Swirling in and out

A swirling it goes.  I blows this way, and then that.  Saying hello to the passerby.  It cannot be trapped or tamed.  Once I feel I have it cornered, I find it blowing behind me.  It's a mystery.  A going out and coming forth.  Swirling, dancing, calling, yet found in silence.  The violin and instruments accompany it, yet can never fully define it.  The drummer drums to its beat, and yet walks away knowing she has only serenaded the mystery for a time.

But it is generous.  Just because it can't be trapped doesn't mean it isn't good.  Rather, it is the foundation of all that is good, of all that is. It's only that it's foundation is so deep, that we can but skim the surface.  But lo, we have all eternity to fly its skies.  To swim its oceans.  To dance with it on mountains.  To be carried by its breeze.  So lost in flow, with the invitation of all eternity.

At home

Home.  A place of peace.  Where my questions don't bury me, but propel me towards greater truth.  Where I belong, where we all belong.  Where I can finally let me guard down.  When my worries can finally be dissolved.  Home.  Where we can look each other in the eyes and there be no barriers to love.  Alive and yet at rest.  A place where when I'm at rest, I don't fear I will loose the life.  And when I'm alive, I don't fear loosing the rest.

Because what we build upon is a solid foundation.  Original goodness.  Where it all started.  The beginning.  Where it's all headed.  

Noise, Or Arrangement?

Is it all noise?  Or in the procession of our noise, is there an underlying beat, waiting to come forth?  Is what comes up from the dirt noise, or is a song being made?  Will the temperament of the tempest and storm eventually find their place in the musical parade?  Will the wind blowing through the trees, become in tune with the uprising beat, to complement it's sound and to add nuance?  Then will people join in to add the melody?  Then, will more and more people join in to make it a chorus?  

And then, with earth, wind and people all singing along, will we be at peace?  Is this what we long for all along?  To sing together?  To complement the rest of creation?  In this, do we become bigger people?  

Our songs won't be the same.  But together, we can collaborate, each add our flavor, and make a bigger and more expansive song.  This does not take away from your individual notes, the unique and individual song that is yours and yours alone to sing.  It is both/and, not either/or.  I want to learn from your song.  Teach me.  How has your unique pains and struggle influenced the notes you play?  What has helped you on your journey to craft your song?  Who were your teachers?  The louder and clearer you play your song, the more I learn.  Yet the soft parts, even the silence between melodies, teach me about you.  

Separate.  Yet together.  Yet representing one.  Let us become what we we already are.  Let us become what we truly are.  

Beauty Beyond

Beauty exists.  In the material world, before the material world, and that which expands the material world into eternity.  At times, it may seem that darkness is the greater force, however strong this sense might be, it isn't the truth.  Sometimes we may only see breaks in the clouds, rays of light seeping through.  But behind the clouds is a beautiful and bright sun.  The sun, is the greater truth, and holds more power than the clouds or darkness. 

Sometimes we hold out for the light.  However, a deeper truth is that the light is holding out for it to be revealed to us.  It desires to be shown in us greater than we desire it.  How else could it be stronger than darkness?  Stronger than anything we do or encounter?

Salvation is than dying.  So let the dying start in me sooner than my physical death, so that I may experience salvation in the here and now.

Home is greater than the corners we run to.  An infinite infinities, beauty blowing like wind.  Molecules and atoms blowing this way and that, and still only at the start of the fullness of what is.  

Being held

Maybe I could let me guard down.  Maybe the true self, who I really am, doesn't needed to prove myself.  Before I do anything, I am a child of God.  As are you.  All the things I think I am.  Mere passing notions.  The things I do, where I seek solace, the places I seek to land.  What's already prepared for me, by far surpasses them all.  What we already are far surpasses anything we think we could be.  The victory has already been won.  To sink into the true reality, is to sink into a much bigger field.  A much more spacious field.  I must die to all I attach to, so that I can be held.

Beyond Time and Space

There is a reality outside of time and space.  This reality however has given birth to time and space.  Time and space tick and move, singing the praises of their animator.  Animation has been set in motion, it's innards and outsides seen, known, cared for, called and held.  We are not left orphans.  If in this life we are, we need to discover there is a reality deeper, truer and more potent than our current experience.  It calls to us.  Invites us.  Desires to hold us in its arms.

Every injury is accounted for.  Every scar is seen.  Every tear held.  Every life precious.  Every hurt within every life desired to be set free.

The soul knows its home.  It will not rest until it meets it Maker.  Which side of eternity we are on doesn't matter, for a souls home will always be a souls home.  And the invitation is always there.  The home of the soul wants the soul, just as the soul wants it's home.  We must just give way to the natural order of things.  After all, love wins.

In the Midst

The storm rages on.  Sometimes, it's a dry passage of time, feeling numb.  Is there a harbor in this storm?  Are these minutes wasted?  Or is there a Good that can take even these, even our broken hearts, and somehow may a beautiful spread from them.

