going my way

Better to wake up with Thích Nhât Hanh than remain asleep with surly men posturing as important.

Practice until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth, in the child starving, in the political prisoner. Continue until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket, on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop. Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy. See and listen with the whole of your being. If you are fully present, the rain of Dharma will water the deepest seeds in your consciousness, and tomorrow, while you are washing the dishes or looking at the blue sky, that seed will spring forth, and love and understanding will appear as a beautiful flower.         (— from, Teachings on Love, byThích Nhât Hanh pp.74,75)

Today I will not run the Boston marathon.

I know this will disappoint no one.

Still, in Thây's universe, I am cold raindrops falling on running shoes just east of Hopkinton Massachusetts on a day just before the end of the world as we know it.

I am also the day after that curious day the world looked around and saw it was far away from nearly everything.

I'll need a ride.

Number of superclusters within 1 billion light years = 100

Number of galaxy groups within 1 billion light years = 240 000

Number of large galaxies within 1 billion light years = 3 million

Number of dwarf galaxies within 1 billion light years = 60 million

Number of stars within 1 billion light years = 250 000 trillion http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/superc.html

Going my way?

No?

OK, I'll just walk!

the silence

In the dream it was nice to see my mother.  She was tired. It was Brooklyn.

No one ever leaves home. That’s because we don’t know where home is. So we are always there by not knowing where it isn’t.

Dawn woodpecker works tree. Trees are aliens with superior intelligence. That’s why they don’t talk.

Once, in silence, I grasped everything I could not possibly know. I looked around. I had no home.

If you want to see the world as it is, look down a tree lined road. Look across a field with fallow corn husks in neat lines. Look at crumbled ruin of some stairs and foundation at sandy high tide of Narragansett Bay.

Me, I’ll take bread stick with grapefruit seltzer at bedtime after rambunctious family gathering at which I am outsider curiosity best left to silent smiles and passing reference.

I love this existence. I love that it will end. I love that nothing will follow. I love that the current president is an anarchist anachronistic idiot savant with megalomaniac delusion leading a people with no reason to trust him except for the extended middle fingers everybody gets to raise against everybody else, pure middle school after math class and before sneaking off to smoke whatever substance you are prohibited from using.

It is Sunday. Let God have say. Let freedom ring. May there be coffee and dialogue about nothing followed by nothing with a bow on it.

It’s ok! It’s all ok. And what’s not ok no longer exists. It will all be sorted out, and nothing will come of it.

It’s for the best.

It’s always for the best.

Ask Alice. Or Molly. Or, even better, don’t ask — there’s no answer to any of the questions.

I like it like that.

The silence!

no cure for that

An Irish, Zen, peace practitioner sends some quotes by Samuel Beckett (playwright, born Dublin, Ireland on April 13, 1906).

1. "The end is in the beginning and yet you go on." 

2. "There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet."(Waiting for Godot, 1953.) 

3. "No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business.... 

4. “We are all born mad. Some remain so.”(Waiting for Godot, 1953.) 

5. “I can't go on. I'll go on.”(Waiting for Godot, 1953.) 

6. “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” (Worstward Ho, 1983.) 

7. “You're on Earth, there's no cure for that!” 

8. “Birth was the death of him.”

Seems right to consider the words of a Theatre of the Absurd playwright as chemical weapons, missiles, bombs and bombast fly through air in Syria, Middle East, Europe, and the United States this weekend.

Since making peace with the Absurd over a half century ago in my life, I have found the deafness of many of our leaders and the ludicrousness of more than a few to be common fare and a wee bit beyond sad.

This is what we have. These actors on proscenium may strut and squawk in our name but they remain crazed alone in anechoic chambers trying to mimic a mad mongoose attacking a venomous snake at the edge of a canyon cliff.

(Sounds of rocks careening down stone walls into deep and dark bottomless cavern of mental dullness.)

bombs

"Pope Francis has called for an end to bloodshed in Syria, for increased “humanitarian assistance” and “a political solution to the crisis.” President Trump is proud of his skills as a “deal maker,” skills that are sorely needed to end this conflict. The president and the pope should use this moment to press for a ceasefire. Even imperfect ceasefires save lives. More bombs will help no one." 

(--from, More U.S. bombs in Syria will help no one, Maryann Cusimano Love, April 09,2018, in America, The Jesuit Review)

washington fact

When rain falls

stepping outside

wet head

and some look into the darkness, stunned

Some weep.

