www.theburninghand.com

Awakening to the One Beauty, Adored by many Names

       from the desk of
Robert Daniel Smith
Cook, Dishwasher, Walker, Gardener, Writer, Poet
and Companion of the Way
(Yes, founder of Dorothy's Place Hospitality Center:
and after 30 years, in 2011, left for a new life in the Midwest...)

   Author:
www.theburninghand.com
Resplendent In Rags and The Jewel In The Lotus
Writing: The Shifty-Mystic
  and
  Subtle River, Subtle Moon
  (New and Selected Poems)

Everyday: Chop Wood, Carry Water
-- Chinese Taoist Sage
Come to my home. I will make tea. Noodles. We can talk poetry. -- Tsung Tsai
We find our souls all soaked in grace... -- Thomas Merton
Divinity is aimed at humanity. -- St. Hildegard of Bingen
  We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love. -- Simone Weil
When I started creating a natural farm here the soil was hard and depleted
and there were only a few types of plants growing. It took me a while to change
that, but now the orchard and woodlands provide everything we need to live
a pleasant and comfortable life. -- Masanobu Fukuoka
True culture originates in a partnership between people and nature and
is passed down from one generation to the next. -- Larry Korn

Companions of the Way
Imagine Paradise, Practice Beauty
The Cosmic Cross is a Circle: In the Name of Love, Lover, and Loving...
       What if? Why not? What next?
Tao Gospel Franciscan Celtic Nonviolence
Being-Becoming / Cosmic Consciousness / Infinite Bliss
Holy Mother Meditation and Life

How then shall we live?
  Is there not an heretical imperative implicit in the Gospel
and in our absolute amazement in awakening to the Blessed Trinity:     Love, Lover, and Loving...

Is it not true that the Gospel, and the Heart of Every Religion, is an invitation to build, with faith and hope, intentional communities rooted in the Mystic-Action of pan-sacramentalism? Is it not true that the Gospel, and the Heart of Every Religion, calls us to live a life of prayer, cooperation, compassion, service, justice, simplicity of life, and nonviolence? Is it not true that the Gospel, and the Heart of Every Religion, calls us to save Planet Earth by living in such a way that we serve all species and the re-generation of our Home? Is it not true that the Gospel, and the Heart of Every Religion, calls us to gender / race / and class equality (equality of and in the personhood of all human beings) as the foundation of social transformation towards the just, the good, and the beautiful? Is it not true that the Gospel, and the Heart of Every Religion, calls us to live lives of contemplative prayer, gratitude of mind, availability and vulnerability of heart, and a harmony of body, mind, and soul? Is it not true (it could very well be!) that our Surrender to the Holy Mother, in an application pan-sacramentalism,
might be the most efficacious means of cultivating the Conscious Evolution, the Growing Christ, required by this 21st century? And finally, is it not true that the Gospel, and the Heart of Every Religion, are roadmaps of the Way -- into our surrender to the Divine and our growing / greening identification with this Love -- and with Every Manifestation of the Beloved in a pan-sacramental non-dual Universe -- and then our ultimate transformation in and through this same Cosmic Christ Consciousness? The Tao... The Divine Unity...
-- Core Questions and A Way of Life

Emergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity
to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.
-- adrienne maree brown

Vow of the Order of the Sacred Earth:
"I promise to be the best lover and defender of Mother Earth that I can be."

  "By little and by little" was a frequent saying repeated by Dorothy Day, in both her writings and
in her daily life: living in a shelter that included intentional community, homeless, and a soup kitchen. And so her "by little and by little" continues with us in our home -- far from the shelters, soup kitchen, drop in center, health care clinic, community garden, silk screening, art gallery, summer camps for youth, and other projects that taught us how to love, broke our hearts, and always pieced us back together again... Now, our "work" is family, home, teaching, writing, creating art, and the layering of gratitude in our daily life experiences... and gardening... which really amounts to the long, slow, haul of creating soil (perhaps the one essential work of humanity)... we've two apple trees, three hazelnut bushes, berries, assorted juniper-like bushes and trees, and hostas and ferns on the north face... but really, the reality is straw, wood chips, and collected leaves from the city compost site that we layer everywhere... eventually, the hardy plants will genuinely rejoice, and the longed-for veggies and fruits will finally be abundant! Meanwhile, we still cook and share "Soup Nights" with neighbors and friends, read poetry together, and share our spiritual practices... Looking around, deep meditation is everywhere: Mother Mary and St. Francis have their representations, as does Kuan Yin (Bodhisattva of Compassion), and the Indigenous Mother and Child... kneeling in the straw and tucking it around the plants (realizing that winter will be here soon enough) is just as sacred as sitting in prayer and meditation before our altar (centerpiece of our "Great Room", comfy with soft sofa, old rockers, book cases, art work -- some even hanging from the ceiling, dining table, and drifting incense and music)... Our past in Dorothy's Place is cherished, but our present, oh our present, is the stuff of life: poetry, adventures, and the intentional cultivation of "enough", "gratitude", "kindness", and "awareness of the Mystery that pervades all life and everything"... Your thoughts, comments, and questions are always invited!

Stunning love is where the soup boils. Justice and Mercy stand in the breadline. The Blissful Mother receives there Her bowl of soup and piece of bread. Kitchen theology is getting up out of the easy chair and going where the onions need to be chopped! Kitchen theology is the understanding that "salvation" is not the profession of a creed or a "personal relationship" with Jesus, Allah, Krishna, the Buddha, the Torah, the Way or even the Goddess. Rather, it is the radical commitment to not enter Paradise until everyone among us has found their fill of bread and roses, and entered first. -- Robert Daniel Smith Resplendent In Rags

If we believe in the Incarnation of the Son of God, there should be no one on earth in whom we are not prepared to see, in mystery, the presence of Christ. -- Thomas Merton

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement which continues to operate Houses of Hospitality throughout the world, with the workers publishing newspapers, building farms, serving and advocating for the poor, and witnessing for peace and justice.

The price of the kingdom is the food you give to those who need it. -- St. Leo the Great

Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system. -- Dorothy Day, Saint of the Gutter Beautiful

In hurried flight down a darkened path
my soul is seeking a wooded house and garden green
where her Lover waits with love's expectations
and only the Breath of God stirs the fragrant leaves -- RDS

Imagine Paradise, Practice Beauty

Creation was fashioned to be adorned, to be showered, to be gifted with the love of the Creator. The entire world has been embraced by this kiss. Limitless love, from the depths to the stars, flooding all, loving all. It is the royal kiss of peace. God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God. -- St. Hildegard of Bingen

Divinity is everywhere and within everything: it is the Holy of Holies, the Secret of Secrets. It is both above and beneath, within and without. It is before and it is behind: it lurks behind every veil -- always ready and waiting for the perfect moment, the surprise of the perfect pounce... -- Robert Daniel Smith Resplendent In Rags

Every single act of kindness is a call into Being for the Divine Beloved -- the Source is born -- again and again throughout all of time -- by every moment and movement of Love from "one" to "another". We become the Mothers of G-d by our Love and through our Love! We give birth to G-d when through a thought, word, or action we exist -- in that specific and precious moment -- not for ourselves, but only for the "other"...

The experience of all mystics is a new knowledge and relationship to the world, a union in love that begets in the mystic a burning desire to serve the world.

-- Fr. George Maloney, S.J.