Category Archives: Poetry
Learning to Pray
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Swaying walnut trees above the rooftops
Wave golden tipped arms over the
Unmoving great blue heron in
Frozen pose at river’s edge, patiently
Poised for rainbow trout swaying in
Crosscurrents of pristine ice melt
Smoothing granite composites as it
Laughs its way to gulf and sea where the
Great whales dive for giant squid and
Sing their base songs of love amidst
Oscillating feathers of red and blue-green algae.
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Deer attune oversize ears like radar and
The great bear sniffs the breeze as
The golden eagle soars thousands of feet
Above the tiny mouse scurrying along a
Moss laden forest floor above the family of shrews
While over the snow-laden peaks lies a vast
Desert bejeweled with flower flames that
Burst forth en masse after the rains that
Filled dry wadis, awakened toads from sleep,
And gave drink to antelopes and hares as
Diamond back rattlesnakes sunned themselves.
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The centenarian struggled from his chair
Gripping the walker tightly and slowly
Shuffling out to gaze at Aquarius, great Ea,
His wispy white hair blowing like the burgee
Atop the mast of the anchored schooner
Which itself nods in thanksgiving for the
Gift of the water-bearer; at one with the
Prisoner gripping the cell bars with scarred
Eyes straining skyward and the bedraggled
Homeless woman peeking out from under
Old newspaper blankets in the alleyway.
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Children laugh and play in sandboxes under
Monkey bars while seesaws creak for oil,
Daddy’s push swings, mommies on benches
Chat about crumbling empires as cathedral
Bells toll the passing of time, ringing hope
Across the land, and calling the gentle
Cloistered to prayer while, across town
A minaret adhan sings forth and the
Devout face east at the same time that
Phylactery strapped men rock in gentle
Rhythm with prayer books in hand.
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Scent of burning sage, swinging thurible,
Flickering candles, the Yoruba call upon Olodumare,
Indigenous dances in colorful colors, drum beats
Cassock and surplice adorned children
Sing Bach arias that harmonize with the
The brooks and whales, birds and trees,
Laughter and tears, hearts and minds,
Incantations and prayers, songs and groans, all
Drifting into ethereal realms where seraphim
And cherubim alike add their voices to the
Chorus of cosmic praise.
Neediness vs. Needing
That all of nature is interconnected is a given. The symbiosis of pollinators and flowers, aspen groves, climate and weather, and gravity and planets remind us that what affects one affects all.
That no person is an island is equally obvious. We are interconnected in thousands of ways. Others are typically responsible for growing our food, generating our power, fixing our broken bodies, and teaching our children. None of us is gifted enough, wise enough, talented enough, or skilled enough to be independent. We grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually in connection with others. We need each other for physical survival and emotional wellbeing. There are tasks too big to be accomplished alone. I may perhaps provide some assistance to a homeless person or two; but united, we could, if we really cared, eliminate homelessness.
It is good and essential to care for, respect, and nurture the natural world and one another. United we stand, divided we fall. E pluribus unum.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.[1]
On the other hand, there is a negative kind of need. When need becomes neediness, codependence, clinginess, a sense that I am not whole without a particular other, it is counterproductive and harmful. The essential distinction between healthy interconnectedness and dysfunctional dependence lies in the source of life.
There is, in my view, only one ultimate source of life and love, and that is God. God is perfect love, the author of life, the source and destination of all that is eternally and essentially good. When I am connected to that source, drawing my deepest need for love, light, life, truth and wellbeing from God, I can in healthy ways love nature, others, and myself. The connectedness to others and nature flows altruistically from me. It produces a sense of deep peace and wholeness; whereas, if I am trying to suck life and love out of a sense of codependent neediness, I will always feel drained, manipulated, and underappreciated.
A telos, a destination of concerted contemplative prayer is to bring us to a place where God is all we need, our singular source of unconditional love and life, where, ultimately, God is the only one we couldn’t live without. We will know we are approaching that destination when we discover growing empathy and compassion within us for all other people, for all living things, for all of creation – an empathy accompanied by deep grounded peace.
It may sound counterintuitive, but the more we relax and let go, the closer we become to others. The less we strive, the more our relationships thrive. The less we cling in neediness, the more we can love in wholeness. The less we “need” someone in the negative sense, the more we can mutually enjoy them.
Contemplative prayer opens our hearts, expands our beings, so that the divine life-affirming love can flow untrammeled into us and out of us to others.
[1] John Donne, MEDITATION XVII Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
“For everyone will be salted with fire.” (Mark 9:49)
The sky lit up with the streaking fiery tails of
Incoming missiles announcing the day we
All knew would come but chose to ignore.