In the midst of the storm is a heart beating.  Maybe if I close my eyes and listen for it, maybe if I tune my ears to the message behind my chaos, maybe then I'll catch some of it.  

Our pain is not unheard.  Our pain matters.  I am not alone in the darkness.  Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle.  But may my heart and mind be trained, tuned, turned to, in the care of, the water well bursting forth even in the midst of my heart breaking.  It is there.  And when I can't feel it, when it feels the furthest thing from the truth, maybe in these moments I am floating on its infinite and eternal surface, with the waters calling, "Dive in."

Your pain matters.  When we are honest about the difficulty, we are ready for the consciousness beyond the difficulty.  We must be able to name, speak truth, be honest.  In these moments of honesty, even though possibly achieved through fear, there is liberation.  Because we find ourselves no longer fighting the reality that already knows, and we give way to its tide which changes and transforms even these deep hurts into glorious love.

Disarm

Disarm me.  May my thoughts not be aggressive towards anyone, or myself.  May I not hate reality.  May I not push against the subtle tide and nuances.  May I not fight myself and others.  I am not meant for battle, but for celebration.  Yet I find myself divided, and possibly competing ideals battling within me.  Disarm me.  May I go with what the Ground of Being says.  May my fighting give way to a greater good.  May I find my home.

Home, a place where my mind won't feels conflicted anymore.  Home, a place where my vision of scarcity will erupt with the explosion of love.  Home, where I am included, where every part of me, is included.  Home, where confusion gives way to peace.  Home, a place where my thoughts and ideas won't feel like or be isolated islands vying for a limited attention.  Home, where all flows from the Source.  Home, where my wrestlings, my ancient binding, gets put to rest.  Home, where abounding life is the norm, not the exception.

May I find home.  Where, with God's help, I can finally lay down my rusty weapons, and in the arms of grace, let every chain be broken.

One direction

There is an energy, a life that flows out in one direction.  It needs not receive anything, yet it encompasses all.  The Three circle and dance, and their love flows out from the dance, spinning and flowing in all directions.  There is not a place it has not yet reached.  Not a place it has not yet seen.  It was there first.

The flow is perfect.  The most powerful force in existence, rushing, pouring, bubbling, engulfing.  Yet hidden in plain sight.  Let my eyes die to me so that I can see that which is beyond death.  Let my heart die to me so that it may rest on the beat of the Heart of the Universe.  Let my mind die to me so that it may sink into the fertile soil of wisdom.  To decompose into the which was before me.  Of old, yet always new.

The waterwheel of life spins and spins.  Splashing and spinning with great glee.  It is our true belonging.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.  But this does not deter from the beauty of the physical world, rather the physical world is born out of the spiritual, as baby chicks come forth from the egg of their mother.  Therefore to find out what the beauty of the physical is, is at the same time to affirm the beauty of the spiritual.  We are not divided.  We are not compartmentalized.  We do not die to one world to be taken to another.  Rather, we die to our understanding to be swept up by the ground of being, which also holds the physical together.

The poet, the mathematician, the builder, the architect, the crying mother, the lonely father, we are all telling the same story.  Whether we know it or not.  We are all longing for the same thing.  We are more connected than we think.  Only in our minds are we separate.  Only in our mind are there distinctions.

So let the waterwheel flow, let it cover everything I am.  Let my eyes be baptized in it's grace.  Let my existence be baptized in it's love.

Circling around

It cannot be directly perceived.  It must be circled around.  And maybe, some of it will rub off on us.  The beauty of beauties can be forever fallen into.  We need no safeguard.  We can fall in any direction, there is still an infinite number of directions to fall into.  That which made the cosmos is infinitely further reaching that that which it has made.

Let us fall.

Sleep Sweetly Child

You are cared for.  If you experience pain in this life, it will not be yours alone.  You are watched over.  If you have heights or valleys, you will not walk them alone.

Rest your head.  Sleep sweetly.  Dream hopeful dreams.  The burden is not yours to carry.

Rest your body.  It is beautiful inside and out.  Material is born out of spiritual.  You are good.

Rest you mind.  The ground of being has you, you cannot add to or take away from it.

Rest your soul.  Eternity is offered it.  That which is temporary fades.  You are made for endless beauty.

Rest you legs.  You cannot run too far.  You cannot travel to be unreached.  No where you have gone has tarnished who you truly are.

Rest your arms.  Let sweet sleep repair the strained muscles.  Let rest give you new strength.

Rest your eyes.  You are held much more than you could ever take in.  All that you see does not define you.  The reality of it is better.

Rest your heart.  There is a Mender of hearts.  The Mender knows what you have gone through.  The Menders knowing is enough to swallow up your pain.

Rest.  Sleep sweetly.

