Falling Forward...

Reflections on Our Fragility, Our Humanity, and Our Poetry

“ We hold the world, and everything in it, in our creative palms. 

We set and unset the limits of our universe to our advantage… or to our chagrin.”

                                                My grandson Elijah

Our Fragility

I am fragile.

My fragility reveals itself

As my hardness…

My hardness masquerades as strength.

I can become strong…

When I am honest about my vulnerabilities.

Autumn comes. It arrives right after that season of vibrancy. It is the sometimes anticlimactic moment that interrupts the flaunting of our fecund ways. The season of fruitfulness that highlights our ability to reproduce our essential selves wanes, and we begin to shed our attractive regalia as we prepare for that necessary season of reflective dormancy. 

In place of the boastful presentations of our potency, we find ourselves settling into that quintessential deciduous Now that exposes our many vulnerabilities. As the Fall approaches we involuntarily give up the appearance of invincibility, and assume the humbling stance of a nakedness that reveals all our curves… flattering or unflattering…  . 

The self-conscious flexing of our perceived strengths that came in the wake of Spring and the heat of Summer, is replaced by a necessarily reflective and restful moment. This is the season in which our existential braggadocio can be replaced by a well conceived and executed rite of recreative confession. In that exercise, the fragility that masked itself as strength in the preceding seasons, gives way to a true honesty that can grow us… if we are ready… and if we allow it.

Our Humanity

I am human.

My humanity functions as my reason

For every awkward fact about me.

But I will become divine

When I recognize the limitations of this humanity.

It is in this season of recreative confession and reflection that we can speak with authenticity about who we are… and about how we are, and why we are.  It is in this quintessential moment that we come to know the reasons for the many “whys” and “hows” that become a focus of both our subjective, and our objective experiences. 

The trees know what it means to be trees… The lion roars its definition of self… Birds find their way to the resources they need to survive. They build nests that are marvels of instinctual engineering...

And we, we are challenged to come to terms with what we mean when we say we are. In the wake of a truly reflective moment we come to confess that to truly be, we must make ourselves available to the most consequential notions of what our lives should mean to the world around us. We come to the realization that we must unlimit ourselves. 

As a part of that unlimiting, we must discard, or at the very least, control all those influences that would cause us to become purveyors of the inconsequential. Those influences are many and varied in their presentation. They are religious. They are political. They come at us in well packaged literary, audio,  and visual arts. They come to us as ego-indulging “social media” entities that seek to redefine our sense of who we are, and why we are, and how we should be to each other. 

The thing these influences share in common is a forceful tendency to point us away from our responsibility to claim and direct the course of our lives. They hold up vanity as a thing to be aspired to. They point us away from our own potential, and toward fictitious heroes in fictional places. 

The unlimiting of ourselves unleashes the potentials that lay dormant within. Unlike the trees and the beasts with whom we share this earth, we can be counterintuitive regarding the given circumstances that face us, and that we are complicit in creating. We can discover in this season that the boundaries of our humanity are not predetermined...

Our Poetry

I am a poet… 

Beyond my hardness

My humanity gives volition to my fragility.

But beyond that

I am god-like… I create my world…

My life is a process of falling forward

My godlikeness is not a function of any perfection that I have achieved. My life is one experience after another through which I learn to be better. Like you, I have known shame… as well as praise. I have stumbled, and I learned to steady myself over uneven circumstances. I have been wrong; but with the help of my humility I have grown wiser - and less judgmental. 

The many stumbles that are a fact of our journey can become the motivation we need to move ever forward to our better selves, and to the kind of progress that can benefit our world. They become that if we do not allow ourselves to collapse in desperation from the potentially destructive heat of our many foibles. They become the force that pulls us out of the quicksand of a depressing complacency. That which depresses us can instead become a motivational force - if we avail ourselves of the right perspective. 

One person’s destiny denying implosion - is another’s motivation to pursue a more progressive circumstance.

Life Is A Process Of Falling Forward

Our lives are in fact poetry in motion. The world we inhabit is a function of what we create - it is the result of what we do from one kairotic moment to another. 

~We hold the world and everything in it in our creative palms. We set and unset the limits of our universe to our advantage… or to our chagrin.~

We are not unlike the trees and the grass in essence. When we avail ourselves of the nectar of life, we can become perennial in all our ways. That nectar is the passion that flows from a benevolent embrace of everything that makes the universe beautiful. Strengthen the weak if you are strong. Work to heal the afflicted. Comfort the broken-hearted. Join in the ongoing work to bring justice where there is inequity. 

