The Streets of San Juan de la Cruz
Welcome to "The Streets of San Juan de la Cruz"! These streets could be anywhere... but most especially, they are the streets of the heart: all of the "main roads" have been cluttered with dogmas and justifications, so it is to the back avenues, the forgotten by-ways, that we are going in search of the Divine...
St. John of the Cross met St. Theresa of Avila: he was bowled over... the Church long ago figured out the very best way of dealing with mystics: name them saints. Once canonized, it was easy to slip them into an appropriate box -- not for safe-keeping mind you -- but for perfect control. Locked into the forever of Heaven, they could no longer rattle the cages that we had climbed into...
Inspired by the love poetry of John -- which "may" have been completely "spiritual" -- we are going to pretend that we too have been bitten by a very complicated love: lost, we have become, in a fluid love that is confusing to the uninitiated: in our confusion, the Divine is Lover, while at the same time, the longed for human touch is Divine... Is it safe to play this mix and match? Of course not! But that is not our problem, for we are lost now: wandering the streets in our lonely madness... most people turn and look the other way whenever they see people like us, but if you have the courage required by utter foolishness, then you may return for selected lines and random thoughts from the Streets of San Juan de la Cruz...
The Dark Night of the Street
1) On a dark night, afraid
And lonely as the last of a specie,
I surrendered my soul
(Who am I?)
In the gutter of a dreaming Love...
3) In the homeless night,
I am a secret I keep from myself,
I am the stranger unseen,
With not even hope for sunrise:
Just this naked burning in my chest...
8) I walked and completely forgot my name,
Then I sat and gazed into Her fathomless eyes:
There was now no road, not even an abandonment,
Leaving my backpack,
I was forgotten, amid the flowers there...
This first few lines of the poem "The Dark Night of the Street" serve as sort of an invitation to consider the "way of abandonment"... You see, we live in an age in which meaning is too often acquired as another commercial "possession": religion is a game of salvation, a solution to the angst of life... Really? Even in our minds (most especially in our minds), we are a stunning collection of clutter: justifications abound, hatreds sprout their poison flowers, and a realm of exhausting fears compel an equally exhausting pursuit of forgetfulness...
Once upon a time, a homeless man would eat lunch with us and later, when he left the Kitchen, promptly begin talking to a wall. We asked him why? He simply said, "If they think I'm crazy, they leave me alone." A strategy for surviving the streets: what are the strategies that we employ for surviving our homes and relationships, for surviving our work and disappointments, and for surviving the final surety of our last breath?
Perhaps we might consider "leaving the backpacks" of our mental and heart clutter for the new vista available in "forgetfulness": leaving behind our cowardice, our comfortable fears, our debilitating doubts, and our grievous heartbreaks for the one task for which we were born: to remember our Divine Nature and to give back That Love... "amid the flowers there"... How? As much as possible, cultivate kindness, compassion, and mercy: practice beauty: revere the Planet: and breathe the remembrance of Love... this, we can do and become! It is the oneness, the "yoga", of willing One Love: with this breath... with this breath... with this breath...
Power will continue its rapacious pursuit of profit and privilege: corporations and billionaires solidify their grip upon the rotting corpse of Greed: to what great end? There is nothing in nothingness: they will finally get their fill! But what about us? What about our hurts and disappointments? There is only the way of abandonment: you've got to travel light to become the Light! Forgetfulness is useful in order to remember! Our choice to remember "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love" is our pass-card: "Welcome home!"
O Terrifying Warming Grate
1) O Terrifying Warming Grate
Upon which I spread my single blanket,
I am numb, not from the cold
And not from the fear, but from a surety
Settling into my bones: You are foreign,
Made somewhere, maybe China...
3) O blinking street-light,
In whose blink
I seem to exist,
That which formerly shone brilliant and bright,
Now with a wrapping wraith of yellow vapor
Turn to look another way...
4) Footfalls approach
And I scream them into a wide circle,
But You secretly drop a flower
Into my empty hat: I hear You breathing
And I could die but choose instead to laugh
Into the delicacy of Your tears...
Can the human mind fully comprehend the mystery of an endlessly (?) expanding Universe? Can the human mind, in any truly significant way, even partially comprehend the mysterious possibility of a Creative and Sustaining "One Love" Consciousness? There is a secret cult of "the fool" for Love: going by different names in different ages and places, these "fools" embrace madness to scale the heights of contemplation... "Reason" is the science of theology: sort of like the fog that hides the mountain peaks... "Madness" is the single shaft of Light that penetrates every conception to make it Dark: there, in that Place, Only One is embraced...
