Relationship Inflation

 

RELATIONSHIP INFLATION

Interpersonal connection is ultimately all we have, but its value has been subject to a deadly economic inflation as pseudo-connections have been rendered unlimited by digital media.  The principle at work  is the same as currency inflation.  Produce too much money in response to demand or economic weakness and the currency loses its value.  Our spiritual economic weakness, the hunger for more and more meaningful relationship, has been met with a profligate printing of currency in the form of FaceBook, Instagram, and the panoply of other social media.  We can connect with anyone anywhere at any time.  

As a result, individual relationships and interpersonal bond have been devalued.  We find ourselves in the position of so many nations throughout history who met economic privations not with addressing foundational economic weaknesses but by printing more money to momentarily placate the hungry, demanding masses.

We have not addressed the underlying crippling spiritual economic condition that leaves us hungry, empty, bitter, angry, frightened, and lonely.  We have responded to our spiritual ache of loneliness by minting ever more digital  interactions, rendering them all worthless.  We lug our bag of "likes", "followers", and "friends" to the relationship store and come away with a stale piece of bread, to which we respond by collecting more "likes", "followers", and "friends", each newly minted "connection" rendering all connections more superficial and fleeting.

Values of currencies arise only from the productivity underlying them, productivity in turn arising from work and investment.  Values of relationships likewise possess that value only when productive, when the exchange of relationship interaction among parties has some mutual and meaningful lasting benefit.  That is an economic parameter independent of any treasury, exchequer, or media corporation.  We each individually determine the value of the social currency we mint every day, with our authenticity, depth, and sincere listening, none of which are encouraged by screens and keyboards.  Log off.  Listen.  Care.  Watch the wealth accrue.

Riding Darkness

 

RIDING DARKNESS

Now dark, quickly dark.

Gentle motion reveals the presence of darkly invisible waves just out that window.  

We ride the dark surface, just as our lives ride the boundary between life and death, sensing motion, trying to maintain our balance, something out of our control rippling by our soul, sensed not seen, treading an unseen surface separating life from an utterly unknowable depth into which we will inevitably sink.  The darkness, the unknowable depth, the unseen ripples we sense and dark tsunamis we dread, the darkness, the blankness, the unknowable depths, that is our canvas, the great blank canvas of life without answers on which we decide what matters.

Meaningless Time

 Meaningless Time

Time.  Corporeal existence.  Somehow it is through those that interaction Reality arises.  Through those Deep Love arises.  And horrors arise.  And beauty arises.  

Time.  Matter.  For now what we have to work with.

Yet nothing arising from them has meaning other than in the eternal.  Here and Now is the moment of Creation, we a painful part of that Creation.

The time and vanishing physical forms are illusions.  Yet through them we are empowered by God to create the eternal, eternal bonds and Love.

"Do not be discouraged", whispers Spirit.  Our capacity for control and power seems terribly limited.  Our wishes and will, even when uttered in the name of Jesus, seem pointless and hopeless.  Yet time deceives, making us think that the will of God is not unfolding.  Our entrapment in the Now blocks our view of unfolding Purpose and fulfillment of our hopes.  Our incarceration in the corporeal keeps us apart.  Yet in the usual Paradox, it is that corporeal and temporal nature that facilitate  creation of the real and enduring.

Faith, faith worn and tattered by the interminable delay of prophecy, faith is our source of warmth in the biting cold of the temporal world.  Faith is a capacity to sense and know beyond the body of Now.  

The moment will pass, has already passed.  The physical forms are disappearing before our eyes.  All that passing makes room for fulfillment of our prayers.  All that is real and meaningful takes time.  That is the oft repeated lesson, the lesson of the widow and of the bridesmaids.  Time and the physical, in their fleeting passage, erect the eternal.  Hold fast to the vision of faith, to awareness of Truth.  So much better, a seemingly delayed answer that endures through eternity than an instant gratification that just as promptly disappears along with the rest of the world.  Be glad the answers to your prayers are not immediately evident in the world, for that would mean they would just as quickly disappear along with the world.  

Let it unfold.  Do not be deceived by time.  The needs are known.  The prayers are heard.  Their fulfillment will not be through anything as unreliable as worldly outcomes.  Hold fast to faith as you watch time render the corporeal to dust, thereby making room for answers eternal.

Children of the Cast Off God

 

Children of the Cast Off God

Wondrous things are happening, people, even these people, doing wondrous things.

They are terribly disappointing, these people, yet the potential of God resides within them.

Do not look for perfection.  Do not look for control.  But define for them a need and direction, and give them some freedom, opportunity, and encouragement, and sometimes miraculous things will unfold.  

A frightening, even terrifying lot, magnanimous generosity and irrational cruelty keeping close company in their hearts.  Expect little.  Hope for much.  Give up all hope of understanding them or explaining their behavior.  Love them, but don't get too close.

Fear them.  Do not condemn them.  Forget any pretensions of teaching them.

Somewhere in their self-perpetuated chaos resides the Kingdom of Heaven.  Don't frustrate yourself trying to make sense of that.  

Curse them, bless them, flee from them, embrace them.  The Universe orbits about them, all Creation exists for them, and they will steadfastly lay claim to their central position while not bothering with gratitude for it.

Wondrous things are happening, and the children of the cast-off-God are doing wondrous things.  Marvel at it all and smile along with their neglected God.  

The Unwelcome New

 The Unwelcome New

Raging wind.  Power out.  Phone out.  A sneak preview of our future.

