A new tomorrow

A new tomorrow.  To wake up to a new day.  Let the sighs pass.  Judgement, this is not your day.  I do not want to succumb to you.  Alive.  I long to be.  A new day dawning over the bright horizons of the soul.  A shimmering in the midst of confusion, comfort in the midst of dissidence.  I am not only my thoughts, they shall not reign over me.  To trust, to see the beauty in life.  To learn to see from love lenses.  The beauty is there.  I want to look for it, to fall on it, to breathe it in and be breathed in by it all at once.  All at once, my worry faded.  I felt loved.

My forlorn face fell drooping down to the swaggering ground.  The same ground that tried to drop out from underneath me.  But I was caught.  And held.  All is right.  All is ok.

Yet I know there is suffering.  My daily fight for happiness might be someone else's fight for survival.  My fight for fulfillment might be someone else's fight for food for their child.  All of us are in this together.

Yet there is a new day, over the bleak transition from day to night there reigns a truth speaking to and from the galaxies past.  It shouts, "I love you.  Hold on."  And then again, "I love you."  We are all connected, breathed out.  Let us return to the one from whose breath we originate.  We all have the same source.

Forgive my sin Christ, have mercy on my a sinner.  Forgive where I divide.  Forgive where I seek to be one up, where I try and squelch the flames of other so that mine can be seen.  Forgive my fearful spirit, the amount of times daily that don't act from the true self.  Have mercy on me God, a sinner.

I'm sorry

I'm sorry for your pain.  It is yours and only yours.  No one else can claim it, you will deal with it in a way that is uniquely you.  Even if all feels like rhythm and pattern, even if your mouth is shut and your soul feels dry, there is One who is listening.  He is hurting with you.  Do not fear your sensitivity.  Do not wish it away, feel your pain.  Know you are held in it, and that through the jaws of the dragon, on the other side of death is rebirth.  Rebirth into new life.  Life not before seen.

Know that your unique way of holding the pain is unique to the universe and the story being written through time and space.  It matters.  Your pain matters.  Your tears are not empty, even if they feel that way.  If you've felt like death more than life, One feels your pain.  My friend, your pain is not your enemy, it does not cover you in darkness never again to be found.  The pain has its end.  Emptiness is only a shadow of the light.  Bitterness only beholds one angle of the truth.  Hope may be closer than you think.  Don't look abroad, to the newest teaching or the newest path of ascent.  It's deep in your soul.  In the place where flesh and spirit become one.  There is your home.  There is your rest.  You need not be someone else.  Accept yourself, for you are accepted.  Walk down the thousand latter of your life and shake hands with the naked and bare self.

Help me to see.  Open my mouth and heart.  Have my pride.  Have my entangled, estranged self.  Let me not travel to a polarity, give me the strength to bear in myself what I do not yet know.  Have my chains, that shackle my heart, and seek to put to death my creativity.

Help me to not judge, have my broken being, help me to settle into the Ground Of Being.

Hope

In the darkest night, we need not fabricate a light of our own, this will only bring on more darkness.  If I try and remember, all I remember haunts me.  If I think forward, I get trapped in the future.  I need a new consciousness.  I cannot kill myself any longer.  I will trade it in, only to awaken to the reality that was present before any of my pain.  Sometimes, my pain feels like an end in itself.  Is there any meaning to it?  Is there some direction I am heading?  I need a new mind, not one I can build.  I must take earth, combine it with the sacred, and find all was sacred all along.  Let that which is sacred arise, let light shine as it did before, as it never stopped.  I only couldn't see it.  I was looking through the wrong lens, the lens of my success.  The lens of what has worked for me in the past.  The lens of my ambition.  It worked before, why not this time?  Because everything must run its course.  Everything must be shown for what it is.  It must be revealed by fire.  A must be willing to see what I cannot see.  I must be willing to not only name the problem, I must admit I've partaken in it.  Sometimes, it's all I knew.  I must be willing to be awake, but first I must die to all that I am.  What will be left?  That which was before I am.  The great I AM.

Forgive my treachery, the places where I've been content with darkness.  The times where I thought I was an end in myself.  Where I used people, or used reputation, or fear.

The never ending thoughts trickle through my brain like raindrops falling from the open sky.  I do not want to die like this, I cannot stand myself.

