Before Mass - 02 January 2017

How prayerful can one be with television,

with snow needing to be shoveled,

with wood needing to be split,

with fires needing to be kept burning,

with a dog needing to be walked and fed?

How prayerful can one be with politics,

news, weather, sports, entertainment,

emails to be written and read,

tweets to be scanned and retweeted,

with a dog needing to go out.

And the necessities of nature,

and cleaning up and shaving,

brushing teeth, combing hair,

taking off one’s favorite coveralls, 

putting on clothes more fit for public exposure.

Looked over the readings for Mass,

have given them quick thought, 

decided on a theme to be preached,

eaten enough food to sustain me,

and sipped more coffee to be awake.

But I am not really awake, am I?

If this is wakefulness, what then is sleep?

Yes, my eyes are heavy after a busy week-end,

I feel fatigue after all the explosions the night before.

And soon I must depart for morning Mass.

Where in the noise and busyness is God?

Where in my drowsiness is clarity of thought?

Where in my passions is stillness and quiet?

Where in my heart is a longing for God—

and if not for God, for peace in his will?

If for a single moment I turn towards,

if I can will to turn towards the remembered one,

if I can allow his mind to shine into mine,

and be content with my poverty and smallness,

perhaps then the divine can use this tattered weed.

Come, holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful—

even in our faithlessness, or half-heartedness,

and warm our chilly wills and frozen fingers,

refresh us in our tiredness, and wake us up again—

You most generous giver of good gifts, come.

To My Brother, Paul

The Apostle Paul, by Rembrandt

You were Paul of Tarsus even when still Saul, 

a Hebrew born of Hebrews in an alien land,

fiercely zealous for the Law and traditions of elders,

a man considered “blameless” by yourself, no doubt,

until you were fiercely arrested by the fraudulent Christ.

According to Nietzsche, dear friend, you are the fraud,

the lying deceiver who gave birth to Christianity,

that most pathetic, womanish religion known to man—

you, filled with spite and overcome by a psychotic hallucination

self-convinced of your self-created self-deception.

And then I hear a more convincing song by Schütz,

“Saul, Saul, was vervolgst du mich”—

communicating the shattering of your consciousness,

not by a self-generated hallucination or wish,

but by God-in-Christ ripping you open wide.

Never again were you Paul alone, just you—

“For now I live, not I, but Christ lives in me”—

no mere religious belief, no formulaic faith,

but the living experience of a man raised up

from death-in-self to life enlivened by the risen Christ.

Your words, you know, are dynamite, 

and ever will be in domesticated Christianity, 

in these churches “that are tombs and sepulchers of God”—

for you are the voice of the experience of God in Christ,

as surely as Plato voices the God of the Beautiful and Good.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly, 

but then face to face.

Though outwardly we waste away, 

inwardly we are being renewed from glory to glory

until God is all in all.”

In Praise of Moses

Ish ha Elohim, Moses the god-man—

mummified by Deuteronomy,

revered by the children of Israel,

relegated to shadows by Christians 

seeking to protect the supremacy of Christ.

Who are you, true man of God,

chosen to receive the decisive revelation

of what by tradition we call “God”—

Ehyeh-asher-Ehyeh—I AM that I AM—

the one who broke into Moses’ consciousness?

Moses the man to whom the divine itself

irrupted into his very consciousness,

Moses the man who did not see or touch

but became one in spirit with the one he bore

lovingly to the people of God.

“The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth

came through Jesus Christ,” writes beloved John.

O Christians, open your eyes afresh to Moses,

who was himself full of grace and truth

if any man on earth ever was.

The man Moses encountered by the god unknown

out of the burning bush on Sinai,

is the man who became the carrier of Life itself,

the living in-breathing of the eternal I AM

to the Hebrew people, children of Abraham.

Having encountered the divine in Christ, you Christians,

can you not see and hear the same God speaking in Moses,

delivering in Moses, presenting itself 

in every tree, bush, and living thing,

radiant with the beauty and truth of God?

To Moses

If you are not Moses, then who are you
o little man of God, blessed soul
denied a home in heaven by heaven-bent souls,
but ever at home in this poor heart of mine,
and if in mine, how not in God’s?  

