“You have no right to tie yourself in knots
because you want to know the outcome of what you are doing. Don’t, no, no. Let
it go. Let it go into history. Let it go into Christ. Let it go into
generations. Let it go into the children. Play it and pray it well…. as (Dorothy) Day taught we may never see the good outcome of the good we do - that we must do it anyway".
- D. Berrigan SJ
- D. Berrigan SJ
Sitting on the starting line of another year
There were a couple of basic questions yet unresolved.
Journal and pen in hand the questions flowed to fill the
virgin spaces between the lines.
Do we really believe
that B.F. Skinner is the primary
student of the divine who
disclosed
the secret to serenity
and the purpose of life itself?
Is the intention of faith,
religious practice and good works
All part of some
insurance policy concerning the afterlife?
Do we believe that
serving the poor refugee, the poorest of the poor and the sick are part of some
social experiment that if we get it right we win two tickets to paradise?
Are we to love another
and our children only if they love us in return or do we wait until they love
us first before we return the love?
Is making ourselves
great really a result of isolation and self-centeredness?
If the divine insisted
on consistency and subscription to only one path to grace then why is all existence
in the universe so diverse?
The
questions suddenly ceased. Then silence …. A long pause and the words on the pages evaporated. The mystic
voices of Berrigan, Day and the poets whispered sweetly as he let it all go.
Simple
isn’t it?
Keep
it Simple - V. Morrison
Tomorrow
Never Knows – Beatles
Soul
of a Man – B. Cockburn
Where Many Rivers Meet
All the water below me
came from above
All the clouds living in the mountains
gave it to the rivers
who gave it to the sea, which was their dying.
And so I float on cloud become water,
central sea surrounded by white mountains,
the water salt, once fresh,
cloud fall and stream rush, tree root and tide bank
leading to the rivers' mouths
and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea,
the stories buried in the mountains
give out into the sea
and the sea remembers
and sings back
from the depths
where nothing is forgotten.
All the clouds living in the mountains
gave it to the rivers
who gave it to the sea, which was their dying.
And so I float on cloud become water,
central sea surrounded by white mountains,
the water salt, once fresh,
cloud fall and stream rush, tree root and tide bank
leading to the rivers' mouths
and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea,
the stories buried in the mountains
give out into the sea
and the sea remembers
and sings back
from the depths
where nothing is forgotten.
David Whyte 2004
The Buddha’s Last Instruction
“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire—
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire—
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
- Mary Oliver
Wild
geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver
amdg
“One
day I will find the right words and they will be simple”
- Jack Kerouac
“The
only truth is music”
- Jack Kerouac
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC
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