Men and women can
Not conceive life as whole — but
Fractions and factions
Saturday, April 08, 2023
serving as witnesses
Earth isn’t merely our home. Earth is what and who we are. The cosmos, holding earth in its all-embracing enigmatic tumble, looks at us with originating parental joy.
The Romantic poets, often writing about beautiful rural landscapes as a source of joy, made nature poetry a popular poetic genre. When writing environmental poems today, contemporary poets tend to write about nature more broadly than their predecessors, focusing more on the negative effects of human activity on the planet. Critic Jay Parini explained in his introduction to Poems for a Small Planet: Contemporary American Nature Poetry, “Nature is no longer the rustic retreat of the Wordsworthian poet. … [it] is now a pressing political question, a question of survival.” Distinct from nature poetry, environmental poetry explores the complicated connections between people and nature, often written by poets who are concerned about our impact on the natural world. Poets today are serving as witnesses to climate change while bringing attention to important environmental issues and advocating for preservation and conservation.
(-Poetry and the Environment,
Recent poetic approaches to the natural world and ecology., Poetry Foundation)
What we want ... what we want ... will never equal or even approach what is wanted within us — the coming home, the arising through miasma and mayhem, out into open field with clear horizon, out through nature our true nature.
In an online interview following the release of Why Poetry Matters (2008), Parini stated, “Poetry is a language adequate to our experience. It teaches us how to live our lives, how to locate and describe the inner life. I believe very confidently that poetry enhances our sense of the spiritual world by attaching us closely—almost physically—to the material world.”
(--About Jay Parini)
It makes sense.
Antiphonal resonance between cosmos and offspring, the words from The Who:
See me, Feel me, Touch me, Heal me!
Make it so!
May it be so!
if you want to be with family, be still
No argument with
Emptiness, none at all — winds
Lull, red-winged blackbird
Calls through silence that he’s here
No other sound sounds through it
the community contemplates
One cat, Panta, jumps
From windowsill after her
Meditation, while
Other cat, Chitta, stretches
Turns to look out into yard
the way of descent
Ancient Homily on Holy Saturday: The Lord Descends into the Underworld
(Author unknown)
Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and Hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the Son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the Cross, the weapon that had won Him the victory. At the sight of Him Adam, the first man He had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone, “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him, “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying, “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.
“I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by My own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in Hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the Life of the dead. Rise up, work of My hands, you who were created in My image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in Me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
“For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
“See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in My image. On My back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See My hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.
“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 has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in Hell. The sword that pierced Me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
“Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly Paradise. I will not restore you to that Paradise, but I will enthrone you in Heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am Life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The Bridal Chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The Kingdom of Heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity. “
https://www.unleashthegospel.org/2019/04/an-ancient-homily-on-holy-saturday/
Friday, April 07, 2023
if you hear anything, please share it
One becomes, if you will, God, by becoming what, in the story, God becomes, namely, human.
When death comes, you go where Christ went when he died, namely, nowhere.
It’s a shame there are so few humans, christians, or one-of-god’s people in the world.
I don’t know what the truth is about this matter, but I’m willing to listen.
for the next 200 years, where to look
How many have said: If you want justice, work for peace, eh?
John Dear wrote in 2005:
I’m 45, have been in the Jesuits almost 25 years now, went to college at Duke University, decided one day that I really did believe in God and that I wanted to give my whole life to God, and the next thing you know, I was entering the Jesuits. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened! Before I entered the Jesuits, I decided I better go see where Jesus lived, so I decided to make a walking pilgrimage through Israel, to see the physical lay of the land, only the day I left for Israel in June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and I found myself walking through a war zone.
By the end of my two month pilgrimage, I was camping around the Sea of Galilee, and visited the Church of the Beatitudes, where I read on the walls: “Blessed are the poor, the mournful, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for the sake of justice, and love your enemies.” I was stunned.
I walked out to the balcony, looking out over the Sea of Galilee, and asked out loud, “Are you trying to tell me something? Okay, I promise here and now to dedicate my life to the Sermon on the Mount, to promoting peace and justice, on one condition: if you give me a sign.” Just then, several Israeli jets fell from the sky breaking the sound barrier, setting off a series of sonic booms, coming right toward me. After they flew over me, I look backed up at heaven, and pledged to live out the Sermon on the Mount and never ask for a sign again!
