Filed under: Poetry | Tags: Ash Wednesday, christian spirituality, Christianity, contemplative prayer, Mysticism, Poetry, prayer, spirituality, Thomas Merton
I’ve published this poem by Merton before, and was so inspired that I had to share it once again:
The naked traveler,
Stretching against the iron dawn, the bowstrings of his eyes,
Starves on the mad sierra.
But the sleepers,
Prisoners in a lovely world of weeds,
Make a small, red cry,
And change their dreams.
Proud as the mane of the whinnying air,
Yet humble as the flakes of water
Or the chips of the stone sun, the traveler
Is nailed to the hill by the light of March’s razor;
And when the desert barks, in a rage of love
For the noon of the eclipse,
He lies with his throat cut, in a frozen crater.
Then the sleepers,
Prisoners of the moonward power of tides,
Slain by the stillness of their own reflections,
Sit up, in their graves, with a white cry,
And die of terror at the traveller’s murder.
Thomas Merton, Selected Poems (New Direction Publishing Corporation: 1959) 24.
Filed under: Poetry | Tags: Celtic Christianity, Celtic Spirituality, christian spirituality, Christianity, contemplative prayer, Discipleship, Faith, God, Jesus, Poetry, prayer, Religion, spiritual formation, spirituality
I am the wind on the sea.
I am the ocean wave.
I am the sound of the billows.
I am the seven-horned stag.
I am the hawk on the cliff.
I am the dewdrop in sunlight.
I am the fairest of flowers.
I am the raging boar.
I am the salmon in the deep pool.
I am the lake on the plain.
I am the meaning of the poem.
I am the point of the spear.
I am the god that makes fire in the head.
Who levels the mountain?
Who speaks the age of the moon?
Who has been where the sun sleeps?
Who, if not I?
Amergin mac Miled, 1530 BCE
Filed under: My poetry, Poetry, spiritual formation | Tags: christian spirituality, Christianity, My poetry, Mysticism, Poetry, spiritual formation, spirituality, wordle
I found a cool thing called Wordle at Monastic Musings. You can enter a bunch of text and it creates a sort of art piece out of it. I used the text from yesterday’s poem Soul Work, tweaked it a bit, and here’s what happened.
Filed under: My poetry, Poetry, spiritual formation | Tags: Christianity, Mysticism, Poetry, spiritual formation, spirituality
The soul is a cave, feral and complex
If I’m slow enough, I’ll traverse her caverns and study the pathways
Venturing wherever the Spirit leads
An opening here and a room there, many I have not seen before
Surrounded by wilderness, she calls me into the depths
Entering each room reveals work
Sometimes I will stay for a long time
Rehearsing the past
Sitting silently
Asking questions
Some rooms hold people hostage,
Waiting for justice or
Just waiting for me
Sometimes we talk together
Sometimes we cry
Sometimes I will ask forgiveness
Sometimes I will give it
I try to bless them on their way
In some rooms I find myself held hostage
Shackled by warped ideas and false belief systems
Slowly we unlock my disillusioned self
Tenderly we whisper truth and love
Carefully we set the captive free
Free from the ‘me’ that used to be
The work I do is invisible
Slow like molasses
Yet incredibly fruitful
Grace, love, and presence, make the violent rooms peaceful
I am transformed and seek to go deeper
Venturing wherever the Spirit leads
My soul is a cave, feral and complex
Filed under: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, Poetry, Politic, Wendell Berry, liberation | Tags: Capitalism, Christianity, Consumerism, liberation, Poetry, spirituality, wealth, Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap for power,
please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Wendell Berry, Good Poems Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor (New York: Penguin Group, 2002) 274.
Filed under: Christianity, Poetry, Wendell Berry, prayers | Tags: Christianity, Faith, Holy Spirit, Mysticism, Religion, spirituality, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry
O Thou far off and near, whole and broken,
Who in necessity and bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace show me Thy narrow gate
Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (New York: Counterpoint Publishing, 1998), 107.
When I was a kid visiting the north shore with my family, I have a vivid memory of a tiny restaurant called Betty’s Pies. Since that time, the tiny place has been rebuilt into a big place and it inspired a lament.
