mystic

dare drink IT

then laugh aloud

harder and higher with each ingestion

each  swallowing

each gracious off'ring of the Word

communicate

be foolish with the thought-less

guide their spirits to The Holy Jokester

one will have thought thunder broke

                        as the iron gates twist and shatter                       

blessing the fracture of self-adherence

with tears gathering for healing

inviting all to dance

*Everything Depends

on being

             in

on eating

                   what is

                                                                          within

                          yet beyond

not being

            up

but down

                  wardly

                                                                          mobile

                                                                     -Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

  -...what we think about God determines what we think about ourselves.  The structure of human identity is dependent on how we view ultimate reality.

  -One of the places where the connection between what I say and what I do is celebrated and tested is in the life of prayer.  Prayer often provides the occasion when false connections are broken and new starts are made. Prayer is the process by which we become the friend of God the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

  -The question, "How does God experience me?" suggests a fresh way to look at ourselves and our way of being in the world.

  -If we are not open to wonder and to pain, then we deny ourselves any true interaction with another - this is the very stuff of soul making.

  -When we are frightened of experiencing others, something in the soul begins to die.  A capacity for wonder and a readiness for pain are essential for the life of the soul.  And the place where such capacity and readiness are fostered is in prayer. 

The box in the square

Go 'round

Skirt the box at the core

in the center of our lives

the one holding our secrets

the shadows of our lives

Place it in another courtyard

Blame them for the contents veiled

The beauty of its packaging

will surely draw reply

Paint it invisible

Cover it with envious green

that in time it will disappear

flying to the stratosphere of Eon

removing reminders of our faults and trials

Such the difficulties of truth-owning

the defects of a flawed perfection

the problem of nudes midst the naked

of not claiming our box in the square

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

-We become what we love, because it is that which makes us who we are and is our center.

-Sin is the lost or damage of our homing device.

-The art of arts is the art of love (William of St. Thierry)

-The lover, the loved one and the love make three.

-You see the Trinity when you see Love (St. Augustine)

Talking Life and Death

It's change that's radical

chasm-hopping

death-bearing 

change

Behavioral-fluff and trite words

are many

when truth's underground

and all shadows thrown down

neath the eclipsing sun

The pollution of applause

smothers moral issues

for popularity and appeal

The hanging tree bears flowers

unable to hide its fruit

a fruit souring mouths

born from toxic hearts

smelling of righteous offal

rising from the thrones of the just

We're talking life and death

cases of the accused of the land

reflectors of our inner life

of us who haven't been caught

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

-The doctrine of the Trinity speaks to our basic need to be able to say I and We at the same time.

-This truth is expressed in the central act of Christian worship, the Eucharist.  There is only one bread.  Thus each bit of consecrated bread is not a piece or part of the Body of Christ (as if we had to gather all the bits together in order to make up the whole Christ).  No - each piece of bread is the bearer, sacramentally, of the whole Christ.  In the same way the Church is not a federation or consortium of isolated congregations, the fullness of which is only expressed in great gatherings of the World Council of Churches or at the Vatican Council.  The fullness of the Church as the Body of Christ is present where two or three are gathered together.

-When it comes to more intimate personal relations, the Trinity speaks to the structure of love itself.  Love, to be love, requires both union and identity. The lovers seek to be united, but in such a way that each remains his or her unique person.  Indeed there is a tenderness and deference in true love concerning the separateness and uniqueness of the other.  The question is, "How can you and I be totally one, and at the same time honor the special and glorious differences between us - those things which make you you and me me?"  The doctrine of the Holy and Undivided Trinity (as torturous as it seems to some) is a paradigm of loving.  It shows us first that we are loved; and second, how to love in such a way that unity and identity are perfectly balanced.

-"How true it is that mutual help and delight are without prejudice to distinctness" (Thomas Aquinas)

Gaze

Gaze

'til your eyes collapse

tired

and near blind

straining to catch a glimpse

of the Light

roamin' through the dark clouds

havin' fun

Gaze

 as if God were

beck'ning Life to seep

like trickles struggling

to find a gap in the abyss

Gaze

like the prophet seeing Nothin'

beyond nothing

where Fire kindles lightly

and the Blaze dances bright

Gaze

till you fall in death

hope-hungry

and tunnel-visioned

sighting Something

beyond your organs might

Reflections of Alan Jones:

  -The vision of humanity provided by the  doctrine of the Trinity wages war against any reductionist view of human beings.

  -Our mistake, and it is a tragic one, is our finding "normative personhood only in the human individual."  We make the individual instead of the community the norm.  In Kunkel's terms we choose the isolated ego over the real Self.

  -Soul making can therefore be described as the liberating movement from being individuals to becoming persons.  The doctrine of the Trinity (or better, the very power of the Trinity) begins to come alive for us when we can say with all honesty, "I cannot be me without you, and we cannot be us without them.

  -The doctrine of the Trinity is, when properly understood, political dynamite.

  -Communism and Capitalism come to mind in the political realm, with their twin sins of envy and greed.  Both are enemies, in their extreme form, of the development of persons.  Both are soul destroyers rather than soul makers.  Catholicism and Protestantism come to mind in matters of religion.