Finally free

No more bondage.  No more cages.  No more internal fighting.  No more hate.  No more apprehension.  No more weariness.  No more waging internal war.  No more fires to put out.  No more deferred hope.  No more anything that is anti-life.

Hope realized, hope finally fully lived into.  Free, finally free.

Finally Home

No more wondering.  No more tributaries meandering wandering through the wood, meager and meek.  No more complaints.  No more discouragement.  No more, "this, no wait, wait, that!"  No more pain.  No more arguments.  No more mulling over scratch in my head, time after time.  No more separation.  No more segregation.  No more division.  No more fear.  No more anxiety or worry.  No more bitterness.

Finally home.

A place where I can rest my head.  And to be home, finally home.

Schisms Cease

The fragments stir.  The isolated parts start to vibrate.  The pick up on the resonance, if only a little.  Could there be others?  Am I the only one?  A hope, a quite voice inside wonders if I'm not.  But in order to move from my position, I first must melt.  My edges and limbs are to stale and stuck to move me towards what I hope for.  Shall I let go?  Yes.  I quit trying to push out and come in.  My edges and limbs quit trying so hard to hold their ground.  Can I soften?  Yes.  The edges are already of a softer consistency.  Moving in, the core seems less frozen, there is some movement.  Shall I continue?  Yes.  It's scary, but strangely liberating.  Ok, here we go.  I give way a little more.  The edges have now migrated towards the middle, the middle mix with the edges, the core seeps into the others.  The parts of myself that once were divided, once compartmentalized, start to share with each other.  I feel like a being instead of a robot.  Or at least the start of one.  Shall I continue?  Yes.  I give way more, the middle starts to collapse, the edges join force.  What was once hard and sharp has become moldable, responsive to the air and ground.  Now I am a puddle on the ground, but not stationary.  The ground is sloped.  I'm flowing in a direction.  What's that to the left?!  Another liquid blob, flowing too!  We gain speed.  And now ahead and to the sides more moving blobs of different colors and sizes become visible.  We all make our way down the slope, from each side of the center?  What happens when we meet?  And then, it happens.  We join.  We come together.  The colors mix.  What once was small dabs of liquid making our way along joins and continues to join others.  Till be become a tributary.  A river.  And finally, we reach the ocean.  All.  Is.  Well.

A Great Compassion

It speaks to us through the flowers.  The mountain tops echo it beauty.  It sings through the stars in the sky.  It's in-between the most concealed cracks.  To run from it is to run into it.  It calls our hearts. It calls our souls.  It feels our pain.

Nothing is meaningless.  All is up for redemption.  Darkness flowing in can be rays of light flowing out.

We are not alone in our pain.  Our musings are not ours alone.  There is One who shares our burdens. We cannot reach a place where we are alone, no matter the darkest hole we go down.  The One will be waiting for us there.

Preceding a spoken word is a spirit it is born from.  And preceding the spirit it is born from is a great compassion that seeks to speak through everything.

When we have given up on ourselves, we are not given up upon.  When it seems we have chosen darkness, light has still chosen us.  When we are on a plank atop the vast ocean, the ocean is love.  When our experience and what we hope for don't seem to coincide, there is a deeper Reality that eternally understands.  When we want to try for one thing, but do another, love is found in both.

My shortcomings.  My darkness.  My anger.  Are but pebbles looking up at the tidal wave.  They are meant to be swept up, to give way to the great adventure.

Free Gift

A free gift, not requiring anything.  Not having any alternative motivation.  Not seeing any hinderance.  Not having any hangups.  Only seeing potential, yet complete in itself.  Only seeing the beloved, not having hinderance in reaching out its arms.  Not having a "if" "then".  Before.  Beyond.  Encompassing.  Radical.  Acceptance.  For all.  No exception.

Love has never been born, yet is born over and over again, for all of eternity.  Mystery embodied, and yet released in the cosmos and beyond eternity.  So that somehow the flesh, spirit, mystery, the earth, everything works together.  All proclaiming one thing, all singing one song.  A song directed towards One, yet relevant to everything.  

We are deeply loved.  Deeper than the seas, higher than the heights, wider than the universe.  Yet present in our cells, in our atoms, at the ground of being.  We are not alone, we are home.  We need just believe it.  The universe was created in love, it's where it started, it's where it is heading.  And yet , it is present too.  

And when the night seems darkest.  When darkness seem akin to out being, to our understanding, to our reality.  In this, we are held.  We might not know it.  It might not be our experience.  But there is a deeper reality that we haven't quite touched yet.  But what is concealed is meant to be made known.  What we suffer with in secret seeks to find it's expression.  And in the expression, acceptance is.  

We need not hide the parts of ourselves we don't like.  The One is able even to use those to transform us.  We may feel like we are in a ping pong match within our own heads.  This, then that, then this, then that, back to this again, is there a third!  A different option?  Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions!  All this might stir through us.  But grace, already present in us, if allowed, makes the questions a dance, a beautiful movement.  

