resistance – here&now working poetry

poem: thinking of God as compared to knowing God (a repost of my original poem from September 2019)

Poem: Thinking of God as Compared to Knowing God

Sitting in church on Sunday
the great gathering of believers:

the woman with a pistol in her purse,

the espoused white supremacist family man,

the patriarchal church elder who fears gays

All believing Jesus is their personal savior,

who looks like them,

likes and dislikes the same people as they,

and judges all as to the meritocracy of heaven

which is not here and not now

What bad theology,

what past dogma or creed,

what misreading and poor preaching,

what age-old council of churchmen

has brought them all to this small, limited God

Yes these gathered souls

think of God rather than experience God

distracted by the ten million things that separate us

many of which have been elevated to idolatry

including personal power, control, and violence

How have we reduced God to being so small and limited

how has God’s awe inspiring presence and love

escaped our experience of each moment,

this God who is as close as our next breath

and limitless as the great Cosmos spinning about

Creator of the Cosmos, breath of our lives,

our Beloved and beloved of God,

the Universal Christ of grace, love, and our only true hope

for authentic community in our true diversity

in the anti-empire, anti-dominant system of kin-dom

Unless and until one turns out towards and enters into

the Universal Christ mystery and opens to its’ radical

consciousness that rewires each of us on the physical, cellular,

neurological, and spiritual levels, Christianity will remain

a personal cerebral exercise rather than Eternal Life together as Beloveds

Herb Stone
here & now working poetry
September, 2019

images “Eye of the Universe” from Hubble Telescope

and “Guns in Church” unattributed

Reflection: the alternative neighborly community vis-a-vis the world as we have been taught

Reflection: Creator God come down to us and walked this Earth prophesying, resisting, and teaching about our world and providing us the alternative neighborly community of the kin-dom plan grounded in diversity and inclusivity of live together in grace, love, and peace

we must understand that while Jesus was a person of grace, peace, and love, and a healer, he also was an anti-Imperialist who protested, resisted, and acted against the dominate political and religious systems of oppression and their power, control, and violence

let us walk each other to this true home, authentically belonging together

Richard Rohr says this well in his quote:

Reflection: Spiritually transforming practice

We must practice to transform our being personally and collectively Spiritual practice, undertaken according to principles of spirituality, and mindfully followed with purpose and intent, is capable of powerful personal, relational, social, and cultural transformation.

Some of these spiritual principles are:

– cultivate a loving heart for all beings

– develop an altruistic, sustaining spirit and share what you have with others

– be a good ally of the earth and its resources

– identify with your own suffering and that of others and be a healer

– measure progress and growth according to non-materialistic and non-economic factors such as sustainability and peace

– support democratic forms of government and the liberties they guarantee for all peoples

– speak out against, non-violently resist, and work to change social injustice and evil in the world

– develop unitive consciousness that envelopes paradox and

creative tension

-value diversity in creation and community

Creator God awaken in us a dedication to spiritually transforming practice that we may be collaborators and co-creators in your kin-dom of the alternative neighborly community for the good of all humankind and all creation.

photo by Cathey Stone
‘meditating in the estuary at Draper Lake’
Gulfview Heights Beach, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

quote: “The dissenting voice speaks for the voiceless.” – Toko-pa Turner

Reflection: Richard Rohr on our apocalyptic times and our need for a stabilizing spiritual practice over the next four months (and always)

(with thanks and respect to my patron saint, Gertrud Nelson for sharing Richard’s words with me)

“We are without doubt in an apocalyptic time (the Latin word apocalypsis refers to an urgent unveiling of an ultimate state of affairs). Yeats’ oft-quoted poem “The Second Coming” then feels like a direct prophecy. See if you do not agree:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

……..

Stand as a sentry at the door of your senses for these coming months, so “the blood-dimmed tide” cannot make its way into your soul.

If you allow it for too long, it will become who you are, and you will no longer have natural access to the “really deep well” that Etty Hillesum (Dutch author of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Amsterdam and who was killed in Auschwitz) returned to so often and that held so much vitality and freedom for her.

If you will allow, I recommend for your spiritual practice for the next four months that you impose a moratorium on exactly how much news you are subject to—hopefully not more than an hour a day of television, social media, internet news, magazine and newspaper commentary, and/or political discussions. It will only tear you apart and pull you into the dualistic world of opinion and counter-opinion, not Divine Truth, which is always found in a bigger place.

Instead, I suggest that you use this time for some form of public service, volunteerism, mystical reading from the masters, prayer—or, preferably, all of the above.

