Which One

Oh, to be alive

Embodied

Heartbeats and exhales on

warm skin

Eye to eye

To take up space together

Or is your world

Two-dimensional

Watching and listening on

cold, hard glass

Eye to screen

To watch the world pass you by.

Come Home, Dear One

Come home, dear one

You left in search of what already was within

To fill a longing birthed years ago

Not safe

Or not enough

Or, perhaps, not worthy of love

The first arrow, this wound of longing, opened up.

“I can fix it! I will fix it! I will love me!”

With things

Success

With busyness or fame

Or food or starving

With drink or the screen

Or perfection

“Oh, how I’ve hurt me!

Why can’t I get this right?”

The second arrow, this wound of shame, opened up.

But perhaps there is a better way:

To see your searching, your substitutions

To ask, what’s under here?

To remember: love met longing and started your quest.

Come home, dear one.

You are not enemy, but caretaker

Reach out and join hands with your hurting self

“You were always worthy of love

Let’s be still now, for Love lives here

It blooms within.”

As you stop searching, you find it everywhere

You and Love forge a new path

Giving and receiving

Healing

Home

This poem was inspired by Tara Brach's teaching on Desire and Addiction: Voices of Longing, Part 2

Maybe

Maybe

There’s nothing to say

About what terrible things come to pass

Of those who endure them

Of those who inflict them

Of the long, lonely journey that leads someone off the path of belovedness

And into the cavern of malice

Turning friends into enemies

Children into orphans

Men into monsters

The warm light of love

Into cold, empty aching.

Maybe 

There’s nothing to say

If all of our saying is what led man astray.

Then we who shout and point fingers

Should stop, silent, and open our hands

We might reach out with love and grasp a wandering one

Before he has gone too far into the darkness.

You belong

You are loved

We are one

For it is only love, not empty words

That turn enemies into friends

Orphans into children

Monsters into men

And the cold, empty aching

Into the warm light of love.

This poem was inspired by this quote:

This my dear

is the greatest challenge to being alive.

To witness injustice in the world

and not allow it to consume our light

~Thich Nhat Hanh

An Iron Fist or A Golden Arm

This morning in my news wrap up email I read about two different men. One gave a speech to accolades on one side and scowls/ heckling on the other. The promises of a thriving country through control, dismantling, threats and hate speech. I could say more, but I digress. 

The other man I read about was James Harrison, an Aussie who recently died at the age of 88. I can’t tell you a thing about his political swayings. No promises to save the world or take Australia back to a golden age, but he IS known as The Man with the Golden Arm. In the years from 1954-2018, Mr. Harrison donated his blood and plasma, which contained a rare antibody called Anti-D. He is credited with saving 2.4 MILLION babies. Twice a week, for over 50 years he gave the gift of his blood. 

I was thinking about how much time this added up to, sitting in the chair or reclined on the table, hooked up and just giving what was given to you, to save lives. No crowds, no news conferences, no golden statues or requests for recognition. Just a man multiplying a small but precious gift, week after week, year after year, decade after decade. 

An Iron Fist or a Golden Arm? Both men’s bodies will return to dust as I am reminded on this Ash Wednesday. Mine too. Leaving more than legacies and stories behind, Mr. Harrison leaves 50+ years of lives, coursing with his blood. 

Who was the good neighbor? Who did the most good? Who showed mercy? 

What small gift can we offer up faithfully over time like Mr. Harrison in the work of mercy? 

What might we let go of for a time, to open the iron fists of selfishness and give way to golden arms of life and mercy?