Terry Chapman's - Sabbath Journey

The Soulful Art of Restoration

Layer upon layer

the paint accumulates

on my heart.

 

The base coat is pure white;

bright, hot, shimmering,

almost transparent. 

 

Then with life; every longing,

every pulling and pushing,

every judgement, each should,

 

more colors are added;

all the primary colors

and infinite shades in between.

 

I reluctantly yield to 

the Restorer who, with 

loving care, applies the magic

 

to the surfaces of my life, 

not to wash away the 

accumulated living colors,

 

for that would be death—

the canvas of creation,

upon which love’s paint is splashed—

 

but to allow the white

to shine through every surface

of this unfinished work. 

Love the Questions

I will follow the poet's advice

and love the questions that

dwell in the darkness of 

which I was born and to

which I shall pass.

 

I will love the questions

and the shadows they 

cast on my path

in spite of the resulting

sadness that settles in my heart.

 

I will follow the questions more 

than the halogen light whose 

limiting beam shines on the walls of

rooms of our own making

falling short of the mystery beyond.

 

The questions, I trust,

will lead me though the

door in the wall of certainty

into the limitless darkness;

a darkness that embraces all.

 

For Jan

When I awaken from

The slumber,

Throwing off

The blanket of Separateness,

Opening sleepy

Eyes to the bright

New day of livingness,

The first thing I

Give thanks for Is you.

Love's perfection

A reflection on tomrrow's text from Matthew 5

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Grace seems too good to be true
In the hearts of those
Whose God is too small 
Whose love demands perfection 
Whose acceptance has some other
Source than God's own endless compassion

The one whose experience of life
Tells a different soiled story that
Cannot be reconciled with divine
Demands for perfection wanders
Lonely and confused in unfreedom
Lost on the wide path of autonomy  

Sit for a while, you are in good company 
Let your anxious grasping to be
Something else, someone else, somewhere else
Be quite and still- watch as now, just now
The gate that opens to the narrow path in 
the center of your being swings as if

Moved by a gentle breeze
Even breath flowing from 
The very heart of God
Carrying upon its fragrant currents
A love song that awakens 
What had slipped into deep sleep

Hum(us)anity

Things are not nearly so comprehensible and sayable as we are generally made to believe.  Most experiences are unsayable; they come to fullness in a realm that words do not inhabit.  And most unsayable of all are works of art, which - alongside our transient lives - mysteriously endure.

Rilke. Letters to a Young Poet, February 17th, 1903.

humus:  –noun - the dark organic material in soils, produced by the decomposition of vegetable or animal 

matter and essential to the fertility of the earth.

 

Humusanity

 

Now I know

why “humility”

is rooted in humus.

 

When dancing with the 

unsayable it is best 

to take off one’s shoes;

 

not only out of

respect for the

fire that could consume,

 

but also that you 

can feel the squishy

dirt between your toes.

 

When gazing through wondrous 

mystery it is best to 

let words fall to the ground;

 

not only because 

of their paling inadequacy

in the light of the ineffable,

 

but also that the words

might die in exchange

for the fertile new to emerge.

 

When called to speak 

holy things to make us holy 

it might be wise to be silent;

 

not only because what once

felt like truth flowing effortlessly from your lips

now feels like ruminating on mud pie,

 

but also that out of the soil of unknowing 

words of salvation might cleanse

the breath like heavenly mouthwash.

 

I pray that I and you too

should you choose to join me

may have the courage

 

to walk humbly with

God-Earth-Me-You-All

sayable and unsayable

 

that we may dance

together, barefooted

in the dirt of our humusanity.