Photos are a flashback to my years serving in a Soup Kitchen, and also in migrant farm worker camps... Ah! To have been able to love and be loved: paradise!
|
|
Embrace simplicity. Put others first. Desire little. (19) Tao Te Ching The "burning hand" is both symbol and meditation of our divinely human awakening...
from the desk of
Robert Daniel Smith
Interfaith Minister, Writer, Poet
Author:
www.theburninghand.com
Resplendent In Rags and The Jewel In The Lotus
Writing: The Shifty-Mystic
and
Subtle River, Subtle Moon (New Poems)
Illuminations
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
How beautiful this world is... -- Tasha Tudor
The only response to the one-dimensional consciousness of
technocratic society: a renaissance of the imagination.
-- Theodore Roszak
The Poem Is a Sanctuary
the poem is a sanctuary
a dream
a protest
a reckoning rhyme is a chickadee
unlike Rumi
who was a dance
or Thoreau
who was a cottonwood tree
the poem is an old house
in the woods
in the valley
in the village it doesn't matter where
but it must be filled
with books
with clutter and music
how else would angels enter like strangers
the poem is a sanctuary
a sound
a silence
a mountain birthing existence itself
before word became flesh
before belief and doubt
before mystic unknowing and obviously
before death became a soul-deep caress
-- Robert Daniel Smith
March 2021
Iona House
Imagine Paradise, Practice Beauty
Franciscan Worker
Celtic Spirituality: with inspirations from
the Catholic Worker, Taoism, Findhorn Community, Sufism,
Paramahansa Yogananda,
and the Parliament of the World's Religions
lived in intentional community...
How then shall we live?
Is there not an heretical imperative implicit in the Gospel?
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 pansacramentalism? 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 Mother, in an application of pansacramentalism, 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 pansacramental Universe -- and then our ultimate transformation in and through this same Cosmic Consciousness?
-- Iona House, Core Questions / A Way of Life / Companions Community
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."
The Song of St. Francis
Holy Moly! You are beyond my imagination!
You are praise, wonder, beauty and every blessing!
All good, every kindness, is your shining
And your Name is the secret of creation!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in dear Brother Sun!
He brings the day to enlighten our hearts!
Brother Sun is beauty shining
Shining as your Holy Moly sign!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in dear Sister Moon and Brilliant Stars!
In the sky they shine
Brilliant, precious, and beautiful!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in dear Brother Wind!
In every movement of air and cloud
In every movement in delight you Shine!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in wonderful Sister Water!
She is so precious and humble
in accepting the kiss of our lips!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in robust Brother Fire!
He is so vibrant and bold
to hold back the night for our praise!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in our sacred Mother Earth!
She holds us to her breast,
She lifts us up in our weakness,
She gifts us with fruits, flowers, and herbs,
in her embrace we are held by you!
I rejoice in my darkness to know your Light
in all persons who know the beauty
of a bended knee, can ask for forgiveness,
and who can lift up the harmed in the beauty of peace,
for it is in this living of peace, that is the crown of lasting Light
and the wonder of an endless Holy Moly!
-- Robert Daniel Smith
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
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
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. |
