For all the Shamen (revisited)
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For All the Shamen
As much as we wish it were,
this brief human life
is not about cultivating personal power:
as if we hold in the hand of our mind
the jaw of a jaguar bone;
or chanting an ice-wind song
with a blood-stained walrus tusk;
or trusting the runes of toner ink
scribbled in our investment book ;
or that sort of theologian, who loves to feel
his doctrine ever tightening
like a braided hanging rope;
or the preacher who loves to gloat
over the growing numbers in “his” church—
—All these powers draw the same low awe
from the masses, the simpler ones, scrabbling
desperately around for something, someone
to worship, somewhere to bow down.
As promised, that path leads straight down
dark stairs into the Hell of Self, fast away
from the fragrant meadows of merciful
Christlike Love.
These fleeting days are given us
like a handful of flowers, a fragile breath
for finding depths of sacrificial love
in our own hearts: for all the hurting
needy ones—they keep holding up a broken mirror
to us, like a wounded river, always flowing
before our face.
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“Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire
which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat,
I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in;
naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison
and you did not visit Me—
—-Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did not
do it to the least one of these, you did not do it
to Me. These will go away into eternal punishment,
but the righteous will go into eternal Life”. Jesus, Matthew 25
–Quilla
First of May, 2014…..Translucent……
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Translucent
Late-afternoon, the translucent
lacy green light of mid-spring,
old gray oaks again
filling gnarled limbs
with flutterings of new leaves
Soft breezes now, how slowly
the low sun moves down
with long tree shadows, like ghosts
across the greening slopes of land.
Two crows fly up together, alight
upon a dead branch, as if they were
an ancient Japanese poem.
They are crafting a nest of dead sticks,
a new clutch of speckled eggs.
In the far meadow, brown horses
walk slowly down the emerald light
along the fence line, into the trees.
The quiet music of their movement
walking out of a long winter
is one clear wordless picture
of the mystery, of grace.
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–Quilla
April 26.13
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Sakura . . . . .
(Cherry Blossoms)
For my daughter Natallie, on her 20th Birthday
There is a gleaming light
in the windless stillness of 3 a.m.—
Face of the full April moon
shining through the fragrant lace,
ten thousand snow-white cherry blooms
light my upturned face.
There is the endless spring night sky—
a delicate powder shade of dark, between
ancient pewter and indigo, the deep
oceanic silence of stars, infinite
like the fathomless heart
of Father God, listening:
There is a soft roar—the mountain river
rushing down its gorges, full
of highland snow and long spring rains;
there is the whispered mid-night prayer
of thanks, of blessing—a father
for his golden little girl, now grown
a woman, her strength and beauty
shining like the April moon,
the delicate cherry blooms,
these graceful gifts of God.
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“The greatest of these is Love”
-First Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13
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–Quilla
Happy Birthday, Farrah!
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Spaces
(For my beautiful daughter, Farrah,
on her 25th birthday)
Within the intricate filigree
of winter birch trees
lives such exquisite openness—
empty spaces, giving each twig
the room, the grace to grow
a strong and delicate shape.
It is a deep, listening silence
hears the branches sing and moan,
gnash with wind, with ice.
After each wild trill
of Whitethroat Sparrow’s
ethereal silver tune,
comes a long spell of unbroken quiet:
both ear and heart are left, to hunger
one more lingering rill,
the lilting mystery.
The lambent moon, lucent spinning planets,
even the far-scattered glistening stars—
each, held in its distant shining place
by what, or Whom?
The fearful glory of absolute black endlessness
reduced to a mindless word:
We’ve merely called it space.
After you’ve spoken, I watch your lips close,
the beautiful way your face, your eyes
glisten with glimpses of your soul. . . .
Your dear words quickly fall away, dust
in empty air, lost in the stream of time.
Yet they remain, always here, kept
in secret rooms of mine,
a Father’s listening heart.
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–Quilla
Oasis…..(you’ve crossed long years). . .
