Ascend to the Light
Late winter of 2021
Part II: Towards the Vernal Equinox
Part II: Towards the Vernal Equinox
Contents
1. The longing
2. Writing in hope
3. An opportune time
4. The need to contemplate
5. Seeing
6. La luna llena
7. Calving season
8. I am no poet
9. The mover
10. No leaf
11. Distilled
12. Sit
13. Your eyes
14. Unrequited love?
15. Lifted up
16. First signs of spring in the Rockies
17. The new god
18. Wake up and stay away
19. A farewell to Laurin Cemetery
20. Bewildered
21. Memento to a preacher
22. In due season
23. Grow lights
24. Night speaks
25. Vernal Equinox
26. Remembering a good man
27. A little Exodus
1. The longing
2. Writing in hope
3. An opportune time
4. The need to contemplate
5. Seeing
6. La luna llena
7. Calving season
8. I am no poet
9. The mover
10. No leaf
11. Distilled
12. Sit
13. Your eyes
14. Unrequited love?
15. Lifted up
16. First signs of spring in the Rockies
17. The new god
18. Wake up and stay away
19. A farewell to Laurin Cemetery
20. Bewildered
21. Memento to a preacher
22. In due season
23. Grow lights
24. Night speaks
25. Vernal Equinox
26. Remembering a good man
27. A little Exodus
1. The longing
I long to compose before I decompose.
Presently inspired by Bruckner’s symphonies,
Restless seas of sound, we called them,
Dynamic-titanic oceans of surging sounds,
Living seas, powerful, stormy, and searching…
I’m searching and composing into words
What I do not write in Muse’s music sounds.
Truer to experience is music
Communicating and communing more directly
Mind to mind and heart to heart.
Unable to compose in sounds, we’ll compose in words
That flow nourishingly as sounds from silence
To draw the receiving mind back into that bounty;
Still nothingness encompassing every being-thing,
The Apeiron, boundlessly fertile with possibilities.
February, longing for the vernal equinox
Season springing up afresh from earth’s dark bosom;
Two months past the winter solstice, daylight lengthening
With streaks of light and bands of purples in the evening sky
Even to 1900, so different from winter’s darkest depths.
***
Cease. Treasure the silence of still emptiness.
Return on the wings of memory to distant Himalayas,
To that cleft between rocks seen in a dream some forty years ago,
To the unseen spring out of which trickles Ganges’ origin,
Flowing from the depths of God into the abysmal sea.
Cease and be silent, cease and be still, now before stalking death
Slides up and overtakes you, this being of undulating gender--
Feminine as la muerte, masculine as der Tod--
Death. No breath. How many fear that familiar sound? Death.
Soon you’ll carry Moses far away, perhaps still sooner me.
“Muero porque no muero,” dying because I do not die.
“Ceso todo.” Everything ceases in the stillness between two breaths,
Between two waves, indivisible instances. Nothing, no thing.
Here between thens, in that no-thing pause, one is free
Because there’s nothing but pure awareness, consciousness.
Life and death flowing together, drawn together from the abyss
That no eye can penetrate, no hand may touch,
Called the sea of divinity from known ignorance
The God beyond all gods, and ever beyond our knowing,
Called sacred as distinct from that which perishes.
Cease, be still, allow the silence to overtake you.
Each moment is the time of death and its preparation,
When breathing stops, heart beat ceases,
Nothing is heard although a car rushes by somewhere
In that strange land to which no traveller returns.
***
Longing to compose before I decompose,
Longing to be awake before I fall asleep,
Longing to become what I most truly am,
Longing to be alive before death silences me
And I part in parts to exist no more.
There’s no existence beyond existence,
No time beyond the flux of time,
No being thing beyond all being things,
Neither something nor nothing nor in-between:
Dying because I do not die.
That which does not exist is all that is.
What am I if not thought within thought
Nóema within nous
Known within knowing
Known or unknown.
2. Writing in hope
I write in hope that after years of work
I will learn to set myself aside
Permitting Spirit to bring forth some truth--
Even a single woven word of worth and beauty.
The future does not exist as actuality, but as sheer possibilities:
The human task’s to be midwives, reaching gently in
For the best of these, helping to bring forth their fruits in time--
Out of no-time into time in tension towards the timeless.
I write not in the illusion that these words have merit
But in hope that through much practice and self-discipline
Through the surrendering effort of spirit infused by Spirit
Some words containing-pointing to truth may still be born.
If Moses is my Moses, then I’m his brother Aaron
Who takes trinkets of gold hanging on the ears of language,
Throws them into experience’s fire, works them into form,
And out jumps this golden calf of linguistic idolatry.
Writing is a form of playfulness, serious playfulness,
A kind of dance with fluid freedom of movement,
Dancing on the edge of eternity and nothingness,
Dancing before the sun’s rising of stark truthfulness.
Around the golden calf we dance, waiting for our Moses,
Knowing we are foolish with our wrought molten bull,
Waiting for the godlike Moses to descend from the mount,
Cast our calf back into fire, and lead us into God.
Jesus spoke in magical-mystical words of poetry
Or the evangelists imagined-remembered golden utterances
Cast them into the fire of their experiences
And formed them into profound Gospel poetry.
“Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;
Many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see
And did not see it, and to hear what you hear
But did not hear it: Hear, then, the parable of the sower…”
I, too, will sow some seed, in writing, sounds, or speech,
And see or not what springs up in time’s churning seasons.
The human task requires each to do one’s proper duties,
And leave results to the One bringing forth abundantly in time.
Why is it that my little calf likes to dance in nine verses?
3. An opportune time
We rose the waxing gibbous overhead
0245 when Moses needed relief;
A mild 25 outside, overcast, misty on the skin
Refreshing and brisk, a good way to rise
And greet the day silently, no lights in the neighborhood.
Made coffee—which the dogs refuse to drink--
And by 0300, we were checking global markets on CNBC
Then 0500 in wakey-woke New York, 1000 in London.
We’ve been witnessing a steep global sell-off in stocks
As the 10-year treasury has risen rapidly to 52-week highs
Investors panicked or simply dumped stocks.
And what is this to me? Right! It’s a buying opportunity.
Strange thing for a monk? Maybe if he’s sheltered on the moon
Or living on a monastery’s dole or lying prostrate on the strand--
The French, Spanish, or Italian Riviera--
But for a man wholly free of institutional support
The stock market has proven profitable over time
A suitable place to earn a living, and provide for others.
So this morning we had some planning to do
Putting cash to work while blood runs on the Street.
It’s an opportune time to add to solid positions
Taking profits or losses in other stocks
Less rewarding as long-term investments.
We clearly enjoy the mental challenge of the hunt--
As George enjoys hunting down coyotes
To sell their pelts, as Neil enjoys farming his fields
Supporting his family and feeding strangers.
So I share thoughts and plans freely with friends
Who also must support themselves for retirement
With hunter George, more often with José
Frequently texting messages on investing
Both for financial benefits and for hunting pleasure.
I’ve seen eyebrows raised when I’ve mentioned markets
Because some find it an odd interest for monks or priests;
These folks may not understand the costs
Of freedom from the Church’s costly support.
“How worldly.” Active investing is worldly indeed
A fitting pursuit for self-supporting in the world, eh?
Sprung from the prison of monastery and Church
I’ve found a challenging legal way to pay our bills.
We admire the teaching of Warren Buffett, brilliant investor:
“When others are greedy, I am fearful,” he oft repeats;
“When others are fearful, then I’m greedy.” Even at ninety.
Study fundamentals, be patient, and be a prudent opportunist
Who does not follow the crowing crowds, chasing shiny objects,
But enjoys going fishing on rippling streams with flecks of gold
Somewhere hidden in the massive mountains of Montana
Far away from the press of flesh and trendy fashions.
Admittedly, I bought some high-flying Tesla shares this week
When the stock price plunged to a short-term bottom;
When the price rose the next day $100 per share
I immediately sold those shares to put the cash to work
In companies less highly valued, with better prospects
For the intermediate or preferably long term,
Such as BHP, the world’s largest traded miner;
If it’s down in mother earth, BHP will draw it forth.
Now to wait for the market’s open in an hour or so,
Hear what lovely Maria Bartiromo has to say,
And consider the views of some fascinating guests
As I feed my face and that of wolves at my gate.
4. The need to contemplate
Money is necessary to help sustain mere life
But theoria is necessary for the good life.
By Aristotle’s term theoria I intend both study
And contemplation in its diverse meanings.
The mind—human consciousness—needs to focus
Needs to exercise steady and purposeful attention.
The mind needs to learn in order to know--
How to make things, to act well, to seek wisdom.
One studies to learn, to acquire knowledge, to think
To sift through opinions rattling around one’s mind
To expand horizons, opening new vistas on reality
To orient oneself more truly within the Whole, to pan.
The Whole itself in all its beauty, order, and awesome mystery
Is the most suitable subject-object for contemplation.
Within the Whole, one’s mind moves from exploring things
And their relationships to seeking the cause of all that exists.
By contemplation the mind moves from what shows up
To what is moving all that exists without being moveable.
This may sound like warmed over Aristotle to you,
But it is also simple common sense put into speech.
“The unmoved mover,” that which simply is without existing
The ultimate source and cause of everything that exists:
This first cause is that which is sought in contemplation--
Whether in prayer, in meditation, or in philosophical noēsis.
Consciousness becomes aware not of being self-subsisting,
But of its rootedness and sharing in the whole order of reality
From matter and that which grows to the psyche, even to the One.
By our being (“by nature”) we share in the whole range of reality.
By consciousness one becomes aware of being a particular being
A transitory moment in the vast movement of the Cosmos
Something or someone that did not have to be at all--
Not unconditional being, but conditionally arising in the flow of time.
“I” is a short-hand word referring to one’s whole being, body and mind
And this “I” is no given fixture either, but a movement in directions
Sometimes drawn towards the material world of physical nature
Sometimes drawn inward or upward to the uncaused cause.
I’m not because I think, René; I think because I’m coming-to-be
In a mysterious process in which I participate but which transcends me
And in which I find myself to be one being among many
Consciousness within an unbounded sea of consciousness.