We are never just the unwitting victims of the circumstances around us. The unlimiting of our potential as creators of our world… indeed… of our universe, is the ultimate engine in our movement forward to a more fulfilling future. 

A Word To Those Who Lead - On The Vanity Of Hateful Rhetoric

If I were a careless candle

Waxing eloquent from the flame of my own burning

I would set free by my heated tongue

The liquified rantings of my softened core

And for a fleeting moment

Touch with my vanishing heat

The exposed senses of those who seek my glow…

And just as my warmth were known

I would go cold

Returning to my hardened state…

If I were a careless candle

I would promise you light

And then go out

Leaving you cold… and dark… and hard.

(Lukewarm Thoughts - From  - ‘Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls’  by Roy Alexander Graham)

The right to freely express ourselves has been sanctified in the highest Code of our society. It is one of the things that we claim with an almost religious zeal. Unfortunately we are not always very conscientious about the impact of our expressions on each other, and if we are, then we sometimes do not seem to care.

The claiming of this right has an implicit assumption that as a society we are civilized enough to bear the burdens: intellectual, political, cultural, spiritual, social, and  legal; that the wanton expressions of our freedom of speech sometimes create. This is a careless assumption.

Time and again, events have shown this assumption to be problematic to say the least. Ideologues and demagogues, whether they be politicians or religious figures, continue to be overwhelmed by the ramifications of the frivolous exercise of this “Right”. Even as we speak we are witnesses to the negative banter of opposing voices, and to real violence, and threats of violence resulting from the indiscretions of a few who would dominate with their words.

For better or worse, our words create realities that we must then deal with in the various circumstances of our lives. As the agents of our thoughts, words express the deepest longings of our souls. Our words, at their best, create peace; at their worst, they result in tragic events. Our words can create feelings of compassion, or they can engender emotions that negate our efforts at well needed reconciliation.

Our expressions can build bridges that bring us together, or they can cause the kind of alienation that makes neighborliness almost impossible. Our words can heal, or they can cause wounds from which we never recover.

While we cherish the right to freely express ourselves, let us never forget the sacred responsibility that we have to make this world better. Let us help with the healing; not exacerbate the hurt. Our words create our world… for better or for worse.

Beautiful

* I wrote this for my Sweetheart pictured above. I have her permission to share it. *

You never have to try to impress me beyond my very first impression of you. I saw you and I thought… There she is, the one I have been looking for… and she is beautiful.

You are beautiful My Love.

There is a quality about you that is like the forest in Spring. Eventually the leaves will become monochromatic in appearance - but in essence they are a multiplicity of wonderful auras.

There is a certain splendor about you that draws me in. It calms and excites me all at once… it fills me up and empties me in the same voluptuous moment. It enervates me… it takes my breath away.

I look at you and my heart becomes a drum, playing the syncopated rhythms of a life in ecstasy. Together we are an inspired orchestra… filling the chamber of our life together with symphonies of joy, and all its compliant attributes.

I. Love. You.

Bob Marley... The Incredible Power Of A Prophetic Voice

https://youtu.be/TZzK29_V8jQ

Above and beyond the voices of the architects of war and strife ... beyond the strident fury of warmongers... beyond the froth and the incessant buzz of those who would keep us hopelessly off-balanced... are the prophetic voices that speak to our heartfelt desires for a more hopeful world.

Click on the link above and be inspired!

Living in the Stream of Consciousness

… . In the Stream of Consciousness there is freedom to be in your intellect and in your imagination. Where one ends the other begins… and the intermingling of both creates a powerhouse of possibilities. Here there is no pressure to be sensible or logical; instead we have the ability and the permission to flow... to drift, if you will, without the constraints of some predetermined outcome.

In the Stream of Consciousness Truth can reign supreme, because there is no deliberate pause for the convenient editing that seeks to elevate us above our judgement of others. Instead we are moved to forego our masks and bare our souls in a way that establishes the predicate : Judge not, lest ye be judged by the same measure to which we subject others.

