Mad Midrash
Mother-Father,
~
Great Mystery,
Beyond-Within,
Subtle Holiness,
Holy Purpose,
Hidden Pattern
Beauty Way -
Present fully now,
more fullness forthcoming
~
Who art in Heaven
~
Thou consort with the Sky and Thunder-Beings ...
You sing the moon's reflective lullaby.
You twirl stars 'round Thy being.
Like a dancing child,
lost in purposeless meadow play,
blowing dandelions to the Holy Wind.
Thou art immeasurable, incalculably Beyond;
Thou art also incredibly, unfathomably here,
as near as my heartbeat, my breath, the earth I walk on,
the trees, grass, pond ripples that grace my day,
Thou art here, now, the second day of December, 2002:
Thou shineth before me this new Advent Day,
In the gracious voice of the wondrous Sister beside me,
who breaks into “Ave Maria” on a whim.
She, the child who wrote notes to God,
She, who hid these notes under the shoulders of the Blessed Stone People,
Now, stooped frame,
careful steps,
carrying an unseen crucifix,
Eschewing legacy’s comfort for
the rough-and-tumble trials of each day’s grace-dance.
Oh, Sister!
Your eyes, once radiant,
Spirit-fired, now oddly dull.
Your wrist betrays your prisoner status:
What???
A tiny ordering mechanism to stop ... wandering?
Who is protecting whom from what?
~
Canst any tell the sun how to shine?
Canst any redirect the river’s ancient flow?
Canst any ask the rainbow to stay in its room?
Canst any dare tell the rainbow its colors blaze
too brightly,
too fiercely,
too adoringly?
Dare we, her community, her former students, rest comfortably in our own timid lights?
Dare any tell
the clouds,
the sun,
the moon,
the stars,
even one frail voice,
to hide,
to remain pale?
Wouldst you have me deny my teacher,
rescind the Holy-Way,
have me strip-search the Cross,
according to culture's twisted rubric,
reducing it to pageantry? ...
so we, the fearful, can remain safe, comfortable?
Canst thou tell the moon to block our nighttime path?
Canst any resign the lost ones to unseeing,
to darkness,
to the void?
Canst thou blind the North Star,
pluck Her from the Sky Beings for the unruly offense
of holding fast,
ringing true,
guiding right?
singing clear?
Canst any make the poet mute, the seer blind?
Canst any clog the sacred flute torn by the Makers own Holy knife?
Canst any still the whispered voice of grace,
the cradled Madonna touch,
offered for all,
even one the tortured heart of one fellow bus passenger?
No.
~
Oh, Heaven, hide not in the skies,
stop Thy game of hide-and-seek long enough for me
to wisk you home to me in one hungry-child embrace.
Oh, Heaven, thou art not beyond.
Heaven, thou art revealed in each moment's fresh intent,
with my entry into the blessed Now.
Ah, this sweet spot - Earth and heaven here,
teacher, student joined.
~
Hallowed be Thy name
~
For all good things we praise Thee.
For the Morningstar's greeting, we give Thee praise.
For last evening's gentle rain, we praise Thee.
For singing locusts who tuck us into sleep at night, we thank Thee.
For dancing willow trees, we give Thee praise.
For all Thy ways, Great Mother-Father you feed us,
We lift our eyes, arms, and hearts in full-body praise.
You, Creator, work toward
harmony,
divine order,
Holy Purpose
for every living thing.
We give thanks for healing, reconciliation before it manifests.
For as we hallow Thy Holy Name,
trust is adoration's currency:
the bone, sinew and marrow of thanksgiving.
As we flood our beings with trust.
We create within our bodies,
a living waterfall of light, pouring Spirit,
to gently wear away resistance,
to heal any orphan spaces not yet released to The Altar of Surrender.
~
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth
As it is in heaven.
~
Thy kingdom is this alone:
the imperishable Spring of life,
the Tree with gratitude roots
adorned with unseen, unspectacular crowns.