One needs to orient oneself in the whole of reality;
To this end, one must ask questions: “What is the cause of all that exists?”
Drawing on Leibniz, “Why is there something, why not nothing?”
“And why is the world as it is, and not some other way?”
In more personal language, “Who are you, LORD?”
5. Seeing
Beauty, like joy, breaks startlingly into consciousness.
We have all experienced being “surprised by beauty”
Haven’t we, Dante Alighieri?
Or surprised by joy, Jack Lewis?
What displayed itself to me at Laurin Cemetery
Is the same / different reality seen sixty times;
But today alone was my mind so immediately impressed
That I said to Moses, “My God! This place is beautiful!”
What kept my eyes, or really consciousness
From perceiving so much beauty here before?
Why suddenly on an afternoon at February’s end
Was my mind so arrested by what just shows up?
Beauty was veiled, I believe, by two different cloths:
By what I’ve called the ugly cloth of high desert wasteland--
The burned out, dried up landscape common in Montana--
And by the thicker cloth of my self-isolation and grief.
The arid-brown land has recently been largely clothed in white
The bright and fresh white of snow falling on snow
Hiding the land’s sparse plant life, the lack of color;
And white, grey clashing clouds and mist hiding the blue sky.
Those who do not attend to nature often, or who sweat in humidity
Imagine that deep blue cloudless skies are beautiful and cheery.
Not so fast. Once in a while, yes; but day after burning day
Blue skies grow old, like living in a room filled with naked light bulbs.
Here’s the deeper truth: “Whatever is received,” Thomas teaches,
Is received according to the manner of the receiver.”
A mind disturbed by pain of loneliness and by grief of loss
Is not properly disposed to receive beauty for what it is.
Grief can so drown a spirit in agony, ultimately of self-suffering
That it deadens consciousness to perceive beauty and goodness.
A cheerful and grateful heart receives words kindly and openly;
A dis-eased spirit finds no truth or goodness in a hated person.
How to keep one’s spirit youthful and open to receive what is:
That is a task incumbent on each one of us as we age.
The elderly often allow their jadedness and resentments to blind them
Whereas youth are often more open to being awe-struck by beauty
And youth can fall in love and out of love again in the same day,
As Aristotle recounts. The burden is to become receptive to what is
Including to parts of reality—or human beings—whom we may not like.
When a husband stops seeing his wife afresh, and wondering at her
When he assumes that he knows her fully, then he has fallen out of love.
As Hamlet laments, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!” Then recall how this stale spirit
Treats Ophelia, who loves him; or his own mother, who bore him.
What can one do to make his soul, his consciousness, a good receiver?
What spiritual exercises give birth to openness of spirit?
Above all else: Sitting alone and apart in silent meditation.
It takes many hours of effort to prepare the soul to receive the seeds
Provided by nature’s bounty daily to every creature.
If prayer leads to carping criticisms and close-mindedness
That prayer should be be suspended to embrace one’s nothingness.
Self-emptying meditation—as in zazen—prepares a mind to receive
The reality’s wonders that abound.
6. La luna llena
“Nature loves to hide,” mused Heracleitos of Ephesus;
And nature also reveals herself, does she not?
I climbed into bed, and at once she beamed me
Utterly bright white light full moon streaming
Shining through my eastern window, staring at me.
“Ah,” said I to Elijah, “next full moon is Passover!”
And that means the vernal equinox, and spring
Holy Week, Good Friday, Paschal-Passover mystery--
And now the full moon who silently tells her story--
Giving me no place to hide, as she pierces me.
The Germans call it der Mond, cognate with moon and month
But to me she’s the goddess Seléne, la luna, mysterious woman
Who gazes in at my window, incanting
“Arise, my love, my chosen one, and come away with me!”
“To where would you lead me, sweet lady of the night?
Bright white with the sun’s hidden light, reflecting
Undimmed by age, ever in the beauty of youth
Voluptuous, enticing, nocturnal Erlkönige
Drawing-calling me not to sleep—but to death?”
Maybe she’s Abagail Miller, her father’s joy
A lovely auburn Jewish girl in the suburbs of New York
First girl I kissed, alluring her into a pup tent I pitched
And hastily made my play. Now she, the moon
Plays fair with me, her white bosom glistening.
—27 February 2021
7. Calving season
Fascinating is consciousness, the pool of the mind;
One spends years stocking the pool with fish
And over time, unseen, the fish get transmogrified.
By what hidden processes do fish becomes calves?
It’s calving season here in the Ruby
Mother cows with their new-born calves in fields.
I, too, am giving birth in due season to little calves--
These golden calves of my late winter idolatry.
8. I am no poet
I am no poet, nor was meant to be;
I’m a human being who questions
Writing in this form for brevity
To clarify thoughts, to communicate.
Poetry employs myth and thrives in that world;
I may use mythical and symbolic language
But in the service of the search for truth
Rarely for the sake of poetic beauty or artistic worth.
To question is a foremost duty of human beings.
The Question that so often comes to mind is:
“Who or what are you, LORD?” and
“What would you have me do in my remaining time
Before I slip away behind the veil of silence?”
We use speech and arts in our search for you
And to gain truth about the nature of reality.
How shall I use words before death intervenes?
Sometimes I seek in silence, reflecting on experience;
Sometimes I seek through writing, to clarify
Gaining insight at times through this process.
Sometimes I must rouse myself to seek afresh.
I’m not a prophet, poet, or philosopher
But have much respect for each of these callings.
I’m neither a scholar nor an intellectual
Simply a human being in search of God--
Or rather, responding to the One moving me.
9. The mover
That which moves me to question and to search
Utterly interests me, and stirs me up to seek.
That which draws me into itself is experienced
As the mysterium tremendum et facinans--
The mystery at once fearful and fascinating.
The divine presents itself through the structures of reality
Known to the Greeks as physis, growth, natura to Romans
Explored through philosophy and her offspring, science.
The divine presenting itself in and to consciousness
Is the aspect of divinity that most fascinates me
Even as I so often feel astounded at the divine without.
In my happiest moments, in times of most intense awareness
That which I call God reveals itself within--
Not as it is itself, but as that which is moving me.
Isis is no more unveiled-revealed than is Christ;
The mystery of who or what God is remains beyond us
Even as we undergo many conversions into union.
The notion that God is somehow “revealed” irks me.
It seems to be an arrogant and disrespectful claim
Failing to acknowledge how little one knows of God.
That which we call God is able to act on or in one
Without that person comprehending what it is--
One senses presence, is awed, but is also blinded--
Blinded by the intensity of divine presence
Blinded by an intellect far more powerful
Blinded and humbled, forced to realize one’s ignorance.
The divine that works on me and in me
Is experienced as delightful and surpassingly good
But also as utterly beyond knowing and grasp.
All language about God of any value is highly symbolic
For that of which we speak transcends all words.
Call God as you will, personal, impersonal
Named or unnamed; just keep searching
Knowing well what and why you do not know.
How empty and limited are all my words about It.
It is no being, no person, no thing.
And that is why I call it No-thing.
10. No leaf
How long’s it been since I’ve seen a leaf
Hanging on a tree or fallen to the ground?
Have all the leaves blown away
Or has my consciousness blown away?
11. Distilled
To serve again as a priest, or not to serve?
To this distinction I’ve distilled my thoughts:
I do not want to function within the church,
But I am willing to do so.
Presently, I can go no further;
It profits nothing to press the question now.
The better course may disclose itself in time.
12. Sit
You have ridden your donkey down dusty roads
Down too many roads of late.
Now’s the time to sit not on your donkey to ride
But on your ass to be still.
13. Your eyes
You died some years ago
And still I remember your eyes--
Eyes that so bedazzled me
Eyes into which I longed to gaze
But would not dare to stare.
Having died, now you come to me
Not in conscious memories alone
But even in a dream by night--
You with liquid-lovely ocean eyes, and I
Gazing unafraid into your bottomless pool.
A fire of desire ignited through your eyes--
So alive with beauty’s mystery to me.
Was it fear, desire or inquisitiveness
Or something else I saw? What I felt
Was longing to be one with you.
Whoever you may really be
Who dwells within behind those eyes
Those beautiful, heart-arresting eyes
Into which bewitched I could dive
And willingly gladly drown.
14. Unrequited love?
The eyes that seemed so captivating
Pools of beauty compelling me to plunge
Brought to consciousness another’s eyes
Whom I’d so long admired and desired
With love unfulfilled and unfulfillable.
Awestruck and stabbed by beauty’s spell
It’s you, unreachable friend, still seen and sensed
Shining through others as an inner paradigm
A body of incarnate beauty
Present in thought, not in reality.
Your name need not be spoken here
So often present in my humbled heart
Your visage churning turbulence.
Alive in God alone you may know well
A wounded soul’s sad quest for union.
My mind was drenched obsessing over you
Desires unexpressed and unfulfilled.
Your form, your face, your eyes reminding me
Of someone who came close in childhood
In ways beyond the light of consciousness.
That time-lost face I found again in you,
Those eyes through yours still stirring up the depths--
The eyes of one who touched a child’s heart
And whispered in his ear, “our little secret”--
A secret long forgotten, yet alive.
We all will die our love lives incomplete
Remembering longingly someone we had known
To whom we never could unveil ourselves.
Does any force so speak our incompletion
As love itself—unrequited and unfulfilled?
Unreached non-lover carried off by death
One known for years yet ever unaddressed
An object-symbol staring hauntingly
Obsessive love still grabbing at my heart
Through other faces til my heart is stilled.
***
Is love ever fully unrequited?
It shines in many loving-kindnesses received
By some who touched your harp and plucked its strings.
In one who truly loves, no love is not repaid--
Who willingly endures love’s haunting, biting pain.
To love another who may not respond--
A painful joy, indeed, a most strange gift of love
That draws the soul, immersing her
In love’s enduring luring mystery
Fulfilled beyond the bounds of time and death.
Can truth be found in speculating claims--
From Freud or his mere epigones--
In every love one’s parents are desired
One seeking now fulfilling unfilled
The psyche’s first most primitive desires?