A flash of blinding white light as the
Earth belched out rings of heat that
Caused eyes to melt and towns to
Spontaneously combust.
We found ourselves standing in a
Crowd of people – Chinese, Russian, American –
People of all ages, shapes and sizes, all naked,
All stunned, all in a strange place where
Shadows played against walls of granite
And a soft grey mist covered the land
As far as one could see. Millions of us, waiting
The searing white light that had transported us
Here appeared dull in our memories in
Comparison to the colossal figure before us
That had only the ever-shifting form of fire.
He swung an incense burner with his left hand
It’s coals glowing red-hot, puffs of black smoke
Drifting over us. He reached into the firepot,
Grasping a handful of coals, holding them for
A moment or two as he looked out over the crowd.
Without flinching, he crumbled the coals with his
Bare hand, sowed them aloft, and blew
The airborne embers over us.
It rained a torrent of tiny specks of fire, but,
As they landed on our naked bodies, the
Resultant pain was more relief than
Torture. We understood one another’s
Languages; no one was a stranger, we
Suddenly knew and cared for each other, and,
As the embers faded, strange ethereal music
Rose to a crescendo, as the mist dissipated,
And all the world erupted in bird-song and flowers
And we danced together and laughed with
Animals that spoke and mountains that sang.
One
Beating to windward clutching
A mainstay, squinting into
Salty wind, eyelids lightly
Encased with a thin layer of brine
Knees flex with each swell
Mains’il and jib trimmed
Halyards and sheets cleated beneath a
Soaring curious ring-billed gull
Whose eye catches site of a
Bass exactly the right size
For a lunch if only he can
Protect it from avian thieves
Consciousness melts and
Boundaries soften as oneness
Washes over me as the seas
Wash over the reefs
Now called into awareness
Of the transcendent, simultaneously
Intensely conscious of everything and
Nothing at all
The sea radiates aqua blue
As sunlight dances along and
Sky and clouds seem somehow
Brighter, about to burst into song
Now the individual fragments of
Self, boat, sail, bird, cloud, sea, wind
Dissolve into the whole
No longer me or it, but us
a green fly
From there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
(Hosea 2:15a[1])
Incapable of inauthenticity,
Sunkissed leaves sway in a
Summer breeze as a chorus of
Cardinals trill above the spotted
Fawn nibbling on a rose bush;
While the boy, not more than a
Decade old, lies locked within his
Brain, oblivious to mercy.
Wandering, lost, alone, scared
Damp swamp threatening each
Step shrouded in thick darkness
Surrounded by strange and
Terrible sounds of belching
Doom. Fear-frozen arms locked
Around a cedar trunk, an island in a
Thick stew of hopelessness.
How did one so young come to
This swamp of Achor where the
Innocent bones of Achan’s
Children are bleached, where
Devils lurk and shadows run for fear?
What ancestral sin is visited upon him?
Or, what adult transgression has
Teleported him back into childhood?
Elder with a wounded child within
Cries in the night, still clinging with a
Tiny shred of fading confidence to the
Cedar trunk, its fragrance somehow
Soothes and calls his attention to a
Minute green fly looking at him with
Large yellow eyes filled with a
Kindness not seen in his own species
Tiny flies with transparent wings and
Multicolored thoraxes swirl a vortex
Around him, their collective song
Melting fears into wonder; now
Lifting him softly upwards, floating,
Floating toward, now through, a
Portal of blue-green light into ineffable
Wholeness and shalom
Here, dolphins dance and massive
Cetacea spin near kindhearted mermaids
Who never intended their siren songs to
Lead to anything but genuine awareness of
Those hard truths we distain to face
Because we have not yet learned of our
Belovedness, nor of graces that are
Woven through the cosmic fiber
[1] New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Precious Death
I.
My name is Ahyoka. In Cherokee, that means “she brought happiness,” but I have known no happiness. We tried to accommodate, to live like the white man. We dressed in the clothes of the white man, learned his language. We built houses in villages with stores and shops; we tended farms and sold our crops in the market. We had art, music, and culture, religion, and language for centuries before the white man came. The white men called themselves “Christians.” We lived peacefully in what the white man calls “Georgia.”
Then they said an order came from Chief Andrew Jackson. Our homes, shops, and lands were stolen. My mother was one of the women raped. They stole all our belongings. We children hid in the woods, eating roots and berries until they found us. In rags we walked the trail of tears. Our grandparents died on the way. We were “given” land where crops would not grow, and left in squander to starve.
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, save my life!”
15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
II.
