give me a true gift

from the within of you

un-tinseled and air-fresh

show me a moist heart

drenched and blood red

wet from your eyes

i'll give you a kiss

warming with my lips

wrap you in joy

wider than a smile

you'll think it's Easter night

you'll hear the birds in flight

you'll see them stop to nest

in the crevice of your breast

*Thoughts of Alan Jones:

-Are not all our experiences distorted?  We receive our knowledge of the world, of others and ourselves only from the monstrous and distorted shadows cast upon the back of Plato's case.  Life is like scratching an itch (and let us not forget that there are intellectual itches). Experience, then, "is the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of our appetites...and the desire for truth becomes the desire to master reality rather than experience it."

-The problem with many popular therapies is that they feed our appetites rather than give us a way of experiencing the world.  They promise far more than they can deliver.  It is hard (when you're hurting and unhappy) to distinguish between genuine growth and the development of a mere coping mechanism.  Maybe the shallow therapies are right?  Helping needy and unhappy people cope isn't such a bad thing.  Better the adherence to a vital lie than to a painful truth; better to take lots of aspirin rather than find the cause of the pain.  Perhaps it is best not to dig too deeply?  Psychoanalysis is a long, hard road.  The radical therapy of the Gospel involves drastic surgery.  Perhaps it is only for those who are not wise in the world's terms, or for believers who stumble into it by ''accident."

Salmon lessons

Salmon know the pounding of rock

against their soft-scaled form

struggling upstream to spawn

Their innards bleed red

tinting pick their sweet flesh

thrashing and leaping, bearing life

This way and alone this way

are eggs shot forth, bearing life

for the next generation's birth

Their long-haul leaps end in death

nature rewarding them with a sweat repose

in a brown-bear's belly or a human's hearth

*Thoughts of Alan Jones:

  -Much in Christianity has been tamed and reduced to liberal or conservative theologies of adjustment.  Does the average believer want to pay the radical price of becoming more human and more free?

  -Is it possible to look, simply look, without prematurely interpreting what we see?  Could we do this without subjecting  ourselves to immediate self-definition and self-imaging?

  -"Be silent, wait and watch."

  -Are not all of our experiences distorted?

  -Experience..."is the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of our appetites...and the desire for truth becomes the desire to master reality rather than experience it."

ev'ry eye in me is focused on You

even as i turn away in shame

You are the prize light my eye seeks

even in the shadowed nooks of my heart

You are the fullness of life

even in the discard box in my room

ev'ry inch of me belongs to You

even in the iotas i save for myself 

*The 4 B's

For

the bodacious

beauty

at the bottom 

of my 

being

I

fall

                                             -Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

*Such

impossible

to word

the wind

into

water or

fire

or 

me

such 

impossible

delight

such

silence 

before

such

                                               -Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

*Thoughts of Alan Jones:

-The desire to shame, humiliate, and get the best of our neighbor runs very deep.  Unconsciously, we like to hear bad news of others.  We like the idea of frustrating, outwitting, and defeating others in personal relations.  This desire can carry on even after the death of the other person.

-Most of us try to hide our vindictiveness as deep as we can, but it often wells up and finds expression in a variety of unlikely ways.  These hidden drives need to be exposed if our religious commitment is to have any kind of maturity.  Without such exposure, dreadful things can be done in the name of religion: cruelty is sanctified as moral rectitude; manipulation masquerades as love; vindictiveness poses as the desire for justice.  Where does the vicious cycle begin?  And how is the terrible cycle of cause and effect to be broken?

-In some sense we are all victims of victims.  One of the saddest aspects of the human condition is our apparent inability to stop transmitting crippling neuroses from one generation to another.

-Perhaps what was imitable about Christ was his firm acceptance of his destiny, and his adherence to it even when it lead to a shameful death.  It was the wholeness of Christ that had illuminated so many millions of lives....

Eros was there

...and they made love

with Eros between them

holding tighter and tighter

bonding in ev'ry twist

in ev'ry thrust and sway of flesh

there, urging in ev'ry Ah!

in ev'ry cry of joyous pain

in ev'ry soothing, passionate rub

in ev'ry heat-throb of nature's sweat

yes, Eros was there

through ev'ry volcanic rush of fire

through ev'ry taste of heaven on earth

through ev'ry rest in satisfaction's quest

in ev'ry kiss and stilled caress

until the awakened peace moved them to sleep

as Eros climaxed the night with passionate quiet

*Thoughts of Alan Jones:

-Somehow, all the repressed material must come to light.  Psychoanalysis is one of the ways in which that which is repressed comes to the surface and is integrated into a more honest and open life. I would claim that another way of integration is that of contemplative prayer.

-...the most dangerous form of neurosis is that of revenge, the desire for vindictive triumph over others.

-We sometime feed our feelings of resentment by concentrating on the wounds we received in childhood.

-One way to safeguard oneself from disappointment is to harp continually on the shortcomings of others.