Within

Before we can discover His name,

He is present deep within us.

As long as we live, the Lord has not ceased to offer

a light into mystery and a hand out of trouble.

It is not God who limits Himself, but we who limit God;

for His will is not to impose, but to wait upon our invitation.

His teachings are as inexhaustible as our patience in attending them.

His generosity supplies no more nor less than we desire to hold.

The more closely we listen, the more compellingly He speaks;

the more deeply we examine, the more astonishing are His signs.

It is not a matter of deciding which signs are worthy to be called divine;

but of allowing the divine to enter, by custom or by stealth, into every sign.

When we are full of God, then every sign, no matter how obscure,

will discover itself effortlessly related back to Him.

Even in a foreign realm, every new spectacle more clearly recalls,

whether by similarity or difference, the spirit of our homeland.

Thus the boundaries of God's kingdom extend as far as our steps,

and as we proceed, so does His sovereignty increase.

For He is in us, as we are in Him.

The Merit of Frail and Fruitless Labors

in times of dryness
just keep going

show up
and play your part
as if courage was enough

even if you're not on fire
like Christ and his holy martyrs

even if it doesn't come
like lightning
from a ready cloud

and your mind is doubting
and your heart is underneath the dirt

keep looking
keep trying

because that's what faith is
anyway

that's where ressurection comes from
after all

though all the world
in awe of graces
will never know

the merit of frail
and fruitless labors

Distracted By Daylight

distracted by daylight
i have wandered in the green
forgetting my beloved
until now...

the golden tablet dissolves
submerged in a bath of trees
and spreads like fine powder
magenta in the sky

silvered night rises
a trembling steeple within me
to pierce with hopeful longing
the flesh of my poor heart

and all the world is flesh
cooling underneath the sky
quiet and deep and full
of more than human feeling

but you my love are spirit
never gathered nor dispersed
everpresent, undiscovered
and observant

Fragments

What first strikes us about God is not his love, nor any other attribute, but his incomprehensibility. First and foremost, God is mysterious; subtler than silence, deeper than space, more impenetrable than eternity. "His ways are not our ways." In a flash, he strides over mortal understanding and is lost in the mystery. Therefore, we ought to desire a respectful ignorance of God; not to overstep the boundaries of experience by laying claim to knowledge we do not possess. Even in the interpretation of experience, we must not hasten beyond what is there plainly given. Faith reaches into the unknown, and what it posits are merely footholds; clumps of cloud, temporarily solid-enough to serve as stepping-stones into a deeper experience of the ineffable. All supposed knowledge of God is kept in perspective, and the pride of man is held in check, by the constant recollection of one's ignorance of him; which infinitely transcends what one thinks one knows. We come closest to God when we have left all knowing behind, and entered firmly upon the way of the unknown; a realm of unspoken riddles, ghostly shades, fleeting glimpses, and forgotten dreams, charged everywhere with the unmanifested potentials of being. When we have shed a thousand ideas, a thousand skins, and become naked as the light, -- then, we may have some inkling of what "God" means.

The world is a deep pit, and who can fault a man for falling? But try to stand in the presence of the Lord. Recollect your soul into the presence, when you can. Do not wrestle with yourself, but give way to conflict, and discover that you have overcome. Seek peace. Seek it enough, and you will come to love it. Peace will attract you of its own accord, drawing you into the very heart and core of your being, that you might dwell in ever-widening oceans of bliss. For there is within you a still point, a calm in the eye of the storm. Here, one does not become drowsy with relaxation, but increasingly lucid. Keeping silent, one's soul vibrates to the most subtle, yet the most titanic, movements in the earth, sky, and spirit. There is a whole world to discover beyond oneself, within oneself; self-surrender IS self-realization.

Contrary to popular opinion, having an ideal and falling short of it does not make you a hypocrite. Too often, we see idealists discouraged from speaking their truth, on the grounds that they have yet to bring their lives into accordance with their visions. Is this criticism, this attempt at censure, specifically designed to prevent those in need of virtue from contemplating virtue? But how are they to become virtuous? And even if all they ever do is speak of it -- what then? At least, fine words are spoken. Would you rather they conform all their perceptions to what they can lay hold of, like blind men? Ah, but this is what the crowd likes to do. How many would rather compromise their ideals, and pervert their reason, in order to conform all things to their own level; so as not to be haunted by the recollection of what is greater?

We are rich with the spoils of spiritual warfare; for we are heirs to the saints, the prophets, and the Son of God. What priceless revelations of the Holy Spirit have come down to us! Behold, the inheritance which the Lord has delivered into our hands for safe-keeping. Unsearchable treasures of his wisdom.

