Yeah, so, the past month has been an intense one for me in every way. A bit emotionally brutal. We can all relate, I’m sure. It’s shown me a lot of new things about myself, also revealed some new glimpses of this mystical mystery named, so simply, “Love,” in our language.
I’ve been a student of the nature of Love for the past 7 years, which doesn’t seem very long, now that I write it down, but, I have to report, just this short time of study, it has changed me in every area of my life.
My studies are always, first and foremost, practical. To me nothing I ‘believe’ is worth anything if it does not actually work in my living to bring me healing, make me a better human, remove my baggage to reveal my highest and best self, lead me into paths of peace and load my arms with fruit to share with fellow pilgrims along the way…and, so, I began by asking God to reveal what love was and how love worked.
My first flash came in 2009, riding on a CT commuter train from New Haven to Branford, looking at the marsh fly by. I had been asking for some days, intensely seeking, when God showed himself to me as ‘LOVE.’ That brief instant changed everything for me. I experienced the Aleph of The Mystery and left that train, completely changed a flash or, in real time less than 30 minutes…
Many wonderful writers have helped me along this open-ended, unlimited path of discovery on this topic. I must give much beautiful credit to Henri Nouwen, who helped me early on in my excavation of this topic. His revelations, and life surrendered to this mystery, have inspired much learning in my own voyage on this simple, yet so radical, path.
Over these years, I felt lead to share some of my tiny bits of insight with others – it has just been so amazing! So beautiful! So everything – I just wanted others to open to it as well, to learn and heal along with me! Over these years I have learned to be a writer and a poet. Until recently I didn’t feel I could claim those ‘titles,’ but I do now, just another way love has changed me. I am so grateful.
This brings us to yesterday, which brings us to Frederick Buechner’s 90th birthday! Buechner is one of the best, most beautiful, writers ever. Sometimes I stop breathing when I read his words. I won’t say more, at this moment, as this is becoming a very long post, but here’s my best advice: read him!
Recently someone, somewhere, on Facebook, posted words by poet, Fred LaMotte. They deeply touched me and so I ‘friended’ him. Then he began posting his words and I found myself on Amazon ordering one of his books. I received it last week, and it has been moving me into some very deep waters.
Yeah, so, back to yesterday, I re-posted a happy birthday write-up about Buechner and then…
I got this comment from Fred LaMotte:
He was the reason I became a teacher and a school chaplain. When I was a 10th grader at Exeter Academy (near Boston) he was the school chaplain. It was before he became a writer. One dreary morning in late Winter, we were 700 half asleep boys in morning ‘Chapel’ (it was just an assembly really), and decided to read to us. He read the entire 7th chapter of ‘The Wind In The Willows,’ ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn.’ It was very long and I think I might have been the only one stayed awake. It was amazing. Not only did it show me my first real piece of spiritual writing, but I thought, “Wow! This is his job? Reading to people about the great God Pan? I want to do this!” Thank you Frederick Buechner.
💞
WOW!! Then Fred LaMotte shared that chapter of the Wind and the Willows, ya know, the one that inspired some pretty intense poetry, which is, at this moment plowing up some new fields in my back forty…
I have not read The Wind in the Willows since I was a teenager, and, at that time I remember thinking it was rather stupid. My thoughts being something like, ‘Good grief, what in the heck is this about?’
Yesterday, I finally ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. Yesterday, a gift of love I offered was returned to me, unaccepted. I ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. There’s no right or wrong here, just gift. I choose to be only grateful to continue on in the, ‘yes and amen!’ of it all.
I have no idea what Love (God) will teach me next. I am a very humble beginner. No Master here. Just a girl who cannot believe how lucky I am to be on this narrow road. A very unlikely pilgrim, I. Always wearing inappropriate shoes for climbing these steep hills, but somehow, always getting the view of the most beautiful sunsets imaginable. I guess it’s true what Babe Ruth said, ‘You can’t beat a man who keeps getting up!’
Here’s a song I wrote for my children’s musical about my life of faith, named: The Fantastical Inside-Out-Upside-Down Journey of a Rich Little Poor Girl
You Otter Know (verses spoken in the style of Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant/choruses in Sinatra style)
I was walking in the forest
I was feeling all alone
The birds and bees were sleeping,
the weeping willow weeping
Then I heard a little creature
Start moving oh so slow
and the little brook began to play
music with its toes
the woodpecker was keeping time
upon that tall oak tree
and I could not help start dancing
cause I knew it was for me
and as I whirled and twirled about
I came upon a log
and the beaver and the otter (Frank Sinatra style Beaver. Sammy Davis Otter)
were acting more like hogs (pushing each other to get to the log stage with microphone)
and then they each began to croon
they’re words were oh so rare
I stood there for a moment
my foot still in the air
and they sang to me…
You otter know I love you
loved you from the start
(if you’ll beaver me
then I’ll beaver you
You never walk alone)
You otter know I love you
love your precious heart
(beaver me it’s true
I’ve always loved you
You’re never far from home)
and the band it just kept playing
and my happy heart did gasp
Cause this was so much better
than that silly talking a**
uhhh donkey
Then my heart it felt so happy
and my eyes at last could see
That though I hadn’t been aware
You’d never once left me
and as I danced on down that path
I swear I sang this song
The one my friends had written,
which had been there all along
and I sang…
You otter know I love you
loved you from the start
(if you’ll beaver me
then I’ll beaver you
You never walk alone)
You otter know I love you
love your precious heart
(beaver me it’s true
I’ve always loved you
You’re never far from home
💞
AL
Ephesians 1:4
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
New Living Translation
You don’t have to melt
until you are ready.
