Ode
to Fear
Lifelong
have you hounded me,
thwarted
my surrender,
the
great contradiction being,
as
my constant companion,
you
have also been the compelling force
in
my flight toward surrender.
For
that, I begrudgingly give you credit.
God
by definition is fearless, so why and how
do
you manifest so inherently in His children?
Per
the Mystics, you are merely
one
aspect of God’s everything,
an
illusory absence
in
the eternal essence of Love.
O
these incongruities and contradictions!
Such
is my life on the battlefield
which
underneath (They tell me)
has
always been a vast green and fragrant meadow
leisurely
raked by the random summer winds.
O
child of God, where there is love, said Meher,
there is no
fear. Where there is fear there is no
love.
The
true question
During
every pilgrimage over the years,
I
have bowed down twice a day (or more) at the Tomb;
attended
and dutifully listened
to
the various Meherazad testimonies.
Returned
home to clasp my hands daily
before
a relic-adorned shrine, trying,
perhaps,
to prove a sincerity I do not feel.
I
have attempted to make Meher the center of my life –
attending
events and meetings, visiting the Center,
professing
before God and others the love
I
hope to one day possess, though it now seems
that
the true question is not whether I love God
but
whether He loves me . . . (or not)
and,
in lieu of any certainty, do I believe it myself?
O
child of God, make Meher the center of your life
in the hopeless hope
that one day He will become its entirety.
Such
is my destiny
Up
on the Hill, Meher offered me
a
cup of wine. I politely declined,
then
sat down to soberly write a poem
about
intoxication. Such is my destiny.
All
the while, I was thinking the center
of
the universe was eight thousand miles away –
enamored
of myself, my pleasure, comforts,
my
conformity, rather than any nearby Beloved.
Back
home, trudging through my old routines,
sobered
by fear, uncertainty, impermanence.
Now
that the darkness has begun to lift a bit,
the
dream is fading. I don’t mind so much.
I’m
bone-tired, looking forward to a reset
and
somewhere far away, or perhaps,
just
at my elbow, a new invitation
to
partake of His holy, liberating wine.
O
child, your liberation is per Meher’s schedule.
Rue and regret are but
an impotent indulgence.
The
ol’ soft shoe
I
was a child, younger than most,
when
I first took up dancing –
tap,
the shuffle, the ol’ soft shoe.
A
routine for every occasion.
Always
on notice, on alert,
to
dance apropos to the tune
of
my elders, my betters, my cohorts,
my
inner promptings, dance, dance, dance
until
I lay exhausted in my bed each night.
All
my former partners have left me now,
or
I them, for different partners and the latest tunes
except
for the One who has always stuck by me,
silently
pressing me now, as the music drifts and fades,
to
come to a halt. To sit this one out, to leave
off
every
surefire flourish of my old routine
and
just listen, observe and come to a rest.
O
child of God, you’ve gone through the moves
your whole life long,
yet rarely have you ever danced for joy.
