The Last Temptation

(Updated from Easter 2012) In the spirit on Nikos Kazantzakis’ book The Last Temptation of Christ, I came to imagine the carpenter, perhaps in the forests of Lebanon, searching for lumber and pausing to know the sanctity of the place, sitting there wondering, knowing, what was to transpire and proceeding with the work; A destiny he would carve into the wood.
Being a Roman citizen the carpenter was well aware of the rules, of the taxes, and the administration of the law, but as a Rabbi he also knew what belonged to Rome and what belonged to the Almighty.
In the years of his ministry he cast his nets on the waters of our emotions, and brought many souls to the shores of salvation, yet just as many slipped away. He dreams of their return to heaven, yet knows it must be their will, not his, that brings them home, so he is overwhelmed with compassion and continues at his task. Knowing full well that in the days ahead his work will end in the words “it is finished”

Father please find me a tall tree –
Deep shade to cool my brow
with leaves that reach for sunlight
in soil alive to nourish strong roots

I long for the forest’s deep silence
The place where your work was born
The love of our Mother unfolding
Becoming the life she would give

To the timber now felled before me
To the boards that are shaped and hewn
By these hands now gi’en to your work
Crafting a tree to the passion of Rome

Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s
and take not your presence from me
My work is but only your bidding
Your Spirit my hand has revealed

Have I not cast my nets on the waters
and drawn them back just to see
All the schools of souls you delivered
Have slipped from salvation again

Father, Mother I dream of taking
All my beloved home to you
In my arms I would carry as children
Free from the reins of their birth

This is my one last forbearance
That I could not lift up this flock
Without their own perfect intention
Revealing in life what they pray

I have shown them the way and the truth
I have shared more than I have to give
As my prayer is formed into this wood –
Your forgiveness is all I can find

In shaping this cross, your will is done
My work in this world will draw nigh
A memory, martyred, returning home –
many mansions prepared stand in faith

awakening

when I fell from some great height
who was there to see and feel
a soul into a waiting heart
alive, becoming, what is real?

words were wrapped in wonderment
tender ‘neath the veil of tears
breathing into what becomes
the music of the spheres

all we ever shall become
or ever knew could ever be
reflecting in the sunlit day
the Spirit into life set free

the spark upon the alter of
the living God we willed
the presence of divinity
became the life fulfilled

round again love will cross
e’er until the breathing in
returns to rest forever more
where light begins again

Image: http://conservationreport.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/supernovae.jpg

love song

sparrowdancer.com

in the wind lives a love song
not the one within our ears
nor the one that beats within
or moves our soul to tears

even by the harbor
where waves call out our name
hearts become unknotted knowing
nothing is the same

when once we have been taken
by the dream we left before
we fell to earth by welcoming
the life we had in store

in centuries of desert suns
as forests fall to moons
our keeping blends beyond the light
and time runs out too soon

would we never pass this way
to know our choice could only be
no less than what was given still;
through grace we came for free

Image and Authors Notes: If you have never heard of Mary Sparrowdancer, or read “Love Song of the Universe” I strongly recommend putting it on you reading list. Honest, sincere, inspired, moving. In it is one of the finest descriptions of Eternity I have ever experienced …

A place of feeling (solstice)

What of words to pages writ
love letters lying here
Not read into the memories
of thoughts still living where?

Churning colors in the mind
a restless rolling wave
of willows bending in the wind
can be enough to save

all the lessons learned about
the stories we’ve been told
melting into empty tears
as seasons will behold

reaching to awaken from
a dream that fell into the rain
soaked with shivers underneath
the place to be again ~

no, such time has always been
another solstice come to find
inside a vision searching for
a light that leaves us blind

to love that leads us always back
into another time and place
Dimensions turn awakening
passed without a trace

Was the empty hollow sound
another reason to unfold
Words of always into one
more tales of lifetimes told

A World of Whispers

I live in a world of whispers
a thousand voices in my ears
Tastes of moments talking
left without for all to hear

What forces will to let us be
so far away but near
Underneath a mask of tomes
and echoes ringing clear

Words in voices reaching
in letters, spaces, tones
Are always more revealing
than presence I have known

I will to see you clearly
voices cannot hide the proof
Behind a mask of happiness
the hurt reveals the truth

Take these empty words of mine
and write them in your mind
From them grows a nourishment
for what the ego’s come to find

Built with life’s impressions
into a soul’s reality
Letting Spirit linger waiting
for a sunrise to be free

Image: http://silvexis.com/2010/09/23/source-code-tragedy/

The Road to Damascus

Saul ! Why do you deny me?
Lord – I could not see you.
Then would you see me now?
I would, but the light is blinding.

Then do your eyes deny me?
or is it your heart that refuses,
to know the light I give,
freely, in your breathing?

Lord, does not my breath
linger in your morning mist?
A part of me becomes a part of you,
and there we are joined.

Saul – would you abandon your spirit,
as you squander your essence,
without a thought of its love,
how it fills you with life?

