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9/8/2015 IN THANKSGIVING TO THOSE WHO SERVE
1 Corinthians 15 (NRSV) ~ The Resurrection of Christ "LISTEN, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" When my own father died from acute myeloid leukemia in the spring of 2013, we grieved as a family and community. And before then in the fall of 2012 when a premature newborn great nephew struggled for several weeks in his young life, finally being taken up by God in a life that was far too short. In the midst of death, in the fragile frailty of life, we come together as a people of God to celebrate life, a life well lived. This is what families and communities do, they come together to comfort one another in such trying times. It happens time and again within any community, any family; we grieve for those whom we have lost. In our common humanity, across all families and all communities, all cultures, in the midst of death, we come together as a people to celebrate life. This past Friday, the Greater Harris County–Houston community mourned the loss of Peace Officer and Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth. Deputy Goforth’s death was a tragic senseless murder of someone who served the greater good, someone who helped to keep the peace. He was a Peacekeeper, a Conservator of the Peace, as are all Peace Officers. There is an extraordinary honor to be found in serving your country and community and in being a Peace Officer, in keeping the peace. It is a sacrifice for the greater good and from what I have seen and know it is a sacred calling that is answered by many good men and women. People whom, at their very best; unselfishly protect the weak and the innocent, and the sacredness of life. AS a Peacekeeper, as a son, as a husband and father, Deputy Darren Goforth was such a man; he answered the call. As are all the keepers of God’s peace, who like him, have likewise heard the call and chosen to serve in a spirit of humility. Overwhelmingly, they are people who deserve our respect and support. Because they care, because it requires of them tremendous sacrifice, courage and a compassionate vision to make such a commitment to hearth and home, to their own families, to the community in which they, and we live together. I am thankful for such caring commitment and compassion. I am thankful for the care given by all those who answer this call, in serving God and country and community. I am thankful for all who serve; I am thankful for people like Deputy Darren Goforth. In this Spirit of Thanksgiving allow me please to offer this humble prayer and blessing from the Book of Common Prayer. Prayer for Social Service (BCP) O Lord our heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be ministered unto but to minister: Bless, we beseech thee, all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, the same thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  Ron Starbuck
Publisher/CEO Saint Julian Press, Inc. Houston, Texas Father: The Rev. Robert Paul Starbuck, M.Div., PhD, Methodist Clergy, Marriage and Family Counselor/Psychotherapist. I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast poetry film from Motionpoems. |
 MAX Back in my college days, my youth, and days where the memories are still rich even now; my friends who had fought in Vietnam called it a soldier’s breakfast, coffee and a cigarette. I have fallen into the habit of smoking a bit now and again, fallen from grace if you wish. The taste is still sweet; the memories' crystal clear from our carefree youth filled days, as I breathe in and out the steel blue smoke of youthful memories, memories of that self from long ago. One old friend from that time, David, who served in Vietnam in an Infantry Army Ranger Company, told me a story once of his time in Vietnam, and a vision of his childhood pet when he woke from a drug hazed dream. Induced, he thought; by some Thai Sticks, he smoked that evening with some of his Ranger Company mates. His dog Max that he had grown up with, a white German Shepherd, was barking urgently in front of his bunk bed, running back and forth in warning, wanting him to follow and go somewhere desperately. Max was so persistent. My friend was finally forced to get up from his deep sleep and go outside, like a walking dream. So, my friend David, followed the vision of his dog out of the bunker where he had been sleeping. Just outside, Max suddenly jumped out of the sandbag bunker and immediately went into a pointing position, in the distance, on the edge of the jungle, they saw pin points of light flickering, dim and then bright again. David knew instantly it was the enemy smoking. They were trained to look for such signs. Viet Cong Ghost Soldiers his Ranger Company called them, because they disappeared like ghosts, the light of their cigarettes glowing in the darkness as a warning, a call to combat. He picked up and emptied his M16 in that general direction, in to the darkness of the jungle night, not knowing for sure what or who was out there, other than the enemy. He knew there were no patrols from their camp out at night. An alarm was raised all over the camp; other guns fired in defense, an attack averted, and his Ranger Company saved that night, by a dream, a vision, a childhood pet, a dear old friend. The next day in the early-morning light it was clear that a significant military force had been in place. A few bodies left behind. Upon returning home from Vietnam many months later, my friend learned that his dog Max had peacefully died that identical night, at close to the same time he appeared by David's bunk. And in a final act of friendship and loyalty came to warn him thousands of miles away, from Brazosport, Texas, to the jungles of Vietnam. I believed the story then, I wanted to believe it because it has all the right pieces any compelling story has to tell. I still want to believe now close to fifty years later. I'd like to know; as you do I'm sure. How Max knew that David needed his help, how he found him even, went to him. We can ask. I think the answer is found in love's power to transcend time and distance and our own imaginations. Then again, perhaps it’s only an Urban Legend, an old military ghost story of sorts, told by soldiers anywhere, from any side, from any war that is waged. Still, it must make you wonder what connections, there are between two such close friends, a loyal childhood pet and the man he once protected as a child, and how we are sometimes blessed. It’s all a mystery, life, love, death, our intuition and imaginations. What do we know? I'm not sure why I'm sharing this story now; perhaps I don't want it to be lost. It's a compelling story, a haunting tale at many different levels. It's a bit odd even that I formed such close friendships with these military men who served in Vietnam. Many times we would stay awake all night slowly sipping on good scotch and looking hard at life. These veterans of war taught me how to hold my liquor, and in the process, we talked for hours, sharing stories with one another, this is one of those stories. | You see, when I turned 18 years old, fresh out of high school, back when there were still Draft Boards. I asked for and was almost granted a conscientious objector status. It wasn't easy getting that classification back then; you had to answer a lot of extremely hard questions. You had to be deeply convincing. I had help from my father, himself, a WWII veteran and a Methodist minister; he went with me to the interview. He even had some of his seminary professors and clergy friends who were COs’ help me understand the process and what I would be asked. As it turned out, the Draft Board gave me two choices, take a college deferment or immediately begin serving two years of voluntary service as a CO in some capacity, usually in a hospital. I decided to take the college deferment instead, and two years later the military draft ended in the United States. I can't say that I feel the same way now, that I'm still a pacifist today, so many years have passed. I've never been tested under fire or in any violent situation when I had to defend my own life or protect the life of another. Few of us have, unless they have served in this capacity. There is an extraordinary honor to be found in serving your country, in being a peacekeeper. It is a sacrifice for the greater good. I do hold all life as holy, to be sacred, and pray for an end to such conflicts and war, for a better world. At their very best, this is what soldiers do, they protect the weak and the innocent. They act as peacekeepers, they help protect the sacredness of life.  Ghost the direwolf bonded to Jon Snow in HBO's, Game of Thrones. The point of my story is this; the mysteries of our interconnections with one another are astounding. We need to pay attention to them. Can you begin to imagine the angels watching over you even now, as Max watched over my friend David? Our own angels are out there you know, in many forms, found in complete strangers walking along the street at times, unseen or unknown directly, but known I believe at some level of the self, many levels. Love calls out to us, moving through and across our many selves, through our lives and the years, through time and mystery and death. These interconnections arise out of our relationships with others, with all life and through life. It is life at work, and something more I think, Śūnyatā-Dependent-Arising-InterBeing in Buddhism; or in more theistic faiths the Holy Spirit, the Great Spirit, God as Spirit if you wish, as the Ultimate Divine Mystery at work within the world, calling us into a relationship with one another. It's something we need to awaken to, a key truth, maybe a final truth; an enlightenment that helps us to understand this mystery. One final thought, I lost contact with David over 50 years ago when we went our separate ways, after those early college years. For all, I know, he's out there in the world still living his life, and I trust that something in him may remember our nights of conversation and good scotch, and the stories we shared. If he is, I want to wish him the best. I hope he has had and is still having an enjoyable and meaningful life. Ron Starbuck Saint Julian Press Copyright 2015  For the Angels Amongst Us and the Souls Who Have Blessed Us |
The Perfection of Wisdom
As Christians engage more and more in an interfaith dialogue with Buddhism, and other faiths, they are constantly challenged by a vocabulary, which is very different from the one they know and love. This is especially true in working with and studying Buddhism, with its non-theistic approach to understanding the nature of reality.