In the Stream of Consciousness we position ourselves to keep the company of those who have necessarily found the value of Humility; a trait born of the realization that we are all victims and perpetrators of the foibles that some shout about in their need to point the finger away from themselves. It is here...in this place… that we are moved to declare : There go I, save for the grace of the Beneficent… the Merciful.

Like the river where those who seek salvation come to be submersed, the Stream of Consciousness is both a conservatory and a conduit. It is a place in which to grow, and a passage-way for those who seek healing. It is a place of confession and redirection. This is where we come to realize the existential maturity that is expressed in the statement: When I was a child I spoke and acted like a child; but as a function of my growth I have put aside my primitive ways. 

It is in this place that we give ourselves the opportunity to sort through the tension between our aspirations and our inclinations. With eyes wide open we may see and necessarily affirm the need to work toward true community despite the drag of our individualism.

Here is an oasis in the desert of our desperation. It is a place that is fertile with the promise of what we can become. At this retreat… in this sanctum … under this fountain … we gather to discard the dried up notions of our barren idealisms, and seek to cultivate that which is possible when we pause to give ourselves a chance to be better… to do better… and to inspire others to be more mindful of what they can become.

Many are those who will insist on indulging the formulaic redundancies that are a mainstay of their fundamentalism; but the Stream of Consciousness is substantially more than a babbling brook. It is much more than just a place where we come to be soothed, or to become comfortable in our complacency… it is, rather,  a place of change.

Unlimit yourself...

Of Magic and Miracles ... Thoughts On A Season Of Sharing

        5 Loaves, 2 Small Fish - Banquet for a Multitude?

My granddaughter Elle Sophia shares her ice cream with me.

The special appeal of magic is its disdain for facts. Faced with the inconvenient realities of Life, many would opt to wish them away rather than face them with the resolve it would take to change them. The magician’s greatest helper is the deep longing that many of us harbor to be able to shake our heads, blink a few times, and “Abracadabra!” our way to a whole new circumstance.

The art of producing an illusion has great appeal to those who would rather pull a rabbit out of a hat than engage in the arduous task of raising livestock. Magic therefore thrives in a culture where people tend to make themselves available to become believers in the craft of “make belief”. In the end they are entertained … but nothing changes. Magic is thus an attraction to a distraction.

Now miracles… are a whole different matter. Contrary to the assumptions of many, miracles and magic are totally different phenomena. Let me explain… and let me do so by revisiting a well known story from Christian literary traditions. I should point out that the first time I expounded on this matter I had the greater part of a rather conservative audience angry at my “unbelief”; the rest just wrote me off as a hopeless “communist”. In my own defense… I am neither. Furthermore, I reserve to myself the right, even the duty, to be reasonably critical concerning the dogma of the faithful of both sects. Instead of relating a synopsis of the story, let the text speak for itself:

The Gospel According to John 6:5-15

5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. 14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Sooo… Five barley loaves and two small fish ... and more than 5000 people to be fed - (They did not count the women and children, but I don’t think that they would not feed them also). This by the same guy who is said to have turned water into wine. When you listen to the average preacher expound on this “miracle”, you are left with the unmistakable impression that after Jesus said the Grace - somehow these five loaves and two fish became enough food to feed that multitude with enough leftovers to fill 12 baskets.

A comparison of the text from all four Gospels reveals one critical difference about the “leftovers”. This account in the Gospel According to John is the only one that states specifically in verse 13 : “So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.” The other three Gospels say: “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.” The critical point of departure here is that the other three Gospels do not claim as John does that the leftovers were  of the five barley loaves etc ...

Let us keep in mind that these are the actions of a man, Jesus, who during his famous Temptations refused, yes refused … to turn stones into bread!! The story goes on to note that after he performed this “sign” he withdrew to be by himself because he knew they would want to make him king for what they saw him do. Now my question is: Why would someone who rebuked the Devil for tempting him by asking that he perform some magic act that would feed a multitude now tempt people with a similar feat?

(One moment people… while I erect a shield to protect me from the stones.)

I do not think that what actually transpired is what most preachers claim.

There is nothing in this story that suggests that after Jesus prayed the items in front of him somehow inexplicably multiplied. These thousands of people knew about this man’s inspired work. They brought their family members to see and hear him… women and children included. They knew by now that this would not have been a brief affair. I think they came prepared, each wanting to gain something for self and family.

What are the chances that in a crowd this large only one single person, a young boy at that,  had the good sense to come prepared for a long day by bringing lunch?