Syria, Total Death Count Due To Conflict: 500,000+ 

(Estimates include civilians, fighters on all sides, and others who have lost their lives as a result of fleeing the conflict) 

Syria In 2017 

The Syrian Network For Human Rights (SNHR) reports the death tolls for 2017 in Syria. A total of 10,204 civilians have been killed including 2,298 children and 1,536 women.  

2018 Civilian Death Count: 3,404 

(--from website "I Am Syria")

Some fume. 

And some look into the darkness, stunned.

vespers

Dog with stick in mouth

Walking road at snow bowl

Late Tuesday afternoon sun

if you hold out your hand with sunflower seeds in it, does that make you nuts

 It becomes less interesting that the current president appears to have an enormous deficit of ability to be Chief Executive, Commander in Chief, and Model of Moral Integrity to his country and the world.

What is interesting is that the people of the United States seem to want him to be their ideal of America

Perhaps we're not very fair, just, moral, kind, faithful, humble, considerate of others, level-headed, or believable.

So, this morning, I read the New York Times.

First Krugman:

From the beginning, Republicans hated Obamacare not because they expected it to fail, but because they feared that it would succeed, and thereby demonstrate that government actually can do things to make people’s lives better. And their nightmare is gradually coming true: Although it took a long time, the Affordable Care Act is finally becoming popular, and the public’s concern that the G.O.P. will kill it is becoming an important political liability. 

What this says to me is that if Republicans manage to hold on to Congress, they will make another all-out push to destroy the act — because they’ll know that it’s probably their last chance. Indeed, if they don’t kill Obamacare soon, the next step will probably be an enhanced program that lets Americans of all ages buy into Medicare. 

So voters are right to believe that health care is very much an issue in the midterm elections. It may not be the most important thing at stake — there’s a good case to be made that the survival of American democracy is on the line. But it’s a very big deal. 

(--from, Obamacare’s Very Stable Genius, by Paul Krugman, 9apr18, NYT

Then Brooks:

WACO, Tex. — Over the past year, those of us in the anti-Trump camp have churned out billions of words critiquing the president. The point of this work is to expose the harm President Trump is doing, weaken his support and prevent him from doing worse. And by that standard, the anti-Trump movement is a failure. 

We have persuaded no one. Trump’s approval rating is around 40 percent, which is basically unchanged from where it’s been all along. 

We have not hindered him. Trump has more power than he did a year ago, not less. With more mainstream figures like H. R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn gone, the administration is growing more nationalist, not less. 

We have not dislodged him. For all the hype, the Mueller investigation looks less and less likely to fundamentally alter the course of the administration. 

We have not contained him. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party is complete. Eighty-nine percent of Republicans now have a positive impression of the man. According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 59 percent of Republicans consider themselves more a supporter of Trump than of the Republican Party.   

(--from, The Failures of Anti-Trumpism, by David Brooks, 9apr18, NYT)

 The Christian and Orthodox churches proclaim Christ is Risen!

Those of Jewish faith have celebrated Passover.

In Maine, temperatures are below freezing in the 20s overnight. There are remnants of accumulated snow in lee of buildings and trees. Ticks are confused about their onslaught.

Smoke rises from stovepipe chimney.

Let's trust all will be ok.

If we trust, at least, there, we will find it.

evening prayer

eating an orange after supper

one section then another

light steps out of darkened room

no sound

anechoic mind

source silence

comes nothing

legend = the wording on a map or diagram explaining the symbols used.

legend:

• being 
• apeiron (ἄπειρον) (boundless)
• becoming 

legend 2:

• source
• embodying
• moving on

legend 3:

• creator
• sustainer
• transformer

legend 4: 

• oriri
• instantia
• potentia

legend 5:

• = father/mother 
• = son/daughter
• = holy/spirit

legend 6:

• silence
• word
• inspiration

legend 7:

• here
• now
• this

legend 8:

• unity
• diversity
• appreciation

legend 9:

• theos
• kristos
• kosmos

legend 10:

• contemplation
• conversation
• correspondance

sicut dixit

we were never
here

only
near here

we were never
God

only
near God

if we were
to become

merely
this

then, the
trinity

will be
embodied

now

words

Poetry is where spirituality goes on retreat.

aspettare

Silence of white border collie with black spot on back on grey rug in hermit’s room on Thursday

morning early April between two mountains near pond four miles from bay to open ocean.

