Jesus for adults

Jesus for adults                                                                                 

“Suffer the children to come unto Me.”

I was a child when I first heard those words.

‘Suffer’, it was explained to me, means ‘allow’.

Jesus for adults in our church

was the Lamb of God, but to the children

He was the Shepherd and we were His flock.

Later, from Meher, I learned Jesus was not here

to save me from the cross

but to show me the Way to hang,

shouldering that weight for me

as far up the hill as He could get.

Suffering real, unavoidable, bitter as gall,

heavy as those rough-hewn timbers;

sharp as spikes and thorns.

Jesus loved the adults from high on a cross

but He took the children into His arms, heart to heart,

teaching that our love for Him

is as important as His love for us.

O child of God, surrender is the way of liberation.

To suffer means to allow.

                        (from A Jewel in the Dust)

The merest shadow

The merest shadow

O Beloved, before I met You I was a devout believer,

clinging to a hundred stolen truths.

Now I find I am slowly losing my religion.

When it’s gone, when my pockets are empty,

I will float above this world like an angel.

Jesus drove the moneychangers from the temple,

those who judged and measured,

bargained and quibbled,

those who accumulated and divided.

When You get through with me there’ll be

          nothing left –

not the vaguest hint of a semblance of the merest shadow

          of a dream.

I removed my sandals at Your threshold,

but my bare feet stained the surface

          of Your pure stone floor.

This unholy container of flesh and blood, mucous, 

          phlegm, sweat and tears

tainted the atmosphere of Your immaculate shrine.

O Beloved, what is at the heart of me

          that You tolerate such intolerable insults

and move, ever closer, ever more intimate and involved?

O child of God, if you are made of clay, how will you

          ever be scrubbed clean?

Your Beloved is drawn to the inviolate Source

          of who you really are.

                           (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Cabbage leaves

Cabbage leaves                                                                             

Under a cabbage leaf, Father said

and the son believed him. 

He loves me too much,

the child reasoned, to tell a lie –

rousing the wonder of a rimy, autumn garden,

naked infant curled among the stalks and stems.

Thumbing now through God Speaks

and other unspoken words You left behind,

I wonder how many cabbage leaves

are enfolded among the bright pages.

Not that it matters.

It was never about hard facts with You,

but the gentle whisperings and gestures

of a son’s trust in his father, a father’s love for his son.

Inscrutable tales that quench,

yet prod and fire the groping soul

towards the coming of age,

when mind and tongue shall be stilled –

when Truth shall thoroughly own the man

and the child shall be no more.

O child of God, trust in the love of Meher

where all contradictions are reconciled.

(from Spoken For)

The brash parrot

The brash parrot                                                                              

Inside a cage of bones, the brash parrot

waddles on its perch, a voluble green flame

shrieking and squalling, much to the delight of some

and to others, dismay, for so addled

and vulgar a creature to be declaiming,

in shrill mimicry, the Master’s wisdom.

But, those who consider the parrot’s words

mere exploitation, fail to grasp the true stature

of its wee, clamoring heart 

which, from the first encounter, registered

the import and majesty of the Master’s words

and forthwith caught fire, dedicating

its rather ludicrous, inadequate

apparatus of being to the continuous praise

and celebration of the Master’s perfect Truth

to anyone who will listen.  The particulars

the parrot may not fathom but the great gist

of the tale, its heart knows and owns and tirelessly repeats.

O child of God, speak with the impeccable authority

of your own unshakable faith in Meher Baba.

The bruising rose

The bruising rose                                                                          

You told the story of an innocent woman

accused of adultery –

tied to a post in the marketplace,

everyone who passed required by law

to cast a stone or some filth upon her ...

which she endured with a noble dignity;

her daughter was brought forth, throwing

not a stone nor filth but, a simple rose ...

and the mother shrieking in agony

as it brushed her cheek.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,

You told the crowd in another marketplace.

You, of course, could have cast that stone,

but You have come down, bound Yourself

among the stones and filth

of our marketplaces to endure unjustly

the fateful punishments of being human

and to weigh in Your innocent hands

the culpability of each stone-and-rose-wielding

patron, each laboring, fearful heart.

O child of God, the Beloved is ever merciful.

Protect Him from the bruising rose of your infidelity.

(from Spoken For)

A torch for You

 A torch for You  
                                                                            
Become hopeless, You say. 
I’ve invested all the hope I have
 
in the One whose shoulders
bear the weight of multitudes;
 
the One entrusted with the Mandali’s souls –
Mani’s guileless adoration, for example;
 
Mehera’s unworldly devotion;
Eruch’s plea:  Don’t let me down!

Love makes no demands
but promises invoke certain expectations.

Faith is blind in the end,
but there are flares along the way.

I look to those burned-out, love-ravaged souls
who carried to their graves, a torch for You

and the silent assurance and authority with which
You accepted their immeasurable sacrifice.

O child of God, you are a lover of Meher Baba!
What wondrous company you keep!

                         

Finding grace

Finding grace                                                                                   

Mehera asked, years ago, why You chose

so barren a place for Your ashram

(and Your Tomb) landscape of dust
and thorns; scorpions, cobras and kraits.

Then, My lovers, You said,

will come only for Me, nothing else.

These days, You’ve turned

much of my world into dust and thorns --

a bleak, prickly terrain

devoid of sustenance and satiation,

rife with scrapes, stings and venom,  

so that each day, I show up only for You

and when side-tracked, return only to You,

as the friendly ground shrivels

and the periphery grows wilder,

more and more, finding grace

in the isolation and disparity,

in eccentricity, disillusionment and despair.

O child of God, rejoice when your life becomes a Tomb

in the desolate region of a strange land.

(from Spoken For)

Singular majesty

Singular majesty                                                                                   

Only the naked may enter Your Sea. 

These tattered clothes, soiled

from my grandparent’s grave,

a mother’s tears, father’s sweat,

from my rough-housing brothers, lover’s

bodily fluids, the birth blood of my sons –

how shall I drop them at Your shore?

They’ve grown into my skin.

They’ll have to be cut from my body. 

Allow me to suffer these stained rags

hugged close to my chest,

not to hide my nakedness,

but to mark its wondrous beginnings

as I enter the singular majesty

of Your ancient, depthless Sea.

O child of God, imperfect love is Love Divine –

not to be surrendered but transfigured.

                     (from A Jewel in the Dust)