with wings
rough hands
feet on bare earth
I want to become a continent of angels
some common rarity so unexplored
unadmissable
that even I cannot find where I begin or end
.
let this body become a borderless land
full of immigrants
artist and poets
whose only claim to fame is that
they rushed to join this conflagration of
unbound unexplored unknowable art
to enter full existence
.
who is to say what is real
in a universe so wide
and blasted unpretentious
let us join this revolution
wild eyes full hearted
as if this day
is the only day the universe will ever exist
and yes you matter
.
come with me
join asunder
this world is fully ablaze
and yet none of us burn
like a kernel in the heart of the sun
.
now I have come to understand
the language of infinity
it is in the way you dress and speak
and hurry along caressing the earth
and me with it
some vision of your standard uranium golden globe reeking sun
the perfect curve with no edge
———–
Adam A DeFranco (c) 2016
I am always amazed at the layers,
the levels, of the human experience.
The never ending,
ever-evolving, devolving,
shifting, opening,
illumination, illusion-revealing,
conviction shattering, my gospel truth challenging,
deep calling to deep, border breaking,
darkness, light and color discovering, re-discovering.
This way of living I have stumbled onto – into –
not because I’m so smart –
but because I asked,
I was given this priceless gift.
This surprising path
of a pilgrim,
of spiritual growth,
baby stepping my way to
healing, learning,
opening, Mystery,
more always reveals more.
Always re-defining the definitions
of love, abundance,
grace, healing,
truth, error,
good, evil,
joy, suffering,
prosperity, poverty,
spirit, spirituality,
life itself becoming more with each step.
My self righteousness becoming less important
with every glimpse of my Creator, my own Belovedness.
Sometimes I understand how Peter must have felt when he saw the great sheet of unclean animals come down before him,
which God asked him to kill and eat,
He challenged with those same words I have heard from heaven –
“What I have named clean do not proclaim unclean.”
Challenging, very challenging, stuff.
The stuff of humility and opening,
the stuff of learning.
Life changing/giving stuff.
We want to think we know, that we are right.
We want approval, to be able to judge.
We want to earn our way, be worthy.
It will never work. Thankfully.
Then we catch the tiniest of glimpses of the Lover
and we fall on our knees,
breathless, undone,
aware of our need, our misplaced vanity,
stripped of our pride, our shoes,
amazed by what we have encountered, changed forever.
full but ever thirsty for more –
LOVE
💞
AL
I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.
To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states: greed, envy, ill-will, and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution, and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile: others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking, and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.
invisibly, silently, pulling at me—a thread or net of threads finer than cobweb and as elastic. I haven’t tried the strength of it. No barbed hook pierced and tore me. Was it not long ago this thread began to draw me? Or way back? Was I born with its knot about my neck, a bridle? Not fear but a stirring of wonder makes me catch my breath when I feel the tug of it when I thought it had loosened itself and gone.
BEGINNING well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form, beginning well involves a courageous clearing away of the confusing, the cluttered and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the necessary.
Beginning is difficult, and our procrastination is a fine, ever-present measure of our reluctance in taking that first close-in, courageous step to reclaiming our happiness. Perhaps, because taking a new step always leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing now to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma. In effect we must sit by the death bed of our own old, now departing wishes and come to the new step, learning that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead.
Spirit of the Mighty, Gentle One,
come upon me, anoint me.
I see the oppressed.
I name them; I hold them close.
Make my life into good news for them.
I see the brokenhearted.
I name them; I hold them close.
Give me gentle grace to bind up their hearts.
I see the imprisoned.
I name them; I hold them close.
Give me true words and deeds to release them.
I see the ruined cities.
I name them; I hold them close.
Make me a part of their building up.
Spirit of God, be upon me.
I see my own ruins, my chains.
Hold me close
and set me free, that I may be
your good news for others.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light http://www.unfoldinglight.net
You’ve been wronged:
hurt perhaps, betrayed, accused,
robbed of something, someone.
The wound still bleeds,
smoke still rises in twin columns.
You can pretend,
and your ruse will imprison you.
You can rage,
and your rage will enslave you.
You can believe your deserving,
and your shame will bury you.
Or you can walk to the sea,
the sea at the end of the world,
the dark, chaotic waters of Creation,
the Red Sea bounding your Egypt,
the ocean of forgiveness.
A bitter Pharaoh will follow you,
but don’t turn back.
You will walk into the pain, up to your ankles,
the grief, up to your waist,
the powerlessness, up to your chest
before the waters part
Romans 15:13
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Walt Whitman
Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you.
If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
—Matthew 5.44, 46
We’re afraid to be nonviolent partly because we can’t be sure of the outcome. We’re afraid we’ll pray for our enemies and they’ll still be our enemies. Maybe. But here’s the miracle: the power of love is such that the act itself is the result, no matter what happens next. The oppressor is not likely to be freely choosing his evil. He’s probably at the mercy of fear and bitterness and loneliness, unable to break free, unable to chose compassion, unable even to see his injustice. He’s just doing what “tax collectors” do. But when we act in love, we we are freely choosing. (We get the upper hand: we’re more free than the oppressor!) Our freedom, not his bondage, determines how we live. We have set ourselves free. That’s no small outcome.
We’re afraid to be nonviolent partly because we can’t be sure of the outcome. We’re afraid we’ll pray for our enemies and they’ll still be our enemies. Maybe. But here’s the miracle: the power of love is such that the act itself is the result, no matter what happens next. The oppressor is not likely to be freely choosing his evil. He’s probably at the mercy of fear and bitterness and loneliness, unable to break free, unable to chose compassion, unable even to see his injustice. He’s just doing what “tax collectors” do. But when we act in love, we we are freely choosing. (We get the upper hand: we’re more free than the oppressor!) Our freedom, not his bondage, determines how we live. We have set ourselves free. That’s no small outcome.
Moreover, when we choose to love our enemy we create an alternative world. When someone is cruel, we create a world of kindness anyway, and invite them to choose to enter it. That world of grace and compassion exists whether or not they choose to enter it. It has power. Love creates a gravitational field that changes how everything in it behaves, even if no one can see it.
Jesus’ teaching is no wimpy excuse for passivity. It’s a call to live with the courage to make our own choices, to trust in the power of our own fully realized being, to refuse to let another person—especially one who’s in bondage to fear—determine our way of living. When we make our own choices we create a new world. When we make those choices in love, we open a door for others into that world. We change the outcomes that are possible. Indeed, when we love our enemy all of reality is changed.
A bell’s not a bell ’til you ring it
A song’s not a song ’til you sing it
Love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay
Love isn’t love ’til you give it away!
– Oscar Hammerstein II
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation – either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.
life: acoustic & amplified 