Chaos and turbulence rage.

It is glorious.

All communication is cut off.

It is glorious.

One by one Christmas decorations blow away.

It is sad.

(Bodhi kitty enters, unsettled.)

Disconnected and alone, the mind indulges in the rare opportunity, absorbing the chaos and storm.  

(Too noisy for the Bodes who flinches at a bang and retreats from the last violent burst.)

The would-be tyrants will take advantage of the growing chaos.  God will take advantage of the growing chaos.

Social DNA and spiritual genomics will battle for survival to determine what crawls out of the wreckage to become the newly triumphant politico-economic system.  In the meantime, warlords and gunslingers will reign supreme, occasionally donning the accouterments of tetrarch or judge to gain a facade of respectability.  

This prediction is no vision or prophecy, it is common sense, and a clear-eyed reading of human history.  

We will craft new procedures for selecting our priests and chieftains by whatever titles, who in reality will select themselves as they always have.  

For now the winds rage and cracks appear, the despots-to-be scurry about to advantageously position themselves for the deconstructions.  Outcomes remain hidden by the unyielding wall of time.  Tyrants and Divinity move their chess pieces on the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of society's board. 

"There will be change" declares the storm as winds of chaos strain the moorings of civilization's delicate web.  

There will be change, as there has always been change, the feared and unwelcome "new" triumphing, rising from our wreckage, rising from seeds scattered and moistened by the storm, seeds already produced, waiting, waiting, seeds cast aside in the combat of our world, seeds needing only fresh soil, exposed soil, the overlying structures stripped away that earth may breathe again.  

Darned Love

 

Darned Love

Look at that emphasis in the Bible on Love, two thousand years ago!  Palestina was a rough place and time!  Love?!  Where did that come from?!  You would not think people would even know what that was!  Love!

Every discussion of the Bible should promptly return to that core message, because that is the radical message, the unique message.  Everything else is filler and marketing to make the unpalatable Love less obvious.  Throw in the usual us vs. them, some blood and battles, a bunch of rules and regulations, some guarantees of a judgment day when we (the good guys of course) will finally win and get our tickets to eternal paradise, and you've got the ingredients for yet one more religion suitable for wielding condemnation, retribution, and persecution.  But then there is that darned Love.  Unique, and usually uniquely ignored, in words two thousand years old abides this curious and irritating admonition to change our innermost being, our external actions, and the world.  

Theologians will dissect verses and elaborate on eschatologies, while one single differentiating point, one overtly seditious word and its corollaries, distinguish the core message of this messenger from the jostling crowd of scriptures, teachings, and texts vying for our readily malleable belief.

Love.  Sacrificial, selfless Love.  One sermon.  One command.  One theology.  Leaving you one Choice.  

Sanctuary

 

Sanctuary, sanctuary.

Get me to the hills,

away, away,

safe, finally safe,

each breath, each breath

carrying away the pain and stress.

Here, finally here,

with God and God's Creation,

like the wild deer,

instinctively hiding,

seeking the tiny spot of recluse,

of embrace,

in the woods,

protected by the woods.

Sanctuary,

away, safe,

the blessed touch of Home.

Always peace here,

the abiding peace.

The hill, the hill,

its steep and rock strewn course

protecting from all who find it inconvenient.

Sunrise, sanctuary, healing, safety,

each breath, finally painless.

Christmas Cards

Christmas Cards 

Writing Christmas cards,

trite, shallow, pointless

Christmas cards,

growing more depressed with each.

'Tis the season,

the music,

Ol' Claus,

colored lights,

all contrived,

fake and facade,

no reality here,

wretchedly unrealistic…..

Yet images of Hope,

a wish,

relationships that will be, though not now.

The seemingly empty traditions

clarify and express our hopes,

granting vision of what could be.

The almost empty cards and carols

are desperately needed,

pulling us to something better.

…pulling us to be something better.

Son of Man

 

SON OF MAN

 

 "Son of Man".  What a perfect self-appellation Yeshu (Jesus) chose!....especially coupled with references to us as "this generation".  Yes, fully human, unambiguously human, yet a descendent, more advanced, of a different spiritual generation.  It is a title accurate and informative, meaningful because it was not bestowed, but matter of factly claimed.  

Son of Man…..knowing so much more than this generation could ever understand, homeless for lack of understanding by our generation, crucified by our rejection of the unheard lessons that might indict us.  

Son of Man, reduced to struggling for parables to try to communicate a little of what we would not want to understand.  

Son of Man, all ego stripped in that curious title, but at each mention dropping a hint as to His nature…..and ours.

Calling

 CALLING

You would think there would be some profound and wise instruction for how to follow your life's calling, whether you believe that calling comes from God, destiny, universe, or whatever.  There is a calling, or callings.  You can follow it.  But how it will be revealed is acutely individual.  

Of course you have to want a calling before you can discern it.  You have to surrender to something before you can be called by it.  It is a rare and curious thing in an age of materialism for anyone to surrender to a calling.  It is also a rare and curious thing in an age of basic survival to surrender to a calling.  Yet all are called, but few accept it.   You will be alone.  Following a calling is terrifying, fraught with doubt, a glorious madness, indefensible and inexplicable.  Yet once accepting calling, you can never again deny it, at least not for long.  You would have it no other way, the world's tawdry profits rendered banal and tedious by a glimpse, even a fleeting glimpse, of Purpose and meaning and the invitation to be a part of it.