How may a Christian perceive and understand the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā—Nirvana, written of in the Heart Sutra, Mahāyāna Buddhist literature? Where the Heart Sutra teaches Śūnyatā–Nirvana, is that, which is empty of emptiness, and is that, which, points a Buddhist to an experience and union with Ultimate Truth, Ultimate Reality, as the Perfection of Wisdom. A teaching that leads a Buddhist to great wisdom and compassion. How may we understand “emptiness is form, form is emptiness,” coming from a spiritual tradition like Christianity that is theistic?
May a Christian embrace a non-theistic approach to understanding the Divine Mystery, and still hold on to their theistic relationship with the Divine? My simple answer is, yes. One that I have learned from Paul F. Knitter, author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, as well as other writers and theologians. I believe that we may do both, understand and see the Divine through both a Buddhist and a Christian lens.
In Buddhism, emptiness points to a concept, which tells us that our sense of self as being permanent is deceptive or counterfeit and that the self we may actively identify with is empty of such permanence. Buddhism refers to this false self as not-self, or no-self, anattā (uhn-uht-tah), it is an ego clinging self that leads to suffering, misperceptions, and false projections.
Indeed, what we may think of, as “oneself” is largely the ego, who is not our truest deepest self in union with the Divine Mystery, or for a Christian, in union with Christ and through Christ, in unity with the Holy Trinity. Quite often, the ego is selfish and self-centered, blind to a greater and more meaningful, spiritual life.
The Buddhist concept of anattā (uhn-uht-tah) is not proclaiming that humans have no soul, as a Western mind might think of a soul. There is a soul in Buddhism, Ātman, seen as our intrinsic nature, even our Buddha nature. It is seen as a greater self, a truer self, and to find this self, they learn to let go of all concepts of the self. I know this may sound strange to Western ears.
A Christian might think of it as the image of God within themselves, the spirit within that belongs to God, their Christ like nature, or the Holy Spirit who dwells within us each. Even in Christianity it is taught that to find our life in Christ, we must give up the life we know and who we think we are. In this sense there is also a letting go of the self.
Matthew 10:39 (NRSVA)
39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Luke 9:23 (NRSVA)
23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.
As a practicing Christian, I might say this in another way; simply, that it is Christ and the Holy Spirit who dwells within us all and that the Holy Spirit as a teacher and comforter transforms, transcends, reveals, redeems, even expands and diffuses, all sense of self. Ultimately, what we mean here is that the self, our deepest self, our soul, our spirit self, is so intimately interconnected with the Divine that it is the Divine who dwells within us and who we are in unity with; in union with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to place it in Trinitarian terms.
I’m not saying we lose our being, our core identity, our uniqueness as a creation of God, who God gave life to, neither, is Buddhism when it points to the false self as not-self, or no-self, anattā (uhn-uht-tah). For a Christian, as we grow more and more in Christ’s love, as we are constantly changing; we are being transformed moment by moment. Within Christianity this is a continuous process of change and growth, of Sanctification and Theosis, where one day we wake up, and no longer recognize the person we once were, because that person has been utterly transformed.
In Buddhism, there is transformation too; there is a release from an ego-driven false sense of the self that is grounded in selfishness. There is a transformation that leads to selflessness and service to and for others; there is the path of the bodhisattva, found in Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism. Where a person intentionally engages in specific practices that help to develop immeasurable loving-kindness, compassion, joy for others, and composure or equanimity.
Along with the Six Perfections of Wisdom, which are generosity, patience, virtue, joyful effort, meditation, and insightful wisdom that lead to enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. Tibetan Buddhist practices, like Tonglen, that involves taking on the pain of others with an in-breath and sending them joy and healing with an out-breath, and extensive-mind training (Lojong), that are all very sacramental in nature and experience, grounded in the Spirit.
The parallels to these in Christianity are the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit that may arise from a spiritual practice (praxis) and service to God, the church, the community. Service simply and lovingly to other people, grounded in God's compassion, loving-kindness, and justice.
Let me point out, as Paul F. Knitter and other theologians before him have, that all our language about God, as the Divine Mystery, is a symbolic language; like Sumerian Cuneiform, Vedic Sanskrit, ancient Hebrew, Latin, or Greek, all our human language is symbolic.
We may use the vocabulary of a Christian, or of a Buddhist, or another great spiritual tradition in explaining our relationship with the Divine Mystery, but such language, is always a finger pointing at the moon.
Our language and words are symbols that may point us towards God as Ultimate Truth, but these symbols, this symbolic language is not that Truth, although our words and symbols do have the power to help reveal the Truth.
To look at the Truth, we must gaze beyond the finger pointing towards the moon, to the moon itself, to Truth itself. All the words of Holy Scripture, when they are truly effective, from any and all the great spiritual traditions of humankind, are simply fingers pointing at the moon.
Jesus tells us in John 4:24: "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And in 1 John 8:16: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
As a Christian, I see these scriptures, pointing us towards a deeper level of understanding in our relationship with God, and in turn with all of creation and one another.
