make a book

I dream of it. Here's my new favorite blog site. Need to share:



This artist, Yuken Teruya takes shopping bags and creates small paper still life dioramas. It took my breath away.

photo from http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/yuken_teruya.htm

freedom for you

I have liberation in hope
tied to this 3-D frame
I don't ever give up.

The spirit doesn't need me to
know his name
The blessing comes just the same
Just the same to king or queen-
replicas reverberate that distant ring.

I can't deny the breathe I have
it feeds my ears to hear it sing
My tears try to deny it
my feet seem chained
But my soul resurrects when
he sings it: please sing

"out over the past of what happened
what lives, I sing of my mansion
my father still gives
You must not imagine it too fine nor hidden
my heart is your love
I stand in the open

have you heard of the prisoners,
the slaves in the ancients?
they want you to know of their
hope; they're contagious.

I fed them.
with the same blood and bones
I was stripped, lacerated
as you are
It's shameless!

Look for me! I'm in 'the best you can do'
I'm in heartbeats and first light
in what you won't do. Say no, say a lie-
I'm in every ingenious way that you try
to know me; I'm hope and I'm true
Freedom, it's freedom
freedom for you"

Faithful To What Is

Christians embrace a shallower version of Jesus.

There is a world out there with all manner of ideas about Jesus. Frankly I don't see anything in the gospels that demands our belief; no coersion. It is given and then we can enter. Even someone who approaches God from unbelief is simply responding to the reality of Christ in the world, no matter what manner of faith he settles on.

To the humanist, Jesus' teaching allows for his faith, his opinion. But the truth of it demands action. Maybe Christians have come to faith through the influence of a disciple of Christ, but they can never remain in faith because of them. We can look at the words of any follower and find truth. But nothing can give me relationship to Christ other than Jesus himself. I choose relating. I am thankful for the opportunity. I want within myself to know Christ, even as I would want to know my husband or my children. Many do not make more of him than the gospels claim. That may be all that we need. Does God demand us to agree? Do you not believe there is a god who could make a demand? But now we come to the level of philosophical thinking that Jesus' teaching seems to take for granted. Christianity is bigger than what I ever thought it was. I can barely keep up with the Sermon on the Mount. Anything a humanist may say about Christ is no more generous than what the most traditional supplicant would say. Jesus Christ is the point and all eyes are on him.

Poems believe.

I'm finding it a little easier to just begin praying whenever I think of it. No need to launch into some preparatory salutation. I just begin. I just start where I left off. It occured to me while I was waiting for the light at the corner of State College and Lambert, that Christ is really on my side.

Why not! I believe so much about Him anyway. Why not go the whole way and imagine Him at pains to have me reach the wholeness I long for? I smiled at us, there in the car. It didn't seem to matter that I had no visual of Him. I can't truly see myself either, but I believe in my own existence.
So as soon as I come down from my philosophical heights, I feel immediately attentive. I am that much more alive, in this believing state. Suddenly, it's okay to love fiercely. It's right to be patient. It's what I am- to have a dream and to work it out. Then I talk to Him and I wonder aloud what He's thinking. I trust that I know, as I wonder. Whatever I come up with seems fine to Him. ("whatever is good, right, praise worthy; go ahead and think on that".)

I write poems and they feel like a set of weights I lift in reps. Each time I work them, I feel the muscle of my faith reaching out. I am moving through something and searching it out. A lantern is lifted above my head in the space I explore. I wouldn't go if I didn't feel safe. I'm not brave. Rather, these exercises of poems make me create a familiar landscape. I expect gifts. And I get them. I write my own "read", a good word of prayer. I write them all day long and some of them in ink.

it lies to me this
loneliness
it tells of absence then
a dead end road
i see the barricade
the type in red

but behind me a
trusted mystery
reminds me
of a deep well and
an elegant table

it's remarkable
the instinctive calm
that resides to the west
of my head
when the east longs
for the risen face
no matter
how far the expanse

Abolition

ab-o-li-tion: the action or act of abolishing a system, practice or institution:

Last night I sat and listened to Dave Batstone speak about modern day slavery. Some wonderful people are fired up to "spend themselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed"

I'll be lending a hand.

Batstone has a way of invitation. He spoke with gentleness and eloquence. There is no need to "spin" the story of slavery. It's the story of women and children who are caught in forced labor no less devastating than what once ruled the US less than three generations ago. The Land of the Free is certainly not free for too many. Yes, the slaves are right here. In restaurants, city centers, and attractive travel locations. And there is a large segment of our society who indulge in the use of young women.

And this may be the last concern of an overly de-sensitized community.

As we confront racism, let us continue on to tackle the short-sighted quality of our environment. Who serves your food? What kind of coffee and chocolate are you buying? Who made your clothes? Where are you going on vacation? What are you doing there? What are the people in your life doing at parties?

We think it could never be us. The romancing of the plantation owner of yesteryear keeps us from identification.
The Abolition Movement is alive and well. Join it.

From Here, They are Harmless

There is a world of words to hear and to read and
write and breathe. And my breath to live them
Halleluiah!

And a poem to be written, some unseen wisdom
that can only be known in the telling
See!

There it spills out like water, exhales like air
the hope of a moment fixed like a star
Thank God for night, right now! Thank God for night-
the exhale of day
the space to see stars

From here, they are harmless
meant for beauty and dreams
Properly attended
companions
out of reach

Respect the unknowing and relenquish the end
that you crave; a mere motive to walk and live
An object of nature not to be known
is your intellect humbled, an inhabited home.