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Oasis
(A poem for Communion, for Eucharist;
a ‘Medicine’ poem of surrender, of restoration—
for you, for me; in three parts. –Quilla)
1. Loss
Looking back from here—a rugged waste
of lost terrain stretches out behind you.
You’ve crossed long years
of desperate miles, made-up faces,
wandered empty desert places,
weathered the dry flood
of broken rocks and broken faith,
faded smiles, the fallen petals of roses.
Your favorite clothes, and your heart
are torn by long thorns,
now deep-stained the rust of blood.
Your neglected springs have gone, turned
to mouthfuls of bitter dust. Your soul drinks
and breathes the unrelenting siroccos
of human and satanic wind.
Those high-blown scarps of sand
keep screaming beguiling lies at you.
You walk outside the tent, look, and listen:
but wind erased all traces of the trail.
So you’ve learned to hole up in the shadows,
blame others, back against the wall
licking your righteous wounds
til falls the dreadful veil of dark.
2. Oasis
But here, a small sunlit stream comes to you,
bends before you now: the bright green lace
of water licks the broken stones.
In this place, the stream widens out for you
under the cool palm shadows of truth;
with easy grace, the peace of fragrant lilies
pours into a quiet pool.
It is time for you to stop.
Sit down here, take off your dusty shoes,
let Someone wash and kiss
your bleeding feet.
Allow your self: to feel the deeper coolness
wanting to soothe your fugitive, weary soul.
There is no other time.
Let your self receive, rejoice at last.
Allow your heart to grieve, to weep
the salty oil of past, and present sorrow.
Feel what you must feel, then let it flow
into the perfect stream.
No longer hide, or be busy, tough, religious
or even “spiritual”—to impress yourself,
your friends, or God himself.
Give up on all of that. In its stead, stay here
before Him, wait, and be still.
Let hurt go, watch it rise like wreathes
of smoke, like hungry flames
at last burned out of you.
Allow yourself to praise: express the deepest
thankfulness, for all of it.
Let your precious bitterness dissolve,
wash away like yellow fungus, crusted
layers on your hard and tender heart,
let it wash into the quiet, fathomless pool.
It is poured out here, for you.
3. Surrender
This holy war. Fierce battles,
so much blood, and time, already lost.
But Someone you ignored
walked up the rocky hill
and poured your empty goblet
red and full.
The fragrant living Bread
of His being is broken open, waiting for you
to feed: hundreds of pages, furious love, scribed
in the hovering shadows of doves.
Eat and drink—this risen Bread,
this crushed and holy Wine.
All of it. Stand completely healed
in the luminescence of forgiving love.
Savor the alien flavor, delicate scent,
the subtle radiance of halos, spun
with unnamed colors of holiness.
You can begin to hear the songs of birds
and feel the open sky.
Give thanks. It is given, for you.
Yes. It is for you.
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“Your lovingkindness O LORD, extends
to the heavens, your faithfulness
reaches to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mountains
of God; your judgments are like a great deep.
How precious is your lovingkindness, O God.
“And the children of men take refuge
in the shadow of Your wings.
They drink their fill of the abundance
of Your house, and You give them to drink
from the river of Your delights.
For with You is the fountain of Life,
and in Your light, we see light.”
–Psalm 36: 5-9
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A Vine, a Worm, a Hot East Wind
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A city of 120,000 wicked souls
is dying in the lonely hells
of Self-worship
A little man is given words
for them—hard words of soft mercy,
God words, to deliver them
But the little man loves neither God
nor them, and runs away, hating
the very love-words spitting from his mouth
So he sits down, watching the city
hoping it will burn. But it does not. Instead,
a desert vine grows up and gives him shade.
Next day, comes a gnawing worm,
a hot east wind—the vine succombs,
quickly shrivels up and dies
And the little man bitterly cries,
whining to God: whose mystery love
outlives life, wicked cities, even death
and all our self-made little hells.
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—from the book of Jonah, the Older Testament
–Quilla
Starlight and Rivercliffs
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Starlight and Rivercliffs
If a weathered autumn scrap of man
should ask: some lean scraps of beauty
or of truth, to feed his hungered soul
his mind, this cold and leaning light
of withered old November—
shortened days and longing shadows,
—what can he expect?