In loving any one, is Love itself not loved?
In every act of love, imperfect, incomplete
Is not a psyche moving into God--
Unbounded surging sea of all-creating Love
That’s ever drawing us and never here complete?
***
However true it be love’s labor’s never lost
That every love’s its own reward--
An underlying nagging agony abides
That forces such obsessive loves on us
Entrapping one in long-forgotten pasts.
Not unrequited love, or not that only--
The dominating power of memories shoved down
Experiences in childhood from which you’re never free
Showing up in dreams, in feelings, in disturbing thoughts
That haunt your soul like revenanting spirits.
Perhaps in loving one is really loving God
And th’eternally-feminine ever leads us on:
Such truths ought not obscure the power of love betrayed
And memories forgotten, still stealthily at work
Leaving you obsessing over echoes of that “love.”
Is it love to use another for one’s gain?
Is it love that takes a child up in its arms
Performing deeds it calls “our little secrets”
And chains that child’s heart forever in a tomb
Of long-forgotten shadow memories?
You and I may never know the truth
Of why some person’s face obsesses us.
What we know’s the sound of hidden drums
The thrumming of a heart that longs to live again.
We do not see the ghosts who hold us in their grip:
Recurring echoes of deeds done, words heard, and dreams
Buried in the chambers of your early years
Recurring echoes that will not be silenced
But sounding hiddenly in you repeatedly
In many persons who by chance you meet.
A shutting down of parts that once had lived;
A heaviness of heart enticing one to sleep;
A feeling not of love but of bewilderment;
A silencing of voices in the heart—your heart--
Now muffled by a hand that says, “our secret.”
Ascent to the light is made more difficult
For those who carry in their heart forbidden shadows.
A sack of rocks on your back may weigh you down
But won’t prevent your ultimate ascent--
Ascent requiring a descent to the depths.
15. Lifted up
In my thirties years ago I dreamed
I was visiting Portsmouth Abbey
Near Newport, Rhode Island
Where later I was stationed in the Navy.
Walking on the monastery’s grounds
On what looked like a college campus
Suddenly a powerful wind was blowing
Preventing me from moving forward.
Then a heavy knapsack fell off my back
Something I had not realized was even there.
Now not only could I walk
But I became so light that the stream of wind
Lifted me up off the ground
Carried me through the sunlit air
Gently placing me through an open window
On the top floor of a building
A sizable building flooded with clean light
And I began exploring room to room
Each room bathed in glorious light.
16. First signs of spring in the Rockies
Mud. Thick mud.
Thawing ground
Melting snow. Mud.
A sudden gusting wind
Then a sprinkling rain at night.
Early dawn an owl calling
Moaning morning doves
Canada geese flying north
Cows mooing to give birth.
Sunbeams and cumulous clouds
Fresh snow shining on the Pioneers
And cresting the Snow Crests
As the Rubies shake off their winter coat.
Rubber rabbit bushes turning green
Grasses bent in winter sorrow
Feel the warming morning sun
And raise their heads in praise.
Small shoots appear on the cherry
Canada red cherry accustomed to cold
Forming buds on buffalo berries
Aspen, lilacs, Russian olive.
First delightful signs of spring
Subtle at first la primavera
Quiet like the lyrical andante
From Vivaldi’s winter.
And winter will strike back
In Montana’s waking Rockies
When and how she wishes
But nature’s joy is bursting forth.
17. The new god
It’s not some vague “Progressivism”
Nor is it “democratic Socialism.”
It’s called Communism, Comrade
When you squash all opposition
And elevate the State as god.
18. Wake up and stay away
What ought a reasonable human being do
Living in a regime of mass insanity?
Already in the 1960’s I knew that American political life
Was dangerously flawed by ideological thinking.
Over time, the break from reality in the minds of our elites
Has grown greater and more destructive in reach.
The absurdities spewed out on a daily basis
From the capital of the empire arouse questions:
How long can a regime drunk on power and illusions
Survive? What happens to us inmates in this society?
What will happen to everyday, non-elite Americans
Not drunk with power, and who see behind the illusions?
The regime’s spiritual-mental sickness inflicts death on infants,
And a nearly complete brain-washing on our youth
Through mass media, national entertainment,
The educational system in urban centers, and academia.
Generations have been spiritually manipulated and damaged
Through brainwashing and propaganda called “education.”
As a political scientist, I see the enormous gap
Between political rhetoric and political reality.
To call our regime “democratic” reminds one of the Soviet Union,
Which always insisted that it was “a true democracy.”
The same is true in “the People’s Republic of China,”
Which purports to be “democratic” and “humane,”
But is a harsh and murderous dictatorship by Communist elites.
In reality, the Soviet, Chinese, and American regimes are totalitarian.
Our beloved country has become a dangerously disastrous regime
Destroying the spiritual, intellectual, and physical lives of millions.
What is one to do in such wide-spread, inculcated madness?
How should one live in a nation-sized insane asylum,
Dominated by masters of illusion, perversion, and control?
Truly, there are places in our country where everyday life is more healthy,
Such as one finds in small-town Montana or the Midwest.
But we do not determine what is preached, taught, enforced.
Our youth, too, are being destroyed by the educational establishment.
And then there is the ever-present, all-invasive power of perverse mass media,
Penetrating and mentally molesting virtually every location in our country.
What is a human being to do?
How should one live in an oppressive, dominating, sick regime?
First and foremost, see and admit reality for what it is:
America is no democracy, but a totalitarian empire
Bent on “transforming the world” in its own diseased image.
(“Transforming the world” is a Marxist dream preached by Obama
And by millions of other “educated” elitists in America.)
Second, one must free one’s mind from the propaganda;
That requires a break from governmental and media-news propaganda.
One must constantly struggle to attune oneself to reality
Through meditation and philosophical reflection,
And not be submerged in the toilet of American political life.
These non-poetic, sobering thoughts explain why I pull back
And discuss political matters as rarely as possible.
America’s ruling elites have and seek to maintain what they love:
Power, prestige, control, domination over others, and great wealth.
Sick souls themselves, they seek to poison the lives of everyone else.
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Or do they?
What are we to do?
Wake up, stay awake, and keep apart to the extent possible,
Regardless of the cost to you personally.
The life of your soul, of your mind, is at stake.
On political life in America, I wish to say as little as possible.
Not waste precious time on what one is powerless to change.
“Physician, heal thyself!” And let the sewage float by.
19. A farewell to Laurin Cemetery
“We ain’t gonna play no ball no more
If we gotta go down to old Baltimore
I just wanna take Leidi and Mo
And go to Laurin to play ball.”
“Hooray, hooray, we’re going to Laurin today!…”
Each cemetery has its particular charms.
I loved the peace and historical interest in Sheridan
Until Mrs. Potatohead expelled us
Claiming that dogs do not belong in cemeteries.
We had been to Laurin since late fall of 2019
When we first arrived in the Ruby.
Only gradually did I come to appreciate Laurin
For the quiet, the aloneness, the gorgeous setting.
Sheridan Cemetery is near the main north-south road
Very narrow, poorly graded, single lane each way
But called here “the highway,” out of ignorance
Or because it connects strung-out old towns.
Proximity to “the highway” guarantees much noise
As our roads carry many large trucks
Noisy pick-ups, and speeding autos.
Why folks here must rush about, I never figured out.
Laurin Cemetery is quite a distance off that road
The “highway” between Twin Bridges and Ennis.
In every direction, one sees impressive mountains
A view unspoiled by tourists or by locals.
You are there alone with your thoughts and your dogs
Quietly walking or praising your dog for his catches.
You read the gravestones, and think about their lives:
Ferm died in 1906 at age 80, born in 1826.
Or the tall and imposing monument to Monsieur Laurin
After whom the town was evidently named.
(The town’s a mile down the mountainside.)
Numerous other French names dress the graves.
The mind is carried back in time, as you wonder
Who these people were, where they came from
What they had to endure as pioneers in Montana
Far removed from France or any civilization.
Mainly, Laurin means feelings to me:
Moses, increasingly crippled and elderly
Elijah, delighting to play ball among the sage
And my heart, peaceful and grateful, yet also sad--
Sad to be leaving the Ruby after a year and a half
Knowing that I won’t find quiet in Great Falls,
Or see beauty to match this valley and mountains
Or have so much time alone to ponder life and death.
It is very unlikely that Moses will ever be back here
As death is not far away for him.
Elijah and I may return, but may not--
“Knowing how way leads on to way.”
Farewell, Laurin, you peaceful Friedhof
Lonesome but not lonely, quietly set apart
For some who have died in years past
For some still journeying towards death.
20. Bewildered
You were running, although not well.
What happened to you?
What have you become?
What has been gained, and what lost?
You shift in your chair, uneasy.
What have you done to yourself?
Your mind is uneasy, isn’t it?
Why? Do you sense an inner betrayal?
You rub your eyes, your forehead.
You blink, staring silently.
What voice are you ignoring?
What voice or voices lead you?
There’s no safe island, no solid rock
No womb or tomb to which to return.
You are here, whatever whoever you are
And yet you barely grasp what’s happening.
Do you know how lost you’ve become
In the thickets and wilderness of life?
You no longer see the path you were on
And have not yet found another.
So much change so fast
In your personal life, in society.
Your mind swims in a sea of change.
Be still and be content not to know.
All things pass, even times of bewilderment.
Despair and fear are useless--
What’s needed is trust. Keep still
Before launching out in any direction.
Sit calmly and wait in silence.
No recriminations, no lashing out
Or settle onto your bed and be still
Letting silence or gentle sleep sooth you.
Still the body, still the mind,
Thoughts and feelings fall
Like drops of dew from a rose petal
Every mental state will pass.
21. Memento to a preacher
Nearly fifty years ago I heard him on the radio
Not once only, but quite a few times
Because I listened and returned to hear him
With his scriptural interpretations, homely stories
Strange accent and assurance without arrogance.
He was a fundamentalist preacher man
Who knew much about the Bible he proclaimed
About biblical stories, authors, and content;
He had good knowledge of the original Greek
And oftentimes the Hebrew and Aramaic.
