all,
Making us anew like You.
You’re at work in us,
But not without us, freely
Cooperating,
You guiding, we following--
Here into eternity.
My words fall far short,
And my spirit longs to speak
In sounds flamed by love,
Sounds from the heart, not the mind,
To praise and love You, Lord God.
You kiss my spirit,
You embrace my inner heart;
You make me your own,
Chastely yours, divine Lover,
In time for eternity.
What can death be, LORD,
But trustingly yielding all
I am, all I love,
To You alone, my Lover,
Taking me into yourself.
May your Body, LORD,
Be a foretaste of death’s trial,
A foretaste for me
As I surrender myself
At the altar of your Love. Amen,
—Wm. Paul McKane, OSB
20 January 2020