Yes things fall apart get broken make no sense only looking back and marveling anything even stands

 after what can go wrong does, the way we adjust, in news squirrel with rolling bar wheels prosthetic.

Seven am and sun comes up over Melvin heights on other side of Barnestown road grey suv rolling

toward molyneaux road furnace cuts in hot air but not in this room, scompigliato, tutti quanti

Panti, the smaller cat, wanders in on morning rounds, steps over dog, exits again, clocked in, finito

This haze brightening ove porch roofgre blanket on shoulders reluctant to get to desk, reluctance

Has become the air I breathe, cat back in window, dog moves, cat jumps down, rubs his muzzle

There is nothing clear on clearest day, wind rattles chimes down by bird feeders near barnside

Aspettare, si, 

È abbastanza

looking back

fifty years ago

I drove a small green school bus

across Washington DC to assist

as volunteers ravaged neighborhoods

as pockets of the broken hearted

raged against the killing of Dr King

a stone or glancing bullet smashed

against windshield as I gripped

steering wheel; in rear view mirror

not one head to be seen above seats

I learned the loneliness of driver’s

role to hold course, keep on, stay

up and not imagine 50 years down

road the profound sadness that sets in

looking back

where politics ends

Rain dripping from roof.

Yes, there is something real we can actually listen to!

Nothing other than what is actually happening.

a 50 year lesson learned

when Dr.King was shot

we learned

how white power

trumps justice

a little off

deep rest

when nothing feels right

emptiness left

day after day

wandering road

looking into

eyes

no one

is lost

...

READING  

Revelation 22:4-5 

They shall see the Lord face to face and bear his name on their foreheads. The night shall be no more. They will need no light from lamps or the sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever. 

— This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad, alleluia.

(--from, Compline, Easter Monday) 

...

long after words and images 

exhaust themselves 

seeking truth, 

silence will have nodded 
welcome, come in, sit a 
while, you're home 

wonder where you will be

each breath is borrowed

it is not mine to keep

it must be returned

soon

this body will no longer borrow

giving up any attachment

temporary use relinquished

you see

breath belongs to itself

in same way everything

belongs to itself

on that day if you ask

what is he doing in that room

here is the answer

he is giving up attachment

to form

giving back breath to itself

entering emptiness

for now

becoming what

being has ever been

here

easter morning

tomb is dark

tomb is empty

look ahead of you 

1st draft: mindful choreography and meditative practice

Mourning Dove (building nest in tree outside window)

1. Window

Unseeing God, a new way of being body

at table Thursday making bread

and wine, every “this" into body of God. 

Then, next day,  giving body up, a seeing so stark

revealing God could be everywhere. A new way 

to sin — unwillingness to see God throughout

2. Good

In sabbath liturgy one is invited to bow reverencing 

wooden cross. Later, gassho receiving bread.

Homily is Buddhist. There is suffering in life. Why? 

I don't know. Still, God, beyond all knowing,

joins the suffering. Do we metaphor God

as accompanying response by another to suffering?

A way through, now, until it is finished? At end, reading 

says “Now — it is finished!” Jesus, now, seeing us through. 

And finished?  He does not say: “Now I am dead!”

If now is finished, what remains? Smoky incense dimness, 

night prayer, bare wooden cross standing before 

bare stripped altar. Watching; remains

3. Holy

Without fear, old monk

toddles to single candle

in center abbey sanctuary

darkness — 

extinguishing

finishing emptiness

...   ...   ...

...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...

...   ...   ...

Accompanying letter:

Hello, 

The writer is a mendicant hermit living in Camden, Maine. He spends a lot of time as volunteer in prison, nursing home, hospice house, hospital. He teaches philosophy in college, meditates in chapel/zendo, and walks Ragged Mountain across from Bald Mountain. For him poetry is where Raimon Panikkar's cosmotheandric inter-religious dialogue best reveals itself. 

While on retreat at Trappist monastery during Holy Week 2018 I watched the mindful choreography of contemplative monks inside and the back and forth meditative practice of Mourning Dove in tree outside my room. 

These liturgies brought me to the question of seeing, inside/outside, and the unknowing transcending of what we call death by attentive compassionate embodied engagement with each and all we encounter. 

The question, "Where am I in this?" is not yet answered. 

Coraggio,
 Bill Halpin

without fear

Old monk

toddles to

single candle

in center

abbey sanctuary

darkness --

extinguishing

(Original email:)
I really just want to enjoy my morning, mid-day, and afternoon coffees without being reminded of my mortality.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/business/coffee-cancer-warning.html

.....