This man said many things that seemed reasonable
But some of his views seemed as odd as ”dispensations,”
Or “the rapture,” or “the return of the Lord to the earth.”
How easy it would have been to dismiss all he had to say
By taking easy shots at some questionable beliefs.
His teaching was within the tradition of interpretation
Generally known as biblical fundamentalism.
He said and treated the Bible as “the word of God,”
A kind of Christian Qur’an deemed to be flawless
Even asserting that God himself “wrote the Bible.”
Despite such claims, this man had a love for Christ
And a zealous desire to declare and share his Lord
Through a presentation of the books of the Bible.
Recently I learned that he died over thirty years ago
And yet, to my surprise, his voice can still be heard.
Are people deceived by him, or spiritually enriched?
Who knows and presents the whole truth well?
Whose teaching is without some errors and foolishness?
When I hear this man now, I still listen attentively
Not for errors I think I find, but for meaningful truth.
Even though one may find his assumption naive--
That the Bible comes directly or indirectly from God
That it’s essentially true and the measure of truth--
One may still find wisdom in his interpretations
And practical insights well worth pondering.
I thank God for the life and teaching of my brother
Doctor J Vernon McGee, with his long-running
Through the Bible radio program.
He reached more human beings with Christ
Than many more learned or subtle ever did.
In my early twenties, living in a society adrift
In a sea of mud and confusing nonsense
This preacher challenged me to trust God, not myself;
And so he became to me more of a father in Christ
Than anyone else in those difficult, searching years.
Without doubt, Christ uses imperfect witnesses.
If the Almighty waited for a wholly wise disciple
A flawless teacher of the truth of God and Christ
He would be waiting until eternity and silently passed by
Peter the fisherman, Paul of Tarsus, and J Vernon McGee.
In his wisdom God uses our imperfections--
Our flaws, errors, idiosyncrasies, even sins--
To carry benefits of light and joy to many.
The creativity of God shows forth wondrously
In bringing good out of evil, and truth even through us.
This is my memento to Pastor J Vernon McGee
Who dedicated his life to living and preaching Christ.
With a grateful and more settled mind I listen to him again
Taking this brother and his words to heart
Delighting anew at the marvelous ways of the Almighty.
22. In due season
“I do nothing in vain,” says the Lord.
Are you alive? Do you await the sun?
Can you hear the stillness of a small voice?
Are you able to wonder, to seek, to respond?
Are you able to trust me, even me?
“I will never ever abandon you.”
You know that umbrella you put up in rain?
It’s still up even while the sun’s shining.
Will you put away your umbrella now
Or do you want me to do it?
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”
With imagination, I hear the knocking.
With trust, I’ve opened the door and you entered in.
I am opening the door, and you are entering in.
With your help, I will keep opening the door to you.
“Behold, now is the acceptable time…”
The One who is present acts now.
The One who was present then, acted then.
Now is the moment given to me
Now I turn towards you, or I refuse.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
“Lord, you know well that I love you.”
“Feed my sheep.”
“I was hungry, and you fed me; I was in prison
And you visited me.”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
“For theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are you when men revile you…”
“The Lord stood by my side and strengthened me
So that through me the gospel may be proclaimed.”
“Come to me, you are weary and are heavy burdened
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me
For am I gentle and humble in heart
And you will find rest for your souls.”
“Lord, what would you have me do?”
“Get up and go into the city
And you will be told what you must do.”
23. Grow lights
Some install grow lights in homes
To give light to favorite plants--
Sometimes for the sake of beauty
More often perhaps for drug effects.
To those who truly seek God
Who want to know and do the truth
Genuine questions arising in the heart
Will gradually find their fitting answers.
Attention to the word of God
Installs grow lights in the soul;
Gradually light begins to dawn
In the one seeking God in truth.
“I’m willing, but I do not want.”
Open the heart to the Spirit’s presence
Keep listening and taking the word to heart
And gradually light begins to dawn
For the just and for one who seeks justice
Seeks to do the will of God faithfully.
Good questions that arise are for clarity
Not to flee duties, escaping the divine pull.
Verily it’s still dark outside but keep still
Watch and wait for the forerunning light
Of the rising sun of righteousness
Will gradually lighten the visible world.
Watch and wait as the unseen light
Of the one Risen One will shine within
And the one who seeks will find
In the mind’s luminosity by truth.
24. Night speaks
The sun is setting, night is falling,
And the fountains of the night begin to sing.
I hear them through the still silence,
Through no sounds heard by ears.
I hear them speaking now and in dark night.
They speak in various tongues, in various ways,
Each requiring a still mind and attentiveness.
One may choose the time to tune in
And choose to whom or to what to tune in.
The chorus of singers is many.
If I turn the gaze of my mind towards one
I may find him speaking or singing to me.
One should not assume that they are dead,
Unless one assumes that they live as well,
Are alive in ways beyond life’s limitations.
There are times when one suddenly breaks in,
Somehow makes his presence known through silence.
You have not been thinking of him, of her--
And yet, behold, right here where you are
Not to be seen by the body’s eyes.
Several nudged me or caught my attention
In the few minutes that I’ve been writing.
Each assists in some ways, it seems;
They do not hinder the mind’s ascent,
But serve as stepping stones in the stream.
If I go fishing on the banks of that stream now
I do not know what or whom I shall catch.
Is one now fishing for me?
And if so, who is it, and what does he say?
Too many whisperings and shadows to hear.
I hear you weakly now, not distinctly.
Perhaps I’m too unsettled for fish to bite.
Or am I too fatigued to concentrate?
“Be more gentle on yourself, and on others”
As my eyes droop and breathing slows.
25. Vernal Equinox
Now is the vernal equinox
Midpoint between two solstices.
Now we in the northern hemisphere
Enter the light time of the year
And those living down under
Enter the darker half.
Passover is near at hand
With the full moon after the equinox.
And Good Friday rests within the feast
As we remember the Passover of the Lord
From rejection and brutal death
To the unseen event of Resurrection.
The lighter half of the year, daylight growing
For another three months, til the solstice,
And then begins again the descent
From light into darkness, summer to winter,
All within the flow of seasonal change
Within cosmic rhythms and scheme of things.
So much for the skeletal facts of the case;
Now silence and pondering on the equinox.
Attend to that which does not ebb and flow,
Does not rise and set, or change with our change.
Attend to that which is immortal and everlasting
Beyond the cosmos and its captivating rhythms.
A question arises in the darkness of consciousness:
Did Jesus have to undergo such a brutal death?
Did God truly will that he suffer and die for us?
Or does God in his goodness draw good out of evil?
Did Jesus intentionally will his brutal death
And if so, why? Was it more than suicide?
Did Jesus believe that only by his murderous death
Could he effectively draw us to the love and truth of God?
Did his teaching and good deeds and miracles
Not lead to the transformation he wanted?
Did he think that only when a grain of wheat is buried
Will it in time grow and produce abundantly?
“But if it dies, then it will bear much fruit.”
Why else did Jesus go up to Jerusalem
Knowing how he provoked the authorities--
Powerful men both of Israel and of Rome?
Jesus willingly allowed himself to be killed;
What did he think his death would accomplish?
If the grain of wheat dies, only then will it rise…
He accepted the consequences, however brutal--
The real and gruesome effects of his words and deeds
At the hands of those who hated him.
Why? Why? Listen in silence and wonder:
What did Jesus think his death would accomplish?
Believers, priests, and preachers have answers
At the cost of ceasing to ask questions.
Rise like the sun beyond the light of age-old answers
And wonder anew what and why Jesus accomplished
Going up to keep the feast of Passover
Knowing that some were plotting his death.
Still it is dark outside at 0630 on the vernal equinox
Dark because we’ve set the clocks ahead an hour
The time artificially advanced, prolonging darkness
Into the early morning hours. And to what purpose?
Half way between the solstices, my mind
May be half way towards true understanding.
Why did Jesus deliver himself up to his enemies?
Presumably he believed that more good would come
Through his agonizing death and “resurrection”
Than he could accomplish by words and deeds.
He risked his life and the effects of his ministry
Trusting in the creative and wise power of God.
Jesus entrusted himself to the God of Israel
Or to the unknown God whom he called “Abba.”
He passed beyond the institutions of his people
Beyond the reasons of reasonable human beings
And acted on faith and love beyond our understanding
Abandoning himself utterly to the unknown God.
26. Remembering a good man
In grateful and loving memory of
Colonel Patrick H Corbett, USAF
(1937-2020)
A thought arose suddenly today
Seemingly out of nowhere:
“Patrick Corbett died.” I stopped.
Within a few seconds, an online search
Found his obituary on several sites.
He died 17 August 2020, aged 83.
We were graduate students together in the 1970’s
At the University of California, Santa Barbara
Earning doctorates in political science.
I was in my twenties, he turned forty
An officer in the Air Force
Married with two teen-age children.
Pat and I took a number of the same classes
In the field international relations.
Often we discussed course material
And then worked closely together for half a year
Helping each other prepare for our doctoral exams--
To good results for both of us.
So much for a few outward facts.
What matters to me is Patrick Corbett the man
A genuine, unforgettable human being.
He was profoundly humble--
(“Umble” in his South Carolina accent.)
Above all: here was a truly good man.
Never did I hear Patrick yield to anger
Never did I hear him speak unkindly of anyone
Never did he bemoan his life or fate
Never did he show me anything but patience--
Patient Pat, most kind and accepting.
Here was a true gentleman, fatherly to me.
Patrick never made me feel ashamed
Or inferior, despite being thirteen years his junior
An immature man in every way.
He never shamed me, but his example does:
Such genuine goodness is far beyond me
Beyond anything within my character.
My thoughts cannot stop there
Because I see Pat smiling warmly and tenderly.
If he thought I felt shamed by his example
He would firmly embrace me.
Even if I could not accept myself
He could and did—just as I was.
Here was one of the two most Christ-like men
I have ever been blessed to know.
(The other was Patrick Daniel Kirk.)
With gratitude and love to Patrick Henry Corbett
Here’s to a genuine Mensch.
—20 March 2021
27. A little Exodus
A little Exodus never hurt anyone.
