*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, its 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.
-Jean Sulivan

Morning prayer/St. Ignatius of Antioch

 

there will always be something

always wishing for  another path

another face

another something

that's different from what we be and see

another might 

another flight

that might lift us from our plight

but No!

there won't be

just can't be

being what we be

this humankind

un-kind

broken and smashed

greedy and hung'ring for another's spot

or land or life

or whatever'll pull us from our plight

of greed and lust

of all or bust

how live with it with a smile

bowing our heads and cry

of thanking God

and doing our best

to make a little peace

and enjoy our tiny piece

of life on this earth

until death do us cease

*If I say that this world is beautiful and good, that I love it, this doesn't mean the I'm not aware of the horror, the degradation and the danger of impending catastrophe.  I'm speaking of what is true in consciences that are stronger than evil.

-Jean Sulivan

Christian language, as soon as it moves away from experience and is no longer verified by it, becomes elastic, full of distortions and quibbles, concerned with synthesis and false harmony.  When we embroider emptiness with abstract formulas, we have the very opposite of a language of hope.

-Jean Sulivan

 

red light

he sped to her room

whence he eyed the one 

dressed for his joining;

his passions lusted for the rose

vased upon the mantelpiece-

thorns and all

on going to st. michael's

o dark room of ebon' space

door framed in graced light

you, friend of risk and sweet mystery

draw yourself to my troubling doubt;

the Orange Sun-Dot pinholes your bosom-dark

a blazing stream of fiery beam

bending back 'pon Fear's embrace

for rites of Hope that eyes can't see

*The distance is nothing; it's only the first step that is difficult.

-Madame du Deffand

 

we rarely return "home" to die

we rarely return home to die

tis not where we were born or live

but a different space we've moved to

like jack-rabbits digging holes in a yard

we move about and meet new friends

then die alone without a plot

often some where outside of home

gone and a smidgen of what we long

we know not what we bring in transition

but scars drag along with pain, oft times

remembrances of our hometown bouts

times of blessings and of rot

when Death arrives at its unexpected hour

we slide into it as if home is what we want

wondering, drunk, sickly, insane

away from where we fled years in our head

now heading Home where we belong

yes, heading Home where we meant to go

cry me the tears of the grieving

pouring like ice cream

melting from some Himalayan dome

i don't know that they're weeping for

but weep they do

paining

aching for some unknown home

Home

untouchable

but grasped as they grow

or flow

*What are we to do in the midst of our tangled lives?  Nothing, except to let love act.  To become its accomplice, in happiness or sorrow.  To love without hope of return.  Every pain can become a lasting joy, starting today.

-Jean Sulivan