Pretend
game
Meher
referred to existence as the divine game –
but not
a contest; not a flag to capture.
A
pretend game. A masquerade.
And once
you find yourself
a
mandated participant, the only course left
is to
play your role best you can.
The only
way, apparently,
to bow
out is to make that
holy,
hair’s-breadth shift of perspective
where
every moment you act
not for
the moment but for the eternal,
ever
aware of the pretense, recognizing
yourself
and your fellow players
under
the make-up and costumes to be
none
other than God playing solitaire,
God the
great ubiquitous pretender.
O child
of God, follow the clues as best you can
until you are able to see through the charade.
The
fate that awaits you
Once
you see the truth,
there’s
no turning back.
You
might hover a while
near
the old haunts,
going
through the motions,
acting
out your appointed role
before
you confront yourself
and
the truth that there is no sweetness left,
not
because the well is dry
but
because the truth is different
and
deeper than you ever could have imagined
and
it compels you now to faithfully allow
a
change in direction, a change in yourself,
to
remain obediently true to the fate that awaits you.
O
child of God, the real search begins when first you sense
the depths of yourself and the inevitability
of the goal.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
The
scriptures of the heart
Standing
on the carousel,
having
ditched my golden steed,
looking
outward at the spinning world,
(as
usual) expounding to the crowd.
My
incoherence met with glazed eyes, quizzical brows.
Every
written word I once practiced
and
preached as gospel, I now profess
to
be beyond my ken, beyond my authority to espouse.
Each
time-worn ritual, sacred icon striking me now
as
rudimentary, external and conceptual;
the
preparatory substitute for a genuine,
interior
communion and fealty. Maybe it’s humility
that
has stolen my tongue or perhaps, futility,
as
round and round I go, amidst the glaring lights,
the
distant shouts and clamor of the midway –
the
hawkers, the carnies and the rubes.
O
child of God, turn your back on this gaudy world
and endeavor to read
the scriptures of the heart.
The
Reality of which we are made
God
alone is real (said my Lord).
Which
means . . . we are not.
Wrinkles
in the holy fabric are we;
waves
upon the sea; clouds upon the ether.
We
are the wind-shape of the dunes,
a
burl in the bark; a hitch in the stream;
a
speck of dust on the mirrored glass.
How
holy! How precious and precise are we!
Like
the Reality
of
which we are made.
O
child of God, what is the worth of that
which comes and goes?
Only
its connection to the Everlasting.