What is the fire I see still-smoldering in your heart,
though tame in eye, most gentle in your breast,
you love with a love that is more than love,
you most blessed soul and fellow creature of a day
here but today and away in a moment.

Who you are in yourself remains a mystery
but the who in you is the same who in me
the self-same I that dwells within the eye
and deeper down, unseen by wandering eyes
but glimpsed by the piercing arrow of love.

Jesus of Nazareth

Born a Jew, repackaged a Christian,

Man of humble birth, enrobed as a king,

Speaker of truth, falsified as political,

Real human being, enshrouded in myths,

One of us, yet interpreted as messiah.

The Christ that one encounters in Jesus

is no anointed king of Israel,

but the ever-present one who speaks

to every mind still-searching for truth

from everywhere, here and there.

You may be seen or unseen in your deeds,

heard or unheard in your words,

found or unfound in your loving presence

flowing into every living being,

as far as the mind can see

You who were present before I was

present to myself, you were here

drawing and pulling me into you,

towards I still know-not-what, but drawing

ever into a deeper, more hidden union.

You are the one speaking in the words of Jesus—

no messiah, no king, no revolutionary,

but the divine mind itself probing each,

enlightening, flooding the open stable

no longer just alone, but You in each, in all.

You who are nameless, called by many names—

Christ will do, if gently held—

or Jesus, hidden One, enlightening every soul

ever coming into the world, 

not once, but in every moment of consciousness.

Or perhaps of unconsciousness too, 

while the flowers sleep beneath the earth,

and sun has sunken far below the Zenith,

and nights clear and cold yet promising

your hidden presence to those who seek.

Of Mary and Joseph

“And the Word became flesh,” your flesh, our flesh,
and our flesh at each moment of ever-presenting presence,
the divine breaking forth in the listening heart,
in the spirit open to the transreal transformation
breaking in without destroying or binding.

“And Mary kept all these things in her heart,”
pondering, reflecting, thinking about what unfolded
and was enfolding her in unseen mystery—
Mary in the darkness of faith-filled love,
not in the certainty of so-called knowledge.

And Joseph, long kept in the darkness of a story,
a man of action, wordless father of the incarnate word,
father not father in the storied sense,
silent in the shadows of unenquiring minds,
speaking through and in the son obscured.

Joseph and Mary, most vividly seen to wondering eyes
not in themselves, their storied characters,
but in their son, their mysterious son,
whose words and deeds bespeak the wisdom of Israel,
and the loving parenting he richly received.

Mary our mother in the darkness of faith,
Joseph our father in the obedience of faith,
both together in the word still becoming flesh,
our flesh, at each moment of ever-presenting presence:
the Word becoming flesh this very day.

For Simeon

This little poem was not written for quick understanding, but deliberately reads as a puzzle, inviting thought if it is read.  Note:  “Ausculta” is the first word of St. Benedict’s Rule, and it is his “kitchen Latin” for the standard, “Osculta,” Listen! The German is simple enough, with a reference to a composition by Heinrich Schütz.  I modify Simeon’s words about Israel, drawing from a psalm, motivated by political reality. Two word-coinages were intended at the outset. A sense of overlapping of times and speakers is intended. There is a nod to T.S. Eliot’s “The Song of Simeon,” but probably a stronger borrowing from his intentional obscurantism to make one think and explore the engendering experience. 

Ausculta, o fili, ausculta,

when the rose blooms, and when it is still-embudded.

Hear my son Absalom my son

would that I had died for you—my son, my daughter

and let my cry—these tears—come unto you.

For here I am, yet not I, an olding man,

seeing from Nebo the promised land 

and not yet allowed to enter.

And yet, ever entering and leaving

and entering again into your promised land.

Now, my Master, let your servant depart in peace,

in Friede, in Friede fahren, as Schütz sings,

my feet, one here, one there, 

legs full-stretching out between

the hither and the farther shore

When birth is death and death is birth, 

when birth is brith, and death is liberation

here not here in this twilight time

bonding creature to unbounded creator

now and into the age of ages

Ausculta, fellow servant, and depart in peace,

into the light that has filled your darkened mind—

into the peace you have tasted this day—

a light to enlighten the Gentiles

and peace upon your people, Israel.