Terry Chapman's - Sabbath Journey

I Thirst

I want to be an artist
Giving shape to the beauty
That lives like a restless child
In my mind

I long to touch music
So that sweet notes
Flow through my fingers
On strings and keys

To write the great novel
That carries readers
Into worlds yet
Discovered

Then the poem
To open doorways
To the heart's
Caverns

I want to be a contemplative
Who sits with soft
Ease amidst the
Swirling tides

then a prophet
Who climes towers
To warn those
Nearing the precipice

The father
Whose wisdom
Holds space for His children
to remember who they are

The friend
Who can be woken
In the middle of the night
To give comfort empty of advice

I want to know the source
Of this great thirst
To discover the
Headwaters of this river

Flooding a wide delta
Within my soul
Spilling into to the vast sea
Of inconsummation

In the pause I
Remember I am
All this, only
In fated and
Perfectly
Flawed
Abundance

TLC

 

A New Day

We don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
HOWARD ZINN

A New Day At Double Trouble

Soft morning light
filtered through
thin mist
as if Nature
choose to waken
gently into the
new day.

The frost shrouded
the brown grasses
in sparkling filigree
a morning
meditation of
praise for the
new day.

Two mallard
couples landed
gently, without
a sound
sending echoing
ripples of gratitude
for the gift of the
new day.

Be still too
my soul and
walk reverently
on the path
into this holy
new day.

Painting the Real

“Where have you been
all this time” asked
the Muse as we sat together
by the pond with drops of rain
dancing on the smooth
surface of the water.

“I've been busy with
important things” said I.
"I know" she said, 
"There are so many things
drawing your attention
like a shadowy artist
guiding your unconscious hand
on the facade of your life
painting illusions of meaning."

“So, thank you for pausing
here with me
by the lake
for no other reason
than to watch the drops,
tears from above,
paint concentric circles
of insignificance
on the vast canvas
of life adding
each pixel to the Real.”

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted

Rumi

Childhood Friends

 

Put your vileness up to a mirror and weep. 

Get that self-satisfaction flowing out of you. 

 

Satan thought, I am better than Adam, 

and that better than is still strongly in us. 

 

Your streamwater may look clean, 

but there is unstirred matter on the bottom. 

 

Your guide can dig a side channel 

that will drain that waste off. 

 

Trust your wound to a teacher’s surgery. 

Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,

those flies of your self-protecting feelings, 

your love for what you think is yours. 

 

Let a teacher wave away the flies 

and put a plaster on your wound. 

 

Don’t turn your head. Keep looking 

at the bandaged place. 

 

That is where the light enters you. 

And don’t believe for a moment

you are healing yourself.

 

Barks, Coleman (2009-10-13). A Year with Rumi (p. 307). Harper Collins, Inc.

Passing through the gate

We are storied people and there something in us that longs to be connected to a larger story. Spiritual practices then can take root and enable us to deepen the story. 

There is a need to begin where we are on the path, not where we have been or where we wish we were. But right here, right now, with this very breath… and this breath. Locating one’s place on the unfolding path so one can access the gifts waiting there is the purpose of the Journey. The Present is the narrow gate that leads to transformation.

“We understand life as God and ourselves taking turns passing through this gate into each other until there is one common Being. With each passage through the gate, union deepens, until we are fully at home on the other side of the gate.” James Finely

Hafiz (14th Century)

This place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you.

Wherever your eyes and arms and heart can move
Against the earth and the sky,
The Beloved has bowed there -

Our beloved has bowed there knowing
You were coming.

Pondering the flow at Cedar Creek

Standing on the white bridge, 

that liminal space between 
now and then, 

I imagine the Stream’s 
source fading into the 
marshy pines 

and wonder what I
can learn about God 
from these origins. 

Then something draws 
me to turn and gaze 
downstream, imagining 

the ever widening 
delta flowing into 
the bay and cosmic ocean, 

to consider what 
can be remembered 
from this emergent future. 

In this Sabbath space 
between then and now
I take on the mantle of hope,

a new kind of hope,
not a turning from
the realities carried

between the contracted 
banks of a too 
small story,

but a hope that 
arrises on the uncertain 
horizon of the future.

In this turning
of heart and mind
a new and “fuller”

Being whispers
words too Holy
to repeat

yet reminds 
me of the Saint’s
prophecy:

All shall be well
All shall be well
Every manner of thing

shall be well.

“Like a river which, as you trace it back to its source, gradually diminishes till in the end it is lost altogether in the mud from which it springs, so existence becomes attenuated and finally vanishes away when we try to divide it up more and more minutely in space or—what comes to the same—to drive it further and further back in time. The grandeur of the river is revealed not at its source but at its estuary.” [Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe, trans. Gerald Vann (New York: Harper Colophon, 1969), 77.]

Early Christmas Decorations

@ Double Trouble State Park

She hung the ornaments 
in asymmetrical beauty,
unconcerned about
the seasons of Adam

who still lost in the fog 

of separation waits
for the turning of the
calendar and the

Advent of incarnation

which in her mind has 
no season, nor time
that God was not
enfleshed in

God’s creation.

A NEW STORY

we come bearing gifts

like leaves from 
the pages of our lives
symbols of our longing
remnants of our striving
inspired through hearts opened
by the tumultuous ocean
of time and toil

spools of thread
pallets of paint
feathers found 
cloth worn thin
water smoothed stones
and shimmering gems

artifacts from  
an old story
that once seemed true
but now fades
like a mist in 
the morning light

holy things
for holy people

not knowing how
the parts will become 
whole but trusting
the deep wisdom
that the more beautiful
story is already present
waiting be told

yet bears little
resemblance to 
that from which
the gifts were borrowed

what takes shape
from the offering 
of our gifts
is not a map
nor tool
nor idol to
be praised

but an icon
a window 
through which
the ancient future 
comes and meets us
enveloping us
in her sweet dark
embrace
inviting us to
let go ….

into a New Story
now knowing
this is the gift
of God for
all God’s people
for all creation
for all
for all
for all

Gloria Matri

How is it that the path that I have walked hundreds, if not thousands of times, became new this morning?

How is it that sound of traffic on the parkway faded away as if bowing to the whispers of the grass?

How is it that the red tipped blackbird became my eyes as he soared over pond?

How is it that my heart broke open to all this wonder?

How is it that Cedar Creek flowed through me and carried on its currents this poem?

Glory be to the Mother and to the Earth and to all Love that flows, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen. Amen.

Advent Hope

 

An unseasonably 

warm December 

morning fog 

hung heavily

 

over the bogs like

wet sheets left 

to dry in the hoped

for sun.

 

The golden grasses

strained upward

as to pierce through

the lingering fog.

 

The sun it its

persistent gaze sought 

to meet the golden 

grass with light.

 

I took the middle

path between heaven 

and earth paved by

bone and flesh;

 

my soul like the 

sun seeking

to enlighten the

depths of earth;

 

my spirit like 

the grasses reaching

up, up, up 

in ecstasy.

 

Step by step

on this Advent

Path where 

earth and heaven

 

kiss in the fog

like secret 

lovers

I came home

 

to the Advent

alchemy

where sun

and soil

 

meet leaving

only the 

gift of hope,

a deposit of 

 

pure

gold in the 

center

of my heart.