Perichoresis (peri-kor-es-is) is an ancient Greek term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity. It tells of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all.
This indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh, who a Christian encounters in the sacrament of the Eucharist, where Jesus is truly present. Saint John of Damascus (7th Century) describes Perichoresis as a “cleaving together,” and as a fellowship of the Godhead that enters into one another.
John 17:21 (NRSVA)
21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Jesus points us towards another realization of God’s oneness and reign in these verses from Luke.
Luke 17:20-21st Century King James Version (KJ21)
20 And when the Pharisees had demanded of Him when the Kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, “The Kingdom of God cometh not with outward show. 21 Neither shall they say, ‘Lo, it is here!’ or ‘Lo, it is there!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you
Jesus is telling us in these verses that God lives within us each, dwells within us each, and is in our very midst, actually within any sacred community where people are gathered in his name, but, even more than this I think. Jesus is telling us that we are so intimately connected to one another, not only one with him and the Father, within the Trinity, but within one another too, within a community, and that out of this oneness our lives unfold, or rather our lives fold into one another, interweave with one another.
It is our relationships with one another, and all of creation, which is the reality we experience every day of our lives. It is out of all these relationships that our lives arise, interweaving, unfolding and folding into one another, and it is in and through these relationships we encounter and come to know, and be known by God, by the Divine Mystery. Through and in one another, we come to know God, in a divine relationship that is creation itself, constantly creating new relationship from one moment to the next.
In Buddhism, this concept of our interconnectedness with life, all life, reality itself, out of which our lives arise, is called Dependent Origination or Dependent Arising. The Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls this concept interbeing, in his book, The Heart of Understanding, 1 where he teaches that “To be” is to inter-be, and that “we cannot be alone, exist alone without anything else.”
All beings are in relationship with one another; we are all “interbeing” with the rest of creation. Indeed, our life and the reality we experience moment to moment is arising out this “interbeingness” and that through “interbeing” we come to know God in and through our relationships.
As a Christian, I want to use the language and symbols that I know and love so well, and add that what is drawing us together is the life giving presence of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is actively at work within the world. And to recognize that it is the Holy Spirit who is literally calling us into a relationship with one another and into the fullness of our humanity, the full potential of our human life, which after all is a gift from God.
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 from the Gospel of John, and in the book of Romans.
John 14:26-27 and Romans 8:26-27, tell us:
“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.” …
“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.”
I imagine that this is exactly as Jesus must have prayed to our Father in Heaven (Abba), with a radical and complete openness and trust that took him beyond all forms and images into a union and unity with the Holy Spirit that was praying with and through him. This is the same Holy Spirit, who prays with and through each one of us, when we take the time to be still, to be silent, to meditate and rest in the Divine and Ultimate Mystery of God as Spirit.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. “That very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”
For a Christian, this is it, this is unity, this is union with God, and union with one another in community, the union that we find within the church or any sacred community that values one another and the stranger. And you know; it's all a mystery, it's all a marvelous mystery that calls us into a relationship with one another, even across faiths, especially across faiths.
If we could reframe the message of the Gospel for the 21st Century, the "Good News" of the Gospel, I believe that this would be that message. A message that calls all of us into a deeper understanding of the Divine Mystery found in relationship, found in an interfaith dialogue that is radically open, radically inclusive, and grounded in the historical and orthodox tradition of the church, and of the Great Commission, Christ gave to his Disciples, to all Christendom.
As my friend Paul Knitter once wrote in a sermon, quoting John Cobb, another theologian, "Jesus is the way, that is open to other ways."
"Jesus is the way that is open to other ways. Jesus is not the way that excludes, overpowers, demeans other ways; rather he is the way that opens us to, connects us with, calls us to relate to other ways in a process that can best be described as "dialogue."
1. The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra – Thich Nhat Hanh http://www.parallax.org/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=BOOKHOU - Śūnyatā - Emptiness - Interbeing (Thich Nhat Hahn's comments on Emptiness as InterBeing)
2. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Paul F. Knitter, Chapter 1, Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other, Pages 14-23.Publisher: Oneworld Publications (July 25, 2009)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1851686738ISBN-13: 978-1851686735Paperback: 336 pages http://www.oneworld-publications.com/cgi-bin/cart2/commerce.cgi?pid=443&log_pid=yes
3. Sermon by Professor Paul F. Knitter, from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, entitled "Jesus: The Way That is Open to Other Ways". http://www.saintjulianpress.com/jesus-the-way-that-is-open-to-other-ways-by-theologian-paul-f-knitter.html
As Christians engage more and more in an interfaith dialogue with Buddhism, and other faiths, they are constantly challenged by a vocabulary, which is very different from the one they know and love. This is especially true in working with and studying Buddhism, with its non-theistic approach to understanding the nature of reality.
How may a Christian perceive and understand the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā—Nirvana, written of in the Heart Sutra, Mahāyāna Buddhist literature? Where the Heart Sutra teaches Śūnyatā–Nirvana, is that, which is empty of emptiness, and is that, which, points a Buddhist to an experience and union with Ultimate Truth, Ultimate Reality, as the Perfection of Wisdom. A teaching that leads a Buddhist to great wisdom and compassion. How may we understand “emptiness is form, form is emptiness,” coming from a spiritual tradition like Christianity that is theistic?
May a Christian embrace a non-theistic approach to understanding the Divine Mystery, and still hold on to their theistic relationship with the Divine? My simple answer is, yes. One that I have learned from Paul F. Knitter, author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, as well as other writers and theologians. I believe that we may do both, understand and see the Divine through both a Buddhist and a Christian lens.
In Buddhism, emptiness points to a concept, which tells us that our sense of self as being permanent is deceptive or counterfeit and that the self we may actively identify with is empty of such permanence. Buddhism refers to this false self as not-self, or no-self, anattā (uhn-uht-tah), it is an ego clinging self that leads to suffering, misperceptions, and false projections.
Indeed, what we may think of, as “oneself” is largely the ego, who is not our truest deepest self in union with the Divine Mystery, or for a Christian, in union with Christ and through Christ, in unity with the Holy Trinity. Quite often, the ego is selfish and self-centered, blind to a greater and more meaningful, spiritual life.
The Buddhist concept of anattā (uhn-uht-tah) is not proclaiming that humans have no soul, as a Western mind might think of a soul. There is a soul in Buddhism, Ātman, seen as our intrinsic nature, even our Buddha nature. It is seen as a greater self, a truer self, and to find this self, they learn to let go of all concepts of the self. I know this may sound strange to Western ears.
A Christian might think of it as the image of God within themselves, the spirit within that belongs to God, their Christ like nature, or the Holy Spirit who dwells within us each. Even in Christianity it is taught that to find our life in Christ, we must give up the life we know and who we think we are. In this sense there is also a letting go of the self.