One must ever be leaving Egypt
And moving towards the promised land.
One must ever be rising from self
Into the beatific vision of God.
This Lenten spring, I am exiting
From a quiet village in southwest Montana
Toward the busy city of Great Falls.
With every loss there is gain
With every gain there’s loss.
All life is conversion or diversion
Turning towards or turning away
From that which simply is.
Within the outer Exodus from Sheridan
An inner Exodus into divine reality.
The moment of the equinox has passed
And spring has formally begun.
The moment of blinding truth awaits
The final Exodus from here to there
From biological bios into spiritual Zoé
From the land of the living into Life itself.
22 March 2021
End of “Ascend to the the Light II: Towards the Vernal Equinox”
I long to compose before I decompose.
Presently inspired by Bruckner’s symphonies,
Restless seas of sound, we called them,
Dynamic-titanic oceans of surging sounds,
Living seas, powerful, stormy, and searching…
I’m searching and composing into words
What I do not write in Muse’s music sounds.
Truer to experience is music
Communicating and communing more directly
Mind to mind and heart to heart.
Unable to compose in sounds, we’ll compose in words
That flow nourishingly as sounds from silence
To draw the receiving mind back into that bounty;
Still nothingness encompassing every being-thing,
The Apeiron, boundlessly fertile with possibilities.
February, longing for the vernal equinox
Season springing up afresh from earth’s dark bosom;
Two months past the winter solstice, daylight lengthening
With streaks of light and bands of purples in the evening sky
Even to 1900, so different from winter’s darkest depths.
***
Cease. Treasure the silence of still emptiness.
Return on the wings of memory to distant Himalayas,
To that cleft between rocks seen in a dream some forty years ago,
To the unseen spring out of which trickles Ganges’ origin,
Flowing from the depths of God into the abysmal sea.
Cease and be silent, cease and be still, now before stalking death
Slides up and overtakes you, this being of undulating gender--
Feminine as la muerte, masculine as der Tod--
Death. No breath. How many fear that familiar sound? Death.
Soon you’ll carry Moses far away, perhaps still sooner me.
“Muero porque no muero,” dying because I do not die.
“Ceso todo.” Everything ceases in the stillness between two breaths,
Between two waves, indivisible instances. Nothing, no thing.
Here between thens, in that no-thing pause, one is free
Because there’s nothing but pure awareness, consciousness.
Life and death flowing together, drawn together from the abyss
That no eye can penetrate, no hand may touch,
Called the sea of divinity from known ignorance
The God beyond all gods, and ever beyond our knowing,
Called sacred as distinct from that which perishes.
Cease, be still, allow the silence to overtake you.
Each moment is the time of death and its preparation,
When breathing stops, heart beat ceases,
Nothing is heard although a car rushes by somewhere
In that strange land to which no traveller returns.
***
Longing to compose before I decompose,
Longing to be awake before I fall asleep,
Longing to become what I most truly am,
Longing to be alive before death silences me
And I part in parts to exist no more.
There’s no existence beyond existence,
No time beyond the flux of time,
No being thing beyond all being things,
Neither something nor nothing nor in-between:
Dying because I do not die.
That which does not exist is all that is.
What am I if not thought within thought
Nóema within nous
Known within knowing
Known or unknown.
2. Writing in hope
I write in hope that after years of work
I will learn to set myself aside
Permitting Spirit to bring forth some truth--
Even a single woven word of worth and beauty.
The future does not exist as actuality, but as sheer possibilities:
The human task’s to be midwives, reaching gently in
For the best of these, helping to bring forth their fruits in time--
Out of no-time into time in tension towards the timeless.
I write not in the illusion that these words have merit
But in hope that through much practice and self-discipline
Through the surrendering effort of spirit infused by Spirit
Some words containing-pointing to truth may still be born.
If Moses is my Moses, then I’m his brother Aaron
Who takes trinkets of gold hanging on the ears of language,
Throws them into experience’s fire, works them into form,
And out jumps this golden calf of linguistic idolatry.
Writing is a form of playfulness, serious playfulness,
A kind of dance with fluid freedom of movement,
Dancing on the edge of eternity and nothingness,
Dancing before the sun’s rising of stark truthfulness.
Around the golden calf we dance, waiting for our Moses,
Knowing we are foolish with our wrought molten bull,
Waiting for the godlike Moses to descend from the mount,
Cast our calf back into fire, and lead us into God.
Jesus spoke in magical-mystical words of poetry
Or the evangelists imagined-remembered golden utterances
Cast them into the fire of their experiences
And formed them into profound Gospel poetry.
“Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;
Many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see
And did not see it, and to hear what you hear
But did not hear it: Hear, then, the parable of the sower…”
I, too, will sow some seed, in writing, sounds, or speech,
And see or not what springs up in time’s churning seasons.
The human task requires each to do one’s proper duties,
And leave results to the One bringing forth abundantly in time.
Why is it that my little calf likes to dance in nine verses?
3. An opportune time
We rose the waxing gibbous overhead
0245 when Moses needed relief;
A mild 25 outside, overcast, misty on the skin
Refreshing and brisk, a good way to rise
And greet the day silently, no lights in the neighborhood.
Made coffee—which the dogs refuse to drink--
And by 0300, we were checking global markets on CNBC
Then 0500 in wakey-woke New York, 1000 in London.
We’ve been witnessing a steep global sell-off in stocks
As the 10-year treasury has risen rapidly to 52-week highs
Investors panicked or simply dumped stocks.
And what is this to me? Right! It’s a buying opportunity.
Strange thing for a monk? Maybe if he’s sheltered on the moon
Or living on a monastery’s dole or lying prostrate on the strand--
The French, Spanish, or Italian Riviera--
But for a man wholly free of institutional support
The stock market has proven profitable over time
A suitable place to earn a living, and provide for others.
So this morning we had some planning to do
Putting cash to work while blood runs on the Street.
It’s an opportune time to add to solid positions
Taking profits or losses in other stocks
Less rewarding as long-term investments.
We clearly enjoy the mental challenge of the hunt--
As George enjoys hunting down coyotes
To sell their pelts, as Neil enjoys farming his fields
Supporting his family and feeding strangers.
So I share thoughts and plans freely with friends
Who also must support themselves for retirement
With hunter George, more often with José
Frequently texting messages on investing
Both for financial benefits and for hunting pleasure.
I’ve seen eyebrows raised when I’ve mentioned markets
Because some find it an odd interest for monks or priests;
These folks may not understand the costs
Of freedom from the Church’s costly support.
“How worldly.” Active investing is worldly indeed
A fitting pursuit for self-supporting in the world, eh?
Sprung from the prison of monastery and Church
I’ve found a challenging legal way to pay our bills.
We admire the teaching of Warren Buffett, brilliant investor:
“When others are greedy, I am fearful,” he oft repeats;
“When others are fearful, then I’m greedy.” Even at ninety.
Study fundamentals, be patient, and be a prudent opportunist
Who does not follow the crowing crowds, chasing shiny objects,
But enjoys going fishing on rippling streams with flecks of gold
Somewhere hidden in the massive mountains of Montana
Far away from the press of flesh and trendy fashions.
Admittedly, I bought some high-flying Tesla shares this week
When the stock price plunged to a short-term bottom;
When the price rose the next day $100 per share
I immediately sold those shares to put the cash to work
In companies less highly valued, with better prospects
For the intermediate or preferably long term,
Such as BHP, the world’s largest traded miner;
If it’s down in mother earth, BHP will draw it forth.
Now to wait for the market’s open in an hour or so,
Hear what lovely Maria Bartiromo has to say,
And consider the views of some fascinating guests
As I feed my face and that of wolves at my gate.
4. The need to contemplate
Money is necessary to help sustain mere life
But theoria is necessary for the good life.
By Aristotle’s term theoria I intend both study
And contemplation in its diverse meanings.
The mind—human consciousness—needs to focus
Needs to exercise steady and purposeful attention.
The mind needs to learn in order to know--
How to make things, to act well, to seek wisdom.
One studies to learn, to acquire knowledge, to think
To sift through opinions rattling around one’s mind
To expand horizons, opening new vistas on reality
To orient oneself more truly within the Whole, to pan.
The Whole itself in all its beauty, order, and awesome mystery
Is the most suitable subject-object for contemplation.
Within the Whole, one’s mind moves from exploring things
And their relationships to seeking the cause of all that exists.
By contemplation the mind moves from what shows up
To what is moving all that exists without being moveable.
This may sound like warmed over Aristotle to you,
But it is also simple common sense put into speech.
“The unmoved mover,” that which simply is without existing
The ultimate source and cause of everything that exists:
This first cause is that which is sought in contemplation--
Whether in prayer, in meditation, or in philosophical noēsis.
Consciousness becomes aware not of being self-subsisting,
But of its rootedness and sharing in the whole order of reality
From matter and that which grows to the psyche, even to the One.
By our being (“by nature”) we share in the whole range of reality.
By consciousness one becomes aware of being a particular being
A transitory moment in the vast movement of the Cosmos
Something or someone that did not have to be at all--
Not unconditional being, but conditionally arising in the flow of time.
“I” is a short-hand word referring to one’s whole being, body and mind
And this “I” is no given fixture either, but a movement in directions
Sometimes drawn towards the material world of physical nature
Sometimes drawn inward or upward to the uncaused cause.
I’m not because I think, René; I think because I’m coming-to-be
In a mysterious process in which I participate but which transcends me
And in which I find myself to be one being among many
Consciousness within an unbounded sea of consciousness.
One needs to orient oneself in the whole of reality;
To this end, one must ask questions: “What is the cause of all that exists?”
Drawing on Leibniz, “Why is there something, why not nothing?”
“And why is the world as it is, and not some other way?”
In more personal language, “Who are you, LORD?”
5. Seeing
Beauty, like joy, breaks startlingly into consciousness.
We have all experienced being “surprised by beauty”
Haven’t we, Dante Alighieri?
Or surprised by joy, Jack Lewis?
What displayed itself to me at Laurin Cemetery
Is the same / different reality seen sixty times;
But today alone was my mind so immediately impressed
That I said to Moses, “My God! This place is beautiful!”