Yet, each tree-brother,
as each human family child,
shines as unrepeatable,
never before in creation,
never to come afterward,
With a holy single shard,
lost, hidden in the fragile-host
humility of the offered seed.
~
Thy Will be done,
~
Thy Will?
Oh, My Creator, in Thy Will lies every good thing.
Help me to give up trying to discern Thy Will.
Help me, terrified seed before the great dissembling scream,
“Take me, shape me, fashion me, make me thine:”
Wouldst I tell the Grand Musician the finest melody?
Wouldst I counsel the Great Potter's fashioning fingers in creation craft?
No. Before Thy will, I bow.
I surrender with wet-spaghetti-noodle trust.
Take me, do every wondrous thing.
Take my fear, my worry-bead frantic consciousness,
place it at the foot of brother-tree.
Ah, brother-tree smiles, with no mouth.
Laughs with no throat.
But his roots burrow deep, trusting unseen majesty.
I listen to no words.
I respond with my full-being target-self.
With silent accord,
I pierce earth-mother in thanks
and let Thy will,
Thy way,
determine wholly the form.
In all life happenings,
empower us to trust not our seeing, but Thee at all times.
Most especially,
when events,
feelings,
situations,
circumstances start to shake and tremor our hearts
with fear’s paralyzing poison.
Bend my ear to Thy word, Thy promise:
Thou art ALWAYS with us...
in the dissembling, the daily dying.
Thy will
Is.
Regardless of our choices, you hold our highest possible expression.
Thy will forgives us when we fall short of this vision.
Each moment reminds us to turn to Thee.
The process of accepting, living in Thy will, is …
to not think.
To but turn into the unknown without reservation.
Oh. Blessed IAM, comfort us, Thy children.
Empower us, the comforted, to turn to all, even those who have hurt us,
and enfold them in forgiving arms,
in Mercy's trembling choice,
now Thy Arms too.
When our world clamors,
when lesser ways seek our being's throne,
awaken us,
move our hearts.
Open us to Thou who makes all things right.
Thy will is this, this alone:
Thou surroundeth me and all my children,
generations to come,
in the rocking balm of lovingkindness.
It matters not whether the hurry-scurry of our finite imaginations perceives this.
~
Give us this day our daily bread;
~
For challenges, wounds, brokenness,
even that which breaks us, we give Thee praise.
Our hurt turns us more wholly into Thy care.
Blessed IAM, we thank you for losses, for spaces in our unforgiving hearts ...
these stings, abrupt breakings, force us to recoil; they challenge us:
All suffering turns us toward Thy Holy Mother-Father embrace for the simple righting.
In the hurt, loss, seeming forsakenness, we give thanks.
We send the Blessing Light, knowing no-thing but Thy faithfulness,
clueless to our path's measure.
~
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
~
Creator,
My unforgiveness tears at me like a wounded, caged animal.
Alone, I cannot quell the tearing, scratching, clawing.
My hurt screams at me,
"Make a temple, you. Make of me a temple.
And worship me ... I am the First, the Last, the Always, the only Reality."
In the Unforgiveness Temple:
Birds refuse to sing.
Locusts bury themselves in cave caverns.
Sunsets hide behind stormy clouds,
clutching transcendent
pinks, oranges, reds to themselves
like greedy misers sifting through well-hidden stashes.
In the Unforgiveness Temple …
Hearts are choked, strangled, caged ...
Brutality reigns.
Discourtesy sodomizes innocence,
Hate rapes tenderness,
Fear pistol-whips compassion.
Empathy rocks herself crazy in a fetal ball.
Loyalty locks himself in the john and vomits 'til his teeth fall
to the door like forgotten dreams.
I, the only Worshipper, live inside the prison of Self.
The only way to freedom is to pray to the pain.
To bless the pain.
Give thanks for the pain.
To bow before the Hurt-Deliverers who thrust me back to
Thee, My God ...
