kill god

kill god

that God be God

freed from musts and needs

and puerile dreams

from words and cash

and self-charming wants

from dread and gain

that bridle us

so smash the idols

and let them go

for god is God

once un-bottled

and roaming about

then one might find

what one has lost

by holding tight

to that One sought

Human nature: the beautiful face with the ugly scars.

There's always someone smarter than you in some way.

*Thoughts of Alan Jones:

  -As we begin to face issues of character, we find ourselves running into the numinous, the realm of mystery, the dimension of the moral and spiritual.

  -Contemplative commitment is a necessity.  The command is "Be attentive!"  In the Divine Comedy, Beatrice uncompromisingly ordered Dante to look and to look well.  I too need someone who will relentlessly draw my attention to those parts of my life that remain hidden even from myself, and yet which hold me in their power.

  -Most of us...find the command "Look!" hard to obey.  This way of naked attention for the sake of love seems impossible to maintain.  We prefer to love others by interfering with them.  We enjoy tinkering with others in the name of love.  We enjoy, above all, being demonstrably useful.  All in all, we need rescuing.  We need a Savior, but we need one who will save us from our craving him.  This is the painful paradox of this way of believing.  Our longings must be purified in the fire.  Our neuroses must be given up.

  -The desert tradition could teach psychoanalysis about its own unconscious but deeply religious base. Psychoanalysis could help believers face the fact that what passes for religious is bogus and/or neurotic.  Believers claim to be born again.  Analysis provides us with a second chance to grow up. My vision is of a way of believing that would bring new birth and help me grow up....the churches tend to breed, nurture, and encourage infantilism.  A number of us believers are caught between what we have been taught and what our own hearts tell us.  This makes us infantile.

  -...we need to appreciate anew our "fallenness".