Be yonder: religion

Religion and denominations, churches and ideological nomenclature are no longer the issue. What is at issue is the intelligence and vision of a humanity that is poised at the decision to affirm a meaningful existence of compassion, inclusion, and clear thinking -- or -- bemoan an ignorance of destruction, war, and petty turf demographics.

A religious person, I submit, is radically aware of the need for creative logos, intelligent mythos, and real service to real needs in a real and present neighborhood and cosmos.

Outmoded institutions and their antiquated beliefs are giving way to devastating new understanding demanding profound cosmotheandric (Raimon Panikkar's word) interdependent action and thought. We are no longer simply at cocktail parties raising money for hospitals and orphanages, or ambling forward at altar calls to be saved in some spiritual safety net; we are engaging the causes of disease, challenging the very notion of death, and attempting to set procreation in a meaningful context of mature relationship and dedicated commitment. It is not, nor ever has been, a universe dedicated to my personal relationship to Jesus or a governing body of a church. Such cozy comfort is gone or it is simply odd.

I opt for a Christ speaking into existence an ever-changing inspiration and love that breaks through the barriers of foregone structures and creates something ever-new and ever-present again, and again, and now!

We are only just beginning to sense the immense and profound mysteries of the universe, human and sentient beings, and the One-we-call-God.

Oremus!

Let us learn what prayer is, and do it!

What are you doing here?

In prison this morning, sitting with Buddhists, in middle of silence, a koan appears. The question: "What am I doing here?"

"H,e,r,e" is the new spelling of "G,o,d."

Later, we create the "necessity/inclusion" paradox. This postulates that things done in our life might not have been necessarily done, but they do have to be included in our lives as facts.

No need to postulate "necessary" acts. But, yes, any acts committed have to be "included" as having been done.

Why is this important?

That will take time to comprehend.

Men in prison will no longer be "doing time."

Men in prison will be "doing here."

Some will come to understand they are "being here."

As Bob C. would say, "Let's hat up and get out of here."

Tommy's hat came to visit. The Indianapolis Clowns. The "Negro League," he says. Satchel Paige and Henry Aaron, he says.

My hat hung around for a while. Ebbet's Field.

That's it, hats.




It's summer.

haiku, working

Flower, tackle-hook
At Bookshed Retreat -- silence
Lifting light beauty

(nunc ipsum/wfh)

Choiring stalls

Mourning doves uncover dawn with questioning sound, asking: "Is today when praising chant liberates the souls of everything within their listening?"

Es kommt der Tag

The day will come when eyes will open, hearts will break, and minds will accept as true what is there -- truly and plainly.

• Banks will not steal money. 
• Governments will not deceive their people.
• Religions will reveal, not conceal.
• The wealthy will no longer own people.
• The poor will have the gospel of communal compassion and familial inheritance shared hand to hand.
• Women will no longer be slaves.
• Men will no longer be confused with anger, nor numbed by greedy ambition.
• Children will be safe to be children.

That time is now.

That day, today.

Those unfortunate and pitiable creatures liberated from delusion and ignorance are us.

Would you like to be part of this celebration? Will you say "Yes" to clarity, kindness, benevolence, and inclusive altruism?

Good.

Enter the new now, the original idea of enlightenment, heaven, and no-other nescience.

Give up who you think you are.

Enter here, no-other place, our true home!

You tell me your myth and I'll tell you mine

Myth puts you in the story. Which story? Any, or all of them.

All the stories?

Each is my story.

What any one of us chooses to believe, to accept as the true story for them, is simply that -- a matter of choice.

Everyone carries a mythology.

Pick and choose.

But don't be deceived into thinking --"This is it! This is the one true story!"

Not one is true.

They're all true.

Where can we go from here?

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here." (From Dante's Divine Comedy)

I am hopeless.

When I enter "here" there is no hope.

Hell is for the hopeful.

Here is hopeless, only here.

God is here.

Nowhere else.