Awaken me to the rest that was before I had a cell in my body.  The rest offered to us from long before I walked this earth.  I need the eternal, in both directions.  I want to believe that I was born into something, and am heading towards something.  Help.  Me.  To.  Let.  Go.  Only.  To.  Find.  It's. Better.  With.  You.

A buzzing

A buzzing is occurring, listen, can you hear it?  We need not put our ears to the door, we need only to listen to our heart.  It's inside, in between, in all the places I thought not.  Don't go there, I thought.  Yet these were the very places which needed attention, where I needed to go, sometimes with a witness.  It is sometimes in the dark where we find the light.

I cannot fix my soul.  It is too complex for me, I need a light to illuminate it, and then to show me what is helpful and not.  But I need not rage against the unhelpful parts.  Maybe I can laugh instead, and cry, and we can watch redemption use both.  If I can dare to accept the dark parts of me (though not as an end in themselves) then maybe I can accept those who are different then me.

Transformation ravages across the hills, it fills the valleys and makes wide paths once narrow.  Conversion hails from the sky, bubbles from the deep wells, thickens the air.  Am I ready?  Am I listening for it, do I dare to enter into the forgiving flow?  Here, we are all invited.

I cry out to you Blessed One Above All, help my heart to hear you.  I want to see.  I want to be open to the mystery unfolding right here, right now, in front, behind, in-between, around me.  Holy God, train my mind to rest, but only in you, be my rest, my redemption, my salvation, my freedom.  Make what is quite into a cascade of encompassing joy, may I not think I have any more right to it than anyone else.  Take me beyond judgement, beyond my condemnation, to where your store houses are.

Help...me...to...listen.

Caught up

Caught up in the light, unlike anything I've ever seen, let alone tasted and touched.  All senses firing on all cylendars.  Nothing held back, no longer.  All my dreams, pale in comparison to the reality of it.   And to know, it only goes deeper.  One direction and every direction at the same time.  All consuming, yet retaining the dignity of all.  Everything caught up, both bigger and deeper inside at the same time.

Truly, we are here.  It is a miracle.  We are made in love.  Creation moves forward, carrying with it the weary soul longing to be set free.

The time is here.  The time is now.  Set us free.  Let us know who we are in you, let use live from that truth.  The ever expanding love that has no border, no circumference, infinite in depth, 10,000 years from now, we'll have an infinite number of 10,000 years to go.

Bright light.  Shimmering, yet constant.  Where my neighbors are those I do not yet know.  Where my sisters and brothers are those I've yet to see.  Where we all converge.  Dream my friends, for the dreaming changes you.  One day, I hope all will consumed by love, and even the memory of war will be seen through the eyes of love.

Don't settle, you are dreamed for greater than you can dream for yourself.  Love.

Lord God, my see ourselves, others, everything, through your eyes.  The precious eyes of the truest reality, the deepest core.

The New

The old bleeds into the new, the new honors the old.  And together we sing.  In am not without you, you are not without me.  Drums crave the guitar, guitar the bass, and bass the drums.  There is only One.  All is for him, and he is generous.

Life pours from every crease, from the spaces in between, stitches open, storehouses burst forth.  WE SING.  It's no longer if to create, we just join in.  The new,  contains the old, increases in depth, complexity, unity.  The unfolding of all that is.  Dark matter still dark, yet the light pulls us through, and even in a mysterious way uses the dark matter.

The future, will be born of the present, and of the old, and yet somehow time doesn't seem to matter anymore.  It's linear and we have been called to the CONTEMPLATIVE.  Black and white dips into color.  Red, yellow, blue, purple, a harvest and plethora of exploded self regenerative, self transcending greatness.

Sign me up.

All Becoming One

All that was, all that is, flowing freely, without hinderance, guided, not blind, but not totally seeing either.

We put on our clothes, greed already speaking it's woes.  It shall not have the last laugh.  My poetry hopes to be part of a bigger motion.  The money bought me this guitar, but it isn't what makes it ring. Laughing.  Hard lines.  There must be something bigger than this.

Will my discombobulated words ever affect someone?  It matters not, I must keep writing.  I must drain my sorrows onto the pages of mystery so that mystery can overcome me and so that I don't die in my anger.  My anger, companion of mine, often showing yourself as resentment, ofter bitterness, ofter cynicism.  No!  But somehow No! isn't wisdom either.