When his tender heart rattles
like a coiled snake, dry river rocks
and autumn’s seed-pods
all that’s gone awry: the world,
the nation, the Church, his loved ones
and his own dreams, what, pray tell
does he dare expect, of God?
Brilliant winter stars emerge
like far-flung words of grace, across
the universe, at dusk:
salt grains of light, fall each night
like diamonds of quiet praise,
sparkling the darkling river, ever.
Cold rapids are rushing full, and white.
Starlight crystals glimmer on the shoals—
—they sing a river’s frothy love
the long night, illumined lyrics of joy
to the tall black rivercliffs, breaking
breaking slowly, slowly down
to sand, the glittering peace
of starlight, stardust, sand.
This is just the way
love always has and will
come to us, forever.
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–Quilla
Appaloosas
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Appaloosas
Soft, amber notes, like late piano songs
are falling around us now, like leaves.
From the year’s longer, thicker strings
comes a resonance, those richer tones
released from the deep rings our heartwood.
Listening, we weep with a quiet subdued joy,
watching these descending strands
of gold, strum like strings, the evening light
upon our broken hearts, the fallen land.
Several rust-brown, snow-patch Appaloosas
gallop across the yellowing thatch of meadows.
Long tails of shadow follow the fast horses
into the coming night.
What few leaves left on trees are rustling, quietly.
Like the last fans at a lost game, sadly gathering
their things to go.
The autumn sun diminishes, a gray layer
of stratus shadows, finishes the day.
A few insects still rasp such feeble songs
as this, in the yellowing blades of grass.
Across the gold-dust haze of distances
crows are cawing lustily—raw bloodcolors
stain the grove of rusted oaks.
A far neighbor’s dog is barking.
The brown and white Appaloosas run
with the strong and easy grace given them:
Hard hooves thrum the soft harp-strings
of sunset light. Shadows follow them,
silent blue shades of autumn night.
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–Quilla
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“The unfolding of Your words gives light.
Turn to me, and be gracious to me,
Establish my footsteps in Your word,
and do not let iniquity have dominion over me.” –Psalm 119: 129, 32
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–Quilla
Believe?
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“Nothing, in Heaven or Earth, can ever separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus”.
As we ponder the deeper revelations of this remarkable statement of eternal fact, it keeps on reverberating, fundamentally changing everything for the good. Or so it can, IF. . . we let it. Each one of our relationships has within it the potential of being transformed by the absolute power of the Holy Spirit of God. It is the power of perfect love. This love is not the shallow human ‘love’ of being nice to people, agreeing with them, even when they have made seriously hurtful and damaging choices. (Those motives are more about mutual congratulation, approving of others so they will like me. There’s a lot of that going around in this shallow, narcissistic culture. By contrast, true love believes what is good, and right, and by its very nature, love always seeks the very best for each one. In naming what is wrong, love is willing to the risk rejection of those who are choosing wrong over right.
“When the fear of man is big, God becomes small”.
By a profound mystery of grace, God actually lives in our minds, hearts and physical members, by our willful invitation, and consent to believe in God’s ways. He will help us love what we can not love, forgive what we can not forgive, and often to ‘hate’ some things, of which we have become very fond. (“If you love these more than me, you are not worthy of Me”).
Most of our superficial struggles of behavior and attitude are fed by security and identity issues of belief, at their root: “Who am I? WHOSE am I? What really defines me? What must I have (or do, etc.) to feel secure, stable, “happy”? These are the kinds of excellent questions the searching Spirit of God brings me to ask. But the bigger question is this: am I brave enough to answer, and to deal responsibly with the answers? “The righteous live by what they believe”.
So does everyone else. Whether they know it or not. You will notice we are each and all made to believe something. “You’re gonna have to serve somebody!” –Bob Dylan
I think that’s the real rub for most Christ-followers: just how far am I willing to follow Him? (We will follow only as far as we believe). We tend to believe, and thus talk and act—far below our level of privilege, and responsibility (and thus, maturity). But it always begins with faith: what do I really BELIEVE? Perhaps you have discovered the deep and lonely canyon between pretending to believe something, and truly believing it, with your very life—your patterns of thought and words, your actions and reactions.