“Lament for Old Betty’s Pies”
Sagging roof, drafty windows
Cracked plaster walls with old stories to tell
Northern art and local flavor
Quaint and small
With the captivating
Intoxicating aroma
Of fresh baked pie.
Strawberry Ruhbarb
Triple Berry
Pumpkin
Apple whatever
It would kiss your lips
Rub your tummy
And put you at peace.
Then the “fire” came
All was lost to ashes and progress
Capitalism capitalized and commercialized Betty’s Pies
New metal roof
Industrial oven
Betty passed on her recipes to machines
Who forgot to add love along with flour
Along with the oil from her hands
Along with the scent of her presence
The crust no longer melts in your mouth
It no longer warms your soul.
The smell of pie has left for north of here
And the world will never be the same.
Last week I had the chance to stay on the north shore for a few days. It inspired some thoughts and poetry that I would like to share over the next few days.
The first poem was written after I left my cabin for a hike along Lake Superior’s rocky shore. After traveling just a few yards, I came upon a No Trespassing sign that pissed me off. So I wrote:
“Concerning the Man Who Posted the No Trespassing Sign on the Lake Superior Shore”
NO TRESPASSING said the sign.
Maybe Mr. Man, maybe.
If your sign guards the land where your fathers are buried,
I will find another way.
If your sign protects the land for your children and mine,
I’ll gladly turn right back around.
But if your sign
Is a sign
Of the Gold that you paid the Man
Who paid the Man
Who paid the Man
To take this Land
From the man
Who cared for and loved it so
Then my friend, this is not your land.
Then my friend, your sign says nothing.
Forgive me friend, for walking past your
Meaningless sign
On the Lake Superior Shore.
Filed under: Poetry, Thomas Merton | Tags: Ash Wednesday, Easter, Thomas Merton
“Ash Wednesday”
The naked traveler,
Stretching against the iron dawn, the bowstrings of his eyes,
Starves on the mad sierra.
But the sleepers,
Prisoners in a lovely world of weeds,
Make a small, red cry,
And change their dreams.
Proud as the mane of the whinnying air,
Yet humble as the flakes of water
Or the chips of the stone sun, the traveler
Is nailed to the hill by the light of March’s razor;
And when the desert barks, in a rage of love
For the noon of the eclipse,
He lies with his throat cut, in a frozen crater.
The she sleepers,
Prisoners of the moonward power of tides,
Slain by the stillness of their own reflections,
Sit up, in their graves, with a white cry,
And die of terror at the traveller’s murder.
Thomas Merton, Selected Poems (New Direction Publishing Corporation: 1959) 24.
It is a difficult
lesson to learn today,
to leave one’s friends
and family and deliberately
practise the art of solitude
for an hour or a day
or a week.
For me, the break
is most difficult …And yet, once it is done,
I find there is a quality
to being alone that is
incredibly precious.
Life rushes back into the void,
richer,
more vivid,
fuller than before!
Ann Morrow Lindberg (from daily meditations at the North Umbria Community)
This past Fourth of July my wife and I were staying on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness in Northern Minnesota. We had a chance to drive and hike through the forests that had been hit by the fires last spring. Already the undergrowth of bushes, grass, and small trees had starting coming back. While thinking about our country, the Iraq war, and the forest fire, I wrote the following poem:
“Peace of July”
I see peace fall in cool rain
The hot violent fires exhausted
Hands on knees heaving soothing breathes
Of springing air touching our smoked scorched lungs
All was drenched in the peaceful dew
Love had quenched our roots
While we slowly grew back
Teaching our children by Spirit
We’ll stare at the tree scar museum
Of charcoal, of desolation, of ash
Passing on the story
Of hot violent hatred
And how peace came to pass
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend shared this prayer with me today. Thought it was pretty inspiring so I’ll pass it on as well…..
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fractionof the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of sayingthat the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberationin realizing that.
This enables us to do something,and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,but it is a beginning, a step along the way,an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the differencebetween the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.
Filed under: Poetry
by Wendell Berry
I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing
the day turns, the trees move.
Pics from the weekend coming soon I hope.
Bring the children of the Northside near
Cover their eyes and plug each ear
Don’t let them know, don’t let them hear
We’ve lost five lives on the Northside this year