Wash off of me, I must find the river, it is imperative, I must see the ocean, I must touch and taste.  My eyes desire to see, I don't want hearsay, I don't want second hand.  If life exists, if there is more than what I currently know, I want to experience it.

But when given joy, I fear.  I sometimes take a good gift, and twist it into guilt and despair.  My woeful ways.  Who will save me from this body of death.

----Rain down, forever let your light shine.  Explode through all time and space and eternity so that from the Milky Way throughout the universe we all may just even catch just a part.  And in that part, we will be satisfied.  It will be our contentment, our peace.  Saying, I am related to you, me to you.  We have a similar Origin.

So grow in complexity, grow in depth, find the joy in both building and being reduced to the particles that we've come from.  Joy.  In all motion and movement, because the One who created is joyous, and he is seeking partners.  His dance is an inclusive one. Therefore, I don't need to categorize or polarize, I need not condemn.  I can simply be open to the moment.

Sleep in peace my dear friends.  We have a good Father.  The Father of time and eternity, is kind to your soul, is kind to your body, is kind to the earth, the animals.  Cares for the deepest desires and wounds of your heart.

Arise!  The time is now.  Do not wait, I've waited long enough.

When Feeling It

He Alone, yet he shares.  He is a gracious giver.  Uniting all, untying all.  Connecting all with all that was and will be.  

 

"Don't be afraid."

Him alone, yet he lavishes.  Spreads wide, wills that we take up and dance, take up with our uncanny ability towards recompense, and dance with Him.  We must leave the ground.  We must alleviate our internal desire towards the whole.  We cannot feel without it, and we need to feel.  Our bodies are not to be hated.

"Don't be afraid."

Sungha plays in the the background, sharing the atoms with the musicians over time, adding his piece.  Play passionately Sungha, play with all your heart, and somehow then, your music will be both yours and His.  

"Don't be afraid."

I need not fame.  Not prestige.  No more degrees, not another initial after my name.  Lord, please help me just to dance, with you.  I long for you presence, in my longing, come into me, let us dance like we were meant to, the way you set it up.  

"Don't be afraid."

Take your spot among the saints and sinners, we are all here.  We are all good.  We all belong. Whether your home is in a steal jail, or in the clouds lingering above, let you foot touch the ground, then your leg to find the rhythm, then for the body to follow closely behind, until time and eternity carry us off into the great distance.  Here there is no steal and cloud, no dualism, no split between mind and body, between what is in and out.  Here, as R & R says, "Everything Belongs."

Duet

The rhythm flows to and fro, inspiring movements of joy.  Movements of happiness calling into the depths of our souls.  Inviting the true self to flourish, to dance with the Partner.

We need not fear, the dance hall is big enough for us all.  We are all invited.  The parables lead to reality.  What was spoken in riddles will become reality.  It floods the air we breathe,  it captivates the darkness in my heart, "You need not hide, the light only looks scary....the reality of it is....beautiful."

So put on your best pair of sneaks.  Or go shoeless, it matters not.  Flashy, or just bobbing in the corner, we all belong.  Everything belongs.  Jam.  Recite.  Yell.  Whisper.  Repeat.

The dance hall whirls to and fro, until the wind make a tornado, carrying us all into the next chapter of reality, the endless unfolding of this dance.  Dance with me.  Let's make a memory.  Let them build until we have a city, then let us find the city in the State, along with many others.  We can learn to dance from them, them from us.

And so the dance unfolds, and unfolds, and unfolds.  Mercy, within mercy, within mercy.

Amen.

Dance with Me

He walks, through many doors.  Does he know where he is going?  Does the destination matter, or is it simply in the journey?  Will he find out?  Or will finding find him?

To recompense for all I've done, to pour my heart out and have it held.  Let my being mean one thing, the One thing beyond me.  In this way I'll never truly land, but I'll be free.

To be true, in my atoms and quarks, to the very essence, the very fabric of reality.  I need not try hard, I need simply be.  For all that is, was.  All that was, will be.  And it is a resounding good.

Wisdom shouts from roof tops, it's in the inner rooms, it speaks to and in our human hearts.  Is it stronger there than here?  Is it more prevalent yonder than in the present?  Again, I need not go about my way seeking it.  It is here.  I need simply to awake to it, and to do so over and over.  For all of eternity.