When I entered the Jesuits three weeks later, I was on fire with a desire to pursue the life of peace and justice. I started to study the writings of the great peacemakers, such as Gandhi, Dr. King, Dorothy Day, the Berrigans and from day one, Thomas Merton. Like you, I’ve been reading Merton ever since. I think I’ve read everything he’s published, and I’m amazed how he still speaks to me. In contrast to the culture, to the TV, to the President, even the whole world, Merton remains a voice of sanity and reason and faith and clarity and hope, and I can’t put him down.
I don’t know if you heard what the great theologian David Tracy recently said when he was asked what the future of theology in the U.S. would look like. He answered spontaneously, “For the next 200 years, we’ll be trying to catch up with Merton.”
(--Thomas Merton and the Wisdom of Nonviolence, June 5, 2005, John Dear )
Today is considered a holy day -- Passover, Good Friday, Ramadan.
My brothers and sisters of these traditions! Please consider the essence of your faith, and not the culture of your beliefs.
It is a good time to radically change.
To let the self created by anger and society fall away.
To become holy men and women walking through the sacred grounds of this earth -- in peace, with compassion, in trust, with forgiving hearts.
Hell, we've known.
Heaven, we long for.
Earth, is right here under our feet.
Look under your feet.
the other also
Christianity without Christ is our world today
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. ( Matt. 5:39)
Religion without compassionate mysticism is political partisanship dressed in majestic costume.
to our perfectly calm and clear not-moving just-now mind
From The Zen in Easter, for Good Friday Meditation
The Zen in Easter! April 2, 2021
In the Christian faith, Easter tells the story of resurrection. In meditation, or “Zen,” there is also resurrection. But it is not a resurrection of the fleshly body, or something called a “soul.” The Zen in Easter means waking up, from moment to moment, to our perfectly calm and clear not-moving just-now mind. Our before-thinking mind has no life, and has no death. It never appears or disappears; is not tainted or pure; does not increase or decrease. It has no name or form — and it certainly isn’t either Buddhist or Christian, or male or female. But if we only follow our thinking, entering the dead thoughts which appear and disappear, then we need only to “wake up” from this cycle of samsara, and return to our life, just as it is: we are already complete!
That is the message, the experience of “resurrection” in Zen
Talk by Hyon Gak Sunim. (Time 22mins)
Thursday, April 06, 2023
triduum
The Canadian prelate phrased it well, over and over: “self-sacrifice.”
The sacrifice of self.
A painful crucifixion, letting self die.
The emptying of illusory otherness.
The arising of union/unity without the separation-self.
The invitation into a new way of being.
Undifferentiated wholeness celebrating each individuated and particular expression of divine/human/nature reality in new revelation of existence.
Whole sight.
all at once, the revelation
He
Offered
Himself
Nothing
Other
… … …
ἐφάπαξ (ephapax)
ἀνενέγκας (anenenkas)
ἑαυτὸν (heauton)
(See bottom of page, Hebrews7:27)
it’s not a hard calculation
However you look
At it, they love guns more than
Their own school children
this
You ask why I live
in the mountain forest,
I smile, and am silent,
and even deep within remain quiet:
the peach trees blossom,
the water flows.
Li T’ai-po (~701). Dailyzen
i am, i said, to no-one, there
A human being
Cannot imagine the end
Of being human—
Irretrievable the lost
Sense where no-one still resides
Wednesday, April 05, 2023
going by without saying anything
This night different
Sounds drip from eaves to porch roof —
A good night to pass
die sprache spricht
Paul Celan knew very well that language constitutes creation, even creation in Judeo-Christian mythology, the creation of the world.
Go ahead, say it.
What world are we currently creating with our words?
Listen to what is being said, by whom, throughout the ether and cyberverse.
And weep.
arrive and transperse
Not I.
Judas had it right.
History, not so much.
“Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?”Another translation:Jesus answered, “You have said so.”
(Judas, Jesus in Matt.26:25, NIV)
“Not I, Rabbi, surely?”
“They are your own words,”answered Jesus.
(same reference, but in Jerusalem Bible)
These words “not I” and “you don’t mean me,” give pause.
The shorthand between Judas and Jesus captures a hidden inference.
Judas is not-me. Jesus is not-I.
Who then?
What are we to consider in these words?
Don’t know. Don’t conclude. Arrive, and, transperse.
