My cheek on His cold bloody feet, I wept. He was human, could and did die, growing tremendous doing so. Vision, memory or imagining? Is His resurrection potent in us? I remain a gnat amidst giants. My footprint in eternity a mere two square feet. To celebrate joy we need suffer pain; near or absolute loss.
As witness to my time I’ve fallen away from the celebrity of most rich, beautiful, hansom. Moving closer to the abyss I hear His words, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” In the dark starless night I rise to suffuse myself with quotes. There finding a common tread throughout recorded history traversing all boundaries even death. A common will to live with, love, compassion and mercy
I remember being ill, not long ago, in need of intensive therapy, massive infusions of antibiotics. A fellow sufferer, a daughter, shared a story about her father.
He was one of the very few surviving the destruction of the battleship U.S. Arizona. She went on to share her awe of his disregard of fear. Telling me of his insistence that she transport him, instead of an Ambulance with medical technicians when involved with a stroke or, perhaps, a heart attack.
Of saints and sinners, the deranged and composed, I love them all, their transparent reality. Life lived tolerantly.
When I stroke Annie’s fur I am reminded of the sound of snow falling upon a windless winter night. In turn I remember being transported to a distant Methodist Church at Easter to collect varicolored eggs and chocolate bunnies . . . the rich green lawn racing beneath my feet during the hunt . . . the dirty brown sandstone bricks . . . but best of all are memories of my mother and sister’s joy at the day.
Experience His martyrdom and weep with me the loss. Resurrect the Love learning the joy of unconditional relationship, fearless. No exceptions allowed.
“Just as a flower, which seems beautiful has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of a man who speaks them but does them not.” --Dhammapada
“ 07:40
I no longer cry or grovel when so led to see the above quote instantly leaving what I wrote. “Suffer the little children . . . “ no longer makes me furious in the Memorial Mass. If it was said then/there or was quoted by another priest to slake my anguish -- the lost children of my love.
In these moments I become the child I was, redeemed and reconciled to the harm and pain I’ve committed upon those I’ve left behind. In body but never in heart or mind. I return to Serpent Mound, Randy upon my shoulders, seeing a six foot black snake he began to wiggle and plead that I let him down. He then squat next the snake hands upon his knees. Did he speak? Pray or commune? I’ll never know. But his quest reminds me of mine at four, same posture, discovering a nest of baby pigeons upon an alleyway, eyes dead beaks open, a rictus of hunger yet.
Why oh why did they die. Resonant still the question unanswered. Being this broken vessel incapable of the commission i still ask why any/everything.
The snake coiled slept on. The nest, snake and question remain. A nodal point. Gyring higher and deeper the cyclone of love moves onward from resolution to experience.
Our playground grows from one universe to another infinity. Onward the journey renewed.
--John Andrew Holmes
“It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”
illustration borrowed from: Parabola Newsletter: Learning to See, April 5th, 2012
“ 21:11 . . . I am slumping towards exhaustion lingering in a sense of futility and molested words personal torn from the flesh of my journal. Do I publish or allow them to disappear into the Dumpster? Hell is for me noting more than waste. He lives on.