That "Only One" is the Grandparent Trickster, the coyote of the spirit Who runs down our wandering souls: dragging them by whatever means necessary to the One Place we ultimately wish to go... "I hear You breathing and I could die but choose instead to laugh into the delicacy of Your tears"... The meaning and purpose of life is this discovery and surrender: there is no definition that is correct enough to liberate our consciousness from its delusions. There is, however, the simple beauty of one moment, one breath, one heart-felt surrender, and one Sacred Kiss that is utter annihilation into Bliss...
Something Stunningly New
1) Comets blaze across the sky,
As earth spins in endless dance...
Longing is their Glory Song.
3) Forget every claim you've heard,
Forget too, the baggage of theology...
Longing is really the One Song.
4) Can you smell the chocolate cooking?
The incense of prayer is just a bit different...
But longing is still the Only Song.
7) When sinner and saint are lovers,
Talk will only be a forgiveness...
And the longing of both is to sing This Song.
The presence of the Beloved can never be "known", as in "possessed"... but rather, always "unknown"... This is key: the way of ascension is descent: to rise, one must fall: to inherit Paradise, one must turn one's back on the door and go back out to assist in the arrival of everyone else... there is no other way in... Love is the root of our being, of our consciousness: it is only by loving that we may become Love... it is only by loving, that our lives have meaning and purpose beyond the shadow-reality of "here I am"... Most of what passes for religion, culture, economics, and politics simply gurgles-up from "here I am": there is neither immanence nor transcendence in "here I am": there is only the very human blessed trinity, multiplied infinitely, from horizon-to-horizon, with a crowd of "me-myself-and-I's"...
On the other hand, there stands the contemplative: the mystic-activist at the center of world, history. and maelstrom. With the Beloved "absent", the mystic-activist engages in the daily discipline and practice of loving "this person" and "this person" and then pursuing policies of justice, equality, peace, and earth reverence... And thus the contemplative sees herself in her sister / brother: in every "other" and so discovers the Face in the mirror before she was born... It is also of essential importance to underline that there is nothing at all very mysterious about any of this: it sounds mysterious only because we have become habituated to surface-thought: this is all actually very mundane: it is precisely in how we make love that we will experience our liberation: it is precisely in how we sweep our floor that we will encounter the Divine: it is how we wash the dishes, teach the children, nurse the sick, feed the hungry, distribute decision-making and power, protect the earth, create communities of justice, till the soil, care for animals, plan for vacations: loving is always as normal as breathing: awakened and not in the slumber of illusion and power...
Psalm 1
Is there a happiness greater
Than being wanted?
Is there a higher state of wonder
Than that of endless delight
In the surrender and collapse of Love?
This first stanza of Psalm 1 (Homeless Psalms), points to the root blessing / terror of our human condition: "being wanted". Oh I know that many would argue that love is the point and purpose of life, of every life (I agree!) -- and yet, Dorothy Day used to refer frequently to Dostoevsky"s "Love in reality is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams"... In other words, love is not a philosophy, nor is it a theology: love is the radical self-emptying that breaks the heart open and lays it bare and trembling upon the floor... This being laid bare and trembling is the crux of the matter: love is not convenient! Love uproots our minds and drops them upon the garbage heap piled high in the dumpsters of the world...
Emptied of attachments to our plans and purposes, we come stark naked into the world of the broken heart. There, from that singular place, we can choose the liberation of solidarity with every "other": when love is no longer a theory but instead becomes the breath of our breath, we may experience the shattering of our ontological poverty recreated by the "wanting" of the Holy One... To be homeless is not about being without a home: it is, instead, all about knowing that if one were to die this very day, no one would care: more, it is knowing that no one would even notice that you had disappeared... "I see you" and "I want you" are the essential validation that we all yearn for: this, and only this, is true religion, life, culture, economics, and politics... Perhaps this "liberation of solidarity" could be summarized with, "I care, therefore I am"...
Finally, "being wanted" requires the mutuality of "surrender": certainly not the "quit" that readily comes to mind. But rather, the re-creation spirituality of "I am You, and You are Me"... The refusal to stand any longer in the duality of every apparent separation is key: this "not two, not two" is the beginning which eventually extends all the way into "I am You and You are Me, and We are All Together: One"... To this Great Unity, this Oneness, we surrender our separation: we are wonderfully wanted! It is only now that we can truly affirm with Simone Weil, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love."