Matthew 10:39 (NRSVA)
39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
Luke 9:23 (NRSVA)
23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.
As a practicing Christian, I might say this in another way; simply, that it is Christ and the Holy Spirit who dwells within us all and that the Holy Spirit as a teacher and comforter transforms, transcends, reveals, redeems, even expands and diffuses, all sense of self. Ultimately, what we mean here is that the self, our deepest self, our soul, our spirit self, is so intimately interconnected with the Divine that it is the Divine who dwells within us and who we are in unity with; in union with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to place it in Trinitarian terms.
I’m not saying we lose our being, our core identity, our uniqueness as a creation of God, who God gave life to, neither, is Buddhism when it points to the false self as not-self, or no-self, anattā (uhn-uht-tah). For a Christian, as we grow more and more in Christ’s love, as we are constantly changing; we are being transformed moment by moment. Within Christianity this is a continuous process of change and growth, of Sanctification and Theosis, where one day we wake up, and no longer recognize the person we once were, because that person has been utterly transformed.
In Buddhism, there is transformation too; there is a release from an ego-driven false sense of the self that is grounded in selfishness. There is a transformation that leads to selflessness and service to and for others; there is the path of the bodhisattva, found in Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism. Where a person intentionally engages in specific practices that help to develop immeasurable loving-kindness, compassion, joy for others, and composure or equanimity.
Along with the Six Perfections of Wisdom, which are generosity, patience, virtue, joyful effort, meditation, and insightful wisdom that lead to enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. Tibetan Buddhist practices, like Tonglen, that involves taking on the pain of others with an in-breath and sending them joy and healing with an out-breath, and extensive-mind training (Lojong), that are all very sacramental in nature and experience, grounded in the Spirit.
The parallels to these in Christianity are the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit that may arise from a spiritual practice (praxis) and service to God, the church, the community. Service simply and lovingly to other people, grounded in God's compassion, loving-kindness, and justice.
Let me point out, as Paul F. Knitter and other theologians before him have, that all our language about God, as the Divine Mystery, is a symbolic language; like Sumerian Cuneiform, Vedic Sanskrit, ancient Hebrew, Latin, or Greek, all our human language is symbolic.
We may use the vocabulary of a Christian, or of a Buddhist, or another great spiritual tradition in explaining our relationship with the Divine Mystery, but such language, is always a finger pointing at the moon.
Our language and words are symbols that may point us towards God as Ultimate Truth, but these symbols, this symbolic language is not that Truth, although our words and symbols do have the power to help reveal the Truth.
To look at the Truth, we must gaze beyond the finger pointing towards the moon, to the moon itself, to Truth itself. All the words of Holy Scripture, when they are truly effective, from any and all the great spiritual traditions of humankind, are simply fingers pointing at the moon.
Jesus tells us in John 4:24: "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And in 1 John 8:16: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
As a Christian, I see these scriptures, pointing us towards a deeper level of understanding in our relationship with God, and in turn with all of creation and one another.
Perichoresis (peri-kor-es-is) is an ancient Greek term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity. It tells of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all.
This indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh, who a Christian encounters in the sacrament of the Eucharist, where Jesus is truly present. Saint John of Damascus (7th Century) describes Perichoresis as a “cleaving together,” and as a fellowship of the Godhead that enters into one another.
John 17:21 (NRSVA)
21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Jesus points us towards another realization of God’s oneness and reign in these verses from Luke.
Luke 17:20-21st Century King James Version (KJ21)
20 And when the Pharisees had demanded of Him when the Kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, “The Kingdom of God cometh not with outward show. 21 Neither shall they say, ‘Lo, it is here!’ or ‘Lo, it is there!’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you
Jesus is telling us in these verses that God lives within us each, dwells within us each, and is in our very midst, actually within any sacred community where people are gathered in his name, but, even more than this I think. Jesus is telling us that we are so intimately connected to one another, not only one with him and the Father, within the Trinity, but within one another too, within a community, and that out of this oneness our lives unfold, or rather our lives fold into one another, interweave with one another.
It is our relationships with one another, and all of creation, which is the reality we experience every day of our lives. It is out of all these relationships that our lives arise, interweaving, unfolding and folding into one another, and it is in and through these relationships we encounter and come to know, and be known by God, by the Divine Mystery. Through and in one another, we come to know God, in a divine relationship that is creation itself, constantly creating new relationship from one moment to the next.
In Buddhism, this concept of our interconnectedness with life, all life, reality itself, out of which our lives arise, is called Dependent Origination or Dependent Arising. The Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls this concept interbeing, in his book, The Heart of Understanding, 1 where he teaches that “To be” is to inter-be, and that “we cannot be alone, exist alone without anything else.”
All beings are in relationship with one another; we are all “interbeing” with the rest of creation. Indeed, our life and the reality we experience moment to moment is arising out this “interbeingness” and that through “interbeing” we come to know God in and through our relationships.
As a Christian, I want to use the language and symbols that I know and love so well, and add that what is drawing us together is the life giving presence of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is actively at work within the world. And to recognize that it is the Holy Spirit who is literally calling us into a relationship with one another and into the fullness of our humanity, the full potential of our human life, which after all is a gift from God.
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 from the Gospel of John, and in the book of Romans.
John 14:26-27 and Romans 8:26-27, tell us:
“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.” …
“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.”
I imagine that this is exactly as Jesus must have prayed to our Father in Heaven (Abba), with a radical and complete openness and trust that took him beyond all forms and images into a union and unity with the Holy Spirit that was praying with and through him. This is the same Holy Spirit, who prays with and through each one of us, when we take the time to be still, to be silent, to meditate and rest in the Divine and Ultimate Mystery of God as Spirit.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. “That very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”
For a Christian, this is it, this is unity, this is union with God, and union with one another in community, the union that we find within the church or any sacred community that values one another and the stranger. And you know; it's all a mystery, it's all a marvelous mystery that calls us into a relationship with one another, even across faiths, especially across faiths.
If we could reframe the message of the Gospel for the 21st Century, the "Good News" of the Gospel, I believe that this would be that message. A message that calls all of us into a deeper understanding of the Divine Mystery found in relationship, found in an interfaith dialogue that is radically open, radically inclusive, and grounded in the historical and orthodox tradition of the church, and of the Great Commission, Christ gave to his Disciples, to all Christendom.
As my friend Paul Knitter once wrote in a sermon, quoting John Cobb, another theologian, "Jesus is the way, that is open to other ways."
"Jesus is the way that is open to other ways. Jesus is not the way that excludes, overpowers, demeans other ways; rather he is the way that opens us to, connects us with, calls us to relate to other ways in a process that can best be described as "dialogue."
