St. Francis of the Tao

Years and years ago, I read something to the effect that, during the normal course of most lives, most people tend to become more and more conservative as they age... In my particular case, or rather life, it has been the exact opposite course for me... There's a line in the Tao Te Ching that goes like this: If you want to become whole, first let yourself become broken... I didn't set out with the intention of this... but brokenness ambushed me along the way, and whole has now come to mean radical to the roots... of necessity to approach the Living Truth...

​Only a broken cup can hold the Universe... 

Only a broken heart can embrace the Divine... 

​I became a Catholic because of St. Francis of Assisi, with generous assistance from Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day... Along the way of living, I started a Catholic Worker House and also became a professed Franciscan: my cup was whole. And then I began to fall in love, not just once, but over and over and over again... An old man with the brightest blue eyes you could ever imagine, Junior Mann, was first. He was an ancient, ragged-to-the-bone, alcoholic... Preston was next: his hands were so enlarged and twisted from arthritis that I'd have to carefully wedge his sandwiches into them as he'd turn to limp away... Then there was Stephanie, a prostitute with three kids and a husband who was her pimp... And Eleanor showed up at our Kitchen at about this time... 

​Only a broken cup can hold the Universe...

Only a broken heart can embrace the Divine...

​Time and time again, I shattered... the worst shattering was always when the love that was given was not returned... and when abandonment seared my identity... There is not a single thing romantic about ego-annihilation... but it is precisely here, in this particular moment, that the Universe bends toward the breaking when It hears "I just want to Love"... This bending is sort of like the Miracle Story of the Master Poet feeding thousands of people with just a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread... Emptiness creates the needed space for the Presence of the Divine... It is both as simple and as complex as this...

​In every religion, there is the institutional: the creeds, dogmas, the practices, the symbols, the right thinking that makes for cohesion... to be sure, there is some value to all of that... but, on the margins, usually on the outside looking in, is the living experience, the faith-that-is-not-faith, because only a broken heart can embrace the Divine... The Tao Te Ching (No. 22) continues: If you want to become whole, then first let yourself be broken, they weren't using empty words...

​There is a Mystery here. The master's words were not empty, precisely because their hearts had already leaked out, all over the place... This is the example of St. Francis of Assisi (St. Clare even more so). Francis lived his I just want to love as best he could, by kissing lepers on the mouth, by working in the fields with the working poor, by wandering the backroads of obedience to faith... which left him broken, abandoned by most of his friends as he was abandoned by his dreams, abandoned even by his eyesight... lying naked on the ground, harassed by scampering mice, and with nothing left but his burning tears... he became a living cup to whom the Universe bent It's ear... 

And what did this broken, empty, man do? What could he say with his broken mind and heart in hand? What would you do, if brought by life to the very abyss of nothingness? What would you say, with nothing left to say? For Francis, his mind descended further... descended into the broken abyss of his broken heart... and he sang the song of dawn... he sang with the secret, sudden, knowing of the Transcendent alive with the Immanent, of the Sacred Unity of Creation and all things / beings created... It went something like this:

​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!

​I guess that you could say that this is the Song of St. Francis of the Tao... because he lived a re-definition of the Gospel: from religion to Way... from institution to the experience of immersion in the Mystery of the Transcendent in-filling the Immanent... it is possible is the beginning...