Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

God of failure, God of light Dim in the distance Hushed in the night. Living this pain These trifles, they bruise. Is life lived in vain In this game, I lose. Hearts speak comfort Then scream obscenity And the retort Is the blood of entropy. Bodies burning and heaving Aching in pain and disgust And the angels they sing Over men of dust. Is this heaven I demand, so lost. I cannot, a man Fathom the cost. I ask the question - So human and perverse Do you exist In this, my desolate universe? And the silence closes in So the years pass by And the planets, they spin Until I give in and die. Can you redeem alone This bottomless soul This skin and bones Surrounding a hole? Save me by small chances To grasp the light In bitter circumstances Before the coming of night. And in the silence of my request In the bowels of pain A voice repressed Comes to me again. "You don't even have to brea...

I know that God loves so deeply it will crumple your weakened knees. I know this because yesterday I had an experience of closeness to God that I have never had before.  I wrote a poem while it was happening.  See my previous blog post titled enraptured:  http://spiritgivesbirth.blogspot.com/2015/12/enraptured.html I kissed the face of the divine, and he (or she) kissed me back. I think that God has deep emotions for us, not just because I have experienced it, but because it is written in scripture.  God created Adam AND Eve in his own image.  That means he has all the strength of man and the spirit of doing and fighting for justice but also the gentle relational spirit of Eve.  Eve who loves deeply and cries and rejoices for her lover.  God, in the Christian tradition, is three in one.  The father, spirit and son - in eternal relationship with each other. He is a relational being.  He is a friend, a father, and a lover. ...

Soft warm rays of light Breaking through the mighty black clouds above Fall softly onto my face And wrap me in heat. Electric impulses shoot down my synapses From my muscles into my limbs And up to my brain Baking in the mix of good feeling transmitters I swoon in the infinite Steadying myself Against the weight Of the eternal. Love flows freely Heaven to earth And then earth to heaven In a joyful exchange of souls. The cycle is complete, My purpose is fulfilled. Gravity fails to hold down My heart and feet to the soil. The air is singing, The rocks cry out And all creation sighs And breaths deeply. The sound of music Coming from my ear buds Is drowned out  By the silent delight in my heart.

     Men, most of us, have a deep father wound.  A wound from a perceived or concrete injustice inflicted upon us, usually unknowingly, by our fathers.  It is part of our spiritual journey from boyhood to manhood to go through the healing of this wound.  Our fathers were human.  They were not perfect.  And they suffered their own wounds. There is no perfect father but God.  And God, or another man fathering us, can heal this wound.      My father left the family when I was 5. As a child of that crucial age, I perceived that he was leaving ME.  I was left alone to be raised by my mother and two sisters.  I could not get from them the kind of validation I needed from a man.  I had no one to show me, on a day to day basis, what I was meant to become.  I spent my entire young life impersonating the people I looked up to.  And mirroring back to people the kind of person I perceived they wanted me to be....

A limited muffled rupture And peace slips through my fingers I notice my breathing In and out.   Brown trees bloody with sticky sap Thrust sharp into the side of the sky The ground spins and heaves And the wind screams.   Lightening flashes behind my eyes: The searing pain of knowing As the storms rage At the edges of my vision.   The dead leaves fall away From the dry trees And settle on the floor Of the dead brown earth.   Death waits at the door And I try to stretch in this coffin But the muscles are weak And they do not respond.   I notice my breathing In and out Sweeter than heaven And hotter than hell.   In and out Each breath a footstep On the path Away from pain.   In and out My chest follows the rhythm Written on the universe And in my heart.   I curl up on the couch In the hands of God And sigh in the silence As the peace flows into my heart.   Lum...

Wrote this during my fast from food after the Paris attacks      A lot of people aren't going to understand this.  But I am fasting from food in the wake of the Paris attacks. I am fasting for peace.  I am a writer so I am going to try to explain what this means. I am fasting for peace. I am fasting for the hearts and minds of the young men who have joined ISIS.   Young men - brothers and sons - who have gotten so lost in their anger and hatred that they felt compelled to take human lives.  Young men, who are joining ISIS in droves - who feel so powerless that they joined a movement that saw fit to crucify people, including two children, in Syria in June for not fasting during Ramadan.  Powerlessness begets anger begets hate.  Hate begets hate in response.  I am fasting to take back fasting and let them know that all is not lost.  It is what I can do as a spiritual man praying for them.  Love will end the cycle of violen...

I drag my hand down the bumpy bark The lines in it, veins Coursing with green fertile sap beneath Burning beneath the life all around me. Fall flowers detonate and burn In the gardens at the edge of the grasses Houses line up neatly In rows - straight and narrow. I meander down the paved black street Towards the holy woods Hemmed in on all sides By the fading green trimmed lawns. There life grows in jagged brown lines In fits and starts, now sleeping It strains and sleepily reaches out In stark lines against the frozen blue sky. My soul, it stirs deep in its fleshy tomb The fiber of my being warms And the heart flows to the surface Of my skin, cold in the fall sun. The leaves scattered about the wooded floor Crackle and crunch under my feet As I place one in front of the other Already arrived and still going. The one to whom the blessings belong Sits quietly by the lake under the naked trees He engages me with loving eyes...

The wind bends the green trees whipping up waves of grasses on the desolate brown-grey prairie. And I am standing here In the fast fading evening sun A dog That has stepped on his leash. Syrians turned away at the border By guns in schools, and hands That don't have a soul to hold them Down in our pockets. Love peace and harmony Very nice Very nice Very nice But I don't want to Get involved. Break of the waves Crashing on the beach Levels are rising And the ice floats down from the north. Love, peace and harmony Very nice Very nice  Very nice But I don't want to Get involved. The whisper crescendos In a scream In my heart, a wildfire That burns bright in the dark. Burn and spread In this silent sleeping nation.