Today’s favorite monk quotes from art monks I’m studying:

“With so many unseen collaborations on our behalf,

who are we to block becoming.” 3rd C anonymous monk

“When i look at nature, i am forced beyond myself. When we switch our focus to something or someone as profound as Jesus for instance, we immediately are drawn into His love. We can’t see truly without being transformed by what we look at. We become as we watch well.

I can’t even see myself if i can’t see Him. He reconciles me to myself, and then to others.

We cannot truly look at Him, if we can see past religious traditions, without instantly, being led to love more. When I look at Jesus, i have no choice, but to love others. If I gaze properly at Jesus, i am compelled to love!” 6th C anonymous monk

And he added, “Why would we so vacuously perform our duty to become, to be formed more fully daily?”

i want to offer you

uncategorized blessings…

when we meet , we can be

more succinct

until then, friend,

let’s offer one another this

generalized sacrifice for one another,

pulling down the best for one another

in faith’s sight

until we can see clearly

face to face, then, the blessing will be obvious

redundant even-now, is our chance to really bless one another

our place to taste the bitter sweet tint of Grace…

Another monk’s prayer, on true discernment i found helpful today:

“May the Father’s real and tangible peace and kindness of being rest over you all this hour! That you would know or recall yourself into that place in His Heart of Peace, more instantly and constantly. That knowing of how you fit in the grand scheme and also your own story, and where you are in it, so you can keep living and becoming it!

Father’s Peace over all. His Grand Spirit is higher than your soul’s needs or tensions, though concerned with them! So we breath ourselves into Your Spirit, Father of all Life, including our small example. We do not stress, because You Father are not stressful.

I can see how many people really need the father’s  peace over their lives at this hour. So here is a release of Father’s peace over your hearts. The Father knows all your needs and wants, but we flail down here. Our soul’s get restless. But His Being knows, and we can know ourselves in it.

Reside, rest, find and found, ground yourself in His Bosom this hour.

Great Father creator God! There is no higher resting space. You are our home. We are fine and re-fined through and in You! Be our Peace, and help us to just release daily, even this instant, into the actual Being of Your Life.”

(So cool, these monk’s young and mighty astute prayers!)

 He goes on..”We are not isolated in the fray. We have Father’s spirit right here, who brings calm, knowing and even love into the midst of our daily actions! Love being the ultimate test and container of our lives. If and when we default to love, and let that be our highest priority and tone, we will find fruit and life. Does it have love as the central tone, is the real way to discern.”

What we talk about when we talk about love, to quote Raymond Carver…or at least what one monk in the 300’s was talking about…

Translating or interpreting some older monk’s prayers and thoughts today-i love discovering these gems. I liked this diary entry of his about love: this is my loose interpretation of his thoughts. i enjoy thinking about love as way to live…love always makes “sense” of everything in life. I tried to capture the tone of his thoughts.

Love!

“Love is the highest principle in God’s Way, it is His Core characteristic. God IS Love. So, when i wrap a situation, or even its interpretation, in love everything has room to resolve and come clear eventually, to rest and enter into His Being. I become a conduit guiding things into that space.

Love is higher than understanding, because our understanding, in the moment, is always partial. Our judgements aren’t in full sight ever, and we are, ourselves, in constant transformation.

Love, however, is impartial and at the same time practical! It knows and applies itself in kindness.

God is Love. Father’s knowing is unfailing.

So when we are confused, and choose to move in love, we are rewarded in the end, even with understanding. So we can apply justice and interpretation-other aspects of His Being-into action, once we have arrived in the peace of His Love. Once we have cored in His Core.

Love is The heart’s Mountain. When we move down from it, we bring peace and all the other great spiritual fruits—gentleness, kindness, patience, long-suffering etc.. It’s always practical to apply love to whatever situation we are in. It never fails. Honestly.

The valleys are blessed from the smoke on the mountain.

Of course, we get the pleasure of discerning our own issues from others, and the warfare aspect etc; but our basic default is meant to be love, and it always wins in the end.

For, Love always makes room for everything else, including ourselves and our own growth, and limited understandings. Love is the highest path or way in Him-it is the core of who The Father Creator God is. So, Love is always the best thing to do. And the brightest Spirit to move in.

 When blind, the best way to move is love. Love always leads us home, to Him and our true selves. For, Love re-calibrates us to what is Real!

When, I am confused, i always just start loving whatever is near, and everything clears.

And, Love is also the key to discernment. The Voice of God is always discerned through the tone of Love. The tone of love is how to discern The Father’s Voice from others (I John). If a true word is not spoken in the tone of Love, it is not a whole word! For God is One. His Love is not divided from His Truths. A truth apart from love is a mis-representation. He is both the truth and the way.

 When you can’t see, just love. For The Father’s heart is unfailing! Know that knowing, and you will be fine. If a great teacher lacks Love, he or she is not yet a great teacher!”

