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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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