Mourning dove inside
Dawn presents itself, story —
Just outside window
Tuesday, April 04, 2023
the mistake is thinking you can follow (לְשׁוּם מָקוֹם — to nowhere)
Peter asked, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? (John 13:37)
[This next part was left out]
Jesus said to Peter: Because, my silly friend, “now” cannot be followed. It s like asking: Where can I go to be “here.”
Have I been with you these three years and still you do not grasp who I am?
I am no/w/here. That is not only my name, but who I am, where I am, what I am, and why I am.
The mistake is thinking you can follow.
Instead, become me. Become you.
You and me, double yo/u.
Me and you, double yo/u.
Now is going nowhere.
Here is now here.
Die to the mistake of thinking there is some other place some other time some other me some other you.
[And Jesus said to Peter: There’s no denying this. Rock on with this mind. Turn, turn, turn — see what is about you!]
four april sixty eight
For fifty five years
Sitting in chapel hold-
ing Washington Post
Assassination of King
Where all dreams go to ripen
sic et non
Yes
No
Let me tell you why
Because yes affirms us, as we are, how and where we are, divine and human nature
Because no reveals us, stands on two feet, looks straight into eyes, Buddha and śūnyatā nature
Yes
No
Between them
Arms interlocked
Each Itself
Monday, April 03, 2023
fifty three years ago cross country in black chevrolet
Haiku
(For MT)
Of course the broken,
Dust covers edges, we look —
Just your name — a smile
(wfh/3apr23)
first time, only time
In prison this morning talk about repetition.
What if we decide to eliminate the very notion of repetition from our minds?
The way repetition and addiction do-si-dos around each other.
"Do it again!"
"Make it longer, stronger, higher, more intense!"
Psalm
BY PAUL CELAN
TRANSLATED BY JOHN FELSTINER
No one kneads us again out of earth and clay,
no one incants our dust.
No one.
Blessèd art thou, No One.
In thy sight would
we bloom.
In thy
spite.
A Nothing
we were, are now, and ever
shall be, blooming:
the Nothing-, the
No-One's-Rose.
With
our pistil soul-bright,
our stamen heaven-waste,
our corona red
from the purpleword we sang
over, O over
the thorn.
Paul Celan, "Psalm" from Selected Poems and Prose, translated by John Felstiner. Copyright © 2001 by John Felstiner.
There is no repetition.
There is only the first time.
One time. Beginner's mind.
Just this. No repetition.
We've never celebrated another birthday. Nothing is ever done twice. The word "tradition" is obviated.
Each time is the first time.
Never before. Never after. And in-between? Emptiness.
Repeat after me: There is nothing to repeat.
What is this thorn? And why does it sting so sharply?
Sunday, April 02, 2023
dead thoughts which appear and disappear
Bring into being.
Brought into being
- genitum non factum
- begotten, not made
- (--from Latin, Credo)
What do you make of the story of Jesus arriving in celebratory glory five days before he was stripped, whipped, beaten, and put on a cross, suffering whatever fate and narrative two thousand years have produced?
Today, this:
In the Christian faith, Easter tells the story of resurrection. In meditation, or “Zen,” there is also resurrection. But it is not a resurrection of the fleshly body, or something called a “soul.” The Zen in Easter means waking up, from moment to moment, to our perfectly calm and clear not-moving just-now mind. Our before-thinking mind has no life, and has no death. It never appears or disappears; is not tainted or pure; does not increase or decrease. It has no name or form — and it certainly isn’t either Buddhist or Christian, or male or female. But if we only follow our thinking, entering the dead thoughts which appear and disappear, then we need only to “wake up” from this cycle of samsara, and return to our life, just as it is: we are already complete!
That is the message, the experience of “resurrection” in Zen.
(--from, The Zen in Easter, by Ven. Hyon Gak Sunim, ABBOT OF THE ZEN CENTER REGENSBURG, 2APRIL2021, Mirror of Zen Blog)
Is the "Christ" complete?
Are we?
Is the story complete?
Will we be beaten and broken?
Today, in the Western Christian Tradition, is Palm Sunday.
We arrive.
Await the coming horizon's approach.
Storytelling circling the drain of our curiosity into the ground of reserve anticipation.
The mulling meditation of mid-narrative attentiveness.
A perfect time to retreat.
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