Beware This Love!

In the center of my chest, in the core of my Being,
in the furnace of my belly, without effort, letting be:

I sense the love of my Father's spirit, my Source,
abon d'b'shmayim, eternal Father, take its course,

filling and fulfilling me, pushing forth, pouring out
into my atmosphere, subtle, onto all and about.

I get out of the way, remove myself, let it, and see...
let it pack and embrace the one standing before me.

Forbearing all, yet bearing nothing, it is the bear,
I but the bearer who carries and bares it openly there

where it chooses to express itself - this love I do not own,
this great and open secret, unspoken unseen sent down.

to manifest from one Human to another, from one created
Act of creation to another, this love may flow unabated.

One cannot make it so, fake it so, force it, but only surrender
to it when it calls, and witness to its quickening power.

Removing thought and theory, relaxing shadow-play of ego:
flowing from heart it greets, soothes, heals, because it's so.

Indiscriminate toward so much and many, taking all in its arms,
one would think its the nicest of loves, could do no one harm.

And this is true of course, yet it has quite other dimensions,
whose scope is fixed on those with foulest intention.

The intensity of love when directed at darkest forces ruling,
who rape and behead, burn and plunder in His Name and sing

praises of their deeds and examples they've taken -
shows itself as wrath upon these, they are entirely forsaken.

The wrath of God's love which shatters destructive egos must
be for those who know Him better not to fear but to trust.

All may receive this love, this moment.  Those who've earned this wrath now
will receive it tomorrow upon themselves and down to the marrow.

All is real, don't preach about illusions!  Regard what others are going through!
But all the more real, more real than all the chicanery, jihad mass murder accrued:

is this embracing love, and yes, love's wrath embracing those demonic entities.
Love doesn't reward but is its own; wrath however is the reward for wrathful jihadis.

Faith

Faith: A delicate thread fine as silk and strong as steel.
Belief may waver between hope and despair – faith, never.
Belief may be tested, faith is what survives the test.
Belief may develop, faith ripens.
Belief still feels the wind of ego, faith stills the wind.

What Peace Is Not

"The-Religion-Of-Peace" being sold us, is not.
And neither is peace "the opposite of war," as that is only a cease-fire or a non-hostile accord; non-hostility is certainly civil, but peace it ain't, rather a civil non-war.

Nor is being nice and getting along comfortably, peace.
Nor is appeasement, nor is it non-action passing for non-violent, nor non-confrontational, nor submitting to more dominant personalities because they dominate.

Peace is not "giving me a break" or avoidance of the unpleasant and disagreeable, nor is it the seeking of these; it is neither a matter of opinion nor is it ever mainstream or politically correct – ever; peace is not wishful thinking, though one may well wish for peace and desire it for others.  It is without arrogance or self-satisfaction in the least, solid without insisting on its solidity.

Peace is:   a state of non-ego, sovereign unto itself.  Politics cannot even approach it, even "balance" does not quite deliver, although there is balance in it.  When Scripture speaks of "the peace which passes all understanding," what Paul meant in this is that peace is without ego – and therefore outside of what the ego can grasp or use or manipulate or fake.  It is not unattainable, just not with ego.  That is what makes it sovereign.

Not with politics, not with appeasement, not with ideology of any kind whatsoever.  Not by falling all over each other to court and crawl before "The-Religion-Of-Peace" and practice greeting one another with "peace" in Arabic.  I once adhered to this notion, we no longer can afford to – one's own language will suffice.  Anyone is quite free to disagree with me on any point, we may argue or not, it doesn't matter.  I am at peace with what I am saying.

Peace is non-ego in action, one responds accordingly without being "the do-er," and leaving the approval or disapproval of others outside the equation.  How one is to come to this, how this is reached, attained, is too obvious to bear mentioning here.

I wish everyone reading this, as likewise myself, peace – the peace which passes all understanding. May healing come.

A Candle for a Farthing

I usually will rather be found writing than quoting, but three occur to me as I do so.  There's an old saying, that "God hath no power over a mother's prayer" - or something like that.  Well I think I am a mother, at least some have called me "you muthuh"...  Among other reasons that I have candles lit in my place, one candle remains ever lit, a long burning oil candle I try to replace just before it goes out.  This candle has but one purpose:  anywhere, at any one time, any given moment, somewhere someone is suffering at the hands of another, right this moment, and I won't know about it till I read it in tomorrow's or next week's paper, or through any other media, or never.  I don't obsess over it, but it disturbs me, because we really are powerless to do much of anything about it.  It might pertain to a woman, a girl or a boy, a defenseless man or a defenseless child, it may apply to an animal, large or small.  But out there someone is certainly the target of mistreatment, of cruelty, of sadism, or in some way tragically, unjustly left to his or her or its fate.  And quite alone wth it at that.

Okay, that's life.  Yet as Christ said, in his best King James, "You can purchase a sparrow for a farthing, but know: that not a sparrow falleth to the ground, but the heavenly Father knoweth."  Now that Father is a Mother if that's the case, because I can rant myself ragged over the ignorance, the arrogance, the hypocrisies and the deals, the ideological or just plain illogical inhumanities, the anonymous hurt, the anonymous slow-death of victims of perpetrators.  What can I do for the victims, what can I do about the perpetrators?  There's an old saw which we've all heard too often, but who does it?  "Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."

Never mind who said it, who does it?  Whatever else I do or don't do or cannot – there is a Mother's prayer ceaselessly intoning in my heart, going out from there and joining with that candle in knowing, in partnership with our heavenly Father, that there is a sparrow fallen.  That one might be reached or not, might be rescued or not, might be comforted or not, but one thing in my seeming powerlessness that I do know:  that one shall no longer be alone; somewhere in the city, somewhere in the world, somewhere in my living room – someone is listening, is breathing with that one, is sending out beams of love, of compassion, of succor, of joy.

There may be no ego in this, no helper-syndrome, no self-comforting.  Where there is ego there will never be peace.  Where the ego is overcome for the sake of the real Self, that already is peace, and that is power.

Everyone has an ego, it has a purpose and must be developed.  Imagine though, what your work place would be like if everyone were egoless – not flat, not dull, not boring, not alike, this is what egolessness ain't.  I mean, creative, active, giving, cooperating, achieving together or alone – but it's all no longer "about me".  No bullshitting or griping or whining, no proselytizing, no ideologies.  Just in-joying an ego-free environment.  As our old friend Paul Reps said, "Until it's fun better left undone."

So when I so much as glance at that candle, I wrap someone anonymous to me in the warmest wings of love, and project out joy, unabashed joy.

Join me if this moves you.

A Candle for a Farthing