snow showers
an inch they say
this April seventh
once we vowed
life-together, (when’s
Yom Kippur?)
still, on your birthday
my greetings -- we found
life-together apart
in four days
I’ll celebrate paradox
and ambiguity, with cheer
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
we must learn how to be surprised
Reading his two volume The Prophets in 1968, I learned something it took me nearly sixty years to understand. As a maladaptive and maladjusted person in this society and culture I have nothing to be ashamed of.
And I have come to see that nothing. That embarrassment of ignorance wherein the nescient intellect uncomprehends skewed and sacrificed knowledge, cultivating idiocy of human ambition and enslaved compassion -- preferring to dominate and destroy, mock and denigrate, accuse and annihilate that which is other than some deranged preferred ego -- is nothing worth affirming, nothing to be admired.
I will not be jaded by incompetent cruelty.
I will be surprised each time.
I would say about individuals, an individual dies when he ceases to be surprised. I am surprised every morning that I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil, I am not accommodated. I don’t accommodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere; I’m still surprised. That’s why I’m against it, why I can hope against it. We must learn how to be surprised, not to adjust ourselves. I am the most maladjusted person in society. (--Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel )
I would pass an actor’s desk in seminary. I would see Heschel under his lamp.
Six decades later a basketball friend, for some reason, gifted me a small stained glass cross given him by that actor. For whatever reason, he was done with it. It hangs on doorjamb to chapel/zendo across from bookshed/boatshed up from barn.
The thing about Easter is the ambiguity of it.
Had Jesus died? Did he drop-in to hell? Was his tomb vacant that Sunday morning?
Whence absconditus?
I have this image of Jesus as this wandering spirit not unlike what the Greeks said of their unburied warriors felled on battlefield not yet brought in and returned home.
I’m not sure those who call themselves “christian” have yet comprehended the homelessness of Jesus, the wandering restlessness searching for those who would recognize him if looking into his face without introduction.
This easter meditation is not a triumphal celebration of an accomplished story done and copyrighted.
Rather it is a setting-off from comprehension, through a meander of investigatory questioning, coming to rest no-where known and no-place architectured and set in stone.
The Jesus of this Easter is a peripatetic and rootless hobo wandering our inquisitiveness through a sincere abandonment of anything other than a prophetic soul surprised at what reveals Itself.
sed libera nos a malo
I sit on porch
this still morning
easter Tuesday --
if walking mountain
there is animal shit
try to step around it
so too trump’s words
try to step around them
my new prescription
time and insects will
see to disappearance
of useless excrement, so
waste dissolves in due time
words with no meaning
are ghouls redeeming no one
it has been excruciating
following the vile droppings
his faux-christian stooges sanctify
Monday, April 06, 2026
there is here, here is there
盗人に取り残されし窓の月
the thief
left it
the moon at my window
—Ryokan
nusubito ni / torinokosareshi / mado no tsuki
zen buddhist doctor
tells of his time in Gaza --
the quiet of the telling
easter monday
Zenki is a key term in Zen, especially used by Eihei Dogen, meaning undivided activity, that all phenomena, every moment, every action, and every aspect of reality is part of one seamless, interdependent functioning. From this perspective, we are part of a whole organism that is characterized by impermanence, interdependence, and emptiness of a separate self. Every moment is complete. Every action expresses the whole; there is no fixed or separate self, and each activity is undivided from all other activities. (--Roshi Joan Halifax, “The Life That Is Forever, 16Dec2025)
woman tossed water on me
I should have known
rituals want to be performed
at prison we talk about causes
and conditions, about what we
really think of death, our gone parents;
dog walks in with stern trainer
lays down, lowers head, it's his fate
to do what is asked of him right now
"advaita"(अद्वैत), "not-two"[9][10] or
“one without a second",[10] [wikipedia]
maybe we’re not in a simulation
perhaps theater-pieces, scene after scene
performed, then ended, costumes changed
walking out into night air, stars surprise
i dunno, it’s a training
I wonder
If being
Resurrected
Is like
Waking up
After anesthesia
You know you've
Been gone
But that’s it
Maybe I’ll feel
That way
After a dream
I am wearing
A tuxedo at an
Italian something
Happy, I suppose,
To be there, and
Of some service
Without a clue
What, where
Or why
Sunday, April 05, 2026
morning meditation
(vertikalität), easter with wittgenstein
1
Denk nicht nach – schau hin.
Don’t think, look.
2.
Worüber man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence
3.
Die Unruhe in der Philosophie rührt daher, dass Philosophen die Philosophie gänzlich verkehrt betrachten und sehen – nämlich gewissermaßen in (unendliche) horizontale Streifen zerlegt, anstatt in (endliche) vertikale Streifen.(1) Diese Neuordnung des Verständnisses bereitet die größte Schwierigkeit.