1. The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra – Thich Nhat Hanh http://www.parallax.org/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=BOOKHOU - Śūnyatā - Emptiness - Interbeing (Thich Nhat Hahn's comments on Emptiness as InterBeing)
2. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Paul F. Knitter, Chapter 1, Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other, Pages 14-23.Publisher: Oneworld Publications (July 25, 2009)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1851686738ISBN-13: 978-1851686735Paperback: 336 pages http://www.oneworld-publications.com/cgi-bin/cart2/commerce.cgi?pid=443&log_pid=yes
3. Sermon by Professor Paul F. Knitter, from Union Theological Seminary in NYC, entitled "Jesus: The Way That is Open to Other Ways". http://www.saintjulianpress.com/jesus-the-way-that-is-open-to-other-ways-by-theologian-paul-f-knitter.html
7/13/2015
Pirene's Fountain, Volume 7 Issue 15
In the pages of Pirene's Fountain, Volume 7 Issue 15 you will find two new never before published poems by poet Ron Starbuck.
One of them has been recorded in a video poem that can be found here on YouTube. https://youtu.be/oOLW3GPFUt8 Pirene's Fountain's tradition of excellence in writing and thought continues in this special double-feature edition. Features, interviews, reviews, and brilliant works of poetry are brought together to inspire and nurture the creative spirit. The voices in Pirene's Fountain create a meaningful and lasting dialogue for all lovers of exceptional poetry and writing. |
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 Saint Julian Press proudly presents a new collection of poems by poet Britt Posmer that is now available through fine book distributors and retailers. Press Release | |
5/13/2015
Poetry Comes to Life
Watch: Poetry Comes to Life in an Exclusive 'I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast' Short Film from Melissa Studdard’s first book of poetry, published by Saint Julian Press.
Poet and Fiction Author ~ Anne Tammel Saint Julian Press proudly presents a new collection of poems by poet and fiction author Anne Tammel. Here is Anne reading the title poem in this video produced by Saint Julian Press.
4/26/2015
Rumi a Prayer
This should be the last of the SJP video-poems that have been re-created as high definition videos. This one is actually one of my favorites because I believe that it captures the vision and mission of Saint Julian Press in promoting an interfaith dialogue.
I’d like to dedicate it to the people in Nepal who are suffering today, in recognition of Nepal being one of great eastern centers of Buddhist and Hindu spirituality.
"Saint Julian Press as a literary and educational organization embraces a vision to create a local and worldwide community, by engaging in a literary and artistic dialogue that promotes world peace, cultural conversations, and an interfaith awareness, appreciation, and acceptance.
In our mission as a new literary imprint we hope to identify, encourage, nurture, and share transformative literature and art of both past and living masters. While giving emerging artists, poets, and writers a place they may come home to and share their work.”
Rumi a Prayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdcOUFBfEwI
I’d like to dedicate it to the people in Nepal who are suffering today, in recognition of Nepal being one of great eastern centers of Buddhist and Hindu spirituality.
"Saint Julian Press as a literary and educational organization embraces a vision to create a local and worldwide community, by engaging in a literary and artistic dialogue that promotes world peace, cultural conversations, and an interfaith awareness, appreciation, and acceptance.
In our mission as a new literary imprint we hope to identify, encourage, nurture, and share transformative literature and art of both past and living masters. While giving emerging artists, poets, and writers a place they may come home to and share their work.”
Rumi a Prayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdcOUFBfEwI
2/7/2015
What is Sin?
When I was a child, my father spoke of sin as a separation from God and others, a broken relationship, while theologian Paul F. Knitter sees God as a connecting spirit..
This is so true, we are intimately connected with the divine through all our relationships, through relationships with one another and all of creation.
In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” Paul 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."
If I may paraphrase Paul, the importance of this concept is summarized by this: “behind and within all the different images and symbols we may use for God—Creator, Redeemer, Word, Spirit, —the most fundamental, the deepest truth we can speak of God is that God is the source and power of our relationships."
I think this is true in all faiths, with all of life. We may call it by another name or use another metaphor or image if you wish, but for me it is simply a mystery, or a very intimate divine memory that draws us to one another. I can easily live in that mystery, accept it completely and watch it be revealed fully in and with and through all of you as our lives unfold together.
Paul Tillich spoke of God as the "Ground of Our Being." Paul Knitter speaks of God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery, as the “Groundlessness of Our Being” when seen through a Buddhist lens of Śūnyatā–Nirvana~Emptiness, or rather the openness of all creation that is ever-changing and expanding.
Arising, seemly endless, "worlds without end," to use a poetic image from Anglican-Episcopal liturgy.
In the spring issue of Parabola Magazine, they explore both sin and grace. You cannot have one without the other, and when you stop to look closely at your own life, you will see that grace abounds. It flows all through your life and the life of others. It flows through all your relationships and creates a unity with the divine that is eternal.
In your deepest memory, your Buddha Mind or Christ Consciousness, your original nature or self, you know this to be true within the Ground and Groundlessness of your being, within the openness of creation and a path that leads us always towards becoming fully human and something beyond, towards a new being, to rebirth and renewal.
Use your own imagination here, the possibilities of being, are endless in a world or worlds without end.
Ron Starbuck
Publisher - Saint Julian Press
This is so true, we are intimately connected with the divine through all our relationships, through relationships with one another and all of creation.
In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” Paul 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."
If I may paraphrase Paul, the importance of this concept is summarized by this: “behind and within all the different images and symbols we may use for God—Creator, Redeemer, Word, Spirit, —the most fundamental, the deepest truth we can speak of God is that God is the source and power of our relationships."
I think this is true in all faiths, with all of life. We may call it by another name or use another metaphor or image if you wish, but for me it is simply a mystery, or a very intimate divine memory that draws us to one another. I can easily live in that mystery, accept it completely and watch it be revealed fully in and with and through all of you as our lives unfold together.
Paul Tillich spoke of God as the "Ground of Our Being." Paul Knitter speaks of God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery, as the “Groundlessness of Our Being” when seen through a Buddhist lens of Śūnyatā–Nirvana~Emptiness, or rather the openness of all creation that is ever-changing and expanding.
Arising, seemly endless, "worlds without end," to use a poetic image from Anglican-Episcopal liturgy.
In the spring issue of Parabola Magazine, they explore both sin and grace. You cannot have one without the other, and when you stop to look closely at your own life, you will see that grace abounds. It flows all through your life and the life of others. It flows through all your relationships and creates a unity with the divine that is eternal.
