Sitting with Rumi on the edge of impasse—T2
(or is it inconsummation—T3, or perhaps identity—T1). Here, at these Thresholds the chaff of "knowing" is carried away by the wind... as the heart of the matter falls to the threshing floor the helpers come to gather us up so that we may become bread for the world. Zero Circle, Rumi Be helpless, dumbfounded, Unable to say yes or no. Then a stretcher will come from grace To gather us up. We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty If we say we can, we’re lying. If we say No, we don’t see it, That No will behead us And shut tight our window onto spirit. So let us rather not be sure of anything, Besides ourselves, and only that, so Miraculous beings come running to help. Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute, We shall be saying finally, With tremendous eloquence, Lead us. When we have totally surrendered to that beauty, We shall be a mighty kindness.
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I believe the law of 3 is at work in the movement to abolish the police. The three moves (forces) are Affirming-Denying-Reconciling (also life-death-resurrection). The denying force - has to (IMHO) get stronger before the reconciling force emerges. It is the way of "things". I will "stand" with those who have the courage to endure the NO until a new, as of yet unseen, WAY emerges.
This brings to mind a favorite poem by such a courageous poet, Yehuda Amichai: The Place Where We Are Right From the place where we are right Flowers will never grow In the spring. The place where we are right Is hard and trampled Like a yard. But doubts and loves Dig up the world Like a mole, a plow. And a whisper will be heard in the place Where the ruined House once stood. Yehuda Amichai (1924 - 2000) was an Israeli poet. He was born in Germany, then immigrated with his family to Palestine in 1936. He fought in the Israeli War of Independence as a young man, but became an advocate of peace and reconciliation in the region, working with Palestinian writers. He was 'discovered' in 1965 by Ted Hughes, who later translated several of Amichai's books. (From the Wikipedia article on Yehuda Amichai.) dawning at dawn at double trouble
PARUSIA ((/pəˈruːziə/; Greek: παρουσία) is an ancient Greek word meaning presence, arrival, or official visit the day wanted to come through the close opaque air the silhouetted tree-line longed for depth but the fog kept it to only two dimensions while the geese and the ducks seemed at home on the dreamy waters my soul wondered with me when the mist would clear so I could welcome the breaking day that is how The Day will come not like the canvas on a painting that has been peeled back to reveal what has been underneath all along but like the new Day dawning its light will pierce the pigments of all that is—burning, cleansing away rearranging the old to make all things new The Light even now shines through the life-scape it’s brilliance bedazzles now and then when the hungry are fed the aching listened to the cast out brought in the nameless blessed the weary rest the sleepers awakened . . . my soul bids come away with me through the incarnate fog deeper into the liminal sabbath-- smooth, watery, womb-like, holding place to be at home, like ducks and geese who while waiting too glide freely on water through a place once thick now made thin by the encroaching light revealing dimensions once hidden the new day at double trouble For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. —Lao-Tzu
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. PSALM 34:18 Have you ever experienced the holiness of place? For two years I served as a pastor of a 900-year-old Scottish kirk. It was the church in which Robert Lewis Stevenson spent much of his childhood and where his grandfather Lewis Balfour was the minister. I experienced this church as a holy place. Something about its history and architecture engendered a heightened sense of nearness of the Spirit. While in Great Britain, my wife, Jan, and I visited the Tower of London. Part prison, part fortress, it oozes fascinating history. The oldest part of this auspicious structure is the White Tower built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Housed on the second floor of the Tower is a small chapel named the Chapel of Saint John. It is built entirely of stone with a vaulted ceiling supported by 12 pillars. It was used by the Knights of the Order of Bath to keep an all-night vigil over their armor before the King anointed them on coronation day. Except for the light that shines through the arched windows, the chapel is empty. It is very silent, very still. To me, this is a Sabbath place. The reverent prayers from over a thousand years of visitors to this holy place can almost be inhaled as the sacredness of the place fills one’s soul. Just below the Chapel of Saint John is the most appalling of all the Tower’s dungeons. Measuring four feet square by four feet high, it is impossible to stand upright or lie down full length in it. This stifling, cramped place is called Little Ease. We are that White Tower. How much of our lives do we spend in the place of Little Ease when the Chapel of Saint John is so close and inviting? Howard Rice’s description of the spiritual life reminds me of the Knights in the Chapel of Saint John: “To be spiritual is to take seriously our consciousness of God’s presence and to live in such a way that the presence of God is central to all that we do.” And yet, there is a part of me finds the Divine Light too much to bear. So I continue to find refuge in my ordinary (and beautiful) humanity, though I know the breath there is constricting, even though it sometimes feels like I am sitting in the ashes. This is grief. Yet in the grief there is some healing happening. Little by little, bit by bit, those parts of me that remain in Little Ease are being bathed in Love that comes from a Source like Saint John's Chapel, a holding place where the light of Love bathe all who linger there. I return again and again to the liminal space of worthiness and vulnerability, of love and acceptance as I venture, one heart beat at a time, from Little Ease to the Chapel of Light. Two Rooms (A Threshold Poem)
Two rooms make up this plane a preference as you’ll see One open to God’s shining face The other only room for me There is much light in the one above Its windows wide and free The one below but dampens love Yet here I sit to a tolerable degree One’s like the future grand with awe the other sure and certain One contained in canon law the other’s light shines through torn curtain Why there’s two I cannot know But still a greater question Is why I linger here below in days of linear progression One mystery is there is no door to keep me in this room below my heart whispers I have a choice to live the truth I surely know I’ve come of late to the light filled space and found my truer self there Yet I strain against Love’s embrace its penetration too much to bear So soon I find my home again in the place of Little Ease but the memory of Light’s domain blows through like morn’s fresh breeze So while I long for Saint John’s Chapel I stay with roots below Some part convinced forbidden apple has yet more sweetness to bestow You may think my life impaired by living here below yet many rooms my Dad's prepared It's what Jesus came to show
Murray Grove
is a Universalist Unitarian Retreat and Conference Center in Lanoka Harbor, NJ.
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