"God is and is not." (~ Upanishads) My sense is that disputes between atheists and theists have largely revolved around semantic misunderstandings. The decision to adopt a religious viewpoint, and to make use of religious language, is inherently a value judgement; it is as if to say "this is worthy of being called holy", and "this is worthy of the name of God", for it seems no more exalted terms c

an be found to represent objects, ideas, and experiences which are themselves truly exalted. If we wish to understand religious matters, we must consult experts in religious matters -- i.e. MYSTICS; and not, by any means, fundamentalists. The mystics have always taught that religious terms are ultimately symbolic, and that the spiritual reality utterly transcends those names and forms we merely employ for the sake of convenience. Admittedly, we are dealing with the figurative, not the literal; "the spirit", not "the letter". Yet, according to this way of seeing, there is indeed such a thing as figurative reality. Christ, whether or not he exists in a more literal sense, or "merely" (one might rather say "purely") in a figurative sense, is no less real. As flesh and blood or as an idea in the hearts and minds of humanity, he is possessed of tremendous potency, and has undoubtedly influenced our history more than any other character we can dig up. Go figure.

Shall I tell you how I, as a Christian, reconcile with ease those contradictions arising from a comparison of the Old Testament with the New? It is simply this: The law is not a dead, but a living thing. That which is carved in stone (or printed in bibles) will fade in time, but what is written on our hearts must change and grow as we do. Revelation is ongoing; the law is not destroyed, but, rathe

r, it is fulfilled, by undergoing periodic evolutionary changes. As George Fox tells it: "You will say, 'Christ saith this', and 'the apostles say this', but what canst thou say? Art thou a Child of the Light, and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from the Lord?" The largest Christian hearts well know that Paganism provides (and has always provided) the foundations upon which their faith rests. Still, they are tolerant and inclusive with respect to those who have yet to embrace this fact. (("Receive him that is weak in the faith, but not to doubtful disputations... Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.")) One of my favorite pieces in the tradition of wisdom writing comes from radical Christian Leo Tolstoy; his essay 'The First Step', wherein he argues that a great error was committed at the advent of the Christian religion, when the Pagan virtues were disregarded in favor of the Christian ones. Basically, he says, one cannot even begin to practice Christianity in earnest until one has entirely mastered the Pagan virtues. We must be just before we can be merciful; champions before we can be martyrs. We must honor many gods before we can learn to honor the One in whom they live, move, and have their being. Christ might easily have recourse to the words of Isaac Newton, "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants." 

It takes courage to be sincere; to be serious, vulnerable, insightful, and to allow others to be serious, vulnerable, insightful; without immediately cracking some careless, stupid joke. Not everything is ironic. Not every reflective moment needs to be shattered with instant levity. Where did we ever acquire this notion that being cool means not giving a fuck? Fuck that! It's not cool to be flippa

nt. It's cool to care, to question, to teach, to share what you REALLY think and feel. All of my heart to the sincere, serious people. The ones who make you think. And, yes, I love the ones who make me laugh, but it would be nice if they knew when to stop; when not to make a joke out of everything; when to allow something to stand, a little awkward on the page, if need be, declaring something of substance. Jokes are easy. Apathy is effortless. Cowardice.

More Fragments

I am a moth encircling a flame;
deterred by the heat from merging with the fire,
but incapable of parting from the light.

I'm learning to claim victory when my ego is defeated;
to relish a sweet aftertaste when my pride is bitterly stung.

What we call "preaching", the wise call "speaking".
If we aren't being accused of preaching,
we probably aren't saying anything.

It is easy to forgive a sin when it is overshadowed by a graver sin;
we would damn Peter and his denial without Judas and his betrayal.

The answers we give are never so revealing, enlightening, nor damning,

than the reasons we possess for answering as we do.

God is a great mystery because of the world,
and the world is a great mystery because of God.

That love exists -- 
that even the notion of love exists,
is proof that God exists, and that he loves us.

Look with the heart. Listen with the heart.
Think with the heart. Speak with the heart. Act with the heart.
All our faculties should be loyal subjects of the heart, who is their queen.

We are wiser than we know, but we dismiss our intuitions,
and let our passions carry us where they will.

While honoring truth as a noble ideal, it is equally important to remember that it is not static, like a destination, but dynamic, like a journey. Truth is not less subjective than objective. What this means is that each of us must progress at our own pace, not attempting to run ahead of ourselves; -- for that is to run ahead of the truth.