In my native Ghana, my name, Nyamékyε means “gift from God.” I was given that name because my mother was long childless. I was the answer to her prayers. I grew strong in our village. My father was a mighty hunter. I was given in marriage to a handsome man who was also a hunter. The entire tribe rejoiced when I gave birth to Quaashie. Quaashie means Sunday. We often name our children after the day of the week they were born. Quaashie was a strong, healthy boy.
I was sitting on a log by the river outside our village nursing Quaashie one warm afternoon when they threw a net over us and we were trapped. They beat us and packed us into a large boat. We lay chained on shelves with others inches below and above us. From above, the excrement fell down on us. We were covered in dung and sweat. The white men took us out of chains every few days, brought us up on deck, dumped salty water over us, then raped us. My vagina bled and my belly hurt. We ate horrible tasting swill. When we finally reached shore, they stood me, holding Quaashie, naked on a block wearing chains. White men stuck their hands in my vagina and squeezed my breasts. They spoke strange languages.
I wailed when they ripped Quaashie from my arms. I never saw him again. I never saw my husband again. I never saw my mother, or father, or villagers again. Chained, I was thrown in a wagon and taken to what they called a “plantation” that was land stolen from native people like me. The white people are Christians, but not like what our preachers tell us. The one they call “master” rapes me every week. I have born three babies by him. They have all been sold away. And here I must pick cotton under the overseer’s whip until I die.
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, save my life!”
15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
III.
I am Adinah, which means “gentle delicate one” in my native Poland. We are Jewish. My daddy was a professor of literature at the university. My mother was a concert violinist in the symphony. I had a little brother named Aleksander. Our home was filled with fine art, books, and music. Daddy’s library had tomes from floor to ceiling. His big mahogany desk always covered with papers. A large globe sat on a stand in the corner. A baby-grand Steinway sat in our drawing room. We all played it. My mother practiced her violin for hours every day. The sunlight streamed through curtains and danced off the crystal chandelier.
There were screams in the streets the day the Nazis came and kicked open our door, seized each of us, then looted our house, stealing all of value. They threw us into trucks, then packed us like cattle onto trains. I never saw my mother, father, or little brother ever again.
The camp had barbed wire and men with guns who called us names and said we were not human. They were Christian and called us “Christ-killers.” They said we drank blood at our feasts. Women in tan uniforms yelled at us, beat us, kicked us. We were packed into drafty wooden buildings. We slept on shelves like slaves on a ship. We dressed in rags. Most of the girls and women in my bunkhouse died of cold or starvation. Others were taken for “medical research. We never saw them again.
A foul-smelling smoke wafted continuously from chimneys and ash fell on us all. I remember the nauseating feeling I got when I learned it was the ash of humans like me.
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, save my life!”
15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
IV.
The brutal Russians and the helpless Ukrainians are Christians. My name is Yuriy. I am Ukrainian. I am 14-years old. Invading Russian soldiers stopped my father Ruslan, and me when we went out for humanitarian aid. We raised our hands. We were unarmed. They shot my father dead. He was shot twice in the chest, right where the heart is. Then he fell. They shot me in the arm. As I lay on the ground, they shot at my head, but the bullet went through my hood.
5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord protects the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest,
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
9 I walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
LRT 9 April 2022. Scripture is from Psalm 116, NRSV. The story in section IV comes from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60989121
Relentless Love (a meditation on Psalm 107)
How long had she been wandering?
Alone, lost, confused, disconnected
From her true self, unable to find her
Way into authenticity?
How long had he been in this dungeon?
Chained in dark dampness, warmed only
By vermin vying for crumbs of stale bread?
Addiction’s vile tentacles wrapped around his spine?
How long had her body been wracked with pain,
Shivering and vomiting, sweating, delirious?
Attached to dripping tubes and whirring machines
While physicians prodded, poked, and ignored?
How long had they endured this eternal hurricane?
Tossing the tiny ship to the sky,
Plunging it to hell, chaos, darkness,
Watery grave from which none return?
How long must they withstand this tyrant?
Suffering the brutal oppression of bitter totalitarianism?
Where no one dare call their soul their own,
And injustice sits enshrined alongside of greed?