In your deepest memory, your Buddha Mind or Christ Consciousness, your original nature or self, you know this to be true within the Ground and Groundlessness of your being, within the openness of creation and a path that leads us always towards becoming fully human and something beyond, towards a new being, to rebirth and renewal.
Use your own imagination here, the possibilities of being, are endless in a world or worlds without end.
Ron Starbuck
Publisher - Saint Julian Press
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Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian by Paul F. Knitter
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Interbeing ~ The Heart of Understanding by Thich Nhat Hanh
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The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity by Cynthia Bourgeault
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2/1/2015
When Angels Are Born
Poets and writers have long been inspired by the sacred literature of the world’s religions and faiths, with stories of wisdom, transformation, enlightenment, and salvation.
The word literature points us towards the high art of communicating ideas, feelings, beliefs and wisdom through writing, of thoughts made with letters. Poets are storytellers who use letters and language, myth and metaphor, as symbols to communicate with the world. The language they use may be both literal and emblematic, expressing the inexpressible and ineffable through images, narrative, emotion, and truth that open us up to the mystery of life.
Some of the greatest literature written across human history comes from the sacred scriptures and mythologies of the world; from the Hindu Mahabharata and Ramayana to the Bible’s Old and New Testament; the Celtic-Welsh Mabinogion and Celtic-Erin Cath Maige Tuired; Ancient Greek and Egyptian Mythology; or the Dhammapada and Heart Sutra of Buddhism. Our sacred scriptures and ancient mythologies hold the stories and narratives of our relationship with one another, the universe, and the Ultimate Divine Mystery of creation, with God. And the journey we take to free ourselves from the tyranny of our own minds, the struggle to see truly what is real and our own unique place in the world. Poetry helps us to believe and know that we are part of something greater than what we may imagine as our soul struggles to find meaning in this life, to know and be known by this greater mystery, and fully embrace our unlimited potential to love within creation.
Many of the poems in When Angels Are Born draw upon the spiritual traditions and language found in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other contemplative wisdom traditions and faiths. Poetry as a language calls us into an intimate relationship with one another, the divine, and creation that is ultimately transforming; poetry is also a celebration of life, a call to live life fully with a full awareness of life’s value. My hope as a poet is that these poems will help the reader to see more clearly, to offer some clarity to your own vision of life and sense of self, and how your life, the self, the soul, or the human psyche are constantly changing and evolving through all your relationships, through love. And that life, your own life especially is indeed a divine gift of love, however, you may imagine the divine to be at work within the world, your world.
“The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” - Numbers 6:24-26 (21st Century King James Version)
The Afterword from ~ When Angels Are Born
The word literature points us towards the high art of communicating ideas, feelings, beliefs and wisdom through writing, of thoughts made with letters. Poets are storytellers who use letters and language, myth and metaphor, as symbols to communicate with the world. The language they use may be both literal and emblematic, expressing the inexpressible and ineffable through images, narrative, emotion, and truth that open us up to the mystery of life.
Some of the greatest literature written across human history comes from the sacred scriptures and mythologies of the world; from the Hindu Mahabharata and Ramayana to the Bible’s Old and New Testament; the Celtic-Welsh Mabinogion and Celtic-Erin Cath Maige Tuired; Ancient Greek and Egyptian Mythology; or the Dhammapada and Heart Sutra of Buddhism. Our sacred scriptures and ancient mythologies hold the stories and narratives of our relationship with one another, the universe, and the Ultimate Divine Mystery of creation, with God. And the journey we take to free ourselves from the tyranny of our own minds, the struggle to see truly what is real and our own unique place in the world. Poetry helps us to believe and know that we are part of something greater than what we may imagine as our soul struggles to find meaning in this life, to know and be known by this greater mystery, and fully embrace our unlimited potential to love within creation.
Many of the poems in When Angels Are Born draw upon the spiritual traditions and language found in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other contemplative wisdom traditions and faiths. Poetry as a language calls us into an intimate relationship with one another, the divine, and creation that is ultimately transforming; poetry is also a celebration of life, a call to live life fully with a full awareness of life’s value. My hope as a poet is that these poems will help the reader to see more clearly, to offer some clarity to your own vision of life and sense of self, and how your life, the self, the soul, or the human psyche are constantly changing and evolving through all your relationships, through love. And that life, your own life especially is indeed a divine gift of love, however, you may imagine the divine to be at work within the world, your world.
“The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” - Numbers 6:24-26 (21st Century King James Version)
The Afterword from ~ When Angels Are Born
1/24/2015
Marcus Borg
The part of me that is whole, that is Episcopalian, as was Marcus Borg. The part of me that is a Sacramental—Contemplative Christian (with certain Buddhist leanings), and spiritual poetic practices, mourns with many others the passing of theologian Marcus Borg.
While Marcus Borg often questioned the Bible, he never lost his desire and great passion for a deeply felt spiritual existence or faith in God as something very real, and very present all through creation, as a Divine Mystery.
One of my fondest memories is when my father and I attended a three day seminary to hear Marcus Borg, Joan Chittister, and Dominic Crossan at Christ Church Cathedral in Houston.
A Manifesto for Progressive Christians: “Imagine that Christianity is about loving God. Imagine that it’s not about the self and its concerns, about ‘what’s in it for me,’ whether that be a blessed afterlife or prosperity in this life. Imagine that loving God is about being attentive to the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Imagine that it is about becoming more and more deeply centered in God. Imagine that it is about loving what God loves. How would that change our lives?” — from Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
Indeed!
I’d like to add, imagine that faith, any faith, is about loving God.
Imagine —a world where we embrace and engage in an interfaith dialogue that is not defined by a specific creed, dogma, religion or faith, but how we love God and one another.
Where we live our life or lives in such love and openness. Where we come to see God as a Verb, as “Spirit-Truth-Love” (Spiritual Truth & Love) at work within the world.
It can change our whole perception of life, and the spiritual practices we may embrace. These practices do not need to be associated with any one faith.
Such practices may honor and embrace the Divine Mystery dwelling within us, dwelling in creation, moving through all faiths, and calling us into relationship with one another.
As a poet I may use the language, images, and symbols of any faith or mystery to express the inexpressible, to speak the ineffable, to dwell in this mystery that dwells in us all.
http://www.marcusjborg.com/about-me/
While Marcus Borg often questioned the Bible, he never lost his desire and great passion for a deeply felt spiritual existence or faith in God as something very real, and very present all through creation, as a Divine Mystery.
One of my fondest memories is when my father and I attended a three day seminary to hear Marcus Borg, Joan Chittister, and Dominic Crossan at Christ Church Cathedral in Houston.