Because of the discrepancies between pretense and genuine belief, we often hear the label of ‘Hypocrite’, somewhat deserved at times, given to the Church at large, and to particular individuals who’ve earned it, by pretending to be something they are not. But very often, non-believers are ranting at those who follow Christ for one simple reason: they do not want to hear the truth, which does not agree with sinful behaviors and attitudes. Yes, “the gospel of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing”. So who is really being ‘judgmental,’ after all?
(Watch and listen to non-believers, and you will see a great deal of hypocrisy, in word and deed.
The implications of believing Christ’s love are never ending, as we continue to receive and believe deeper portions of His passion for us. The ‘ripple effect’ of faith does not stop resonating from us, out into the days and nights of those we touch. They are watching and listening to us—waiting to see, to feel the living mercy and the absolute truth of Christ’s love. To the extent that we believe it for ourselves, we are supplied with a miraculous abundance of supernatural mercy and wisdom for others. For the more mathematically inclined among us: there is a direct, straight-line correlation between Belief, and Actions expressing that belief. The more, the more. And vice versa. ” Genuine faith in Christ inevitably expresses itself in acts of sacrificial love. This is the very nature of His beautiful being, flowing to us, and through us, out to those around us.
“Lord, I do believe. Help my un-belief!”
It is by deliberate intention and self-discipline that we learn to walk more closely with Him. Growing up into the wisdom and love of Christ is not an accident. Nor does it happen simply with the passing of time. We see beautiful qualities of Christ’s self-giving love in those teens who are surrendered to Him; and disgraceful self-centeredness in eighty-year olds who are not. Nor does maturity in love happen on our own, but in close and regular fellowship with those who believe in and worship the same Lord and Savior. (I’ve learned from experience and observation that a ‘loner’s Christianity’ is by definition, a very stubborn and a prideful thing).
In this daily process of cooperating and surrendering our wills to God (‘Not my will, but Yours be done’), we experience very personally what it means to “abide in His words”. But along with a deepening joy and peace, to our dismay we also see that God’s love is persistently dismantling various structures and habits erected and maintained by our desperate egos. As the purity of our belief is tried by fire (and by less severe means) we discover that it is all for this one purpose: that we may love, as He loves, forgive others as He forgives us. He wants each of us to become an accurate reflection of Him.
Self-interest always gets in the way of God’s love flowing through us to others. But this maturing process seems to occur only as and IF we let ourselves surrender to the depths of His mercy and love, believing His Spirit will bless us far better than we can bless ourselves. With our permission (and often without) He will remove the ‘me-first’ obstacles that Self presents. “He must become greater, I must become less.” This quality of divine love goes far beyond mere comfort, coziness and blessing.
As Oswald Chambers says: ‘God is not interested in improving you; He wants to REPLACE you, -with Himself. Ugh. A much more profound level of ‘comfort’, blessing, and awareness. And Love.
“The only thing that counts is faith—expressing itself through love.” —Galatians 5: 6
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–Quilla
‘Let them Go’
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“Every relation to mankind, with hate or scorn or bitterness or neglect in it, only gives us vexation and torment. By the enduring grace of God we gradually learn that there is nothing to do with men, but to love them.
“To contemplate their virtues with admiration, their faults with pity and forbearance, and the injuries they have given us with complete forgiveness. With the beauty and freedom of grace and wisdom, we learn to let them go. This is the door, the only door, to true personal freedom, and resilient joy.
“The world will offer to you many other plans. Task all the ingenuity of your mind to devise some other, better thing, but you can never find it. To hate your adversary will not help you. It will only poison your own spirit. To contemplate revenge will only punish yourself severely. Please discover, and know: that nothing within the compass of the universe can help you, but to love him.