What kept my eyes, or really consciousness
From perceiving so much beauty here before?
Why suddenly on an afternoon at February’s end
Was my mind so arrested by what just shows up?
Beauty was veiled, I believe, by two different cloths:
By what I’ve called the ugly cloth of high desert wasteland--
The burned out, dried up landscape common in Montana--
And by the thicker cloth of my self-isolation and grief.
The arid-brown land has recently been largely clothed in white
The bright and fresh white of snow falling on snow
Hiding the land’s sparse plant life, the lack of color;
And white, grey clashing clouds and mist hiding the blue sky.
Those who do not attend to nature often, or who sweat in humidity
Imagine that deep blue cloudless skies are beautiful and cheery.
Not so fast. Once in a while, yes; but day after burning day
Blue skies grow old, like living in a room filled with naked light bulbs.
Here’s the deeper truth: “Whatever is received,” Thomas teaches,
Is received according to the manner of the receiver.”
A mind disturbed by pain of loneliness and by grief of loss
Is not properly disposed to receive beauty for what it is.
Grief can so drown a spirit in agony, ultimately of self-suffering
That it deadens consciousness to perceive beauty and goodness.
A cheerful and grateful heart receives words kindly and openly;
A dis-eased spirit finds no truth or goodness in a hated person.
How to keep one’s spirit youthful and open to receive what is:
That is a task incumbent on each one of us as we age.
The elderly often allow their jadedness and resentments to blind them
Whereas youth are often more open to being awe-struck by beauty
And youth can fall in love and out of love again in the same day,
As Aristotle recounts. The burden is to become receptive to what is
Including to parts of reality—or human beings—whom we may not like.
When a husband stops seeing his wife afresh, and wondering at her
When he assumes that he knows her fully, then he has fallen out of love.
As Hamlet laments, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!” Then recall how this stale spirit
Treats Ophelia, who loves him; or his own mother, who bore him.
What can one do to make his soul, his consciousness, a good receiver?
What spiritual exercises give birth to openness of spirit?
Above all else: Sitting alone and apart in silent meditation.
It takes many hours of effort to prepare the soul to receive the seeds
Provided by nature’s bounty daily to every creature.
If prayer leads to carping criticisms and close-mindedness
That prayer should be be suspended to embrace one’s nothingness.
Self-emptying meditation—as in zazen—prepares a mind to receive
The reality’s wonders that abound.
6. La luna llena
“Nature loves to hide,” mused Heracleitos of Ephesus;
And nature also reveals herself, does she not?
I climbed into bed, and at once she beamed me
Utterly bright white light full moon streaming
Shining through my eastern window, staring at me.
“Ah,” said I to Elijah, “next full moon is Passover!”
And that means the vernal equinox, and spring
Holy Week, Good Friday, Paschal-Passover mystery--
And now the full moon who silently tells her story--
Giving me no place to hide, as she pierces me.
The Germans call it der Mond, cognate with moon and month
But to me she’s the goddess Seléne, la luna, mysterious woman
Who gazes in at my window, incanting
“Arise, my love, my chosen one, and come away with me!”
“To where would you lead me, sweet lady of the night?
Bright white with the sun’s hidden light, reflecting
Undimmed by age, ever in the beauty of youth
Voluptuous, enticing, nocturnal Erlkönige
Drawing-calling me not to sleep—but to death?”
Maybe she’s Abagail Miller, her father’s joy
A lovely auburn Jewish girl in the suburbs of New York
First girl I kissed, alluring her into a pup tent I pitched
And hastily made my play. Now she, the moon
Plays fair with me, her white bosom glistening.
—27 February 2021
7. Calving season
Fascinating is consciousness, the pool of the mind;
One spends years stocking the pool with fish
And over time, unseen, the fish get transmogrified.
By what hidden processes do fish becomes calves?
It’s calving season here in the Ruby
Mother cows with their new-born calves in fields.
I, too, am giving birth in due season to little calves--
These golden calves of my late winter idolatry.
8. I am no poet
I am no poet, nor was meant to be;
I’m a human being who questions
Writing in this form for brevity
To clarify thoughts, to communicate.
Poetry employs myth and thrives in that world;
I may use mythical and symbolic language
But in the service of the search for truth
Rarely for the sake of poetic beauty or artistic worth.
To question is a foremost duty of human beings.
The Question that so often comes to mind is:
“Who or what are you, LORD?” and
“What would you have me do in my remaining time
Before I slip away behind the veil of silence?”
We use speech and arts in our search for you
And to gain truth about the nature of reality.
How shall I use words before death intervenes?
Sometimes I seek in silence, reflecting on experience;
Sometimes I seek through writing, to clarify
Gaining insight at times through this process.
Sometimes I must rouse myself to seek afresh.
I’m not a prophet, poet, or philosopher
But have much respect for each of these callings.
I’m neither a scholar nor an intellectual
Simply a human being in search of God--
Or rather, responding to the One moving me.
9. The mover
That which moves me to question and to search
Utterly interests me, and stirs me up to seek.
That which draws me into itself is experienced
As the mysterium tremendum et facinans--
The mystery at once fearful and fascinating.
The divine presents itself through the structures of reality
Known to the Greeks as physis, growth, natura to Romans
Explored through philosophy and her offspring, science.
The divine presenting itself in and to consciousness
Is the aspect of divinity that most fascinates me
Even as I so often feel astounded at the divine without.
In my happiest moments, in times of most intense awareness
That which I call God reveals itself within--
Not as it is itself, but as that which is moving me.
Isis is no more unveiled-revealed than is Christ;
The mystery of who or what God is remains beyond us
Even as we undergo many conversions into union.
The notion that God is somehow “revealed” irks me.
It seems to be an arrogant and disrespectful claim
Failing to acknowledge how little one knows of God.
That which we call God is able to act on or in one
Without that person comprehending what it is--
One senses presence, is awed, but is also blinded--
Blinded by the intensity of divine presence
Blinded by an intellect far more powerful
Blinded and humbled, forced to realize one’s ignorance.
The divine that works on me and in me
Is experienced as delightful and surpassingly good
But also as utterly beyond knowing and grasp.
All language about God of any value is highly symbolic
For that of which we speak transcends all words.
Call God as you will, personal, impersonal
Named or unnamed; just keep searching
Knowing well what and why you do not know.
How empty and limited are all my words about It.
It is no being, no person, no thing.
And that is why I call it No-thing.
10. No leaf
How long’s it been since I’ve seen a leaf
Hanging on a tree or fallen to the ground?
Have all the leaves blown away
Or has my consciousness blown away?
11. Distilled
To serve again as a priest, or not to serve?
To this distinction I’ve distilled my thoughts:
I do not want to function within the church,
But I am willing to do so.
Presently, I can go no further;
It profits nothing to press the question now.
The better course may disclose itself in time.
12. Sit
You have ridden your donkey down dusty roads
Down too many roads of late.
Now’s the time to sit not on your donkey to ride
But on your ass to be still.
13. Your eyes
You died some years ago
And still I remember your eyes--
Eyes that so bedazzled me
Eyes into which I longed to gaze
But would not dare to stare.
Having died, now you come to me
Not in conscious memories alone
But even in a dream by night--
You with liquid-lovely ocean eyes, and I
Gazing unafraid into your bottomless pool.
A fire of desire ignited through your eyes--
So alive with beauty’s mystery to me.
Was it fear, desire or inquisitiveness
Or something else I saw? What I felt
Was longing to be one with you.
Whoever you may really be
Who dwells within behind those eyes
Those beautiful, heart-arresting eyes
Into which bewitched I could dive
And willingly gladly drown.
14. Unrequited love?
The eyes that seemed so captivating
Pools of beauty compelling me to plunge
Brought to consciousness another’s eyes
Whom I’d so long admired and desired
With love unfulfilled and unfulfillable.
Awestruck and stabbed by beauty’s spell
It’s you, unreachable friend, still seen and sensed
Shining through others as an inner paradigm
A body of incarnate beauty
Present in thought, not in reality.
Your name need not be spoken here
So often present in my humbled heart
Your visage churning turbulence.
Alive in God alone you may know well
A wounded soul’s sad quest for union.
My mind was drenched obsessing over you
Desires unexpressed and unfulfilled.
Your form, your face, your eyes reminding me
Of someone who came close in childhood
In ways beyond the light of consciousness.
That time-lost face I found again in you,
Those eyes through yours still stirring up the depths--
The eyes of one who touched a child’s heart
And whispered in his ear, “our little secret”--
A secret long forgotten, yet alive.
We all will die our love lives incomplete
Remembering longingly someone we had known
To whom we never could unveil ourselves.
Does any force so speak our incompletion
As love itself—unrequited and unfulfilled?
Unreached non-lover carried off by death
One known for years yet ever unaddressed
An object-symbol staring hauntingly
Obsessive love still grabbing at my heart
Through other faces til my heart is stilled.
***
Is love ever fully unrequited?
It shines in many loving-kindnesses received
By some who touched your harp and plucked its strings.
In one who truly loves, no love is not repaid--
Who willingly endures love’s haunting, biting pain.
To love another who may not respond--
A painful joy, indeed, a most strange gift of love
That draws the soul, immersing her
In love’s enduring luring mystery
Fulfilled beyond the bounds of time and death.
Can truth be found in speculating claims--
From Freud or his mere epigones--
In every love one’s parents are desired
One seeking now fulfilling unfilled
The psyche’s first most primitive desires?
In loving any one, is Love itself not loved?
In every act of love, imperfect, incomplete
Is not a psyche moving into God--
Unbounded surging sea of all-creating Love
That’s ever drawing us and never here complete?
***
However true it be love’s labor’s never lost
That every love’s its own reward--
An underlying nagging agony abides
That forces such obsessive loves on us
Entrapping one in long-forgotten pasts.
Not unrequited love, or not that only--
The dominating power of memories shoved down
Experiences in childhood from which you’re never free
Showing up in dreams, in feelings, in disturbing thoughts
That haunt your soul like revenanting spirits.