(To be continued...)
St. John of the Cross met St. Theresa of Avila: he was bowled over... the Church long ago figured out the very best way of dealing with mystics: name them saints. Once canonized, it was easy to slip them into an appropriate box -- not for safe-keeping mind you -- but for perfect control. Locked into the forever of Heaven, they could no longer rattle the cages that we had climbed into...
Inspired by the love poetry of John -- which "may" have been completely "spiritual" -- we are going to pretend that we too have been bitten by a very complicated love: lost, we have become, in a fluid love that is confusing to the uninitiated: in our confusion, the Divine is Lover, while at the same time, the longed for human touch is Divine... Is it safe to play this mix and match? Of course not! But that is not our problem, for we are lost now: wandering the streets in our lonely madness... most people turn and look the other way whenever they see people like us, but if you have the courage required by utter foolishness, then you may return for selected lines and random thoughts from the Streets of San Juan de la Cruz...
The Dark Night of the Street
1) On a dark night, afraid
And lonely as the last of a specie,
I surrendered my soul
(Who am I?)
In the gutter of a dreaming Love...
3) In the homeless night,
I am a secret I keep from myself,
I am the stranger unseen,
With not even hope for sunrise:
Just this naked burning in my chest...
8) I walked and completely forgot my name,
Then I sat and gazed into Her fathomless eyes:
There was now no road, not even an abandonment,
Leaving my backpack,
I was forgotten, amid the flowers there...
This first few lines of the poem "The Dark Night of the Street" serve as sort of an invitation to consider the "way of abandonment"... You see, we live in an age in which meaning is too often acquired as another commercial "possession": religion is a game of salvation, a solution to the angst of life... Really? Even in our minds (most especially in our minds), we are a stunning collection of clutter: justifications abound, hatreds sprout their poison flowers, and a realm of exhausting fears compel an equally exhausting pursuit of forgetfulness...
Once upon a time, a homeless man would eat lunch with us and later, when he left the Kitchen, promptly begin talking to a wall. We asked him why? He simply said, "If they think I'm crazy, they leave me alone." A strategy for surviving the streets: what are the strategies that we employ for surviving our homes and relationships, for surviving our work and disappointments, and for surviving the final surety of our last breath?
Perhaps we might consider "leaving the backpacks" of our mental and heart clutter for the new vista available in "forgetfulness": leaving behind our cowardice, our comfortable fears, our debilitating doubts, and our grievous heartbreaks for the one task for which we were born: to remember our Divine Nature and to give back That Love... "amid the flowers there"... How? As much as possible, cultivate kindness, compassion, and mercy: practice beauty: revere the Planet: and breathe the remembrance of Love... this, we can do and become! It is the oneness, the "yoga", of willing One Love: with this breath... with this breath... with this breath...
Power will continue its rapacious pursuit of profit and privilege: corporations and billionaires solidify their grip upon the rotting corpse of Greed: to what great end? There is nothing in nothingness: they will finally get their fill! But what about us? What about our hurts and disappointments? There is only the way of abandonment: you've got to travel light to become the Light! Forgetfulness is useful in order to remember! Our choice to remember "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love" is our pass-card: "Welcome home!"
O Terrifying Warming Grate
1) O Terrifying Warming Grate
Upon which I spread my single blanket,
I am numb, not from the cold
And not from the fear, but from a surety
Settling into my bones: You are foreign,
Made somewhere, maybe China...
3) O blinking street-light,
In whose blink
I seem to exist,
That which formerly shone brilliant and bright,
Now with a wrapping wraith of yellow vapor
Turn to look another way...
4) Footfalls approach
And I scream them into a wide circle,
But You secretly drop a flower
Into my empty hat: I hear You breathing
And I could die but choose instead to laugh
Into the delicacy of Your tears...
Can the human mind fully comprehend the mystery of an endlessly (?) expanding Universe? Can the human mind, in any truly significant way, even partially comprehend the mysterious possibility of a Creative and Sustaining "One Love" Consciousness? There is a secret cult of "the fool" for Love: going by different names in different ages and places, these "fools" embrace madness to scale the heights of contemplation... "Reason" is the science of theology: sort of like the fog that hides the mountain peaks... "Madness" is the single shaft of Light that penetrates every conception to make it Dark: there, in that Place, Only One is embraced...