Unrest in philosophy comes from philosophers looking at, seeing, philosophy all wrong, i.e., cut up into (infinite) horizontal strips, as it were, rather than (finite) vertical strips.(1) This reordering of understanding creates the greatest difficulty,
…. … …
In other words:
1. See what is there/here.
2. Revere authentic silence.
3. However difficult, chin up, look up.
Saturday, April 04, 2026
avoir, être, vu
What is
The work of
meetingbrook hermitage
To view
What is --
Without fear of
A broken heart
Or losing soul
To despair
You see,
What we have called “God”
Is passing through
Calling
To us
To be seen
This
is what
prayer is
a hypothesis
That very advanced civilizations
Choose not to reveal themselves
To us . . . Sobers
Given a few more billion years
Perhaps we’ll be mature enough
To have visitors knock on front
Door
Without our unloading a shotgun blast
In their faces for daring to set foot
On front porch in broad daylight
As we sip
Moonshine and snort meth with our
Dear cousin, Mary-belle
Just home from middle school
a motel balcony in memphis
that morning
rev. king was shot
sorrow dripped like rain
anger rose like flame
58 years later
both still fall and rise
we are human, we
are born and we die
no one seems to care
Christ is again and again
killed
In our names
calling through silence
Ce qui est appelé, c'est la pensée;
la pensée est ce qui est appelé.
(What-is called is thinking;
thinking is what-is called.)
—wfh
This core of emptiness.
He knew it.
It descended through him.
He was no longer what he thought he was.
"What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son.
The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'My Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.
‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.
‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.
‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.
'See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.
`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.
‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.
"The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages."
(—A reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday)
. . . . . . . . .
The core of care.
He knew nothing.
It arose through him.
What-is-called . . . .is thinking.
Ce qui est appelé, c'est la pensée ;
la pensée est ce qui est appelé.
A yawning departure arriving through and with . . . each realization . . . of . . . now.
. . . . . . . . .
Cf. https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010414_omelia-sabato-santo_en.html
Cf. https://interruptingthesilence.com/2011/04/23/a-reflection-on-holy-saturday-matthew-2757-66/
pourquoi pas
You died
I don’t know why
You don’t
I don’t know why
But you’re the one
Maybe, still, I don’t know why
Friday, April 03, 2026
oblivious bitterness
Like two teenagers in a High School cafeteria, these two are playing at something far beyond their abilities and intelligence. What they are is ruthless and oblivious and in charge.
Trump and Hegseth have been on a clear mission to politicize the U.S. military, and to turn it into an armed extension of the MAGA movement. Hegseth regularly proselytizes, both for Trump and for his right-wing evangelical beliefs, from the Pentagon podium. He has intervened in Army promotions, recently culling four colonels—two Black men and two women—from the list for advancement to brigadier general. (This may be the tip of the iceberg: NBC is now reporting that Hegseth has also canceled the promotions, across multiple services, of at least a dozen minority and female officers.) When two Army helicopters buzzed a political rally and then flew to MAGA favorite Kid Rock’s house, Hegseth short-circuited the Army’s suspension of the pilots and squashed an investigation into their actions. Following the best American civil-military traditions, George and other senior military leaders have been remarkably disciplined in keeping their thoughts out of the public eye.
Of course, the tone at the Pentagon was set by the commander in chief. Last June, Trump spoke at Fort Bragg, where he tried to turn his appearance into a political rally. Again, George (and Driscoll) said nothing, at least in public, about this shocking violation of civil-military norms. Trump, after all, is the commander in chief, and his behavior can be curtailed only by the Senate or the American people.
Even in less dangerous times, the public would still have a right to answers about such an unprecedented purge of the senior U.S. military ranks. These officers are all people with long and distinguished records of service; none of them has been charged with any wrongdoing, and none of them has been accused of any kind of incompetence or disloyalty. They all seem to have committed only the offense of being part of a military institution that Hegseth—who still harbors obvious bitterness about his undistinguished and ultimately shortened military career—wants to restock with MAGA loyalists.
(--from, "Hegseth’s War on America’s Military, " Someone needs to explain the Pentagon purges to the American people,.by Tom Nichols, April 2, 2026, The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/hegseths-war-on-americas-military/686676/
Meanwhile, some two thousand plus years ago, a man who did care, who did comfort, who did understand the shape and meaning of things, is being killed by folks like the above two because they could, because they think they are clever, because the moral compass of their hearts and psyches are badly broken and beyond repair.
Some things don't change.
maybe a little place in cape breton
Pope says
God don’t
aim missiles
for you
US war department
says we got Vance
brand new catholic
don’t need no Vatican
meanwhile, God, sits
in mauve recliner
sipping coffee, wondering
about his retirement
monastic nuns at neumz, lamentations, from another time
2. ALEPH.
Me minávit, et addúxit in ténebras,
He has driven me and led me into darkness,
et non in lucem.
and not into light.