(First response:)
Of course, California! Next thing they’ll be telling us that uranium isotopes dipped in hot chocolate are not good for us.

.....

(Then, next day:)

Jon,

I meant no disrespect.

After all, you were conceived in California; Santa Cruz, to be exact; thereby a native conceived-in-California child in the barely post-sixties afterglow of a cultural disruption so deep and profound that it has been erased from the consciousness of everyone but Jerry Brown, Richard Alpert, your mother and myself.

There is no therapist for you who could disentangle the residual swirl of contradictory and paradoxical genetic asymmetry that swirls through your DNA and bloodstream.

You’ll have to quench that thirst for answers by resorting to the common elixir —  a steaming cup of coffee. 

I write this after walking past a half dozen people in silence, cold wind, and Passover moon — all of whom were going in the opposite direction (Including Saskia) who told me that they were returning from vigil night office I was bucking the current toward — held at 3:30am, not 4:30am as I thought, and had been last night. 

And that’s that! I uttered the only prayer that has been a mainstay my entire life, saying, “I want my mother!”

So, therefore, nothing I say could help you. 

You are relegated to an apophatic nescience undergirded by satori suffused silence. As, too, I.

With love, this Holy Saturday,

Dad

Here is One-
Another Itself
             
meetingbrook
      hermitage
               בס”ד 

something strange is happening

From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday
(PG 43, 439, 451, 462-463)

The Lord descends into hell

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 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 in you; together we form one person and 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 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. 

careful reading

Excerpt:  The Gospel According to Jesus, by Stephen Mitchell, 1991

For me, then, Jesus’ words are authentic when scholarship indicates that they probably or possibly originated from him and when at the same time they speak with the voice that I hear in the essential sayings. This may seem like circular reasoning. But it isn’t reasoning at all; it is a mode of listening. 

No careful reader of the Gospels can fail to be struck by the difference between the largeheartedness of such passages and the bitter, badgering tone of some of the passages added by the early church. It is not only the polemical element in the Gospels, the belief in devils, the flashy miracles, and the resurrection itself that readers like Jefferson, Tolstoy, and Gandhi have felt are unworthy of Jesus, but most of all, the direct antitheses to the authentic teaching that were put into “Jesus'” mouth, doctrines and attitudes so offensive that they “have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust.” Jesus teaches us, in his sayings and by his actions, not to judge (in the sense of not to condemn), but to keep our hearts open to all people; the later “Jesus” is the archetypal judge, who will float down terribly on the clouds for the world’s final rewards and condemnations.
Jesus cautions against anger and teaches the love of enemies; “Jesus” calls his enemies “children of the Devil” and attacks them with the utmost vituperation and contempt. Jesus talks of God as a loving father, even to the wicked; “Jesus” preaches a god who will cast the disobedient into everlasting flames. Jesus includes all people when he calls God “your Father in heaven”; “Jesus” says “my Father in heaven.” Jesus teaches that all those who make peace, and all those who love their enemies, are sons of God; “Jesus” refers to himself as “the Son of God.” Jesus isn’t interested in defining who he is (except for one passing reference to himself as a prophet); “Jesus” talks on and on about himself. Jesus teaches God’s absolute forgiveness; “Jesus” utters the horrifying statement that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.” The epitome of this narrowhearted, sectarian consciousness is a saying which a second-century Christian scribe put into the mouth of the resurrected Savior at the end of Mark: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever doesn’t believe will be damned.” No wonder Jefferson said, with barely contained indignation,

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. (To William Short, April 13, 1820)

(--pp.8-9, The Gospel According to Jesus, by Stephen Mitchell, 1991) https://stephenmitchellbooks.com/non-fiction/the-gospel-according-to-jesus/

watching remains

In Good Friday liturgy one is invited to bow reverencing the wooden cross. Later to bow and receive bread.

The homily is Buddhist. There is suffering in life. Why? I don't know. But the God that is beyond all comprehension joins the suffering.

In the metaphor of 'kingdom' of God, perhaps it means that an accompanying response by another to suffering is a way through, now, until it is finished.

The end of the Passion reading is "Now it is finished!"

Jesus is the now. And finished? What of that?

He does not say: Now I am dead!

If the now is finished, what remains?

In smoky incense dimness at night prayer a bare wooden cross stands before a bare stripped altar.