Remember this:
Each moil of your unoiled joints,
every numb stiff gristle of resistance,
cramp of anger, clabber of shame,
clot of envy, opinion or belief,
is simply a mass of refusal
contracted into “me,”
a particle afraid to waltz
with its field, a wave
that will not settle to its sea,
a sky who thinks it is a cloud,
of a junked tire,
peaches fallen into putrefying splendor,
lightning of naked twigs on Autumn sky,
hieroglyphs that signify how jaggedness
resolves into awakened space.
This isn’t just pretend, it’s how
Christ beholds the lilies…
Let that eye of kindness lead you
back to the vulva where your clan emerged,
womb-amber chaos all our dreams
entangle in, the quintessential element
of seeing, where we suck
the nipple of original otherness.
After love making, some mother
must have swept our ashes up
in the wake of her heartbeat
where we could smell the mulch
of opposites, the musk of the dead
in a bundle of throw-out hyacinths.
We tasted rubies and moonlight,
the bitter yeast on golden grapes
un-gleaned at vineyards edge,
first fruits for homeless strangers,
those lovers of losing their way…
from the heat of the composted loss
the packed blackness of our sorrow
suddenly sprouts bejeweled graces.
I’m still stumbling home from that
first fragrance, friend.
You’re not as drunk as I am yet,
but you’ll get there, you’ll get there.
🍷
Leaven by Alfred K. LaMotte
love warriors walk through this world
love dripping from open hands
falling onto shattered pieces of the broken
staining bits of the kaleidoscope of hurting hearts
stepping carefully
yet confidently
slowing down
pouring out what is so needed
brutally defending tenderness
as the ones who have forgotten to know
appear to do battle…
fearful, hardened, defense
not knowing what they have forgotten…
oh, dearest, please wake up,
please allow yourself to remember
we are all the light
we are each the beloved
please let me hold you
touch those wounded places
touch your face
breathe your soul into mine
until we are completely one
rub love on your sore spots
until you remember
what you already know
stay here with me
for a long long while
let’s walk together
talk about all this beauty
connecting
hands
hearts
love
ah yes
love
as we go forward
allowing this drip to become
a pour
a fountain
a river
an ocean
the very universe
let’s dream together
as we sail our sea green ship
into this mystic world beyond the stars
beyond the moon
and once again
find ourselves home in the sun
living this exquisite ecstasy
drunk on the love brew
only we
can create
together
🍾
AL
The Love of the Soul wells up within my heart; and understanding, pity, love and self-forgetfulness arise. I carry love to all I meet. I meet men’s love with love and remember not myself.
——–
Discipleship in the New Age I
Alice A. Bailey
Page 176
The Tibetan D.K.
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
🍥
A Community of the Spirit by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
Who will make no compromise with wrong;
Whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
Who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
Who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
Who can say “no” with emphasis, although the rest of the world says “yes”.
💪🏽
– Ted w. Engstrom, from Motivation to last a lifetime
It doesn’t change when we stare at it from across the room. It doesn’t change when we sit in prayer and wish it away. It doesn’t change when we skirt the edges of the shadow. It doesn’t change when we pretend it’s all Go(o)d. It changes when we cross the sacred battleground willing to die to our truth. It changes when we look the lie in the eye until it has nowhere left to hide. It changes when we pick up the sword of truth and cut the falsity until it bleeds right through. The era of the sacred activist is upon us. Not the warrior run amok, but the benevolent warrior who fights for our right to the light. Some battles are worth fighting.
💪🏽
– Jeff Brown
It’s not easy
to do the hard thing
to lose
to stand
to eat
to sleep
alone
to wait
to be patient
to be strong
to allow the pain
the grief
the tears of exhaustion
frustration
weariness
to press on
to refuse to settle
to believe in spite of loss
to keep the fire warm
to build wells
to send out love
to melt your defenses
to keep touching the lepers
to allow healing to come
to ruthlessly let go
to remain open
and ready
to keep saying yes
Nothing happens by chance, no one goes on a quest without a reason, without the pull of the magnet there is no action.
💞
– Rumi
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.
🌳
Young and Old by Charles Kingsley
I lay and watched your final breath
Lay in a pool of steel, blood and nashing teeth
All knew your smile and humor
I saw the life you were to live
So much love you left behind
So much more you had left to give.
Every breath I took was fire
Not desire, No silent repose
That life I was given back was given to chasing ghosts
No action, no deed, nothing ever was my own
From reverie to taps, a life spent chasing ghosts.