Breath, is my gift to you –
for always you have been,
one who breathes in me,
and I who breathe in you.

Paul – Let your eyes now see,
the blessings love has given.
Forever, to the children
who walk within the light.

Lord, my eyes are now open.
What you have shown me, I proclaim;
So all will know this truth –
Love does not forsake her own.

Photo: http://www.lwf.org

The Price of Darkness

I’m innocent I tell ya! I’m innocent! That’s the story heard all the time, when someone is accused of a crime, but what about the ultimate crime? What about getting humanity to take the ultimate fall? About getting thrown out of the Garden of Eden for Heaven’s sake! No more eternal bliss. A happy humanity now knowing each other, and living happily ever after. This Horned Toad turned Serpent, Snake in the Grass just suggests to this woman how good the apple could taste and it was all over. Duped by the Prince of Darkness!

Hang on a second – let’s do the research – is Lucifer the Prince of Darkness or is that just what we believe because it’s what we were told. Does anyone know what Lucifer means? Since I can’t see your hands in the air, I’ll volunteer to you that it means ‘bringer of light’. Odd that we should see the name as darkness, when the meaning is just the opposite .. So where does this darkness begin, and how?

Of all the company of heaven Lucifer is perhaps the most daring. Knowing full well that he would have to take on the role of Price of Darkness, he did it anyway. But understand what it means to be a bringer of light. Consider anyone who has tried to share the true knowledge of the universe with us. I recall someone trying about 2000 years ago ending up being nailed to a cross along with a couple of thieves. So maybe it’s not the personage, maybe it’s the observer who has the problem with it.

Let’s keep this in 3 dimensions – the only way for the eye to see is by the reflection of light off of an object, if there is no light we are blind – when in total darkness, we can’t see our hand in front of our face. Then as the light comes the darkness takes on a polarity, it becomes the opposite of light, it allows us to compare past and present. Darkness – blind, Light – vision. Now I can see.

So is Lucifer somewhere outside of us? Is he the opposite of God, God is light and Lucifer is darkness, and they wrestle each other forever over the switch that turns the light on and off? Or is Lucifer in us, and God is in us, and it is our will to decide whether we live in the light, and or whether we live in the darkness. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out that heaven and hell are created by our own minds, and they only exist because we created them?

So what if Lucifer was our own doing, who like Prometheus, brought fire to humankind and there was Hell to pay ! (btw – the title is not a typo)

Am I Legion?

In the book of Luke, there is a lot of healing that takes place, but one in particular is interesting, where Jesus approaches a man who is crazed and speaks to the ‘evil’ that is in him, and asks of it – what is your name, and the answer he gets is “I am Legion”, after that he compels the evil out of the man and into the pigs and they are destroyed.

The question is, what does this response mean “I Am Legion“, why isn’t it Sam, or Jack, or Nicholas … for obvious reasons the reader has to assume that there is not some solitary spirit causing this mans madness, but a Legion of spirits that have taken possession of him.

Today we wonder, and of course, never even consider possession in the sense it is spoken of here, and we have pills and electro-shock therapy, and all manner of ways to deal with madness, and we don’t even think of the the idea that there could be other causes, except for brain chemistry, and physiological causes.

Possession is so ‘Biblical’ … science tells us there is no possibility of it! But what if we put a modern spin on it. Cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, sex, rock and roll – in the ancient world all things that made up our world were considered to have spirits, the Native Americans referred to the spirit in Tobacco, and in Alcohol, (we still call Alcohol ‘spirits’) so are we being just a bit arrogant (I’m being nice) to think that it’s just brain chemistry, that there is no basis in truth regarding the elemental spirit in things taking possession of us, to the point where we lose control of our lives.

Maybe this man that Luke refers to was the victim of many spirits that had so influenced his life he no longer could be considered in possession of his faculties – he was mad ! Mad at what or who? Isn’t that where it begins in us today. “She drives me to drink!”, “He’s making me crazy”, “You make me sick”, “I can’t stomach his laugh” – listen to yourself …

I suppose all of us have been out shopping at the Malls and Dept. Stores the last few weeks. Has it tried your patience, or have you managed to keep a smile? There are Legions all around us, testing us every day, every moment, trying to get under our skin, and take possession of our emotions. Get angry at another shopper? Pissed off at a store clerk for taking too long. Did you really need to be going that quickly? Maybe life is telling you something, maybe that store clerk saved your life from the truck that ran the light, a minute before you got there … (happened to me once).

Hate, greed, anger, lust, jealousy – the words go on and on, they are the Legion that possess us, and until we call upon our very own souls to examine who we have become beyond that perfect little child who came naked into this world, we are nothing better than the man who begged Jesus to free him … ask yourself Am I Legion, or am I free?

The eve the sun returns

On this eve the sun returns
into our hearts again
we’ll look outside to answer why
the seasons round refrain

And come to know the answer is
not the changing season
but lives within ~ expressing love
throughout our rhyme and reason