This is truly good news.  All I want, I possess in part.  The poet, the philosopher, the discourse, the justification, all flow from the center.  The Center, which unites, which holds all in perfect harmony.  Be my inspiration, be curious.

My joy, is in the motion, is in the too and frow, growing from each encounter, gathering from the East and West, but never depleting, always from infinite storehouses, always enough.  Enough, yet taken deeper in, so that love is known to every part of me, and then, taken still deeper in.

This is the eternal dance, sung by the One, invited to us all, "Come, dance with me!"

This, then That

It flows in and out, I cannot control it.  It eludes me.  Think I have it cornered, have the jump on it, then it veers, doges, jumps, squirms.  Gone.  Once, I thought I had the secret, I heard it from without, took it within, ran with the whole of it.  Thought I was making ground, thought I had gained a foothold, ran and raced.  Shipwrecked.  Gone.  I saw my plight as just a game, thought through, but in endless circles, in the dark.  April 1st, 06, was on a run, turned into a rampage.  I mustered up my best intent, dressed for the occasion, shined up my shoes, turned in my sin, saw the golden shrine and ran for it.  The math made sense, it all added up.  The deductions were true.  It looked good, at first.  The journey started with a boom, but then a weight came out of nowhere.  Started to nag at my soul.  Quietly at first.  Then emeshed into my consciousness, only to become all the more weightier.  Then sank in the frightening thought that despite my best intent, I may have been running on my own.  A valiant effort, but misaimed, but uninformed, but ultimately from me, again.  The ground I was trying to make up was only sinking sand.

Who will save me from this body of death.  I'm tossed back and forth with the waves, try to hard to not try hard.  A hard realization.  My mind working again.  I've paid too much attention to the fixing, too much attention to the endless tweaking, the fidgeting.  The harder I try, the deeper I go.

This time, I demand something new.  It seems my introspection has failed me.  This time I look to the light coming through the cracks of the door.  What might be out there I wonder, but the light seeping through the cracks seems to be enough for now.  Its nature is different.  It doesn't shift this way and that, even in subtle ways.  It seems steady.  Slower.  It's subtle nature intrigues me.  Odd, I think.  Without my awareness, my mind slows ever so slowly to match the pace of the odd light.  The anxiety in my body seems to fall from the front of my mind, seeps down into my body, and some seems to seep even all the way out of my feet.  Slowly, my awareness catches up with phenomenon, I realize my body and mind have slowed.  That they are more in tune with each other, and in some way in tune with the light coming through the cracks in the door. The light, has it grown brighter?  Or stronger?  My awareness goes off of me and back to the light.  I swear there is more light now.  Have the cracks grown?  Has the source of light on the other side of the door grown brighter?  But the questions don't seem to matter, what matters is the mesmerization.  It feels good to just give way. It feels to just succeed to it.  My awareness doesn't fight for first place, it finally comes to rest.

My heart is liberated and yet home.  The endless introspection kept me from the light, however the light has caused productive introspection in its wake, but this time guided by the light.  The darkness becomes less and less scary to me, further and further from me.  I'm not sure what the future holds, all I know is that I must continue to give way to the light, which I will call love, and let it take me deeper and deeper into its endless mystery.  I get the sense that I'll never fully land, but this becomes a joy.  Why would I want to land when there is endless mystery to comb out?  And this sense will soon become just a memory too, part of the journey deeper into love.

Father, open my eyes to receive from you.
Father, let me heart be in your love.
Father, never let me be separate from you.
Father, help me to fall in love with you over and over.
Father, may I treat people here with some of the love that you have treated me with.
Father, let me be intimate with you.
Father, speak into the deepest parts of who I am.
Father, with the ground of my being, where I start, let me say to you a resounding "yes."

Always "yes."

New and Yet of Old

It's ever new, baptizing generation after generation. Yet it is of old, holding waters before the beginning of time. It is both here and there at once. Calling us to remember, and also to surrender to the present tense as well. It's artistry is unrivaled, and yet all other art bears witness to it. The creative source, the creative energy, flows, like a waterfall of millions of gallons of spring water over every wall that encapsulates us. It's not something we must muster up, on succumb to. It can unleash the gift inside of us all, the creative process of which we are all a part. In the dawning of a new era, we will recognize more and more the true gift we are. We will not let our fire be squelched, we will not let our light be made null, we will not be fragmented. The One that is of old, yet entirely new, will life us from our ashes, we will rise, as the phoenix,until we meet our Creator face to face. And in this light, we will be forever set free. You are my brother, you are my sister.

free from the oppression

Oppression was never the goal.  We took it and ran with it.  We are meant for freedom, freedom of concousness, freedom of thought, freedom of being.  The more we press in, the harder we push, the further we become.  Freedom is found in surrender.  It's not a believe something foreign to me, not a become something I am not, it is an awakening to what I already am, to what I really am.  If I can embrace the simplicity of a ground of being that is inherently good, then I can search the depths and soar the heights, because I know my home.  

