Sunday, May 28, 2006

Providence


The true God is equally concerned with the luminosity of a nebula
and the structure of an earthworm.
With what incredible attention to detail,
what sympathy,
what benevolence,
what wisdom,
what compassion,
what humor!
He carries on an uninterrupted conversation
with all his creatures.
How, then, could he not be concerned for us?
~
-- Paul Claudel

The Drift of Things




Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
~
-- Robert Frost

Sunday, April 16, 2006

My Candle


I will love you, O Lord, my Strength!
For you will light my candle:
the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
*
-- Psalm 18

What Does God Want?

God wants the heart.
*
-- Talmud

Light and Voice


I believe that God
is in me as the sun is in the
color and fragrance of a flower--
the Light in my darkness,
the Voice in my silence.
*
-- Helen Keller

Prodigal



Even if
I
Have
Gone astray,
I
Am
Thy child,
O God;
Thou
Art
My
Father and Mother.
*
-- Arjan (Sikh)

Desire


O Lord our God,
grant us grace to desire you with our whole heart;
that, so desiring, we may seek, and, seeking, find you;
and so finding you, may love you;
and loving you, may hate those sins
from which you have redeemed.
Amen.
*
-- St. Anselm

HAPPY EASTER









Kristos Voskrese.
Christ has risen.
Gospodi pomiuli.
The Lord has risen.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Tao (Logos)


There was a chaotic something, yet lacking nothing
born before Heaven and Earth
Alone.
Still.
Standing alone, unchanging.
Revolving, endlessly.
It can be thought of as Mother of the World.
I do not know its name,
one can call it 'Tao'.
The name of its powerful presence:
One can call it 'The Great One'.
*
-- Te Ching

Heaven's Counterpart


The best soldier is not warlike
the best fighter shows no anger
the one best at defeating the enemy does not engage him
the one best at managing people puts himself below them.
This is the Te of not contending
this is the power to manage people
This is being the Counterpart of Heaven
equalling the very best of the ancients.
*
-- Te Ching

Bypaths


If I had the least bit of understanding
I would walk on the great Way.

Only display would be dangerous.

The great Way is very smooth
but people love bypaths.
*
-- Te Ching

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Veni Creator

Come, Holy Spirit,
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not
above our heads
in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or
when
they plough in the orchards,
or when snow covers crippled firs
in the Sierra Nevada.

I am only a human being: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.
Many a time I asked, you know it well,
that the statue in church lift its hand,
only once, just once, for me.

But I understand that signs must be human,
therefore, call one person, anywhere on earth,
not me--after all I have some decency--and allow me,
when I look at that person, to marvel at you.
*
-- Czeslaw Milosz

My Only One


My beloved is brighter than the sun,
Put in the heavens, my only one.
Placed the hearts upon the earth
To watch the sun’s daily run.
ماهم که رخش روشنی خور بگرفت
گرد خط او چشمه کوثر بگرفـت دلها
همه در چاه زنخدان انداخت وآنگـه سر
چاه را به عنبر بگرفت
*
-- Hafiz

A Love Like That



Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."
Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
*
-- Hafiz

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

What is Grace?


“What is grace” I asked God.
And He said,
“All that happens.”
Then He added, when I looked perplexed,
“Could not lovers
say that every moment in their Beloved’s arms
was grace?
Existence is my arms,
though I well understand how one can turn
away from
me
until the heart has wisdom
.”
*
-- St. John of the Cross

The Mind's Ruin


I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age.
The cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,
and the earth acted as a shy girl, like me.

Divine light entered my heart from His love
that did never fully wane,

though indeed, dear,
I can understand how a person's faith can at times flicker,

for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind's ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace.