When my wife and I got home this week, we were locked out of our house, so we decided to sleep in my trailer for two. Nice to recall that home is not a physical structure, but a spiritual space,. It was nice to be vulnerable together again-to sukkot together once more. As they say where i am from, “rough weather makes good timber”. Anyway, thought I’d write a poem about our first night back to harvest even the bumps of coming home. It’s good to harvest the bumps in life, as there are so many little potential poems in waiting there.

locked out of our house, we

slept instead, in the airstream together last night

in the vulnerable steel cold distant wind womb

we tucked into some other world within

with faux firelight imaging at our feet

flickering from some unseen electric source.

(us who try to imitate the force and clarity of fire)

entering dream together,

we almost slipped out from our skins, freely into heaven…

and the possums, rats and cats

didn’t seem to mind us

being locked out with them

beneath the constant stars shimmering.

dogs bark in evening’s glow

church bells from somewhere below bellow;

and us, staring at the tree limbs shaping or at least framing, the sky

are encompassed in this view of emerging stars…

each, part of some constellation,

our skin tingling in cool evening tones.

whatever we were in the day

is passing, and we are becoming

what we look at well.

i’ve lived through a thousand evenings myself

but this is another, and we are cast into the sky

as beginners until we see it again.

I’m not saying each day is heaven, but

each day offers a keyhole to look through

until we become what we really see there.

that dog is moaning now, hungry for night feedings.

we are cold again on this rooftop, and waiting for morning;

but there again, is that star in red glow rising-seemingly,

not just for hope, but for something warmer like assurance

that morning will come and our skins will warm into another light again

and we will be fully home, in what we already know by each evening’s light.

Derek

After 911,

We were looking for “anything which was not nothing.”

even Styrofoam cups, too, held now, a new meaning.

(parts of xerox machines tumbling, along with the rest.)

Were there fresh coffee stains still warm in that one I found?

was someone sipping it on the way down, still chasing off and coming into

morning? did the angels borrow a sip for comfort too?

on the way down

we waited on George Washington’s bridge with all sort of tears;

some pressed back, some stuck in mid air…our fears, almost useless, until

one trucker told me he knew this day would come

he had seen it in a dream.  As for me, all i could see was an enormous thumb, lifting

and dragon black clouds forcefully forming over time.

we ran in shock, off the bridge leaving our stupid cars where they were

mostly we ran to pay phones down below, trying to call out, but

everything was frozen, jammed, static without motion-

then a voice would emerge, something familiar

i pulled out a quarter from my pocket, which i remarkable had

and called my friend in Brooklyn

everything ok friend? i’m watching them fall with you

just wanted you to know, we are one in witnessing at least.

then they made us run to our cars and take them off the bridge

for fear of more to come.

i could barely remember my indistinguishable rental car from Logan

i think it was black, that would make sense

we had to drive out of there. no one really knowing

who to help most. and all of us trembling on

one level or another, forever.

Resting in Father

One of the biggest problems i see in Christianity spirituality today, is a lack of deep residing in, and knowing of the Father. Many are willing to serve with Jesus, but not reside in His Father. There is a core issue of “doing for” God, rather than being “in Him”. The early desert fathers tried to reveal and emphasize, that being in His Nature should be our central aim, even above doing “for” Him. We serve the poor in order to meet Him. We cannot really even help the needy if we are not “in Him”. And, we cannot perform our way into heaven, as one monk put it. That peace which comes from being fully seen loved adored engulfed in Father God, just as Jesus is-this is the space to cultivate. When we find that “space”, we are home already, as St Paul was, and are willing to “do” whatever. Love God, and do whatever, as St Augustine put it. Van Gogh, a former pastor, comes from the other side: “The way to know God, is to love many things deeply.” We need to develop a father-centric spirituality. When we do, we will manifest the fruits of His Spirit, and live in a Peace which passes all understanding. There is a great patience, even towards ourselves and our own development, in The Spirit of The Father, and great knowing that is able to just be, down here. So few creatures are comfortable just being in their own skin, their own contours. Animals often teach me the most about what it’s like to just be. They are just being themselves, and in doing so, as Merton said—when we are being ourselves it is a praise to God. Are we resting in our Creator, are we resting our being in His Being? For Strong is His Hold, as the american poet, Galway Kinnell puts it. We are those called to enter Jesus’ own spirituality which was and is centered on His Father!

A brief homily:

“The way to share about your faith (whatever you actually believe in), or what keeps you spiritually centered, is to tell your story. Be authentic. Be real. Be yourself, and tell the truth about how it’s been. The reality is that this way, breaks through religion; of course, we don’t have to be embarrassed by moving the Spirit of the Jewish God, but we need to be real about it. But we need to be real about our own experience of it. Then that integration happens between our real lives, our expression and our spirituality-our “testimony”, or outer expression, becomes authentic! And that is contagious, and a clearer reflection of whoever we are serving. Get out of the way, like John the Baptist, by being real. Authenticity creates a true platform for sharing about deeper things. When we are being ourselves, the poem of who we are comes out, and attracts people to whatever we are moving in, regardless of where we are on our journeys. Authentic identity is a form of evangelism. We are all in the end stories of Grace, but not all of us are being honest about it. Things become beautiful when they are being themselves.” (an interesting and challenging sermon i heard this week)