There, on the horizon lies the bright city
Garden city
City of lights
City of peace
City of connectedness
Freedom city
Beloved city
City of health and vitality
Peace and equanimity
Justice and joy
City with foundations
Whose architect and builder is God
Redeemed from wandering, into the fellowship of the city
Redeemed from bondage, chains, and prison into freedom and light
Redeemed from sickness and pain, into health, vitality
Redeemed from the storms of watery chaos into safety, peace, equanimity
Redeemed from oppression by evil rulers into familial freedom
The unwavering,
eternal,
universal,
unconditional
steadfast love of YHWH never ceases.
a river of grief
Most every spring the river would flood.
we were used to it, but as Greed
continued to destroy the Garden,
the rains came earlier and
earlier, and more and more
intensely, which concerned us,
yet we learned to live with the new
normal. After all, the old log house
was built on poles sunk deeply into
the earth. worst case scenario, we’d
sip chardonnay, gaze into the forest
and simply wait for the water to recede.
in the dark hours of early morning
the crash came with shattering glass
smashing porcelain, and twisting metal.
everything paused at 45 degrees as if the
cabin stopped to bow respectfully to Queen River
like a conquered general surrendering his army.
We momentarily breathed relief
a deafening crunch as if a malevolent giant
was crumbling up the house like a piece of
scrap paper – splinters and shards,
missiles and spears, dust and plaster,
a sucking sound, a roar, sliding, sliding,
now swirling into the raging muddy river
wet, cold, freezing, gasping, grasping,
panic, desperation, no breath to scream
on and on, day after day, more panic,
so cold, so alone, so afraid, raging waters
churning, churning, churning,
scraping rocks too cold to bleed, too afraid to live,
mind numb, limbs blue, vision blurry
how long?
(i was swept downstream in the angry river
for centuries by shape-shifting Achelous, the
progenitor of Sirens, who was whipped into wrath
by the self-indulgence of evil wizards)
there is no timeline for grief
society’s grid is nonsense.
the raging flooded river carries
each one on a different journey,
a journey that never ends,
that transforms the heart
for good or for ill.
after many years, the river widened.
the current, while strong,
seemed less ferocious, less angry, less
determined to drown me,
the water warmer now,
almost pleasant in spite of still
carrying remnants of broken
homes and lives, and the bodies of
dreams and hopes and loves
only on a chart can you see where this river
empties into that river which empties into
that gulf, which feeds that ocean, for, in reality
it is all one, from mountain springs fed by melting snow to
streams and brooks, to the mighty breakers that
spray lighthouses, it is all one
we are all one
impossible to determine when it happened exactly,
but one day, still floating, now on my back,
warm sun on my face, rocked gently by the currents of
mother river, i realized that this river of sorrow that
i thought was surely my death, carried me until it
emptied me ever so gently into
My True Self
Meditation from 2 Timothy — Paul in prison writing his last letter
Does one ever get used to cold darkness,
To hard and bitter clay atop icy bedrock?
Many a time have I been in this place, in
Other places and at other times, all
Different and exactly the same –
Chained to walls, or once to soldiers
Alas, no more
A chill so deep, chattering teeth,
Blue lips and fingers, numb feet and toes,
Shivering, fetal position, rags and excrement
Damp stench of urine, fever, and human dung
No bars, windows, doors, visitors, except the
Sentry with bowls of slop twice daily,
Nauseating and unidentifiable
Rags only, festering sores, oozing pus,
Eyes burning and blurry, without
Cloak or scrolls or parchment or quill
No companions except the rats that
Race across my legs, looking for a
Drop of gruel. They look at me with the
Longing eyes of brothers
Abandoned. Alone. Always alone.
They are ashamed of me –
Criminal, incarcerated, forsaken by
God, guilty, must be guilty of
Something, otherwise,
Why would he be there?
Chained and alone?
Surely, if God were for him
Mighty angels would have
Snapped the chains and stunned the
Guards – no, he is deserted by God,
Cast off for heresy – absurd to think of a
Kingdom that welcomes whores and pimps and
Pagan curs
God has his reasons for leaving him there –
Prosperity, wealth, success, victory, conquering
Come to the ones with whom God is pleased
Surely, they say, what goes around comes around, and
He is only eating his just desserts
So, distance yourself, they cry, lest you too
Sit in chains
The end is near.
The executioner’s axe is sharp.
There is no victory.
No parade.
No strong finish.
No miracles.
No deliverance.
No kiss of grace or touch of love in
The damp – only the wails of
Distant prisoners being dragged to
Stakes and crosses and chopping blocks
So their blood can oil the machine, or,
Depending on their choice,
Mingle with the pascal mystery
And then …
He comes
I see no visions
No flashes of light this time
No audible voice this time
But he is here, and I,
Enveloped in perfect Love,
Am not at all alone.
And all is well
Warmed by grace
Embraced by acceptance
Enlivened by divine smiles
Held by everlasting arms
At the universe center
I lay me down to sleep.
The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor 