i wish there were seats for sitting

i wish there were seats for sitting

as I amble through the aisles of Noguchi-chiseled stones

spaced and placed in a mythic round

the high and low of chipped and polished earthen-ware

voice beneath their pink-green black-rose grey-white facades

within a hum of mysterious awe-inspiring forms

chiseled for our simple meeting 

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Transformation of mind and heart, interior justice, that's what concerns apostles.

  

  -As long as the priest is primarily a functionary of the sacred, the professional of the parade-ground - that is, as long as he constitutes a caste - Christian communities will not arrive at real responsibility any more than the soldiers of a regiment, in spite of all the adjustments made under the pressure of circumstances.

  -Freely chosen priestly celibacy was a fantastic power for giving and loving.  It helped form a large number of fraternal men who helped slaves, women, and the poor to exist - those who felt the need to breathe more freely.  Making celibacy a requirement for the priesthood has poisoned and falsified innumerable consciences and led to the over-compensation of activism when it didn't produce a fanatical faith that was merely the crystallization of despair.  It has been a deadly policy for some time.  Before thinking of the "good of the Church"  in the short term, or at least what is considered as such in conceptualist and administrative terms, it would be better to think of the freedom of men.  In this area many things have been preserved only by the torture of some and the hypocrisy of others.  It was undoubtedly one of the causes of the weakness and sadness of the Christian world just before so many priests "deserted".

I view myself in the mirror

unsure who I see

beyond the flesh

beyond the glass

beyond the scarred head

the sutured hand

the flaking feet

unsure what the color speaks

the eyes say

the lips whisper

just know I'm here

viewing a "me" 

in this moment

with questions and regrets

with love and sins

The mirror can't behold

some "me" beyond reflections

beyond a passing gaze

beyond my inner-spections

Mystery

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -"The truly poor man is the one who knows nothing", Meister Eckhart says.

  -Don't pass on a message composed of truths that have been discussed in committee, but an experience that would be intimate enough to spark communion.

  -...worldly honors, whether religious or not, grow like poisonous mushrooms after the rain.

  -Transformation of mind and heart, interior justice, that's what concerns apostles.

i sit waiting

watching

doin' nothin'

staring

'cause nothin's about

within or without

sittin' still

hard-breathing

like-a fart 'tween doin's 

not movin'

in the spaces

boredom frames

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -No communion is built on directives and compromises but on an inner experience of liberation.

  -Men who become bishops are generally intelligent and sensitive.  Troublemakers, of course, aren't predisposed to that vocation but bishops are neither better nor worse than others.  Before their "elevation" they are often quite critical of the hierarchy.  But as soon as they are promoted their statements become trivial.  After a few outbursts, their language grows diplomatic; aiming at everyone, it touches no one.

  -I'm going to say something that's painful, to me first of all.  A bishop had just been named - he had wanted the appointment very much.  It's not true that ambition dies;  no one gets to be bishop without having wanted it, or almost no one.  As soon as he was appointed, he stopped being fraternal, although fraternity still showed in his face and hands.  He was filled with good will, but at the same time his shoulders sagged under the weight of the world and he was submerged in apstolic agony. His vocabulary grew stereotyped, deliberate.  His speeches fell into cliches.

  -They (diocesan priests) knew that as soon as a bishop had power, he began to come apart, and they also realized that it was almost none of his own doing.

  -I call style a way of occupying space, of directing one's glace and one's voice, of existing, that's produced by an interior discovery.

i sit before myself

on days when no one's watching

gazing upon the universe

before my face, walking

view it in its beauty

view it in its commonness

view it with its ugly truths

truths that weigh us down

pulling us into madness

or to the Manse of God

to the earth where hearths sour

to hearts that open wide

where Christ is nourishing bread

or Christ is burning lye

drinking in what's seen

i wait with patient peace

sitting here before my self

viewing the universe

*There are days when all I want to do is cry.

*You're not getting out of here alive, so, at least, try to die joyful.

*Love is the only prayer I know.

-Anon.

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -The refusal to risk a policy of baptizing at an age when it would be an adult act is concealed by pious notions that also hide the desire for conquest.  We ought to recognize that many men and women of our time, when they eliminate every trace of their baptism, experience a sense of liberation.

  -Not living the faith profoundly within themselves, their Christianity contains neither vigor nor joy; it's therefore not very contagious, since their notion of communion is only nostalgic.

  -We need to relearn the sense of the temporary.

  -We need a form of authority - author, one who gives life (the author of my days), who increases it - a chief if you prefer, but without power.

  -If the Church were an army, the hierarchial system as it now functions would be extremely efficient.  For the strength of an army is generally related to the commitment and ambition of its officers and junior officers; they're totally available.

I see you flying with your lights bright

I see you flying with your lights bright  Like a camel with dynamite up its ass

As if you were a bullet-train hugging the rails  On your way to who-knows-where

Or kapsa that's ready as soon as you hit the door  Or that "lamb chop" 

resting in your bed  Or any other number of countless mucks  Running 

'tween the openings in your head

You flash and blink to blink and flash  For making straight paths to the place where

The highway stops near your pad  A show of lights to warn us you have come  But 

it's a bet I 'll pass you at 90 clicks  As you stand amidst friends  Talking air 

till it's time to fly again

   

*Pope Francis has said he would follow John XXIII's motto which was, "See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little.

-parish bulletin

*Innovating poorly is better than doing nothing.

-a Chinese play-wright and director  

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Believers who are mystics have always been a lowly race, repressed for a long time.  Such confidence, and obedience not necessarily passive, is the path of a very different race of people who are in touch with the absolute.  They are usually people of silence, without necessarily being quiet. They show a certain healthiness, a disinterest in religion and doctrinal abstractions that will save them. They start off in the right direction.  It seems to be enough for them to believe without too many illusions in the spiritual experience of the Church.  Although they've never had an interior illumination, a loving faith is at the center of their life.

  -...in a society that is out of joint and has no direct spiritual experience, the credibility of the Christian disappears.

  -Pity is appropriate for dealing with individuals, not situations.

I have looked upon the host

I have looked upon the host, the body of Christ:

have seen the works of all baked in it

have seen the folk of earth pressed in it

have touched the joys of all in the taste of it

I have looked into the cup, the blood of Christ:

have seen the dreams of many stir in it

have sniffed the pain of many squeezed in it

have savored the tears of all when drinking it

I have looked upon the Christ in his Eucharist:

have shared this freedom while eating it

have confirmed his promise while drinking it 

have given thanks while sharing it

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -To want to bring the Gospel back to its source - to let it be difficult, to refuse to turn it into cultural gruel - is this showing scorn for simple people?  For how many years I've heard this refrain.  The simple people, it's worth saying once more, have a spontaneous affinity for spiritual things.  It's is the enlightened ones, rather, who think they possess the meaning of the message and keep cooking up gruel for the unsophisticated.  They're the ones who show contempt by treating people like dunces and justifying the repressions and guilt which consolidate their power.  When I hear them I think of an old man leaning over a child and using baby talk; there's an ironic gleam in the eyes of the child that says, "Lay off, dummy!"

  -Genuine love of men and women is shown first by rejecting the crowd as such.  That's what the Gospel does: it leaves the love of humanity to politicians.

  -Passionate love is only a momentary eruption if it's not expressed in fidelity.  But fidelity can just as easily mean ossification as love.

  -...faith is always a beginning, a succession of beginnings.

I had thoughts of mortality

when mother said

"Your grandmom's dead!",

not because I willed it

but because grandma did

The Wind IN the Rock

no one

of sound

mind

puts

an ear

to a rock

to listen 

for movement

for growth

for music

unless

of course

one is

thirsty

for more

than one

can

imagine

*Not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching one.

  -Chinese fortune cookie

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Whatever shows itself in the light of day begins as a passion in the consciousness of an individual.  None of us realize our own resources.  The more we reach into the basket, the more bread there is.  We give what we don't have.

  -"Leaven has to be leaven: that's the only thing that will lift up the mass.  Pressure techniques are the worst kind of betrayal.  "Go, teach all nations" - but you have to preach inner change.

i freeze at the sight of hollow eyes

in heads drained of thought or color

blank of magic or human passion

they're burnt-out lighthouses 

casting empty shadows

across the surface of hollow eyes

hollow-heads filed with dread

feign on strength backed by cold stares

then rage behind dead drugs

daring to numb dumb-feelings already dead

they motor-mouth their limbs like depressed robots

smothered in green-backs vomiting over themselves

i wail but my tears fall dry 'pon barren soil

where hope might bring forth some change

but their eyes see only green

and envy's greedy urge strains their hands

what will scour the sockets of these living-dead

or break the crust encasing their primal needs?

*Freedom is my attempt to be true to the self that is me at this moment in my life, in the circumstances that I find myself.

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Believers who are mystics have always been a lower race, repressed for a long time.  Such confidence, and obedience not necessarily passive, is the path of a very different race of people who are in touch with the absolute.  They are usually people of silence, without necessarily being quiet. They show a certain healthiness, a disinterest in religious and doctrinal abstractions that will save them.  They start off in the right direction.  It seems to be enough for them to believe without too many illusions in the spiritual experience of their Church.  Although they've never had an interior illumination, a loving faith is at the center of their life.

  -...in a society that is out of joint and has no direct spiritual experience, the credibility of the Christian disappears.

  -Pity is appropriate for dealing with individuals, not situations.

i fall again back

from the "where" i never fell

from the monstrous Mother Fall

whose urge toggles my soul

switching me off and on

with an upward/downward pull

again and again

within the struggles of my heart

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Passionate love is only a momentary eruption if it's not expressed in fidelity.  But fidelity can just as easily mean ossification as love.

  -...faith is always a beginning, a succession of beginnings.

  -Whatever shows itself in the light of day begins as a passion in the consciousness of an individual.  None of us realize our own resources.  The more we reach into the basket, the more bread there is.  We give what we don't have.

  -Leaven has to be leaven: that's the only thing that will lift up the mass.  Pressure techniques are the worst kind of betrayal.  "Go teach ye all nations" - but you have to preach inner change.

i.

don't live the passion well

stood at Stone Palace

and would not be whipped

wiped their spittle from my face

turned 'round and walked away

the cross-ing would have been a pain

let Jesus take the stand

can't see myself as his ally

someone good for Calvary

ii.

i was whipped before i was born

whipped more once i came of age

whipped at passion's mini-stations

and other stops along the way

whipped black to white

whipped to red blue and white

being drained through the sufferings

and by the denials weaknesses bring

iii.

taking up a diff'rent cross

making up a diff'rent me

can't say i'll Jesus be

that he'll support me as a friend

but trod along his path i must

along dolorosas marked by stones

*There are times I find us Catholics to be sexually pure but morally evil.

*Whenever death occurs, "whatever" doesn't matter.

*There's always someone smarter than you in someway.

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Whatever shows itself in the light of day begins as a passion in the consciousness of an individual.  None of us realizes our own resources.  The more we reach into the basket, the more bread there is. We give what we don't have.

  -Leaven has to be leaven: that's the only thing that will lift up the mass.  Pressure techniques are the worst kind of betrayal.  "Go, teach all nations" - but you have to preach inner change.

  -To want to bring the Gospel back to its source - to let it be difficult, to refuse to turn it into cultural gruel - is this showing scorn for simple people?  For how many years I've heard that refrain.  The simple people, it's worth saying once more, have a spontaneous affinity for spiritual things.  It is the enlightened ones, rather, who think they possess the meaning of the message and keep cooking up gruel for the unsophisticated.  They're the ones who show contempt by treating people like dunces and justifying the repression and guilt which consolidate their power.  When I hear them I think of an old man leaning over a child and using baby talk; there's an ironic gleam in the eyes of the child that says, "Lay off dummy!" 

  -Genuine love of men and women is shown first by rejecting the crowd as such.  That's what the Gospel does: it leaves the love of humanity to politicians.

Celebrating the song of Me

I celebrate the song of me

with joy in befriending me

for seeing beyond the gaze of me

the screen set 'tween the real and unseen

I celebrate the song of me

in thanks for insight to walk

beyond the cursed things

that surround and hamper the breadth of me

I celebrate the song of me

for grace and sin, for dark and light

rainbowed life of perks and regrets

of shame and joy, of peace and war

I celebrate the song of me

with thankfulness for who I am

my strengths, my quirks, my hatreds, my loves

each pain, each hope, coaxing me on

I celebrate the song of me

for friends urging my ME to be

for fiends nibbling after me

for God, the Christ, the Spirit-song for me

I celebrate the song of me

with thanksgiving for the fact of me

in hope for the life of me

with Amen for the me that's Me 

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

  -Ecumenism will become truly worldwide only by rejecting calculation, through self-effacement.

  -Every genuine spiritual renewal...arouses a spirit directed at that instant in which past and future are connected.  That's where tradition is.

  -...Christian faith is creative because it is a faith, not an imitation or a phantom of faith.

  -I see the Church discovering a style.  Let it cease to tire itself out by repeating laws and principles. Let the Church give life to its own, to those who come to it freely and joyously.  Let them grow in the good and evil of life in this world of horse-racing, lotteries, TV, and pornography.  There's no time to lose by fighting all that.  Vice is natural, futility is natural.  Let the Church provide the powerful nourishment of the Word, which is always critical, but at a deeper level.  I see the Church detaching members from structures of profit, conventional security, and mythologies of happiness in order to make them spiritual nomads, capable of commitment without illusion, always ready to absent themselves in order to go somewhere else,  straining for the impossible and necessary.