You have much to gain now and nothing to lose. Nothing at all.
And the world—with you as a stable center—has nothing to lose.”

photos: Gertrud Nelson, my patron saint
Richard Rohr (who I read widely) with my dear, late friend and spiritual teacher Jeff Blake

Thank you God for friends and teachers like these💓

Reflection: A rally call for all to join together and seek the higher Way of Life for all beings

There is no ‘good’ or ‘better’ Empire (note: see my definition of Empire below.)

Using the Empire’s power and control, which always ends in violence, to create a better Empire, is a liar’s and a fool’s mission ending in loss of liberty and oppression and death. (note: the current president’s ‘make america great again’ MAGA cry is a prime example of the presiding idea in that he proposes we build a ‘better Empire’.)

The Empire must be dismantled, abandoned, and ultimately given up on the altar of Life. In it’s place, there is the alternative, narrow, hard, seldom taken path of Life! The authentic community, neighborly community, kin-dom (which disciples of the Universal Cosmic Christ call the ‘kingdom of God’, but has many names) is our one true hope in the face of the Empire’s darkness and death machine.

Jesus, the son of man, in his Good News (gospels), described this path to Life very well. It is grounded in radical grace, radical love, humility, mercy, distributive justice, faith, peace, and hope! For those not religious or spiritual, these values have expression in secular life as well.

Those of us not ‘liars and fools’ and who value Life and liberty equally for all, over oppression and death, must respectfully put aside our perceived differences in culture, tribe, cause, etc. and come together collectively as one peoples whose purpose is to resist the Empire and dismantle it and to be the architects of the alternative, Life-and-liberty-giving, authentic community!

Beloveds, joining together here and now, dedicated to the true Way of Life, persisting in our cause and actions, we shall overcome the Empire’s darkness and death in these challenging times!!

Shalom, Shanti, Salaam, Peace

(I use the reality of ‘Empire’ a lot in my writing. Here is what that represents to me: the Empire is a way of ‘life’ and death that relies on it’s raw power and and its’ methods of controlling others to remain in power and control, and the Empire is always ready to institute violence and death to accomplish that’ sole mission. The means (power and control) justifies the ends (power, control, and violence). Examples of Empire in history are The Roman Empire (which murdered Jesus, Christians, and countless others in its’ reign) and the Nazi Empire (which murdered Jews and countless others in its’ reign). Today we see our own nation in the Empire building business of the current president and his administration and base, exercising its’ raw power and control to justify its’ continuance in power and control and its’ use of violence to further those ends in its’ violence towards and murder of our siblings of color and others. The Empire threatens Life and liberty, and it must be dismantled.)

Reflections: Awakening every new morning as a beginner

Up early before dawn for this lovely summerfall day. The cool, cool morning, after all the summer heat, so soothing. Sensing the activity to come later in the day as nature approaches its’ Autumn Equinox. Then, after another busy day, resting in its’ long shadows of evening.

Today praying to let go of all I think I know and all that others in power and authority wants me to believe although unexamined. Letting go of all the claptrap, rhetoric, propaganda, lies, chit chat, hogwash, nostalgia, hubris, balderdash, and just plain ole’ B.S.! The intentional, examined, purposeful life is worthy of these efforts.

Awakening every morning as a beginner. Turning and opening to the Truth of the Ages and True Self in Authentic Community here and now, rising above the din and chaos of this world.

Truth and love are the treasure sitting upon the Lotus Throne of my heart!

I am that….

Reflection: God by whatever name vis-a-vis American partisan politics

Consider this beloveds: God, by whatever name you call God, does not give a big fig about American partisan politics of either party. In the Cosmic picture your personal partisan political beliefs just are not that big a deal in any way other than they are soul killers. Only your ego makes you think they are so important which then is idolatry because you are identifying God as being like you and liking the things you like (like being a Republican or Democrat) and disliking the things you dislike such as the opposite political party. Balderdash! You are defining a God much too small. According to God come down to man, the Son of Man, Jesus, and his manifest Universal Cosmic Christ consciousness, as the Son of God, God has a plan for us, and it was Jesus mission as taught through the Gospel message which involves the singular politics of God’s kin-dom (Kingdom) vis-a-vis the human Empires of this earth. God’s kin-dom plan opposes the partisan, divisive, oppressive politics of the Empire of man and is, in fact, an alternative community vision of man grounded in neighborliness, radical grace, and radical love for one another. And Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, manifested this vision on earth and taught this lesson in the ‘good news’ of his Gospel message expressed so well in the Beatitudes, his highest commandment, the Sermon on the Mount, and his teaching of the disciples to pray. God’s politics is neither personal nor partisan; quite the contrary it is universal bringing all together for the good of all beings. Get over your small self and the Truth will set us all free!

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
September 17, 2020