In times such as this,
What is born of such circumstance?
Death gives birth to so much mourning
That spawns life and living.
Your death gave birth to me
Achievements you will never see
Tears, monuments, poetry and prose
You gave your life,
I gave you those.
Just another life spent chasing ghosts.
👻
Chasing Ghosts by Charles Cooper
And then there comes a moment
when all you have suffered,
all you have learned,
all you have lost and found,
rise up and become.
and suddenly you are
here,
you are
who you dreamed of being,
so many years ago.
suddenly you have arrived
at what you caught glimpses of
for so many years,
and the search,
the free fall of broken dreams,
broken hearts,
broken everything,
tumbling down rabbit holes,
stumbling over the feet
of your own lack of knowledge,
is over.
you find yourself on solid ground.
stable.
steady.
raising your Ebenezer,
those tributes to God,
for all the mighty stones of help,
building this foundation,
on the solid rocks of your soul
you know so well.
and though the pilgrimage may continue,
though the journey is definitely not over,
though life is fragile,
and security an illusion.
there is a new sureness to your step,
a trusting unshakable,
a calm in it all,
a new assurance of provision,
a new traveling song to be sung as you walk forward,
always forward.
always pilgrim ready for new adventures.
forgetting the names of what lay behind,
you press on to your calling,
the prize set before,
reveling in the mercies, ever new,
for each new day.
there is no stopping now.
you have found something
which cannot ever be taken.
you have arrived here by your own determination,
reached a place,
both spiritual and physical,
a place of such magnitude
the light shines from every angle,
it has sealed up the oldest sores,
bound up the deepest wounds,
satisfied the deepest longings,
changed everything,
settled old scores with finality.
no longer will you settle for less than you deserve.
no more will you tolerate anything less than your own best and highest offerings.
you must be all you can be.
that is all.
gratitude fills you for this place,
a place so lovely,
it can bear up
even under the weight
of your hearts wildest desires,
with just this simple name
it resounds inside our souls like a bell –
home
yes, beloved,
you are home.
right where you belong.
🏡
AL
This road is not for the timid or the faint of heart. not at all. But there is no other road. No one will simply wave a magical wand over you. It is a road of destruction and the question is, “How much are you willing to give up? How much can you endure?
LIFE – the temptation is always to reduce it to size. A bowl of cherries. A rat race. Amino acids. Even to call it a mystery smacks of reductionism. It is the mystery.
As far as anybody seems to know, the vast majority of things in the universe do not have whatever life is. Sticks, stones, stars, space – they simply are. A few things are and are somehow alive to it. They have broken through into Someone, or Something has broken through into them. Even a jellyfish, a butternut squash. They’re in it with us. We’re all in it together, or it in us. Life is it. Life is with.
After lecturing learnedly on miracles, a great theologian was asked to give a specific example of one. “There is only one miracle,” he answered. “It is life.”
Have you wept at anything during the past year?
Has your heart beat faster at the sight of young beauty?
Have you thought seriously about the fact that someday you are going to die?
More often than not, do you really listen when people are speaking to you instead of just waiting for your turn to speak?
Is there anybody you know in whose place, if one of you had to suffer great pain, you would volunteer yourself?
If your answer to all or most of these questions is no, the chances are that you’re dead.
💃🏻
~ Frederick Buechner
originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
maybe we should redefine the human body
this fleeting flash of existence
into something more manageable
possibly use an oracle from a lost tongue
or something children can grab
.
even the physical fact of your face
stubble of rough beard
its really an undiscovered haven of wilderness preserves
or some flashing blue temple of luminous fibers
.
you are a cloud capped tower
the souls fiery predilection
untamable fire
a great globe
a gorgeous palace
melting into thin air
.
this coat of you
garment of flesh and blood
a miracle of armor protecting us from dust and plague
a kaleidoscope moving at the speed of light
provoking an epiphany of star poems
.
law me down a border on the edge of this constellation
so I can escape an ejected primordial comet of revolutionary escapades
before too long let us each and all reclaim human regeneration
and so welcome the clean space to become perfected art
.
you –
this blinding flash of condensed atoms
breast arms and legs
turmoil totally unmanageable
welcome me into this new undefinable rouge ecstasy
I wonder if writing this poem
will spill you out of me
through my fingertips
will the ink become your blood
this paper your skin
for me to touch
again and again?
I wonder if stretching my hands to the sky,
while standing on my tiptoes
will release your wings
so you can fly free with me
into the starry sky
discovering all the worlds we have inside?
I wonder if I stand as tall, and as still, as a tree
you will come to me
climb up inside me
twist your arms and legs into my branches
hold me close and never let me go?
I wonder if I sing you a love song
if I will become a part your soul
and you part of mine
both of us sewn within these chords
of mine and yours
absorbing each other
into our very dna?
Will we become each other?
Forever becoming each other’s other?
mirrors of beauty
to dance inside the aleph
where heaven meets the earth?
life: acoustic & amplified 