I have seen what you want;
it is there,

a Beloved of infinite tenderness.
*
-- Daniel Ladinsky

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Servant of Love



Thou who pervadest all the worlds below,
Yet sitst above,
Master of all who work and rule and know,
Servant of Love!
Thou who disdainest not the worm to be
Nor even the clod,
Therefore we know by that humility
That thou art God.
*
-- Sri Aurubindo

Golden Dream


Thou art my Lord,
My golden dream,
Thou art my life in death.
O bless me with Thy Hope Supreme,
Lord of the Eternal Breath!
*
-- Sri Chinmoy

Light of the Supreme


O Light of the Supreme, O Light of the Supreme,
O Light of the Supreme!
Kindle the flame of Liberation within me.
Pour down the ocean of Compassion
Into my heart.
You are my Immortality's Divinity.
Accept my darkness, bondage, ignorance
and death.
*
-- Sri Chinmoy

Monday, March 13, 2006

Pieces of God


I am torn in two
but I will conquer myself.
I will dig up the pride.
I will take scissors
and cut out the beggar.
I will take a crowbar
and pry out the broken
pieces of God in me.
Just like a jigsaw puzzle,
I will put him together again
with the patience of a chess player.
How many pieces?
But I will conquer them all
and build a whole nation of God
in me-but united,
build a new soul,
dress it with skin
and then put on my shirt
and sing an anthem,
a song of myself.
*
-- Anne Sexton

Wooden God



I wouldn't mind if God were wooden,
I'd wear Him like a house,
praise His knot holes,
shine Him like a shoe.
I would not let Him burn.
I would not burn myself
for I would be wearing Him.
Oh wood, my father, my shelter,
bless you.
*
-- Anne Sexton

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Incision

Maybe my mother cut the God out of me
when I was two in my playpen.
Is it too late, is it too late
to open the incision and plant Him there again?
All is wilderness.
All is hay that died from too much rain,
my stinky tears.
Whose God are you looking for? asked the priest.
I replied:
a starving man doesn't ask what the meal is.
*
-- Anne Sexton

The Wall



For all you who are going,
and there are many who are climbing their pain,
many who will be painted out with a black ink
suddenly and before it is time,
for those many I say,
awkwardly, clumsily,
take of your life like trousers,
your shoes, your underwear,
then take off your flesh,
unpick the lock of your bones.
In other words
take off the wall
that separates you from God.
*
-- Anne Sexton

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Still in Operation!

Just wanted to put up a brief note, since I haven't updated in a long time, to say that this blog has not been abandoned. If you have checked here and keep finding no updates it's just because I took a break from it. The break went longer than I planned. Truthfully, it's exhausting to do the work for this blog. It requires a lot of time, patience, attention, and lots of reading because researching for the texts is the most difficult part! Just to choose one piece of text to go with one image I might spend half an hour or one hour reading.
It's a lot! I look forward to posting more updates by mid-March.
Stay tuned, please.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Beauty


My peace,
O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude,
And my Beloved is with me always,
For His love I can find no substitute,
And His love is the test for me among mortal beings,
Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate,
He is my "mihrab", towards Him is my "qiblah"
If I die of love, before completing satisfaction,
Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress.
*
-- Rabia al Basri

Sorrow


Where are you, my beloved?
Do you hear my weeping
From beyond the ocean?
Do you understand my need?
Do you know the greatness of my patience?
Is there any spirit in the air capable of conveying
To you the breath of this dying youth?
Is there any
Secret communication between angels that will carry to
You my complaint?
Where are you, my beautiful star?
The obscurity of life
Has cast me upon its bosom; sorrow has conquered me.
*
-- Khalil Gibran

The Soul-bird



O world-ignorance,
Although
You have shackled my feet,
I am free.
*
Although
You have chained my hands,
I am free.
*
Although
You have enslaved my body,
I am free.
*
I am free because I am not of the body.
I am free because I am not the body,
I am free because I am the soul-bird
That flies in Infinity- Sky.
I am the soul-child that dreams
On the Lap of the immortal King Supreme.
*
-- Sri Chinmoy

The (Son) Sun



When the sun appears in the East,
I make friends with my poetry.
I see a golden disc
Right above the blue sea.
A red hibiscus is smiling at me,
Is there anybody on earth, O Sun,
Who does not long for your smile?
No, nobody.
Everybody wants your smile.
I too want your smile
And something more:
I want to bow to you
With my heart's adoration.
*
--Sri Chinmoy

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