However incredible our pleasures, however fantastic our joys, however powerful our loves, however cherished our sentiments connected to hearth and home, -- nothing in our lives compares to the common experiences of sainthood; to the exquisite voluptuousness of being caught up, lifted out of oneself, and hurled into a whirlwind of divine effulgence; pierced, showered, and shattered by grace. Our gr

eatest natural successes cannot disfigure the reality as it appears in the supernatural light of heaven. We are failed saints; botched experiments at loftiness, salt without savour, fit only to be pitied and trodden upon by souls of keener quality than ourselves. If the realization of this fact does not pulverize and obliterate every idol erected by vanity, reducing our pretensions to nothing, to the fine ash of purest humility, then we are indeed lost; stricken; strangled in mediocrity; settled on something less than we were made for; dislocated utterly from the Absolute, which alone ought to inspire in us the most awful wonder, and the most wonderful awe. Our lives should be fodder. His to make, demolish, and remake. We should lust for our own destruction, and for the destruction of all that we have thought, amassed, and put into effect, if it is true (as it surely is) that such utter desolation is the only thing capable of heralding the rebirth of a Christian instinct.

Mankind harbors a sneaking suspicion that the deepest emotions, insights, and perceptions to which he is sensitive have already occurred to him, and are present in his earliest memories. The aim of all culture is to make infancy articulate.

Conversion: Giving Form To Liminal Space

Dear Reverend,
  
Thank you for your kind response, and for taking some moments to assist me with this. I don't know if you can help me, though. I've spoken with a number of clergy members in the past and "I always came out through the door that I went in". But I appreciate any time and effort gambled on me. My religious identity has become a question of great difficulty, partly because I am complicated, and partly because I am stubborn; I insist on over-thinking matters which transcend thought.

The baptism would be for me.  My family attended Protestant services sporadically when I was a child. I imagine I was probably baptized, but I'll have to check. In either case, I might be interested in the preparatory lessons, and possibly the baptismal ritual, and almost certainly Confirmation, if I choose to go forward in this path.

I've been exploring the Christian tradition independently for years, but in a largely haphazard and esoteric fashion. In some ways, I am already deeply initiated, while in other ways, I have yet to observe the most preliminary respects. The most "obvious" symbols and creeds of the Church are obscure to me; I never get beyond first principles, and they never lose their mystery.

While I desire, more than anything, to concretize my faith, and to honor the specific forms of Epsicopal doctrine, I find in myself an irrepressible tendency to lose sight of the forms. Categories and definitions blend and bleed into one another and appear to be profoundly interrelated. I have a sincere respect for the specific ritual forms used not only to symbolize but also to manifest our investment. I see that they are, and the Church is, a kind of Incarnation. But, too rapidly, I fly beyond the forms, in order to embrace something altogether interior and abstract. I want to embrace the forms, and the world.

I feel very drawn to the Liturgy, to the Divine Mother, and to other aspects of the faith, but I wish to embrace them without dissimulation, and, in all honesty, I fear there is something in me which undermines them and grasps too readily at the invisible. For a time, I thought I was a Quaker, and I enjoyed their services, and silences. I felt a kinship with the members of "the invisible church"; mystics who identified themselves only ostensibly as Christians, but whose approach was so "pure" as to largely do away with Christianity. Of course, one could argue that the purpose of the Church is to do away with itself; to make the loftiest mystical states accessible without recourse to itself. Even Christ did not come in his own name; he knew that, when we have received the sense and substance of a word, then the Word may be forgotten. Perhaps I am only confessing my spiritual immaturity, in clinging to the outer garments; to Mary, and to Jesus; as Sri Ramakrishna, when he clung to his own image of the Divine Mother:

"Mother, don't make me unconscious through the Knowledge of Brahman. Don't give me Brahmajnana, Mother. Am I not Your child, and naturally timid? I must have my Mother. A million salutations to the Knowledge of Brahman! Give it to those who want it. O Mother let me remain in contact with men! Don't make me a dried-up ascetic. I want to enjoy Your sport in the world."

I am naturally timid. I want to enjoy God's sport in the world, and in the Church. But I struggle with the deeper "Knowledge of Brahman", with the knowledge of the mystics, who have encountered the unknown God; the God without form and name. From this fog of unknowing, I look upon Jesus, and invent the strangest doctrines. I say things like:

"Even if he is a character of fiction, he is still the clearest incarnation of God. Just look how he has taken hold of men's minds and of human history! Does it matter if he was/is "merely" an idea? Perhaps an idea can be holy, and possess a more formidable substance than matter itself. Is this not what it means to read the spirit, not the letter? Somehow, this idea, this image, errupted into history, and from where could it have come, if not from God?"