“Only let that love flow out upon all around you, and what can harm you? How many a knot of misery and misunderstanding would be quickly untied by a few words of forgiving love spoken with sincerity from a heart that flows with mercy! Many a lonely hurting place would be made glad if Christ’s redeeming love were flourishing there. How many a dark dwelling, and heart would be filled with light!”
–from a meditation by Orville Dewey (1794-1882)
“Forgive one another, just as God, in Christ, also has forgiven you”.
–Ephesians chapter four, verse thirty-two
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March Thirteenth
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The Dead White Oak
The long skelteon of a dead White Oak
lies fallen, empty limbs stretched out
into the swollen river.
Foaming rapids spill across its wooden bones—
melted mountain snows,
the long grey wash of winter rain.
I sit and watch. The strong pulled water
rushes past like years. As always
buried stones, broken trees and pieces
of human things washed up,
the memories of storms.
But I rejoice, this slow praise of decay—
the oak’s long life of leafy days
ebbs away, downstream to the sea.
Blooming maples bow, as if to pray
letting something go in soft south wind.
Their scarlet blossoms litter the little rills
of dampened river sand.
Far across the rapids, on the other shore
a bone-white Sycamore raises sinewed limbs
into the sky.
From such as these, we see life stand strong
in beauty, wait long, sing in all weathers,
bear fruit in season,
fall and die with natural grace.
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–Quilla
February seventh
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A Winter Psalm
What lyrics of wisdom, words of grace
grow the long limbs of the birch—
at first, reaching down toward earth,
at last, lifting emptiness toward sky!
How those ten thousand winter fingers
know, and wait: warm nights in April
to unfurl leafy curtains of lace!
You are pleased O LORD—their long waiting,
and with their letting go.
Such cryptic praise—the dark music of crows
like shards of charred pottery, taken wing.
The ragged calligraphy of their flight
scribbles across the silk of milky sky.
All our tattered phrases return to You.
O yes, where else can they go?
–we bring these rags of praises
back to you, O LORD!
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–Quilla
‘Your present circumstances…..’
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Wild Morning Glories along the trail, Craggy Mountains, NC
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Tornado Warning!
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Mussel shells, dried river mud
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Old farm, Paint Gap Road
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Latesummer pasture, off Hardscrabble Road
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Barbed wire hieroglyphic
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‘Your Present Circumstances’. . .
“HOW can you live sweetly amid the vexatious things, the irritating things, the multitude of little worries and frets, which lie all along your way, and which you cannot evade?”
“You cannot at present change your surroundings. Whatever kind of life you are to live, must be lived now, amid precisely these people and circumstances in which you are now moving. It is here that you must win your victories or suffer your defeats. No restlessness or discontent can change your lot. Others have other circumstances surrounding them, but here are yours. It is wisdom and peace—to accept what we cannot alter.”—adapted from J.R. Miller, Daily Strength for Daily Needs
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My response:
I value the words of Mr. Miller, written over a century ago. The human/divine dilemma still faces us, hour by hour. It is a wonderful movement of God’s grace in us—to learn how to accept our present circumstances, which are seldom, if ever, exactly what we wish them to be. But it is more graceful still, to embrace God in each situation, be it difficult or pleasant, learning to see that God is sovereign, in everything, every moment of our lives.
Of this I am very sure: it is vain, and a foolish waste of life and love—to criticize, whine and complain about things or people, to wish for yesterday or tomorrow. We are called, and we are empowered to a much more beautiful and present life than that.
As we allow the Spirit of Christ to live in us, and through us, we gradually lose the need to have and get our own way in everything; we stop demanding that others please us by doing this, or that thing we wish they would do, or not do. These self-centered attitudes only illustrate how much we are controlled by the words and actions of others.
But by depending less on others, and relying more on the love of Christ, we are able to live above circumstances, by walking in certain steps of faith. Christ really does set us free–to love people as they are–broken and afraid, hungry and selfish–not as we wish they were. Isn’t this the way Christ himself loves you? and me? –Quilla
“The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD!”
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“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” –Ephesians 4: 31-32
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Mailbox and daylilies, on a country road….waiting to hear from you
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Ruach 333, by Quilla 