A Manifesto for Progressive Christians: “Imagine that Christianity is about loving God. Imagine that it’s not about the self and its concerns, about ‘what’s in it for me,’ whether that be a blessed afterlife or prosperity in this life. Imagine that loving God is about being attentive to the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Imagine that it is about becoming more and more deeply centered in God. Imagine that it is about loving what God loves. How would that change our lives?” — from Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
Indeed!
I’d like to add, imagine that faith, any faith, is about loving God.
Imagine —a world where we embrace and engage in an interfaith dialogue that is not defined by a specific creed, dogma, religion or faith, but how we love God and one another.
Where we live our life or lives in such love and openness. Where we come to see God as a Verb, as “Spirit-Truth-Love” (Spiritual Truth & Love) at work within the world.
It can change our whole perception of life, and the spiritual practices we may embrace. These practices do not need to be associated with any one faith.
Such practices may honor and embrace the Divine Mystery dwelling within us, dwelling in creation, moving through all faiths, and calling us into relationship with one another.
As a poet I may use the language, images, and symbols of any faith or mystery to express the inexpressible, to speak the ineffable, to dwell in this mystery that dwells in us all.
http://www.marcusjborg.com/about-me/
10/13/2014
Every Book Has A Story To Tell
In My Father’s House are Many Mansions, will be a new book of poetry and prose I hope to begin writing and gathering together soon. The collection will include updated contemporary sermons originally written by my father, accented with other art, poetry, and prose written as an artistic response. There is likewise a third book of poetry waiting to be gathered together, placed in order, and eventually published.
My father, Robert P. Starbuck, M.Div., PhD, was a practicing psychotherapist for over 40 years and a Protestant clergy for over 50 years. Through him and my mother, I learned to love and value literature, plays, philosophy, and theology in many forms. The book’s title of course is drawn from the Gospel of John.
John 14:2 ~ 21st Century King James Version: In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Every book and every poem tell a story, and have a story hidden between the words and verses within each poem. This is a small part of one book’s story. The story of each poem would take pages and pages that I will not reveal to you here today. This piece is not about a new book or an old book, it is about the mystery of relationships.
My father, Robert P. Starbuck, M.Div., PhD, was a practicing psychotherapist for over 40 years and a Protestant clergy for over 50 years. Through him and my mother, I learned to love and value literature, plays, philosophy, and theology in many forms. The book’s title of course is drawn from the Gospel of John.
John 14:2 ~ 21st Century King James Version: In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Every book and every poem tell a story, and have a story hidden between the words and verses within each poem. This is a small part of one book’s story. The story of each poem would take pages and pages that I will not reveal to you here today. This piece is not about a new book or an old book, it is about the mystery of relationships.
In early 2013, Saint Julian Press published When Angels Are Born, my second book of poetry. The timing was far from perfect and we never really had time to actively promote the book or seek book reviews. A few excellent reviews were written. Ones I am certainly proud to share, written by fellow poets and artists, Adele Kenny, Lois P. Jones, Gayle Greenlea, and Leila A. Fortier.
At the time, my mother was in ICU, recovering from a serious case of pneumonia that she had developed during the Christmas holidays. She was literally in the hospital and recovery for many weeks. My father and other members of our immediate family were there by her side every day, every step of the way.
My father in particular was emotionally and physically exhausted, he was so very afraid of losing her, we all were. In early February, she was eventually able to come home, but her full recovery was weeks, actually months away. I suspect that at some microscopic and internal level all this took a terrible toll on my father who was 86 years young, and his immune system. We can never know for certain.
At the time, my mother was in ICU, recovering from a serious case of pneumonia that she had developed during the Christmas holidays. She was literally in the hospital and recovery for many weeks. My father and other members of our immediate family were there by her side every day, every step of the way.
My father in particular was emotionally and physically exhausted, he was so very afraid of losing her, we all were. In early February, she was eventually able to come home, but her full recovery was weeks, actually months away. I suspect that at some microscopic and internal level all this took a terrible toll on my father who was 86 years young, and his immune system. We can never know for certain.
In late February, after being ill himself off and on for a few weeks, we took him to the emergency room at Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center here in Houston. What they diagnosed was acute myeloid leukemia. Within two weeks, after an initial of round of moderate chemotherapy that was devastating, he was gone. His eighty six year old body simply gave out on him. My entire family was overwhelmed with grief, we are all close, and we were all close to my father.
I am very thankful and grateful that he was able to see and read a copy of When Angels Are Born. To see and understand the work and what I was trying to share with the world. Dad was one of my leading enthusiasts, he was always encouraging and something more. He saw, as I was beginning to see, something being revealed about me as a person, something that had always been there, the actualization of a hidden dream and deepest calling of the soul.
So much of the work coming from what he and my mother had taught me to appreciate and value throughout my childhood and beyond as an adult who was drawn to great writing and spiritual views from an interfaith dialogue that I had been involved in for many years; drawing on that knowledge deeply and perhaps an even higher creative-consciousness when writing the poems.
I am very thankful and grateful that he was able to see and read a copy of When Angels Are Born. To see and understand the work and what I was trying to share with the world. Dad was one of my leading enthusiasts, he was always encouraging and something more. He saw, as I was beginning to see, something being revealed about me as a person, something that had always been there, the actualization of a hidden dream and deepest calling of the soul.
So much of the work coming from what he and my mother had taught me to appreciate and value throughout my childhood and beyond as an adult who was drawn to great writing and spiritual views from an interfaith dialogue that I had been involved in for many years; drawing on that knowledge deeply and perhaps an even higher creative-consciousness when writing the poems.
Hélène Cardona When reading the back cover blurbs and endorsements generously provide by poet and actress Hélène Cardona; theologian Paul F. Knitter, who at the time was the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture, and a leading theologian of religious pluralism at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, NYC; and Fr. Laurence Freeman the Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation centered in London. He commented that these are great individuals.
He knew of Paul and Fr. Laurence’s work and writings well, because I had shared their books with him and written about them both for Parabola Magazine two years earlier. And he knew how they are both instrumental in encouraging a radical openness and acceptance in a global interfaith dialogue. My father loved Parabola Magazine, and was proud of the Tangents I had written and the relationship I had as friends and spiritual teachers with both men that aided that endeavor.
My father was equally enamored and charmed by the intelligence, scholarship, and talents of poet and actress Hélène Cardona. Hélène is not only a very talented poet and actress, but also a Henry James scholar with a Master’s in American Literature from the Sorbonne in Paris. She writes and translates in English, French and Spanish, and is also fluent in German, Italian and Greek. As an anam cara (soul friend) she helped me enormously with the final edits for When Angels Are Born.
He knew of Paul and Fr. Laurence’s work and writings well, because I had shared their books with him and written about them both for Parabola Magazine two years earlier. And he knew how they are both instrumental in encouraging a radical openness and acceptance in a global interfaith dialogue. My father loved Parabola Magazine, and was proud of the Tangents I had written and the relationship I had as friends and spiritual teachers with both men that aided that endeavor.