3. Aleph.
3. ALEPH.
Tantum in me vértit,
Against me only, he has turned
et convértit manum suam tota die.
and turned again his hand, all day long.
4.Beth.
4. BETH.
Vetústam fecit pellem meam, et carnem meam,
My skin and my flesh, he has made old;
contrívit ossa mea.
he has crushed my bones.
5. Beth.
5. BETH.
Ædificávit in gyro meo,
He has built all around me,
et circúmdedit me felle et labóre.
and he has encircled me with gall and hardship.
6. Beth.
6. BETH.
In tenebrósis collocávit me,
He has gathered me into darkness,
quasi mórtuos sempitérnos.
like those who are forever dead.
7. Ghimel.
7. GHIMEL.
Circumædificávit advérsum me, ut non egrédiar:
He has built against me all around, so that I may not depart.
aggravávit cómpedem meum.
He has increased the burden of my confinement.
8. Ghimel.
8. GHIMEL.
Sed et, cum clamávero et rogávero,
Yet even when I cry out and beg,
exclúsit oratiónem meam.
he excludes my prayer.
9. Ghimel.
9. GHIMEL.
Conclúsit vias meas lapídibus quadris,
He has enclosed my ways with square stones;
sémitas meas subvértit.
he has subverted my paths.
Jerúsalem, Jerúsalem,
Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
convértere ad Dóminum Deum tuum.
Return to the Lord your God.
https://app.neumz.com/listen/matutinum-lectio-3-mat-fer-6-in-morte-domini/03-04-2026
lamed, mem, nun, . . . ghimel
Face it
The execution
Will not
Be put off
Everyday
Someone practices
Falling into
Human diffidence
I listen to French nuns
Chant Jeremiah”s
Lamentations
Listen to rain dripping
Death, anyone’s,
Puts me in mind of
Broken pottery, of
Clay returning to earth
Thursday, April 02, 2026
insert into orations
bread
some tonic
I pray evil
collapses
the vile
should not prosper
the humble
should find way
to thrive in
their place
let us be
happy with kindness
and safe from
hateful men
and women
so obviously
mean and cruel
deluded and oblivious
aspettare, no, not yet, no saying amen, shalom, shanti, pax
I know I know I know
religions, like people,
have their awful times
both from them
and to them
still, like the guy
who loves his family
who helps neighbors
one day shoots up
school, church, synagogue
he goes off, crazy with idea
these all must suffer and die
then turns gun to his head
ending the fixation, ending
what he thought was necessary
that's the way we are
we say we worship God
then turn God into an imbecile
who smites and smotes, inspires
crusades and bombs whole villages
It's weeks like these, Ramadan ends,
Passover tables set, Holy Week services
performed with appropriate reverence
that the discordant schizophrenic sounds
of mashugana and pazzo/pazza (crazy)
matto/matta (mad/insane) intersect
sound of birdsong and car wheels to
make me a befuddled mess thinking there is
any sane solution to either religion or
human mind in this one unfathomable world
double slit experience
(For my niece at 60)
There,
Right there
Can you hear
Birds sing?
Listen,
Listen closely
They are singing
Dawn and joy
Though
Window
Every particle
Of me waves
as we were meant to be
Last night was different from any other night. The emperor refuses to let America go. He strangles throats with lies. He holds gun to back of head of those seeking refuge from him.
His purple perplexity untied.
His red maga crown.
His calling America
and its people “stupid.”
Let us go.
Let’s go.
We were born to go.
I’m gone.
Gone.
For good.
and nothing (else) followed
And god said
To me “you cannot
Understand my ways”
And I said to god
“No, I can’t,
I really can’t”
And god said to me
“Do you want to?”and I
said “no, no I don’t”
And god was silent.
And so was I. And that
was that, that’s all there was
the sadness of middle-east sagas
It’s no longer
today, it’s
tomorrow
don’t look back
the past is
too painful
today is
tomorrow’s
yesterday
please, consider
carefully, you are
creating history
Wednesday, April 01, 2026
אני אעבור, תודה...i'll pass, thank you
Freeing slaves and captive people is good.
Hard to feel good about all firstborn being slaughtered.
At the stroke of midnight of 15 Nissan in the year 2448 from creation (1313 BCE), G‑d visited the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. While doing so, G‑d spared the children of Israel, “passing over” their homes—hence the name of the holiday. Pharaoh’s resistance was broken, and he virtually chased his former slaves out of the land. The Israelites left in such a hurry, in fact, that the bread they baked as provisions for the way did not have time to rise. Six hundred thousand adult males, plus many more women and children, left Egypt on that day and began the trek to Mount Sinai and their birth as G‑d’s chosen people.
