at all — nothing

SINGULARITY
by Marie Howe

(after Stephen Hawking)

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —

nobody hiding in the school bathroom

or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you.   Remember?

There was no   Nature.    No
them.   No tests

to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf    or if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up   to what we were
— when we were ocean    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was?    before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb      no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is

All   everything   home

                      (Poem by Marie Howe)

prison talk

God is

What is

Coming

To be 

a waste of time

“Sometimes people have the idea that
practice means going to Dharma centers
or sitting in meditation or performing
rituals and this sort of thing. They think
that all this is practice while the rest of
the day is a waste of time. People think
there is this big split,, and they often
despair, feeling that their families and
their children are an obstacle that takes
them away from the spiritual life. But the
fact is … our family, our children, our
partners, our parents – they are our
practice and the ones who need our
loving – kindness, our compassion, our
patience, our joyous effort.”

https://zenflash.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/the-most-real-and-most-difficult-practice/

~ Tenzin Palmo, pp. 17-18, in, Into the heart of Life, 

 Buddhist Teachings on Wisdom and Compassion

Thich Nhat Hanh Quote Collective

unknowing possibility

Mail is placed in red box roadside.

Chainsaw down the road works on next winter's wood.

Cars climb Barnestown for Hope and Appleton.

I take day off.

I'm happy in this room.

Jesus and Jo-Ann icons overhead.

Water bottle on side table.

If there is God I wouldn't know.

And since I don't know -- there must be God.

But I still don't know what God is or how it matters we believe in God.

I will, no doubt, be surprised when it becomes clear what God is.

Appreciating those in monasteries and convents, ashrams and zen huts, temples and mosques -- who follow the unknown of their heart to the boundary of dark emptiness.

Until then, I continue to pray.

Not to.

But with.

Unknowing.

Possibility.

words belong to us

Justice, we might conclude, means someone remains responsible and accountable for actions taken or not taken with regard to laws, legal or moral, in the course of their engagement with others in our society.

Some say that justice has been compromised by those tasked with making laws, administrating laws, or ruling on the application and relevance of laws. These compromises have been felt in both the secular, civic, and religious sectors and the compromisers are those we thought were guardians and protectors.

Some go further and say there is no justice any longer.                    

Where do we look to for restoration?

The gift you carry for others is not an attempt to save the world but to fully belong to it. It’s not possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering your unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and challenge. The offering of that gift—your true self—is the most you can do to love and serve the world. And it is all the world needs. —Bill Plotkin [1] 

[1] Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (New World Library: 2003), 13.             (--in, Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation)

 The words, "No Justice, No Peace" -- have become part of our soul's curriculum.

To find real belonging there is a need to have those words belong to us.

to become real

 Woman says of her medical situation, "It's time for prayer."

We pray because the disproportion of human misery and human compassion is so enormous. We pray because our grasp of the depth of suffering is comparable to the scope of perception of a butterfly flying over the Grand Canyon. We pray because of the experience of the dreadful incompatibility of how we live and what we sense. 

Dark is the world to me, for all its cities and stars. If not for my faith that God in His silence still listens to a cry, who could stand such agony? 

Prayer will not come about by default. It requires education, training, reflection, contemplation. It is not enough to join others; it is necessary to build a sanctuary within, brick by brick, instants of meditation, moments of devotion. This is particularly true in an age when overwhelming forces seem to conspire at destroying our ability to pray.

(--from, On Prayer, by Abraham J. Heschel)
 http://www.notredamedesion.org/en/dialogue_docs.php?a=3b&id=417

We pray not so much to make things better.

We pray to become real. 

the real must be found again

Reality is responsive relationality infused with caring compassion.

We seem to have forgotten what reality is.

That’s why I ask what reality is.

Some things are worth remembering.

the dead and deadened this memorial day

Yes, the dead and deadened:

This Memorial Day we remember and pray for

All dead and deadened by war.

sistence, ek-sistence, in-sistence

Trinity.

Here, there, and everywhere.

Father, son, spirit.

ten minus nine finds one

Start here

with beginner’s mind

there are rocks and trees and small animals


As it is

there is only

one commandment — don’t steal, share