7/7/2018 KÝRIE ELÉISON – Jerusalem WeepsKÝRIE ELÉISON Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison I have seen thy holy places in the Old City of Jerusalem. I have walked the cobblestones Christ once walked. I have stood before each station of the cross and marked the time of day you stood there in pain and agony. I have felt the hurt of all thy people, be they Christian, Jew, or Muslim from any sect across the Holy Land. Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison I have been to the Western Wall and heard it wailing, crying out in prayer for some compassion, some small mercy. As I have seen your people praying in the mosques upon the Temple Mount ~ Al Haram ash-Sahrif, the Noble Sanctuary. Each is claimed by many as a holy site. So many, O Lord. I think that there is nothing here, we may claim completely as our own, that is ours. There is nothing here that any may claim that is not yours first. I hear them crying on all sides for these their holy places, but not yours, O Lord. Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison I have seen them bend their words and intentions, their prayers, into something far from holy. I have seen and heard them miss the mark more than once, in their quest for your holiness, your presence in their life. Lord God, I wonder when will we ever learn that true holiness is not found within these places alone, these monuments and images of you, who are unseen and invisible, without image. Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison Lord, I wonder when they will find your holiness resting in themselves as an indwelling of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. There was an infant child once born upon a holy night, a silent night. Who rested in a humble manger, where cattle fed, where ox and ass and sheep all dwelled. The innocent of creation. Where angels, shepherds and wise men bowed in homage to a new born king, a heavenly kingdom only, not of this earth or world. Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison Let us give birth too, in this most holy of nights, in the silence and stillness of this night to the Christ child that dwells within us all. Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison of a memory that has faded in reflection in knowing where we only desire to be known By – Ron Starbuck
Saint Julian Press © 2016 – Poem is from: There Is Something About Being an Episcopalian "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” - John 17:21 The concept of our Unity, of Non-Duality, can be found in all the great core religions and wisdom traditions found in human history, in myth and metaphor, in storytelling, and most especially in poetry. All sacred scripture is poetry. Poetry, especially Spiritual Poetry, is like a software program you are using to reprogram the mind; the SPIRIT-SOUL’S operating system, the Divine Core Language of Creation (DCLC) perhaps, with many variations or versions. Sacramental spiritual practices (praxis), like ritual, prayer, and meditation are an extension of this as well. Such practices and participation in a sacred community are helping you to grow spiritually, reprograming your mind. The Word or Words (Logos) you are taking into your being now are what you are becoming in your future self. Except there is no time, time is an abstraction. That future self already is, it exists now and is reaching within you to lead you forward, to discover your own fullness. The Holy Spirt dwells within you and is an intimate part of your whole being within and across creation. It is a Mystery. You know this already, it is written, it is part of God’s core operating system. And the close connection your Spirit-Soul has already, an eternal one, to the Ultimate Divine Mystery of God, knows this at the deepest levels of the self-mind. In a subtle memory that flows and moves throughout your whole being. In Christian theology they speak of Christ being both fully human and fully divine. Christianity has celebrated this divine aspect for over two thousand years. What has not been understood or celebrated as clearly is the human side of this equation, this dance, this Perichoresis. Your presence on this earth, in this reality, is no accident; it is a gift. You are here to learn and in many cases to teach or help one another, to heal the world, to create heaven on earth. Take time to develop a spiritual practice and to join a sacred community that helps you to discover where you belong, that you belong here, and that you are being called into new relationships every day of your life. Take time to pay attention, to see how God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery is calling you into relationship with one another. In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships is driven by the presence of the "Holy Spirit.” The importance of this concept is summarized by this: "behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God – Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, - the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships.” Another way to view this, as Paul Knitter explained to me once in a conversation, is that in meditation Buddhism asks us “to let go of all concepts, and to let go and open ourselves radically and utterly to the present moment, and in the trust that this present moment contains all that I need. This setting aside of words and imagery and opening oneself to what St. Paul calls God as Spirit, letting that Spirit make itself (or herself or himself) felt within us, grow within us, to lead us.” We find this idea beautifully expressed in these two scriptures. The Gospel of John, and in the book of Romans. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” - John 14:26-27 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” - Romans 8:26-27 7/5/2018 INDEPENDECE DAY – Thomas SimmonsINDEPENDENCE DAY July 4, 2018 “Such a restructuring of space and the objects in it, unaccompanied by any reconversion, must in the first instance be considered an impoverishment.” –Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects “The introduction of actual objects, often with direct popular connotations such as the Coke bottles, was interpreted as a riposte to the high-flown discourse of the older abstract expressionists. Rauschenberg specifically rejected the idealistic aspirations they represented. . .To paint, he said, is no more important than anything else in life.” –Dore Ashton, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning The B train. The people from Edward Hopper who do not look at one another. The ads for things that will be forgotten in another generation. The station. Petals on a wet black bough. The cracked pavement. Bright sunlight. Taxi horns. The walk to 53rd Street and right turn, slow, because the physical object Of my body in this space is in hypertensive crisis. My swollen feet, shortness Of breath. The elegant lobby, spare, atmospheric. Against all advice I take The stairs, because they are the system of ascent. Fourth floor. These words. It is of course not July Fourth when I am there. The MOMA is closed For Independence Day. Here are the Pollocks, the Warhols, the Rothkos-- I could step inside a Rothko and be safe for eternity, though dead, but that Is not how objects work, and thus another story—the Rauschenbergs, and there Is Jasper Johns’ “Flag.” It is two years older than I. It is an American flag. It is not An American flag. It is the object of the object of an American flag, which Though not a specific reference in Baudrillard’s first book will lead directly To Simulacra and Simulation. But this is also, technically, neither simulacra Nor simulation. It is “The American Flag.” For that reason it has an origin, Although the origin is not what we might surmise, not the flags flying everywhere Today. The origin was a dream Johns had 64 years ago. The next morning He began to assemble three plywood panels, 42 1/” by 60 5/8”—call it Three-and-a-half x five feet--and then the resined newspapers, McCarthy era, That fear, that American fear of America, not an object, though present Once again. The object of newspapers, their fragments of communities, Their warning. The thick oil paint over the resin, the red and white stripes And so on. The thick white of the stars over the thick blue, stars held In place in this place on earth by paint, of all things. Rauschenberg was right Up to a point and then he was wrong. These words.The disaffection Of millennials, their caustic irony, their objectified performance of despair. You will die, Siddhartha. Then I will die. Hesse. We must see the scintillation And its impoverishment for what it is. Then we must descend the system of assent. _____________________________________ Thomas Simmons July 4, 2018 BRING YOUR NIGHTS WITH YOU ~ New & Selected Poems 1975-2015, in two volumes by author Thomas Simmons, will be released on July 6, 2018 by Saint Julian Press.
Thomas Simmons taught for 24 years in the Department of English at the University of Iowa; in the spring of 2016 he started something new and has been writing ever since. Before that, he was an assistant and associate professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; before that, he was a doctoral student in English at the University of California, Berkeley, a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford, and a Stanford University undergraduate. His seven previous books, one of which (The Unseen Shore: Memories of a Christian Science Childhood, Beacon Press, 1991) caused some offense in Boston, may be viewed at amazon.com site listed below. He lives in Grinnell, Iowa. |
Publisher's BlogRON STARBUCK is the Publisher/CEO/Executive Editor of Saint Julian Press, Inc., in Houston, Texas; a poet and writer, an Episcopalian, and author of There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian, When Angels Are Born, Wheels Turning Inward, and most recently A Pilgrimage of Churches, four rich collections of poetry, following a poet’s mythic and spiritual journey that crosses easily onto the paths of many contemplative traditions. Archives
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