You are good.  It's how you were created.  It's who you are.  We need to just remember.  Back when we were kids, and we laughed, and that was enough, somehow this still holds true.  The time when at last we were held in a caring embrace, maybe this is who we really are, and yet deeper still.  We need not have us plus something, an existence of continuing addition.  Only, an existence of continued waking up to what is already true.  An existence of waking up to what has been true since the beginning of time, and for all eternity.  A circle dance of love.  Which we are all invited into.  Which we are already a part of.  

The belonging I seek is the belonging I already have.  It is a free gift, given and received, and a call rings, to just trust that it is true.  And the call will meet us where we are at, seeing us as beautiful, seeing us only through eyes of compassion and love.

Give me grace to believe.

Encompassment

Breaking Through

Song Entitled Sweet Melodies

A light coming over the mountain

Hope has seemed bleak, it was difficult to know what to hold on to.  Stay the course?
Revisit old ideas?  Think of something new?....

But then light shows it's face.  Over the mountain peaks that seemed so high, a ray has shown.  It penetrates through the looming clouds.  The clouds ever begin to light up and reflect the light.

A light has dawned.

All We Need

I Can't Understand

Welcome to the Unknown

Turned To Joy

Present

Open My Eyes

Nothing Can

More Than Enough

Let Your Light Shine On Us

Let the Rain Fall Down

Hold us Together

Divine Spark

Beyond my Doubt

Alive

One

Sweet Melodies

Expanding LIfe

Say matter started with a word, or a deed.  The word is intimately connected with what it created.  It's a river rushing, a brook bubbling until flood.  It's an ocean deep.  It an expanse of the sky long.  It's eternally wide.  An energy of grace, and yet found in the silence.  Gentle in heart.  Mindful of the oppressed.  Seeking to join all together, and than to expand all into itself.  Into the arms of love, so that it can be both the propelling force and the destination.  To bring all into itself, so that all can feel its fullness.  And for a moment, time and space don't matter, and all is ok.

Emanuel of Time and Space

The love grows in our hearts.  It overwhelms the physicality of us, it overwhelms the senses.  Until it is the reality.  We are all born of love.  It has been our purpose.  It joins, sings a song over time and space and generations and galaxies.

He is with us.  We have hope.  We will not be left.  We are pursued more than we pursue anything, more than we pursue ourselves.  Love opens the door.  He is for us more than we can be for ourselves or anything.

Schisms.  Nope.  Division.  Na.  Degradation.  No.

Love.  Yes.  Compassion.  Yep.  Joining.  Ya.

The heart that started it all is still beating.  It the rhythm of the universe.

Free Fall

Everything is flowing.  There is an energy moving to, from and through everything.  We can fight the flow, but only to frustrate.  We must remain open.  We must have a beginners mind.  We must submit to the flow.  

I try and force the issue.  I impose my will upon reality, only to become frustrated.  I didn't work last time.  But maybe it will this time!  Maybe this is the silver bullet, the magic wand that will give me everything I've dreamed of!  

In me fights both darkness and light.  My job becomes to submit more and more to the light.  But let me never think the darkness isn't there.  Not to degrade myself, but to realize I need grace.  To hold everything with open hands, so that I don't plant where won't grow.  So that I never put down my post on the wrong property, or to let the acre become a forest to become a world to become a galaxy to become a universe to become reality.  But I must not put down my post before the fullness of things, and me being finite will never fully realize the fullness of the infinite.  

Therefore let me free fall.  With increasing speed.  With increasing depth and clarity.  Let me touch eternity to realize eternity will always be untouchable, a calling into forever.  

Back to where it ends

This holy experience, choosing to be hear and......

Let the guitar flow with punch and power.  Let the vocals sing sweet melodies in power and melody. Let the bass be true.  Drum away and play the instrument of your finding.

This chance to be, alive and breathing.....

Instrumental.  Changing clips and frames.  Galloping and gracefully swaying back and forth, in and out, to and fro.  Streaming, staccato, yelling, calling.

Embrace this moment, remember....

The beauty in the quite.  Beats need rest.  The composition needs silence.  The reflection.  Space.  Pause.  The chance for new ideas to give birth.  The contemplation.  In the cool of  the night air, in warmth of the rising sun, in the gentle sway of the dandelion.  Some how, some how, to reach a peace.  A peace that is true, that is developed in a consciousness beyond it's own conception.

A peace.  To finally come to fruition.  A peace.  That finally covers all.  A peace.  That is applicable toward all circumstances.

The loud must give way to the peace.  We need your messages, but in the stillness they find their worth.  And so we sing, and so rest, until, finally, we need not the polarity, until the coming and going both merge into the energy of love.

And love is.