It is for freedom that he has set us free.  Freedom leading to ever increasing freedom, throughout eternity.  To be fully alive, and yet drawn into ever increasing life.  Paradox.  Finally home, yet home is still teaching, still giving, still creating, still inviting.  

In this light, it's not these and those, this and that.  No.  We are all of a common source, a return to origin for the self is also a return to origin for my thoughts of others, that it was from the same origin we came, we all bear the mark.  The eternal seeks to build bridges between this immutable beauty in me and you, that it can be a beauty together.  This voice, that unites, is and was from the beginning, and is the truest voice.  All else is but shadow and fragment.  

Let your mercy, your justice, your grace, you care for those hurting, roll out from you to where we are.  Teach us to accept it, embrace it, and to dance with you.

Liberated and Grounded

Shine on, let it be pure. Let it be more than gold, more than precious silver. Hold on to nothing else, only the one thing. Let it put all in right place, in right relationship. There is nothing else, there is no one else. This is not a grim thing, it is a bold peace, a peace that resonates at the deepest core, echoes throughout all time and eternity, to bring all things together, do that we can all draw from one source. A return to simplicity is not a return to boredom, not to tragedy. It is a return home. It is a joining with the essence of that which is, the ground of being, love. Love was first, is first, can never be overrun, and speaks a good word throughout all of everything imaginable and beyond. It is by this we were made, it is for this we were made. So a return to simplicity is a return to our souls home, where we are both liberated and grounded at the same time. The echoes of love are of old, yet ever new, are farther back than we can go, and go deeper into the future than we can grasp. It combines time with mystery, goes beyond linear, beyond reason. It holds with it the key to happiness, but does not stop there, it takes the heart deep into joy, where joy is for joy's sake, and leads to ever increasing joy. In the eternal love our soul finds rest, the dreariness washes away, depression cannot stay, anxiety is gone. Our mental health is matched by the joy in our soul, our heart and mind draw from the same source, nothing more is fragmented, illusion, all that takes us from the Eternal One, is less than a dream, as if we never new such things. In THE eternal grasp we are both LIBERATED and GROUNDED.

Solidarity

You have blood running through your veins like I. You shed tears like I as well. When your hurt, it cuts you deep, just like I. Why do we insist on building walls. Should we not rather be building bridges. Democrats and republicans, gay and straight, different ethnicities and heritages, are we so different? What hurts you, hurts I. What lifts up your soul, does for mine as well. So let us seek those things that encourage, that strengthen the Divine presence in us. We were all created in it, it cannot be taken away. When I look at you, I want to see this presence, for it is your deepest identity. You were made for eternity, as was I. It is marked in the ground of your being. Your actions can speak of it, or diminish your identification with it, but the truth of what it is, and who you are, can never be drowned out. You cannot fall too far for grace to reach you. Even if we were to wage war against the Divine truth in us, it would not stop it. Picture a compassionate parent with their child. The child may tantrum and fit, but this doesn't change that the parent sees the child through a lens of love. The parent only wishes the child realizes this love, as God does for us. It doesn't mean that anything goes, but it does mean that evil cannot steal from us who we really are. When considering this, it has tremendous implications. It mean those on different continents share with me my core identity. It means when I'm warring for new soil, that I'm killing those made in the same image as me, and in a way partially killing myself. The same light shines in all of us, diminishing it one diminishes it in others as well. My first attitude towards others should be that of identification, of solidarity. I should not build walls but bridges. The suffering Christ on the cross said, Father forgive them, they know not what they do. The one being murdered offered forgiveness to those doing murdering. In the act of the cross, Christ laid down, let the world take their vengeance on him, and rose on the other side to offer life to EVERYONE. It stops here, he seems to say. Take it out on me, I'll rise on the other side of it victorious, showing you the better way, the way that even swallows up violence, transforming it into redemption. God give me the grace to see people as you do.

