Psalm 46

Come, behold the works of the Beloved,
how love does reign even in
humanity's desolation.
For the Beloved yearns for wars to cease,
shining light into fearful hearts...
"Be still and know that I am Love.
Awaken! Befriend justice and mercy;
Do you not know you bear my Love?
Who among you will respond?"
O Blessed One, You know all hearts,
You are ever with us;
may Love ever guide our lives!

Let Rain Be Rain

Let rain be rain.
Let wind be wind.
Let the small stone
be the small stone.
May the bird
rest on its branch,
the beetle in its burrow.
May the pine tree
lay down its needles.
The rockrose, its petals.
It's early. Or it's late.
The answers
to our questions
lie hidden
in acorn, oyster, the seagull's
speckled egg.
We've come this far, already.
Why not let breath
be breath. Salt be salt.
How faithful the tide
that has carried us—
that carries us now—

That secret from the river

Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.

Mystery about rivers

There is a mystery about rivers that draws us to them, for they rise from hidden places and travel by routes that are not always tomorrow where they might be today. Unlike a lake or sea, a river has a destination and there is something about the certainty with which it travels that makes it very soothing, particularly for those who've lost faith with where they're headed.

Everything That Ever Was

Like a wide wake, rippling
Infinitely into the distance, everything

That ever was still is, somewhere...

The fierce magic emerging here

I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.

It has all been one day

This morning a splendid dawn passed over our house on its way to Kansas. This morning Kansas rolled out of its sleep into a sunlight grandly announced, proclaimed throughout heaven, one more of the very finite number of days that this old prairie has been called Kansas, or Iowa. But it has all been one day, that first day. Light is constant, we just turn over in it. So every day is in fact the selfsame evening and morning.

Captured in the moment

Time as objective reality has never made much sense to me. It's what happens that matters. How can minutes and years, devices of our own creation, mean the same thing to gnats and to cedars? Two hundred years is young for the trees whose tops this morning are hung with mist. It's an eyeblink of time for the river and nothing at all for the rocks...

If there is meaning in the past and in the imagined future, it is captured in the moment. When you have all the time in the world, you can spend it, not on going somewhere, but on being where you are. So I stretch out, close my eyes, and listen to the rain.

Born Again

I want to be born again, in exactly the selfsame life,
aware this time from the inside out, and to stand this time
as a beautiful un-worrying witness, living beyond
the need for this or that...

We age

We age while we hope.

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