The truth of illusion

The truth of illusion                                                                                     

Moths circle the lamp, hover

and hurtle, attracted to the flame

but, also driven from the midst

of their dark surroundings.

You reach God

when you come to the end of yourself.

You get wise.  It’s the truth of illusion

that shatters, that jades;

the truth of illusion that bores, sates,

disheartens, disenchants.

You rush toward God when God

outshines His surroundings.

When the dark has gobbled you up –

bones and blood.

You rush and flail

and hurl yourself toward the light

when you see there’s nothing

in the darkness worth living for.

O child of God, turn from illusion

toward the way, the truth, the light.

God's gift

God’s gift                                                                                               

Enjoy this moment God has made

knowing full well

you have no right to joy –

not having earned it,

not owning it nor having created it.

It’s a momentary gift you can never possess,

slipping invariably through your fingers.

Endure the suffering moments, too, God gives,

knowing you do not own suffering

and have not earned it.  Knowing it too shall pass.

We pray for joy while the teachings

emphasize the efficacy of suffering.

But God gives neither joy nor pain; God’s gift is life –

the undivided experience and awareness of it –

the ecstasy and horror, beauty and bitterness,

pride and grief, the gentility and brutality of it all.

O child of God, to accept the gift of God,

accept the total, eternal ownership of the Giver.

Orb of the heart

Orb of the heart                                                                                        

When the center of the sky was earth,

the movements of planets and stars

seemed erratic; calculations difficult and complex.

The sun took over and flights clicked

more easily into predictable patterns.

And when the center of the sky

became a distant, conjectured,

long-ago point of origin, the earth,

stars and planets began to interact

in calculable and precise ways,

parts of an infinite, well-oiled machine.

As long as that blue, stone cold

orb of the heart is taken to be

the center of the universe,

every outward movement,

every body spinning beyond it

will be judged as erratic and arbitrary,

inexplicable and incalculable.

O child of God, the truth makes things

o-so-much-more simple and clear.

Just another route

Just another route     

                                                                                          

You and I are on a first name basis.

I’ve grown up with this intimacy –

praying as a child each night

for You to take and keep my soul,

allaying with Your name

my fear of death and harm.

Yesterday, I heard part of a speech

by a famous crusading atheist.

He’s made God the center of his life.

No one gets around You.

Everything is a part of Your work.

Every sin, every blasphemy, every ignorance

as well as every revelation and act of compassion

brings us closer to You. 

God, by the way, is the only One

with the infinite breadth of knowledge

required to know for certain

whether or not God exists.

O child of God, running from the Everything

is just another route into His arms.

In the thick

In the thick                                                                                                 

The nearer you get to God,

the more you take Him for granted.

God becomes a necessary routine –

soap to skin, food to belly,

the hours allotted for sleep.

Daily we remember God –

to give Him His due

until one day we are shown

He’s due everything, every moment.

Then, life becomes a prayer.

You take it for granted God is there

because it’s His life, His due

and where else would God be

but deep in the thick of His own Self?

O child of God, make Him the center

until He becomes the everything.

Chortle

Chortle                                                                                                 

Somewhere between a chuckle and a snort –

this word invented by Lewis Carroll.

No one quite sure of the wordsmith’s

original intended meaning and pronunciation.

(He let the word speak for itself),

it’s precise nomenclature

in the common vernacular

summarily up for grabs.

Creation began

with the invention of a Word

(perhaps, an immortal chortle)

entering into the vernacular

and no one’s quite sure now

of its original meaning and intent . . .

as endlessly in a cacophony of fear and desire

we assert, opine, question and debate,

while the Wordsmith looks on,

lips pursed behind an upraised finger

in ambiguous silence,

letting the Word speak for Itself.

O child of God, Meher said, ‘Life is a jest’ –

surely worthy of a chuckle and a snort.