(--from "What Is Passover (Pesach)?” Passover 2026 will be celebrated from April 1-9,) https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/871715/jewish/What-Is-Passover-Pesach.htm
I’m glad we don’t massacre children any more.
I trust the historical offspring of that ancestry in Israel would never play G-d and murder any struggling peoples, especially the innocent and the oppressed in any middle-east land.
Some stories should never be re-played or repeated.
Ask Gaza.
Ask Iran.
Ask Lebanon.
Ask yourself what is our notion of G-d that we should cheer such tragedy?
What would I choose?
goodbye and good luck
Thank God
war with Iran
is over
nobody won
America lost
it’s over
I await the
losing president
ushered out door
what you do in your backyard sometimes stays in your backyard
Terrific and frustrating story, interesting man, hard tellin’.
The Island Rover (Harold's Boat Problem) || Feature Documentary
Might be one of the few men of his political persuasion I feel sympathetic to -- his cranky but good creative soul.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
aspire to be, born, at least, once
Om
mane
padre hum
Behold
the jewel
in the lotus
Behold
what is
within without
Behold that
which is Christ
within what is here.
works and words are windows on something that remains somehow unspeakable
At times the Christian metaphor feels like, in Weil's words, affliction and humiliation.
There's so much I do not understand.
INTRODUCTION
“Kenosis” refers to a way of entering the mystery of Christ that is
anchored into a contemplation of the descending movement leading
from God’s glory to Jesus’ coming into the world, then from Incarnation
to the death on a cross, and from the Cross to the depths of the
underworld. The text of reference is of course a passage of the letter to
the Philippians that has become central to all Christological exegeses
(Phil 2: 7-11). Commentators of the Pauline writings have often noted
that this text does not stand as a mere theological proclamation but
comes after an exhortation to show to each other “the feelings that were
in Christ Jesus”: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in
Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not
regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of
men.”(Phil. 2:4-7) In other words, Kenosis, before being constructed as
a concept, is first a lived experience the one of feeling and sharing the
humility of Christ. Some artistic masterworks express in a special way
such lived spiritual experience. The “Mass in B moll” of J.S. Bach
comes to mind, with the melodic and rhythmic continuity which links
into one and the same piece the “Et incarnatus” and the “Crucifxus.” The
“last breath” on which the “Crucifixus” finishes is followed—in one of
the most startling contrasts offered by music—by the vital dynamics of
the “Et resurrexit.” This part of the “Credo” of Bach’s Mass can
certainly be read as a musical meditation on the Kenosis Hymn.
... ... ...
CONCLUSION
Simone Weil’s thinking on affliction (malheur) cannot be
separated from her stress on humiliation. Particularly noteworthy is her
often-repeated assertion that the experience of humiliation is associated
with the enactment of truth—only those people who are being forcibly
deprived of human dignity are capable of telling the truth, for only they
understand both the roots of human condition and the mechanisms on
which social reality relies for its existence. Weil is certainly one of the
thinkers who has renewed the understanding of the lived experience of
kenosis, and this is certainly through endeavors similar to hers that we
can integrate the lived experience of individuals and communities into
the Christology found in the Philippians, giving it new meaning for our
time.
The works of Chinese artists as well as the stories told by Chinese
Christians are all part of such Christological deepening. By essence,
these works and stories cannot be fully articulated, narrated and
analyzed: they keep open within themselves the wound, the Void that
the experience of affliction and humiliation digs into the one subjected
26 See notably ibid., pp. 124sq.
27 Ibid., p. 168.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid., p. 209.Humility and Humiliation in Modern Chinese Painting 101
to it. Works and words are windows on something that remains
somehow unspeakable. The fragments of testimonies emerging from
such kenotic experiences are made much more precious when one
realizes the depths from which, against all odds, they have been
eventually uttered.
School of Philosophy
Fudan University
Shanghai, China
CHAPTER V
HUMILITY AND HUMILIATION: KENOTIC EXPERIENCE IN MODERN CHINESE PAINTING,
AND IN THE HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE OF CHINESE CHRISTIANS
BENOIT VERMANDER, SJ
in Chinese Spirituality & Christian Communities
A Kenotic Perspective
Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXXI
Christian Philosophical Studies, XVII
Edited by
Vincent Shen 2015, https://www.crvp.org/publications/Series-VIII/17-Disjunctions-shen.pdf
Self-emptying, words easily pronounced, nevertheless remain unspeakable across the millennia from old villages in what has come to be called 'the holy land.'
Could it have been that this one man contained all of existence in his being? Emptied it. Then found a way to resurrect, rehabilitate, reincarnate into a new essence of what it means to-be-here?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)