Watching

Remains

unseeing God

A new way of being body

Holy Thursday

He made bread

and wine, and every "this"

into the body of God



Then, next day, he gave

away his body

so that God could be

everywhere



Is this a new way of

seeing sin

the unwillingness to

see God everywhere?

coraggio

it’s what

is nee

ds when

is

nee

ded

to become

itself

panecastic

These four principles are thought-provoking. Here from Wikipedia about Joseph Jacotot:

His emancipatory or panecastic (French: panécastique "everything in each" from Greek πᾶν and ἕκαστον) method was not only adopted in several institutions in Belgium, but also met with some approval in France, England, Germany, and Russia. It was based on four principles:

1. 1. all men have equal intelligence;
   2. every man has received from God the faculty of being able to instruct himself;
   3. we can teach what we don't know;
   4. everything is in everything.^[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jacotot

The most interesting and challenging set of principles about education, for me, comes from the book The Ignorant Schoolmaster, by Jacques Ranciere. One excerpt is:

The duty of Joseph Jacotot’s disciples is thus sim­ ple. They must announce to everyone, in all places and all  cir­cumstances, the news, the practice: one can teach what one doesn’t know. A poor and ignorant father can thus begin edu­cating his children: something must be learned and all the rest related to it, on this principle: everyone is of equal intelligence. (p.111, http://abahlali.org/files/Ranciere.pdf)

Then, this:

Jacotot/Rancière argued that people were perfectly capable of learning for themselves without the intervention of the usual skilled pedagogy consisting of systematic explication.  Indeed, they learned even if pedagogues themselves knew nothing about the subject. There was a fundamental equality of intelligence among human beings of whatever station. In addition, knowledge could be developed in any direction by a process of linking the new to what was known already.  Both claims contrast strongly with those of conventional models which involve skilled and sequential (‘progressive’ in that sense) explication. Explication produces permanent hierarchical relations between teacher and taught, because the ignorant can never catch up and bridge the gap between themselves and their teachers.

( On Jacotot and the Ignorant Schoolmaster, by Dave Harris

http://www.arasite.org/RanandJac.html 

do I know you

Reading Stephen Mitchell's The Gospel According to Jesus, A NEW TRANSLATION AND GUIDE TO HIS ESSENTIAL TEACHING FOR BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS, HARPERCOLLINS 1991

This from the Introduction:

For me, then, Jesus’ words are authentic when scholarship indicates that they probably or possibly originated from him and when at the same time they speak with the voice that I hear in the essential sayings. This may seem like circular reasoning. But it isn’t reasoning at all; it is a mode of listening.

No careful reader of the Gospels can fail to be struck by the difference between the largeheartedness of such passages and the bitter, badgering tone of some of the passages added by the early church. It is not only the polemical element in the Gospels, the belief in devils, the flashy miracles, and the resurrection itself that readers like Jefferson, Tolstoy, and Gandhi have felt are unworthy of Jesus, but most of all, the direct antitheses to the authentic teaching that were put into “Jesus'” mouth, doctrines and attitudes so offensive that they “have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust.” Jesus teaches us, in his sayings and by his actions, not to judge (in the sense of not to condemn), but to keep our hearts open to all people; the later “Jesus” is the archetypal judge, who will float down terribly on the clouds for the world’s final rewards and condemnations.

Jesus cautions against anger and teaches the love of enemies; “Jesus” calls his enemies “children of the Devil” and attacks them with the utmost vituperation and contempt. Jesus talks of God as a loving father, even to the wicked; “Jesus” preaches a god who will cast the disobedient into everlasting flames. Jesus includes all people when he calls God “your Father in heaven”; “Jesus” says “my Father in heaven.” Jesus teaches that all those who make peace, and all those who love their enemies, are sons of God; “Jesus” refers to himself as “the Son of God.” Jesus isn’t interested in defining who he is (except for one passing reference to himself as a prophet); “Jesus” talks on and on about himself. Jesus teaches God’s absolute forgiveness; “Jesus” utters the horrifying statement that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.” The epitome of this narrowhearted, sectarian consciousness is a saying which a second-century Christian scribe put into the mouth of the resurrected Savior at the end of Mark: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever doesn’t believe will be damned.” No wonder Jefferson said, with barely contained indignation,

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. (To William Short, April 13, 1820)

the-gospel-according-to-jesus 

 Reading can be so helpful.

besiyata dishmaya — with the help of heaven

[In response to: What’s more dangerous than a dictatorship of relativism? A dictatorship of positivism. 
By  Matt Malone, S.J.3/23/18] America Magazine

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/03/23/whats-more-dangerous-dictatorship-relativism-dictatorship-positivism#comment-97828

. . .