Thee, Who even in the darkness of undesired feelings,
Even in this Temple-Prison,
Are still doing every good work, every good thing for me and all Thy creation.
If I think you not present in my Unforgiveness Temple,
Then I deny Thy fullness.
Thou dwellest in all, even in me, here.
Oh Maker,
Behind the rapists' thrusts, Thy Light shines.
Behind the torturer's glaring eyes and stinging blows, Thy Comforting touch awaits,
Behind abandonment's sting,
Behind every loss,
a Glorious New Melody fashions.
Behind the rage of all-hurt, Thy Honoring Way unfolds unseen.
Oh, Holy One, read not my rage, but see my hidden heart.
Take this heart, Mother-Father,
rinse it out,
use each drop to crumble – bit by bit, the stones of my Unforgiveness Temple,
Until all I have is emptiness alone.
For in this deadly encounter with my lesser self,
I hear trembling Madonna birth-moans,
Greeting new life in the messy fluids of a rough-stable birth.
Oh, Holy Maker!
Save Thy angels, shepherds, and stars for dressy pageants.
Give me a few outcast remnants alone:
a locust, a possum, now-road kill, a raccoon, a crazed laboratory rat.
Ah, see now, my reject-manger creates
its own mad Bethlehem
from the crumpled stones of the Unforgiveness Temple.
I, run to a hidden cave, with the sharpest of rocks,
tear at my face, my eyes with the rock.
For I have not words to send forth Skyward for Thy forgiveness.
My tongue has lots its entitlement space.
I have alone this silent roar.
Oh, Maker,
Could you, for me, be a waterfall of tears?
Can even Thee wash away my self-chosen imprisonment?
I turn to Thee, seeking a Healing Unknown.
Trusting it. Terrified of it. Alone.
Until the heavens open, and Thou crieth,
"My Child, my beautiful child."
Then I tumble down the mountain in giggling innocence,
For thou seeth me lightly, rightly,
and tickle me in the gentle
love of my elder cousin, Karen.
Karen, armed with Rocky Mountain wonder,
Grounded in sweetness and light,
Oh, Love, elder cousin of my childhood,
I could never hide successfully from thee at all,
Even cheating, using steady breath, closed eyes
Thou knewest I was not sleeping.
Thou, fair Karen, caught me at hide-and-seek
As does my Father-Mother here in the dissembled Unforgiveness Temple.
Did you, my Maker, as Karen, know I ached to be caught?
Oh, the home waiting in embrace.
Ah, Hugs Thee warmly this night, warmly right,
Oh Holy One.
~
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
~
Evil?
One evil abides in my world: mistrust.
Why, when thou hast honored, loved, protected me through
the winds of savagery and sorrow,
do I fear, worry, fret in the face of life's changes?
You, Faithfulness Incarnate, dwell in my broken, inmost breast,
You are fully present in the tiny details of a world's transformation.
Canst you teach me that the crumpled, fallen leaf makes springtime possible?
Canst you teach me that to release a treasure is not cause for discontent,
but a faithful one making room for greater gifts to come?
Canst thou remind me, that Thou givest only every good thing.
Evil?
My tendency to refuse to
Touch the new dawn in inconsolable darkness.
My refusal to focus my intent on
Thy whole-Madonna's embrace in isolation’s pit.
My forgetting that Thy twin sisters,
Empathy and Compassion always follow
pain, loss, bewilderment, confusion.
Oh, Holy One, Blessed Pattern, let me trust Thee
when the pattern is unseen, the purpose unknown.
Evil?
Perhaps for a faithful one: doubt alone.
Holy Maker, move me further
on the trusting way,
the thankful way,
the blessing way.
Open me only to 'Yes" at what shows up.
Evil?
To pray for any particular manifestation
is to assume the mind and divination of The Unseen Holy.
So for me, evil is simply:
To pray any prayer other than the words of emptying:
"No preference, Maker, burn me free of desire, longing, expectation; free me, now Hollowed as Thee, for Thy indwelling, Thy outpouring.
Amen.