Perhaps in loving one is really loving God
And th’eternally-feminine ever leads us on:
Such truths ought not obscure the power of love betrayed
And memories forgotten, still stealthily at work
Leaving you obsessing over echoes of that “love.”
Is it love to use another for one’s gain?
Is it love that takes a child up in its arms
Performing deeds it calls “our little secrets”
And chains that child’s heart forever in a tomb
Of long-forgotten shadow memories?
You and I may never know the truth
Of why some person’s face obsesses us.
What we know’s the sound of hidden drums
The thrumming of a heart that longs to live again.
We do not see the ghosts who hold us in their grip:
Recurring echoes of deeds done, words heard, and dreams
Buried in the chambers of your early years
Recurring echoes that will not be silenced
But sounding hiddenly in you repeatedly
In many persons who by chance you meet.
A shutting down of parts that once had lived;
A heaviness of heart enticing one to sleep;
A feeling not of love but of bewilderment;
A silencing of voices in the heart—your heart--
Now muffled by a hand that says, “our secret.”
Ascent to the light is made more difficult
For those who carry in their heart forbidden shadows.
A sack of rocks on your back may weigh you down
But won’t prevent your ultimate ascent--
Ascent requiring a descent to the depths.
15. Lifted up
In my thirties years ago I dreamed
I was visiting Portsmouth Abbey
Near Newport, Rhode Island
Where later I was stationed in the Navy.
Walking on the monastery’s grounds
On what looked like a college campus
Suddenly a powerful wind was blowing
Preventing me from moving forward.
Then a heavy knapsack fell off my back
Something I had not realized was even there.
Now not only could I walk
But I became so light that the stream of wind
Lifted me up off the ground
Carried me through the sunlit air
Gently placing me through an open window
On the top floor of a building
A sizable building flooded with clean light
And I began exploring room to room
Each room bathed in glorious light.
16. First signs of spring in the Rockies
Mud. Thick mud.
Thawing ground
Melting snow. Mud.
A sudden gusting wind
Then a sprinkling rain at night.
Early dawn an owl calling
Moaning morning doves
Canada geese flying north
Cows mooing to give birth.
Sunbeams and cumulous clouds
Fresh snow shining on the Pioneers
And cresting the Snow Crests
As the Rubies shake off their winter coat.
Rubber rabbit bushes turning green
Grasses bent in winter sorrow
Feel the warming morning sun
And raise their heads in praise.
Small shoots appear on the cherry
Canada red cherry accustomed to cold
Forming buds on buffalo berries
Aspen, lilacs, Russian olive.
First delightful signs of spring
Subtle at first la primavera
Quiet like the lyrical andante
From Vivaldi’s winter.
And winter will strike back
In Montana’s waking Rockies
When and how she wishes
But nature’s joy is bursting forth.
17. The new god
It’s not some vague “Progressivism”
Nor is it “democratic Socialism.”
It’s called Communism, Comrade
When you squash all opposition
And elevate the State as god.
18. Wake up and stay away
What ought a reasonable human being do
Living in a regime of mass insanity?
Already in the 1960’s I knew that American political life
Was dangerously flawed by ideological thinking.
Over time, the break from reality in the minds of our elites
Has grown greater and more destructive in reach.
The absurdities spewed out on a daily basis
From the capital of the empire arouse questions:
How long can a regime drunk on power and illusions
Survive? What happens to us inmates in this society?
What will happen to everyday, non-elite Americans
Not drunk with power, and who see behind the illusions?
The regime’s spiritual-mental sickness inflicts death on infants,
And a nearly complete brain-washing on our youth
Through mass media, national entertainment,
The educational system in urban centers, and academia.
Generations have been spiritually manipulated and damaged
Through brainwashing and propaganda called “education.”
As a political scientist, I see the enormous gap
Between political rhetoric and political reality.
To call our regime “democratic” reminds one of the Soviet Union,
Which always insisted that it was “a true democracy.”
The same is true in “the People’s Republic of China,”
Which purports to be “democratic” and “humane,”
But is a harsh and murderous dictatorship by Communist elites.
In reality, the Soviet, Chinese, and American regimes are totalitarian.
Our beloved country has become a dangerously disastrous regime
Destroying the spiritual, intellectual, and physical lives of millions.
What is one to do in such wide-spread, inculcated madness?
How should one live in a nation-sized insane asylum,
Dominated by masters of illusion, perversion, and control?
Truly, there are places in our country where everyday life is more healthy,
Such as one finds in small-town Montana or the Midwest.
But we do not determine what is preached, taught, enforced.
Our youth, too, are being destroyed by the educational establishment.
And then there is the ever-present, all-invasive power of perverse mass media,
Penetrating and mentally molesting virtually every location in our country.
What is a human being to do?
How should one live in an oppressive, dominating, sick regime?
First and foremost, see and admit reality for what it is:
America is no democracy, but a totalitarian empire
Bent on “transforming the world” in its own diseased image.
(“Transforming the world” is a Marxist dream preached by Obama
And by millions of other “educated” elitists in America.)
Second, one must free one’s mind from the propaganda;
That requires a break from governmental and media-news propaganda.
One must constantly struggle to attune oneself to reality
Through meditation and philosophical reflection,
And not be submerged in the toilet of American political life.
These non-poetic, sobering thoughts explain why I pull back
And discuss political matters as rarely as possible.
America’s ruling elites have and seek to maintain what they love:
Power, prestige, control, domination over others, and great wealth.
Sick souls themselves, they seek to poison the lives of everyone else.
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Or do they?
What are we to do?
Wake up, stay awake, and keep apart to the extent possible,
Regardless of the cost to you personally.
The life of your soul, of your mind, is at stake.
On political life in America, I wish to say as little as possible.
Not waste precious time on what one is powerless to change.
“Physician, heal thyself!” And let the sewage float by.
19. A farewell to Laurin Cemetery
“We ain’t gonna play no ball no more
If we gotta go down to old Baltimore
I just wanna take Leidi and Mo
And go to Laurin to play ball.”
“Hooray, hooray, we’re going to Laurin today!…”
Each cemetery has its particular charms.
I loved the peace and historical interest in Sheridan
Until Mrs. Potatohead expelled us
Claiming that dogs do not belong in cemeteries.
We had been to Laurin since late fall of 2019
When we first arrived in the Ruby.
Only gradually did I come to appreciate Laurin
For the quiet, the aloneness, the gorgeous setting.
Sheridan Cemetery is near the main north-south road
Very narrow, poorly graded, single lane each way
But called here “the highway,” out of ignorance
Or because it connects strung-out old towns.
Proximity to “the highway” guarantees much noise
As our roads carry many large trucks
Noisy pick-ups, and speeding autos.
Why folks here must rush about, I never figured out.
Laurin Cemetery is quite a distance off that road
The “highway” between Twin Bridges and Ennis.
In every direction, one sees impressive mountains
A view unspoiled by tourists or by locals.
You are there alone with your thoughts and your dogs
Quietly walking or praising your dog for his catches.
You read the gravestones, and think about their lives:
Ferm died in 1906 at age 80, born in 1826.
Or the tall and imposing monument to Monsieur Laurin
After whom the town was evidently named.
(The town’s a mile down the mountainside.)
Numerous other French names dress the graves.
The mind is carried back in time, as you wonder
Who these people were, where they came from
What they had to endure as pioneers in Montana
Far removed from France or any civilization.
Mainly, Laurin means feelings to me:
Moses, increasingly crippled and elderly
Elijah, delighting to play ball among the sage
And my heart, peaceful and grateful, yet also sad--
Sad to be leaving the Ruby after a year and a half
Knowing that I won’t find quiet in Great Falls,
Or see beauty to match this valley and mountains
Or have so much time alone to ponder life and death.
It is very unlikely that Moses will ever be back here
As death is not far away for him.
Elijah and I may return, but may not--
“Knowing how way leads on to way.”
Farewell, Laurin, you peaceful Friedhof
Lonesome but not lonely, quietly set apart
For some who have died in years past
For some still journeying towards death.
20. Bewildered
You were running, although not well.
What happened to you?
What have you become?
What has been gained, and what lost?
You shift in your chair, uneasy.
What have you done to yourself?
Your mind is uneasy, isn’t it?
Why? Do you sense an inner betrayal?
You rub your eyes, your forehead.
You blink, staring silently.
What voice are you ignoring?
What voice or voices lead you?
There’s no safe island, no solid rock
No womb or tomb to which to return.
You are here, whatever whoever you are
And yet you barely grasp what’s happening.
Do you know how lost you’ve become
In the thickets and wilderness of life?
You no longer see the path you were on
And have not yet found another.
So much change so fast
In your personal life, in society.
Your mind swims in a sea of change.
Be still and be content not to know.
All things pass, even times of bewilderment.
Despair and fear are useless--
What’s needed is trust. Keep still
Before launching out in any direction.
Sit calmly and wait in silence.
No recriminations, no lashing out
Or settle onto your bed and be still
Letting silence or gentle sleep sooth you.
Still the body, still the mind,
Thoughts and feelings fall
Like drops of dew from a rose petal
Every mental state will pass.
21. Memento to a preacher
Nearly fifty years ago I heard him on the radio
Not once only, but quite a few times
Because I listened and returned to hear him
With his scriptural interpretations, homely stories
Strange accent and assurance without arrogance.
He was a fundamentalist preacher man
Who knew much about the Bible he proclaimed
About biblical stories, authors, and content;
He had good knowledge of the original Greek
And oftentimes the Hebrew and Aramaic.
This man said many things that seemed reasonable
But some of his views seemed as odd as ”dispensations,”
Or “the rapture,” or “the return of the Lord to the earth.”
How easy it would have been to dismiss all he had to say
By taking easy shots at some questionable beliefs.
His teaching was within the tradition of interpretation
Generally known as biblical fundamentalism.
He said and treated the Bible as “the word of God,”
A kind of Christian Qur’an deemed to be flawless
Even asserting that God himself “wrote the Bible.”
Despite such claims, this man had a love for Christ
And a zealous desire to declare and share his Lord
Through a presentation of the books of the Bible.
Recently I learned that he died over thirty years ago
And yet, to my surprise, his voice can still be heard.