I’d have thought real dictatorship held no error is possible if we’d hold only one view of what is right. The scholarly Joseph Ratzinger and the ex cathedra Pope Benedict should have tea with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau the national leader and Mr. Justin Trudeau the thinker of thoughts deliberatively difficult to absolutize — and discuss the merits of their views ad infinitum, relating relativity and relationality, a colloquy of experiential realism based on actual lived existence in the everyday world of biological and psychological uncertainty longing for a clarity hard-won by means of compassionate conversation and kindly consideration of aporia in human decision making and the tragic facticity of nescience that is part and parcel of minds and hearts attempting to see life through to God and nascent ever-present originity consequent to each and every good-faith choice made with fear and trembling surrounding the unknown with compass in hand seeking true north, love, and a way to move through this moment into an eternity of grace arising from earth under our feet — oh — if only we could grasp what incarnation actually means, if only the narrative of resurrection did not entail death, if only Jesus were to be seen in his hiding place within each and all, if only the incomparable HaShem (Besiyata Dishmaya* — with the help of heaven) would sound Itself beautifully as the unfolding Yes manifesting each coming-into-appearance as the Very Presence, the realization of Being Becoming This, if only Christ-reality instantiated our contemplation!

...

*(Aramaic: בסיעתא דשמיא)

Besiyata Dishmaya (Aramaic: בסיעתא דשמיא) is an Aramaic phrase, meaning "with the help of Heaven". The acronym BS"D(Mostly written in Hebrew: בס"ד) has become a popular term among Orthodox Jews, reproduced at the top of every written document (beginnings of correspondences, letters, notes, etc.) as a reminder to them that all comes from God, including the following content, and to contextualize what is really important in the text, that without God's help, nothing can be done successfully. BS"D is not derived from any religious law of the Halakha, but it is considered an old accepted tradition.  (Wikipedia)

metta, saturday morning practice

That this

Practice

Helps

To become

And be

A person

A place

Of

Comfort

Compassion and

Light

In a world

That is

So often

(or always?)

Dark and

Dismal

And suffering

That despite

Ourselves

We face what

Is

Here

With

Kindness and

Simplicity

prayer

is

God present

in the moment

No

God is

presence as

the moment

What is

the difference

Yes

as it

is

out-looking

This from Ryõkan (1758-1831):

The thief left it behind: 

the moon 

at my window

For this poet, gratefulness!

yes, unborn

The Layman once said:

The world over,
Men without wives,
Women lacking husbands, 
Face to face,
Speaking of what is unborn.20 

(-from The Sayings of Layman Pang)

sighting a hermit

Rare spotting of hermit in basement of empty church in Bangor.

She asks, "Have you seen one lately?"

I say, "Just a minute ago."

"Then?"

"Now."

"Where?"

"Here."

Some words. A promise of prayer. Walking away.

Once every nine years is good frequency.

poem, dover beach by matthew arnold. (a poem to contemplate)

Dover Beach

           by MATTHEW ARNOLD

The sea is calm tonight. 

The tide is full, the moon lies fair 

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light 

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, 

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! 

Only, from the long line of spray 

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, 

Listen! you hear the grating roar 

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 

At their return, up the high strand, 

Begin, and cease, and then again begin, 

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring 

The eternal note of sadness in. 

Sophocles long ago 

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought 

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow 

Of human misery; we 

Find also in the sound a thought, 

Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 

The Sea of Faith 

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore 

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. 

But now I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

And naked shingles of the world. 

Ah, love, let us be true 

To one another! for the world, which seems 

To lie before us like a land of dreams, 

So various, so beautiful, so new, 

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, 

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 

And we are here as on a darkling plain 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

                https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43588/dover-bea

Beher Emno Beth

Six of my favorite words.

Being,       Embodying,       Becoming
Here,         Now,                  This 

Triadic and Trinitarian.

Expanded into eighteen.

         Mother/Father/Origin/Being/Creator/Here
         Begotten/Gaze/Embodying/Creation/Sustainer/Now
         Creativity/Delusion Destroyer/Transforming/Becoming/This

Compacted into three to contemplate:

Beher Emno Beth