Saturday, June 05, 2021

corpus christi

 what is

body of Christ 

that (we can)

see it

always doing yet always at rest

If you ask what it is like with mystical spirituality, try this:

semper agens, semper quietus, colligens et non egens, portans et implens et protegens,
creans et nutriens, perficiens, quaerens, cum nihil desit tibi.

(--From the Confessions of Augustine, Book I, Chapter 4

Translation

(always working, yet ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing;

sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things.

We look for what we already have.

Seldom recognizing.

Always close at hand. 

though good men die

 Tonight Bobby Kennedy will be shot. Two months ago Martin Luther King was shot. In six months Thomas Merton will die under curious and suspect circumstances.

It is 1968. Assassinations are difficult truths. America breaks. Lives change. Skepticism deepens.

Mr. Kennedy will die early after midnight at 1:44AM on June 6.

The trauma of 1968 sits deep within the bodies of those living through the shocks and deceits of public executions and murky lies following.

But this is what it costs to be alive.

We know and do not know what takes place everyday in the world of power, politics, and pretense.

Edna st Vincent Millay wrote:

Lament

Listen, children: 
Your father is dead. 
From his old coats 
I'll make you little jackets; 
I'll make you little trousers 
From his old pants. 
There'll be in his pockets 
Things he used to put there, 
Keys and pennies 
Covered with tobacco; 
Dan shall have the pennies 
To save in his bank; 
Anne shall have the keys 
To make a pretty noise with. 
Life must go on, 
And the dead be forgotten; 
Life must go on, 
Though good men die; 
Anne, eat your breakfast; 
Dan, take your medicine; 
Life must go on; 
I forget just why. 

As is 

justice forgotten. 

I wonder...

Why?

Friday, June 04, 2021

no wonder we prefer dualism

 Reading Rohr, he says the task is not separation from evil but absorption and transformation of evil within oneself. (Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, 2007)

It's an annoying aspect of Christian mystagogy. 

Incarnational spirituality.

suffering through

depression is

correct view

of current state

of world


as troubling as 

depression is 

the mindset 

declination


is more stark

more wanting

more frightening

to behold


nevertheless

we keep on looking

and stay willing to

suffer through


whinny and neigh

 Mike Pence reappears

Says Jan/six was a dark day —

But he’s back on horse

remember when lies were frowned upon

 We will get over

Vile points of view by cowards —

Dark clouds drop torrents

Thursday, June 03, 2021

alone in empty cosmos

 since becoming old

nothing seems to matter, yet

hand or nod greets each

what do you have to say for yourself

 Yes

Is that your answer

No, it’s my question

What is your answer

Yes

So, your question and answer are the same

There’s a black hole 58 million light years away from our Milky Way galaxy

At foot of mountain birds chant morning praise

In both places at once

Falling into dense emptiness and birdsong

This morning practice

Wednesday, June 02, 2021

flat satchel

 All this time. Off on our own. Distancing.

I’m not sure I want to near again.

The desolate woodland. The vast sea.

We move on. We are migrants. Mendicants.

passing apparition

 There it is, again, there it is, sliding in alongside bamboo shade, morning sun.

Like vanishing dew,

a passing apparition

or the sudden flash

of lightning -- already gone --

thus should one regard one's self.


― Ikkyu

Now that it is June I have to try to remember who I was before my father and mother were born. 

I recall a glass of orange juice, back stoop, chain link fences, portioned backyards.

The milk box, the clanking bottles, under bedroom window.

Backyard, DeSoto with whitewalls, sun slanting into alley from street with horse drawn vegetable wagon.

Silent ghosts pass under window walking into these words.

Tuesday, June 01, 2021

foreknowledge

 Do you speak with the dead?

Do you pray?

Do you despair of the living?

Hold your answer.

Think a while.

Don’t give it away blithely.

carne-ne-vale season

 Yes

It is June

Changing 

Everything


May passes

Spring has

Three weeks

Left


If you

Think about it

Your life

Is juggle ball


Somewhere in

Swoop and fell

Arc oohs & ahs 

Launch & descent


Of course

I love you

Sans doute 

As I drop

seeing what is not there here

 Bit by bit

Withdrawing

Little by little

Disappearing


Where will

Anything be

Found

Once lost


If there is

Nothing but

God, where

Is everything


Now that

It has

All gone

Away

Monday, May 31, 2021

this memorial day

 We

Remember

Honor and

Pray for

All dead

And deadened

By 

War

Injustice 

Cynicism and

Ignorance 

. . .


(Photo by S.H.)

Sunday, May 30, 2021

unsaying trinity, ya folla

There’s no understanding trinity.

Except as some contemporary Three-In-One-Oikeó.

What is it that “houses” itself where I am?

 The final three models of incarnational theology are all instances of incarnational soteriology. The first instance of this model, and the third model overall, is incarnational soteriology through the indwelling of Christ. This model is exemplified in Paul’s words to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) Christ is not enfleshed in me, Christ lives in me. There is no generation [ginomai] of flesh [sarx] when one lives by faith. Instead, by faith, Christ lives in me, Christ lives in my flesh.26 A Trinitarian understanding allows us to appreciate the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers in a similar way. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16) Through the Spirit, God dwells, or “houses” [oikeo] in you. Paul’s usage of temple language makes an important point in regard to incarnational theology since the Bible consistently portrays God dwelling in the temple found in Eden, in the Tabernacle, in the Temple, in the person of Jesus Christ, and in (as here) the Spirit-filled believer.27

(—from, Christ is the only incarnation: Appropriate use of incarnation language, Sean McGever, ETS Far West Region Meeting April 2018, p.6)

 I have an address, wear shoes and knee brace when taking a walk, the rap-tat-tat of hiking sticks, listening to book in my ears, gaze between ground and mountains and pond beyond beaver lodge. I move through. Any place I’ve been I’m no longer there. I’m a movement of consciousness through place and space going nowhere.

A temporary house. 

Housing and being housed.

Today is celebrated Trinity. Someone called it Non Sequitur Sunday.

Anything said about it really doesn’t follow. (Ya folla?) It stays where it is pronounced.


Maybe we have to MU any pronouncing. 


Unsay. Unask. Neti-neti (not this-not that).


Rather, becoming a passageway, and not being in the way.

as us is

 There

It is

Again


Invoker bird

Begins

Chant


Goes back

Into

Silence


And day-

Break 

Beyond hill


Is no

Longer

Dark


Just so

It begins

Again


Earth 

turns to

Morning


We look

Through

Three windows


Love

Us

Here