Are people deceived by him, or spiritually enriched?
Who knows and presents the whole truth well?
Whose teaching is without some errors and foolishness?
When I hear this man now, I still listen attentively
Not for errors I think I find, but for meaningful truth.
Even though one may find his assumption naive--
That the Bible comes directly or indirectly from God
That it’s essentially true and the measure of truth--
One may still find wisdom in his interpretations
And practical insights well worth pondering.
I thank God for the life and teaching of my brother
Doctor J Vernon McGee, with his long-running
Through the Bible radio program.
He reached more human beings with Christ
Than many more learned or subtle ever did.
In my early twenties, living in a society adrift
In a sea of mud and confusing nonsense
This preacher challenged me to trust God, not myself;
And so he became to me more of a father in Christ
Than anyone else in those difficult, searching years.
Without doubt, Christ uses imperfect witnesses.
If the Almighty waited for a wholly wise disciple
A flawless teacher of the truth of God and Christ
He would be waiting until eternity and silently passed by
Peter the fisherman, Paul of Tarsus, and J Vernon McGee.
In his wisdom God uses our imperfections--
Our flaws, errors, idiosyncrasies, even sins--
To carry benefits of light and joy to many.
The creativity of God shows forth wondrously
In bringing good out of evil, and truth even through us.
This is my memento to Pastor J Vernon McGee
Who dedicated his life to living and preaching Christ.
With a grateful and more settled mind I listen to him again
Taking this brother and his words to heart
Delighting anew at the marvelous ways of the Almighty.
22. In due season
“I do nothing in vain,” says the Lord.
Are you alive? Do you await the sun?
Can you hear the stillness of a small voice?
Are you able to wonder, to seek, to respond?
Are you able to trust me, even me?
“I will never ever abandon you.”
You know that umbrella you put up in rain?
It’s still up even while the sun’s shining.
Will you put away your umbrella now
Or do you want me to do it?
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”
With imagination, I hear the knocking.
With trust, I’ve opened the door and you entered in.
I am opening the door, and you are entering in.
With your help, I will keep opening the door to you.
“Behold, now is the acceptable time…”
The One who is present acts now.
The One who was present then, acted then.
Now is the moment given to me
Now I turn towards you, or I refuse.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
“Lord, you know well that I love you.”
“Feed my sheep.”
“I was hungry, and you fed me; I was in prison
And you visited me.”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
“For theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are you when men revile you…”
“The Lord stood by my side and strengthened me
So that through me the gospel may be proclaimed.”
“Come to me, you are weary and are heavy burdened
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me
For am I gentle and humble in heart
And you will find rest for your souls.”
“Lord, what would you have me do?”
“Get up and go into the city
And you will be told what you must do.”
23. Grow lights
Some install grow lights in homes
To give light to favorite plants--
Sometimes for the sake of beauty
More often perhaps for drug effects.
To those who truly seek God
Who want to know and do the truth
Genuine questions arising in the heart
Will gradually find their fitting answers.
Attention to the word of God
Installs grow lights in the soul;
Gradually light begins to dawn
In the one seeking God in truth.
“I’m willing, but I do not want.”
Open the heart to the Spirit’s presence
Keep listening and taking the word to heart
And gradually light begins to dawn
For the just and for one who seeks justice
Seeks to do the will of God faithfully.
Good questions that arise are for clarity
Not to flee duties, escaping the divine pull.
Verily it’s still dark outside but keep still
Watch and wait for the forerunning light
Of the rising sun of righteousness
Will gradually lighten the visible world.
Watch and wait as the unseen light
Of the one Risen One will shine within
And the one who seeks will find
In the mind’s luminosity by truth.
24. Night speaks
The sun is setting, night is falling,
And the fountains of the night begin to sing.
I hear them through the still silence,
Through no sounds heard by ears.
I hear them speaking now and in dark night.
They speak in various tongues, in various ways,
Each requiring a still mind and attentiveness.
One may choose the time to tune in
And choose to whom or to what to tune in.
The chorus of singers is many.
If I turn the gaze of my mind towards one
I may find him speaking or singing to me.
One should not assume that they are dead,
Unless one assumes that they live as well,
Are alive in ways beyond life’s limitations.
There are times when one suddenly breaks in,
Somehow makes his presence known through silence.
You have not been thinking of him, of her--
And yet, behold, right here where you are
Not to be seen by the body’s eyes.
Several nudged me or caught my attention
In the few minutes that I’ve been writing.
Each assists in some ways, it seems;
They do not hinder the mind’s ascent,
But serve as stepping stones in the stream.
If I go fishing on the banks of that stream now
I do not know what or whom I shall catch.
Is one now fishing for me?
And if so, who is it, and what does he say?
Too many whisperings and shadows to hear.
I hear you weakly now, not distinctly.
Perhaps I’m too unsettled for fish to bite.
Or am I too fatigued to concentrate?
“Be more gentle on yourself, and on others”
As my eyes droop and breathing slows.
25. Vernal Equinox
Now is the vernal equinox
Midpoint between two solstices.
Now we in the northern hemisphere
Enter the light time of the year
And those living down under
Enter the darker half.
Passover is near at hand
With the full moon after the equinox.
And Good Friday rests within the feast
As we remember the Passover of the Lord
From rejection and brutal death
To the unseen event of Resurrection.
The lighter half of the year, daylight growing
For another three months, til the solstice,
And then begins again the descent
From light into darkness, summer to winter,
All within the flow of seasonal change
Within cosmic rhythms and scheme of things.
So much for the skeletal facts of the case;
Now silence and pondering on the equinox.
Attend to that which does not ebb and flow,
Does not rise and set, or change with our change.
Attend to that which is immortal and everlasting
Beyond the cosmos and its captivating rhythms.
A question arises in the darkness of consciousness:
Did Jesus have to undergo such a brutal death?
Did God truly will that he suffer and die for us?
Or does God in his goodness draw good out of evil?
Did Jesus intentionally will his brutal death
And if so, why? Was it more than suicide?
Did Jesus believe that only by his murderous death
Could he effectively draw us to the love and truth of God?
Did his teaching and good deeds and miracles
Not lead to the transformation he wanted?
Did he think that only when a grain of wheat is buried
Will it in time grow and produce abundantly?
“But if it dies, then it will bear much fruit.”
Why else did Jesus go up to Jerusalem
Knowing how he provoked the authorities--
Powerful men both of Israel and of Rome?
Jesus willingly allowed himself to be killed;
What did he think his death would accomplish?
If the grain of wheat dies, only then will it rise…
He accepted the consequences, however brutal--
The real and gruesome effects of his words and deeds
At the hands of those who hated him.
Why? Why? Listen in silence and wonder:
What did Jesus think his death would accomplish?
Believers, priests, and preachers have answers
At the cost of ceasing to ask questions.
Rise like the sun beyond the light of age-old answers
And wonder anew what and why Jesus accomplished
Going up to keep the feast of Passover
Knowing that some were plotting his death.
Still it is dark outside at 0630 on the vernal equinox
Dark because we’ve set the clocks ahead an hour
The time artificially advanced, prolonging darkness
Into the early morning hours. And to what purpose?
Half way between the solstices, my mind
May be half way towards true understanding.
Why did Jesus deliver himself up to his enemies?
Presumably he believed that more good would come
Through his agonizing death and “resurrection”
Than he could accomplish by words and deeds.
He risked his life and the effects of his ministry
Trusting in the creative and wise power of God.
Jesus entrusted himself to the God of Israel
Or to the unknown God whom he called “Abba.”
He passed beyond the institutions of his people
Beyond the reasons of reasonable human beings
And acted on faith and love beyond our understanding
Abandoning himself utterly to the unknown God.
26. Remembering a good man
In grateful and loving memory of
Colonel Patrick H Corbett, USAF
(1937-2020)
A thought arose suddenly today
Seemingly out of nowhere:
“Patrick Corbett died.” I stopped.
Within a few seconds, an online search
Found his obituary on several sites.
He died 17 August 2020, aged 83.
We were graduate students together in the 1970’s
At the University of California, Santa Barbara
Earning doctorates in political science.
I was in my twenties, he turned forty
An officer in the Air Force
Married with two teen-age children.
Pat and I took a number of the same classes
In the field international relations.
Often we discussed course material
And then worked closely together for half a year
Helping each other prepare for our doctoral exams--
To good results for both of us.
So much for a few outward facts.
What matters to me is Patrick Corbett the man
A genuine, unforgettable human being.
He was profoundly humble--
(“Umble” in his South Carolina accent.)
Above all: here was a truly good man.
Never did I hear Patrick yield to anger
Never did I hear him speak unkindly of anyone
Never did he bemoan his life or fate
Never did he show me anything but patience--
Patient Pat, most kind and accepting.
Here was a true gentleman, fatherly to me.
Patrick never made me feel ashamed
Or inferior, despite being thirteen years his junior
An immature man in every way.
He never shamed me, but his example does:
Such genuine goodness is far beyond me
Beyond anything within my character.
My thoughts cannot stop there
Because I see Pat smiling warmly and tenderly.
If he thought I felt shamed by his example
He would firmly embrace me.
Even if I could not accept myself
He could and did—just as I was.
Here was one of the two most Christ-like men
I have ever been blessed to know.
(The other was Patrick Daniel Kirk.)
With gratitude and love to Patrick Henry Corbett
Here’s to a genuine Mensch.
—20 March 2021
27. A little Exodus
A little Exodus never hurt anyone.
One must ever be leaving Egypt
And moving towards the promised land.
One must ever be rising from self
Into the beatific vision of God.
This Lenten spring, I am exiting
From a quiet village in southwest Montana
Toward the busy city of Great Falls.
With every loss there is gain
With every gain there’s loss.
All life is conversion or diversion
Turning towards or turning away
From that which simply is.
Within the outer Exodus from Sheridan
An inner Exodus into divine reality.
The moment of the equinox has passed
And spring has formally begun.
The moment of blinding truth awaits
The final Exodus from here to there
From biological bios into spiritual Zoé
From the land of the living into Life itself.
22 March 2021
End of “Ascend to the the Light II: Towards the Vernal Equinox”