That "Only One" is the Grandparent Trickster, the coyote of the spirit Who runs down our wandering souls: dragging them by whatever means necessary to the One Place we ultimately wish to go... "I hear You breathing and I could die but choose instead to laugh into the delicacy of Your tears"... The meaning and purpose of life is this discovery and surrender: there is no definition that is correct enough to liberate our consciousness from its delusions. There is, however, the simple beauty of one moment, one breath, one heart-felt surrender, and one Sacred Kiss that is utter annihilation into Bliss...
Something Stunningly New
1) Comets blaze across the sky,
As earth spins in endless dance...
Longing is their Glory Song.
3) Forget every claim you've heard,
Forget too, the baggage of theology...
Longing is really the One Song.
4) Can you smell the chocolate cooking?
The incense of prayer is just a bit different...
But longing is still the Only Song.
7) When sinner and saint are lovers,
Talk will only be a forgiveness...
And the longing of both is to sing This Song.
The presence of the Beloved can never be "known", as in "possessed"... but rather, always "unknown"... This is key: the way of ascension is descent: to rise, one must fall: to inherit Paradise, one must turn one's back on the door and go back out to assist in the arrival of everyone else... there is no other way in... Love is the root of our being, of our consciousness: it is only by loving that we may become Love... it is only by loving, that our lives have meaning and purpose beyond the shadow-reality of "here I am"... Most of what passes for religion, culture, economics, and politics simply gurgles-up from "here I am": there is neither immanence nor transcendence in "here I am": there is only the very human blessed trinity, multiplied infinitely, from horizon-to-horizon, with a crowd of "me-myself-and-I's"...
On the other hand, there stands the contemplative: the mystic-activist at the center of world, history. and maelstrom. With the Beloved "absent", the mystic-activist engages in the daily discipline and practice of loving "this person" and "this person" and then pursuing policies of justice, equality, peace, and earth reverence... And thus the contemplative sees herself in her sister / brother: in every "other" and so discovers the Face in the mirror before she was born... It is also of essential importance to underline that there is nothing at all very mysterious about any of this: it sounds mysterious only because we have become habituated to surface-thought: this is all actually very mundane: it is precisely in how we make love that we will experience our liberation: it is precisely in how we sweep our floor that we will encounter the Divine: it is how we wash the dishes, teach the children, nurse the sick, feed the hungry, distribute decision-making and power, protect the earth, create communities of justice, till the soil, care for animals, plan for vacations: loving is always as normal as breathing: awakened and not in the slumber of illusion and power...
Psalm 1
Is there a happiness greater
Than being wanted?
Is there a higher state of wonder
Than that of endless delight
In the surrender and collapse of Love?
This first stanza of Psalm 1 (Homeless Psalms), points to the root blessing / terror of our human condition: "being wanted". Oh I know that many would argue that love is the point and purpose of life, of every life (I agree!) -- and yet, Dorothy Day used to refer frequently to Dostoevsky"s "Love in reality is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams"... In other words, love is not a philosophy, nor is it a theology: love is the radical self-emptying that breaks the heart open and lays it bare and trembling upon the floor... This being laid bare and trembling is the crux of the matter: love is not convenient! Love uproots our minds and drops them upon the garbage heap piled high in the dumpsters of the world...
Emptied of attachments to our plans and purposes, we come stark naked into the world of the broken heart. There, from that singular place, we can choose the liberation of solidarity with every "other": when love is no longer a theory but instead becomes the breath of our breath, we may experience the shattering of our ontological poverty recreated by the "wanting" of the Holy One... To be homeless is not about being without a home: it is, instead, all about knowing that if one were to die this very day, no one would care: more, it is knowing that no one would even notice that you had disappeared... "I see you" and "I want you" are the essential validation that we all yearn for: this, and only this, is true religion, life, culture, economics, and politics... Perhaps this "liberation of solidarity" could be summarized with, "I care, therefore I am"...
Finally, "being wanted" requires the mutuality of "surrender": certainly not the "quit" that readily comes to mind. But rather, the re-creation spirituality of "I am You, and You are Me"... The refusal to stand any longer in the duality of every apparent separation is key: this "not two, not two" is the beginning which eventually extends all the way into "I am You and You are Me, and We are All Together: One"... To this Great Unity, this Oneness, we surrender our separation: we are wonderfully wanted! It is only now that we can truly affirm with Simone Weil, "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love."
(To be continued...)