Monthly Archives: August 2015
small potatoes
Love this one from Sirena Tales
I am a mere
droplet
in a bucket
a teeny tiny
minnow in a grand ocean,
I am a blip
a hiccup
in a rippling eternity
yes, I am very small
potatoes
this limited and flawed
(sometime fraud)
spud:
ephemeral, forgettable
sometimes a dud, and also
a paradox
because like you
I am potential
pulsing transition
a limited edition
ineffable, not replicable
embodied possibility
and with acrobatic hearts
we can cartwheel kindness
spangle dreams
cascade grace
across a rippling eternity
changed forever
by our echoing trace
(how ’bout them French fries?)
*Special thanks to Tabby Ren Elle for our conversation about “small potatoes” in a recent comment, providing the bass line from which to riff this poem.
God is in the Reality of the Present Moment
I’m studying the book of Ecclesiastes in a Scripture Class at my church. We are using a book by my favorite Rabbi, Rami Shapiro. He boils Ecclesiastes down to accepting the reality of the present moment without judging it as good/bad, happy/sad, bright/dark. There’s none of this gritting of teeth and bearing things in hope for a reward of heaven or a star in our crown. It’s about accepting everything in this moment: myself, others, pain, joy, beauty, ugliness and by accepting the now…whole, we experience the grace, the transcendent in it.
God is in the reality of the present moment. It is all we actually have. But it is everything.
Pain Focuses Us on Ourselves, but Also on the Present Moment
Just had knee surgery for a torn meniscus. At the same time, a suspicious spot was discovered in my husband’s lung. And my youngest son, the father of four, discovered that his heart rate has become alarmingly low. Both of them are seeing specialists tomorrow. Yesterday, the pain in my knee finally stopped and I resumed my normal habit of worrying about the future, particularly about those I love. I knew that pain makes us self-centered, but I had never thought about how much it keeps us focused on the present moment. This may seem obvious and not particularly significant, but psychological pain does the same thing. It not only makes us self centered, but may be part of the reason that people get trapped in destructive patterns of behavior. They can’t focus on future consequences when overwhelmed by present pain.
I am not sure where this train of thought is going, but it helps me understand and be a little more patient with those who get trapped in repetitive patterns of poor choices.
Meanwhile, if you are into prayer, please include my husband Julian and my son, Tommy. Thanks so much.
Eileen
Birthday Reflections: 77 is a Very Good Number or Killing A** Holes Would Make Jesus Cry
Well 78 is an even better number and I still agree that killing A**Holes would make Jesus cry.
Over all it’s been a reasonably productive, though challenging year. The challenge of moving has been a bit of a bummer, but the advantage of it being such a drawn out, tiring process is it has helped us become eager to get moved, instead of just needing to move.
Also, my faith has been stretched by the process and that’s a good thing. I realized recently that what I used to think were tests of faith (which I usually failed!) are instead a stretching of our faith as part of the journey. Hopefully, each time we are stretched, we make it a little longer before we have to pray, “I do believe. Help thee my unbelief.”
I hit a couple of areas where I realized that I would have to change or I was going to totally fail in some of the most important areas of my life. And then…
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An Explanation
This is from a blog called Dark Matter written by a poet with a prophetic voice that calls us to respond in at least some small way to the evil we prefer to ignore in our world.
This one-note-struck
of all my recent talk
about my rage and sorrow
at how humans suborn
all the machinations of Evil
and take each other for pawns
to be moved at will
in games huge and tiny
can be grating, I know.
It grates on me as well.
I wake up raw most days
and on the other days it’s not long
before I am drawn to picking at
the new scabs and nearly-healed scars
of my previous wounds.
I have them always on my mind.
I feel them festering and itching on my skin.
I taste them, dark and sour, in my mouth.
You don’t know how much I would prefer
to speak only of my garden
filled with midsummer close-to-ripeness,
or of hours of simplicity watching my cat,
or of the peace in lying with my love
long hours in a just-enough-room bed.
I speak of these things often…
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