You

You are beautiful. It was your original name, you creation, and also your destiny. You are beautiful. Beyond words. You have the divine in you. No one can take away your beauty. It is beyond what can be named, and thus cannot be erased. Shine. My friend, shine. Your shining will encourage me to do the same. Let us not hide under a bowel. There is no end to your beauty, because it is grounded in eternity. Let go of all fear, it's a shadow and mist. Awaken to your heritage. Far beyond the rays of the sun, deeper than the darkest night, brighter than the brightest star, you were made in God's image. Return. Where we are all equal. Where I need not prove myself right over you. Where we don't fight, where we need not hate, where prejudice doesn't exist, where true riches are found within. You cannot realize your full beauty. It is a thing which must be said of you, and that from God. We must live into it for all of eternity. You are good. You are. You.

Awake!

Awake! Rise! You are here, you are now. Tomorrow is for tomorrow, the past is just where it is, your time is now. Believe. Lift up your head. Hold not onto where you have been, let go of everything. ' Awake! Hold high the life that fills you so. You need not fear it, explain it away, deny it. PRESENCE. It means you are here, not to live tomorrow, not to live in the distant future, to live here and now. Today. Awake! Let not the drudgery stifle you pros, let not the ego hasten towards the dark. Your gaze was made for ONE, forever patient, forever present. Be held in the gap, let the bridge unite the disjointed sullen parts of who you are. You were not created in fragment, or for fragment. Let all that you are and have be slid into love. It is enough, it will hold you. Awake! Be alert, not anxious, but not in the past. Your destiny is at hand. It is found in the day to day, where the light is already shining. We need not track for it, searching into the ends of earth, the deepest oceans, the highest heights. Look only to the ONE place, where everything else takes its name. Everything in all of creation is pointing to it. Take you cue from the sun, traveling through the galaxy with intent, without diffusion. Awake! Be not drawn out of yourself, become more you every day. The you that remembered, and is remembering, and is reminded, traveling rapidly inward, and outward all at once, but is entirely present. The mystery of being in flux yet completely held. Awake! My friends, let us awake. I am for you, you are for Him, He is radically for us. The mystery is not found I alone, the mystery is shared, a relational existence, stemming from pure relationship. Where One doesn't exist without the Other. And the Third joins in the cosmic dance, the three erupting cosmic waves that speak a good word. Awake! Your defenses are not the end, they have served their purpose, but they do not own you. Be aware of them, only to let them go. Dig not your heals into the ground. Let your mind be opened, your heart captivated, your senses wooed. We only live once.

Life and Light

Life is already speaking, but also waiting. It is inviting, and looks forward to being fully revealed. It speaks, but it's voice cannot quite be heard at full volume. We can tune our perception, towards harmony with life. We may think if we do so, "the ride", life, will be fully reached, or we will have arrived upon our pinnacle. But we might be surprised to find is that life opens up to deeper life. Expansive ways of perceiving to more and deeper and more expansive ways of perceiving. Our unknowing feeds out knowing, which exposes deeper levels of unknowing, which leads to deeper levels of relating. Heaven. The afterlife. Is beyond our percepetion of it because we grapple with it with fragile minds. Trusting it isn't about the reward for us, but the humility from being brought deeper, wider and richer than we thought possible. Life, light, desires to be shared. Desires to resonate with the light created into each one of us. For we were made good, love is the ground of being, it was before, is was first, it is primary. The light inside catches glimpses of the light outside, and becomes stronger. I was made by this. Let me resonate with it. Being drawn to it increases our awareness of the inner light, which increases our trust of the outer light, until we give way, until all becomes LIGHT.