Oh... there was definitely more food in that crowd. Jesus knew this. That is why John accounts for the rhetorical question that he put to Phillip, knowing full well what needed to be done in such a situation. The resources to meet the needs of these people were right there among them. They came to see what Jesus could and would do for them. What was not accounted for in that transaction was the real issue of what they could do for each other. They came to get; what the multitude was not fully aware of at that point was the truism that “it is more blessed to give than to receive”.  

And so it was that those who came expecting to get something for self, found something even better. The Teacher … the Healer … brought about a new awareness of the communal benefits… the wonderful abundance … that can come from each one of us sharing the little we do have. Yes we are talking about the application of that old communal praxis: from each according to his ability - to each according to his need.

And that is what happened.

There was more available among the multitude on that day than what was initially brought forward. The teacher stilled their unfounded anxieties about having to share what they had. He made them sit down with each other in an organized way. He expanded their consciousness concerning the real connectedness they shared by pointing them to the true source of all things… our Heavenly Father who gives us this day our daily bread...

The ideal that is expressed in the idea “our father” - is one that recenters our attention on an aspiration to the greater benevolence that is expressed in a sense of brotherhood. Identifying ourselves with a Heavenly Father elicits a sense of spiritual kinship. It is this spiritual kinship that makes us say we will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide healthcare for the sick, and bring solace to the broken-hearted.

Those who came for the magic that day rediscovered themselves as part of something wonderful that happened.  And that my friends is the true meaning of the word miracle: something wonderful that happened. It is not the same as magic which is transitory and illusive. The power of miracles is in their ability to take our actions and their results to the realm of the extraordinary. It is a resignation to the assumed ordinariness of our lives that make us ignore each other’s needs. It is this ordinariness that numbs us to the real potential we each possess to make our world a more wonder-full place. This multitude became participants in a miracle.. a wonderful happening that they themselves were party to, and actors in. Indeed they came to realize what Jesus meant when he taught them: the kingdom of heaven is among you. The happening of this day was to be an enduring “sign” of that truth.

So… . Let us teach ourselves and our children the value and the power of sharing. We can make this miracle happen again and again in a world that is in many parts hungry for compassion… for healing… for comfort… for true leadership.

The work of creating a better world is not a calling to some magician’s spectacle. It is more substantially grounded in  a commitment to … each one of us … becoming better persons. A dat mi a seh. (That’s all I’m saying)

STICKS AND STONES WILL BREAK OUR BONES...

In a previously published piece I wrote that the world in which we live is in large measure the externalization of our interior states. Our joys and our frustrations, our hopes and our fears, the deep seated assumptions that we cultivate about life and our fellow inhabitants of the universe around us become concretized in the world around us.

Where we cultivate fear we find expressions of hate. When greed is the prime factor in our behavior we cultivate inequity. Where there is hopelessness we will find expressions of despair that negate the drive for accomplishment. The coming together of these life-suppressing energies create conditions in which violence thrives; and in such conditions none of us are safe.

The constant drumbeat about the insecurities of individuals and communities and states, is sourced in the recognition of the operation of these negative energies in our reality. Unfortunately the prescriptions for addressing these defects in our communal experience are often based on a denial of the real issues that drive them. In some circumstances these prescriptions are designed … by unscrupulous political operators … to mask the real problems in our body politic in a bid to exploit the already volatile conditions for political and economic gain.

And so we find that the building of more prisons and the militarization of police departments are given priority over addressing the very real inequities that inform the despair that underlies the violence we witness daily. The building of walls to keep out the people of nations that have been plundered and otherwise destabilized for the economic and political supremacy of “developed countries”, become their way of denying the responsibility they have to those they have exploited to build their “wealth”. The widows and orphans we have created now become the dwellers in tent cities to be further victimized by the same vampires responsible for their dehumanization.

The corporate multinationals developing and peddling weapons of war to individuals and the security apparatus that they rely on to keep the hoards at bay must realize that ultimately there is no weapon that will keep an iniquitous dynamic intact. The universe tends ultimately toward balance… Justice that is. Advances in modern weaponology will engender a false sense of security. In the end however, sticks and stones will break our bones; and the truth will always offend those who thrive by living a lie.

There is no wall we can devise that will protect us from the defect of injustice from within.