Chanji
He found you in Chowpatty
washed up on the beach
by life’s betrayals,
cruel vicissitudes.
You were ready to drown
by then,
hopeless, not caring if
you lived or died.
He persuaded you
to go a-travelin’ with
Him.
Apparently, the Way is so
narrow
there’s only room for one
to walk it at a time
which doesn’t mean
we go it alone
but that we must stay
hard on the heels
of our traveling
companion.
Chanji, by the end of his
days,
was one with You, ready
for drowning,
hopeless, not caring if
he lived or died
as long as it pleased his
Master.
O child of God, nothing
ever changes . . . it just gets larger –
more height, breadth and
depth than we could ever imagine.
Waiting in the wings
The moon is a disc, not a
sphere.
Flat as the earth; the
sea
pasted onto the bottom of
the sky;
stars poking through a
threadbare canvas.
I’ve turned away from the
latest backdrop,
heading toward the
interior.
It’s all to be pulled
down anyway
at the performance’s end.
We flow through time
apparently
but, also, time flows
through us,
life delivered daily to
our door.
How could I ever cease to
exist?
If I cease, existence
ceases, the void
once more reigns and even
then
I’ll be waiting in the
wings.
The scenery incessantly
changes but still
I stride the stage,
emoting, aggrandizing,
gesticulating, playing it
to the hilt.
O child of God, follow
the script.
The pageant is endless;
without resolution.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
The last resort
Most people come to You
(You have said) as a last
resort.
There’s a fundamental
wounding
in coming to You, a
violation of the self
in even our most timid of
intimacies with God
or any of His
manifestations.
In Your infinite mercy,
You draw us past
our intuited fear and
allow us our first
quavering steps toward
annihilation,
gathering us in, tucking
us under Your wing.
But, even after we become
Your lovers,
years later, we often
come to You
in pain and fear only
when our most familiar
worldly comforts have
been tried,
exhausted and found
wanting,
our last resort yet . . .
because
within every surrender,
every intimacy with God,
incrementally, now and
then, here and there,
moment to moment, there
is a fundamental
wounding, a violation of
the self as we move
so timidly – a gesture, a
word, a few steps,
an embrace – closer to
our own annihilation.
O child of God, come unto
the Ancient One,
the last resort, the
final refuge of the soul.
(Drawing by Rich Panico)
Love interest
Existence You compare to
a motion picture
with God playing every
role.
You, of course, are the
love interest.
When Your face hits the
screen
every pulse quickens.
Let the storylines get too
sad, predictable
and You are thrown into
the mix,
to stir up the plot by
espousing
the most difficult task
in existence.
Love God, You say. Love God.
Again and again, You
enter the picture
to round out and soften
God’s rough edges, awaken
the human heart to
love. To love.
You make it easy -- so
that we might begin
our arduous approach to
God;
to love God, to become
God,
to become God the
Beloved.
O child of God,
impossible to love the self;
next to impossible to
love the Self.