And, I know, this is very Gnostic of me, but I seem to recognize similar, if subtler, utterances among the saints. Still, my faith seeks the material, and I am inclined to believe the most conventional things. That he was a man, and was, at the same time, the one true Son of God, is something I can almost believe unreservedly. I used to think calling him "the one true God" was insensitive to other faiths, or only permissible in the sense that one might give one's father a "World's Best Dad" t-shirt, without seeing it as a (friendly or unfriendly) provocation to other fathers. On the contrary, it is endearing, and nobody would fault a loving son for idealizing his own father in this way. But, as diplomatic and reasonable as this explaination sounds, I am beginning to see it another way.

Nietzsche understood genius as a result of incredible social and historical forces. Whenever a civilization develops, it creates paradigms and blindspots; norms and more marginal areas of relative unconsciousness. Great pressure is built-up in maintaining these norms, and in repressing other matters into the cultural unconscious. At some point, these hidden matters errupt upon the stage of history, in the form of a person of unique genius. I believe Jesus of Nazareth is the greatest genius the world has known or may ever know; the erruption into history of universal love and wisdom; the first fruit of the Truth. I do not know if his identity came as a revelation to him or not, but I believe he accurately identified himself as the Christ, the Messiah, the Way, the Truth, the Son of God, and God. And while this claim is valid and justified in a hidden or subversive sense, I believe it is also unambiguously true, and may just as profitably be taken at face value. I believe he came to witness and to prove that the spirit has power over the flesh, and I believe he succeeded on both counts. Hence, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is, for me, the easiest of all things to receive. I am unclear, though, as to how well my other ideas agree with the established doctrines of the Church.

I recognize a need for guidance and a more systematic approach, but my nature is introverted and independent to the point of eccentricity. I've never met a teacher nor an institution I could submit to, and perhaps that is my own fault, but I want to submit to Christ, and I try to find his intermediary in the Church. I'm just not sure what degree of involvement I am suited to have with the Church. Taking direction, as well as finding my place within a community, is not easy, and I'm not even sure it is possible for me. I stay on the outside because whenever I try to assert myself, I alienate people with my intensity and social naivette. Perhaps my place is on the outside.

In Christ,
Stephen

Openings

Cynics care what a man does, not who he is,
and can scarcely distinguish between the two.

Release your grip, relax and slip,
fall back and down, sink, sink, drop through,
trust Peace, and let Presence examine you.

Inside, the flame of Christ, and my poor heart dripping away. The subtle separating from the gross. Softly falling dregs of flesh, and perfumes of softly wafting soul; the incense of His Love. Cumbersome senses put to sleep, endless questions laid to rest, passions never fixed. Language crumbling into dust. The Virgin scattering into birds. Intimations breaking cloudbanks, and carried off by angels; for the Lord looks kindly on those who cannot fly.

My Soul, your great ambition was to be the artist. But, after a mere taste of humility, you wanted to be the brush. Another taste, and you swore you could become the paint. Yet another, and now you are even thinking like the canvas! So, for Christ's sake, be still. The LORD is painting his self-portrait.

My greatest insights are experienced at the limits of my understanding. It is only in the self-honest sense of my uncertainty and ignorance that I begin to touch my deepest truth. Only when the mystery remains intact, have I come to the ends of myself; if I am not confounded, it is because I have stopped short of the precipice. Every answer has in it something of a lie, and every question something of a truth.

Silence -- not listening to, but hearing from God -- is truth.

Because he spoke, because he loved, because he moved;
by his will, the Father draws us into communion with himself,
and what can we do, but wait upon his Word?

Man is either a slave of passion or a servant of love, --
but, for a single instant, when he chooses his destiny,
he is free; if only to decide who his master will be.

Your pain as well as your pleasure, your anger as well as your joy, your weakness as well as your strength, your fear as well as your faith, -- make you lovely in the eyes of the Lord.

He is mystery. He is awe. He is radiant design. Serendipity with a style. The abyss winking at you from behind the world. He is a chorus of light in the mind. Splendor beneath the surface of time. We should marvel at his depths. He is the reason for himself.

What a perfect expression it is, to say that we "reflect on" what we take into our minds, since we really do come to resemble, like a reflection, the matters we focus on. We cannot spend a day in the study of the saints without acquiring a conspicuous blush of goodness. And though we may become pale again a day later, all at once, the blood of Christ will run back into our cheeks, provided that we turn again to what is good. Saintliness is little more than an ingrained habit of fascination with goodness, and with God, who alone is good. Not all at once, nor once and for all, did the good become good. Rather, they became good by dwelling persistently on what is good. Even Jesus had to pray, and has to still. But, then, if he did not pray, he would not be himself. God is Prayer to God.