OPEN WIDE

The dreary shall not be my master. I shall not succumb. Do what you were meant for. To light up the world. If we go down, we go down in flames. If we are forgotten, we will not be forgotten to ourselves. If we come up against resistance, we touch our hearts, and feel more alive than ever. :You are wrong: we are told. But it feels right. We hesitate, but then remember that at the start of this all, was an invitation. We remember that before all, is a LOVE that is for all, forever, and trumps any hesitation that may be in my heart. I must give way to its flow, that my consciousness may be expanded where there is room for you, regardless of how different you are from me, regardless of the blocks between us. I must remember that love wins over fear. My worried and torn consciousness hopes for a home. A home calls to my consciousness, "elaborate" it says. "Tell me all of what you want. Tell me your dreams, for I dream for you also. Tell me your insecurities, for I care about them. Anything that keeps you from me is illusion. And illusion fades." "Sing to me, let your song be true. Not a truth that you don't buy into, not something your told to believe, but true to your own soul. For redemption happens in such a way. Take what you are, dare to dream, expand, grow, believe. Let body, mind, heart, soul all work together. I desire not compartmentalization, but unity, flow. Breathe in deep, and then breathe out accompanied by your dreams. Repeat.

Beauty

From the sky, in the air, from above, lifting from below.  Cannot be contained, it radiates greater than the sun, from sky to sea to air, into the deepest of deep, above the highest of high, beyond reach yet held for all.

And she called out, pleading, "Take refuge in me.  I will hold you onto the night is over."  It is time for me to give in, to stop my perilous wavering, to stop working towards stillness, and to give in to the stillness of old, the one present before me, beyond me, yet with me.  I need to come home.  My hurts cannot dictate my life any more, I will not be aimlessly lead about, driven to and fro, driven by fear.

Be my mother, my father, my love, my life.  You who are of old, yet entirely new.  You who loves deeper than my capacity to evaluate the depths of love.  You who hold us all, join us together in the contemplative love between each molecule.

As we go deeper, we realize we will never stop this journey.  The depths only open us up to new capacity for depth, in different areas and deeper in the areas already felt by us.  Heaven opens up to us, both livening and relativizing the air we breathe.

Open me up to ever new reality.

At the center of it all

At the center of it all is love, before anything else was, there was love.  Love was with God, love was God.  The Triune relationship radiated love into all that there was, it was enough in itself.  It sought to share what it had, thus creation.  No matter how dark the days seem, we can look back to what was before anything else was, and see what was meant to be.  Love reigns.  Love is supreme.  Love was first.  When I can't trust myself, when my motives seem askew, when I'm not sure if I'm wrong or right, up or down, I can look back to that which was before I ever made a notion in this universe.  Home is found in the returning, I must go back to my origins, what I was meant for.

Some may taste death before tasting love.  Some may never experience love in their whole life.  What of the beaten child?  What of the widowed wife?  Of the heartbroken man?

Love does not shy away from such questions.

Rather, it gives the world radical freedom, so that it can love it for what it is, not what it is controlled to be.  In order to be a world, the world must be free to be a world.  We need not pretend, we need not dress up and put on a pretty mask, we can name our pain, with all the truth we can muster.  Love encourages such things.

But this is not the end of the story.

Where we came from is the same place where all is headed.  Redemption cannot be hidden, it was, is, and finally will be.  All of history flows in the streams of eternity, we must widen our gaze, we must broaden our minds, and take in more.  We can only find our place in the stream of love that also includes all else.  Here, we are all one, yet all unique.  We find our independence, interdependence, and dependence all in one.  We fade into that which is Great.

We find what was at the beginning, that beckons us ask the questions of what is temporary, only to find that which is forever.  Our pain is but a tapestry being woven by the strokes of the Almighty into everlasting joy.

Lord, give me the faith to believe this.

A return to love

If I believe that love reigns, that it is the first and the final word spoken, than why do I worry?  Why do I plot and plan and scheme?  If I believe that love is the most powerful force in the universe, shouting out good tidings, and turning even darkness to light, why do I fret so?  If I believe that goodness rings the truest call in the universe, that the debt has been payed, that life is to be lived free, why do I put shackles on myself and wrestle with them, only to cut off the nourishing oxygen that I so desperately need?

Everything God does, is done in love, to bring fullness and joy to all people, all of the time.  He seeks to shine into every dark corner, to love the marginalized, to heal the hurting, to share his beauty with all he sees.

A realization of such, should bring not fear upon my soul, not more chains and wrestling, but a return to simplicity.  A return to when I simply trust, no knowing everything, but trusting the movements of grace, and that they are moving.  With such a realization, fear can be let go of and I can experience life in the simplicity and beauty of a flower in the field, both nourished from both the water below, and from the sun above.

God grant me a heart that loves your love, that desires the simplicity of letting your love consume me, let me desire grace for all and for myself.  Be first in my life.