My father was equally enamored and charmed by the intelligence, scholarship, and talents of poet and actress Hélène Cardona. Hélène is not only a very talented poet and actress, but also a Henry James scholar with a Master’s in American Literature from the Sorbonne in Paris. She writes and translates in English, French and Spanish, and is also fluent in German, Italian and Greek. As an anam cara (soul friend) she helped me enormously with the final edits for When Angels Are Born.
 Paul Knitter & his wife Cathy Cornell ~ With Executive Chief of the Korean Buddhist Chogye Order |  Fr. Laurence Freeman, OSB |
My gratitude for the support and encouragement of Hélène, Paul, Fr. Laurence, and my father can never be adequately expressed, such gratefulness goes beyond all words, as does my appreciation for everyone who wrote a review or offered a kind and sincere comment. What is hidden here is another story, perhaps for another time. But, it might help for you to know that before 2010, I had never met or had a conversation with Hélène, Paul, or Fr. Laurence.
In finally reading When Angels Are Born, I think my father was simply astounded at the work and its quality, as perhaps other members of my immediate family were as well. This was not the son, brother, or uncle they had known all their lives. It was something very new, very different, something they didn't quite recognize and had to adjust to in their mental images. As did I in my own sense of self and identity, trying to maintain a simple humility of spirit and thanksgiving; it takes time you see.
I suspect that for some, adjustments are still going on today. Our families and closest friends, the people who have known us for years and years, know us at a completely different level than we are known professionally, or as poets and writers. An echo perhaps of, no prophet (or poet) is truly seen or known in his own long-standing society of family and friends. They know your faults too well, and love you in spite of them all.
Why am I thinking of this today? Because, within the last year, presently, and in the very near future I have been and will continue to work with at least four poets in publishing their first books through Saint Julian Press.
Last fall we published Fred LaMotte’s first book of poems titled Wounded Bud. The most recent one is I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast by Melissa Studdard. The newest one to be published in November 2014 is Numinous by Leila A. Fortier. There are at least two or three more books by other poets we’ll be working on through the winter and spring.
Every day I am a witness to the utter miracle of this process, and the very hard work it takes day in and day out. Every day is a reminder and in many ways a remembrance of where it all began.
It began with my mother writing poems when we were children, and then my father sharing them in a sermon. It began when I was a very small boy and heard my first nursery rhyme or fairy tale. It began when I heard my father recite a Robert Frost or Carl Sandburg poem, or parts of a Tennessee Williams, William Inge, or Arthur Miller play, and so many other brilliant poets and playwrights. And it began with some of the teachers who encouraged in me an appreciation for the arts, literature, drama, and the spoken word.
It begins also with my wife Joanne, my soul-mate in this life we share together, and the many friendships and relationships we share with others. Certainly through our involvement at Trinity Episcopal Church in Midtown Houston, where we were married, still attend, and are actively involved. And in many other relationships too, surprising in their spiritual intimacy, and with all the people who have and will be touched by Saint Julian Press. The human spirit and Holy Spirit are boundless, calling us into new relationships every day.
I am astounded at the relationships we have in this world, how unexpectedly doors will open, and how new people and close friendships arise out of the mystery of creation. There is a conversation I recall once with Paul Knitter over a dinner when I was visiting him at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
In it we spoke of the marvelous interconnections that form between people and how they often arise and form. In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” Paul 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."
If I may paraphrase Paul, the importance of this concept is summarized by this: “behind and within all the different images and symbols we may use for God – Creator, Redeemer, Word, Spirit, - the most fundamental, the deepest truth we can speak of God is that God is the source and power of our relationships."
I think this is true in all faiths, with all of life. We may call it by another name or use another metaphor or image if you wish, but for me it is simply a mystery, or a very intimate divine memory that draws us to one another. I can easily live in that mystery, accept it fully and watch it be revealed fully in and with and through all of you as our lives unfold together.
Many Blessings,
Ron Starbuck
October 12, 2014
In finally reading When Angels Are Born, I think my father was simply astounded at the work and its quality, as perhaps other members of my immediate family were as well. This was not the son, brother, or uncle they had known all their lives. It was something very new, very different, something they didn't quite recognize and had to adjust to in their mental images. As did I in my own sense of self and identity, trying to maintain a simple humility of spirit and thanksgiving; it takes time you see.
I suspect that for some, adjustments are still going on today. Our families and closest friends, the people who have known us for years and years, know us at a completely different level than we are known professionally, or as poets and writers. An echo perhaps of, no prophet (or poet) is truly seen or known in his own long-standing society of family and friends. They know your faults too well, and love you in spite of them all.
Why am I thinking of this today? Because, within the last year, presently, and in the very near future I have been and will continue to work with at least four poets in publishing their first books through Saint Julian Press.
Last fall we published Fred LaMotte’s first book of poems titled Wounded Bud. The most recent one is I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast by Melissa Studdard. The newest one to be published in November 2014 is Numinous by Leila A. Fortier. There are at least two or three more books by other poets we’ll be working on through the winter and spring.
Every day I am a witness to the utter miracle of this process, and the very hard work it takes day in and day out. Every day is a reminder and in many ways a remembrance of where it all began.
It began with my mother writing poems when we were children, and then my father sharing them in a sermon. It began when I was a very small boy and heard my first nursery rhyme or fairy tale. It began when I heard my father recite a Robert Frost or Carl Sandburg poem, or parts of a Tennessee Williams, William Inge, or Arthur Miller play, and so many other brilliant poets and playwrights. And it began with some of the teachers who encouraged in me an appreciation for the arts, literature, drama, and the spoken word.
It begins also with my wife Joanne, my soul-mate in this life we share together, and the many friendships and relationships we share with others. Certainly through our involvement at Trinity Episcopal Church in Midtown Houston, where we were married, still attend, and are actively involved. And in many other relationships too, surprising in their spiritual intimacy, and with all the people who have and will be touched by Saint Julian Press. The human spirit and Holy Spirit are boundless, calling us into new relationships every day.
I am astounded at the relationships we have in this world, how unexpectedly doors will open, and how new people and close friendships arise out of the mystery of creation. There is a conversation I recall once with Paul Knitter over a dinner when I was visiting him at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
In it we spoke of the marvelous interconnections that form between people and how they often arise and form. In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” Paul 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."
If I may paraphrase Paul, the importance of this concept is summarized by this: “behind and within all the different images and symbols we may use for God – Creator, Redeemer, Word, Spirit, - the most fundamental, the deepest truth we can speak of God is that God is the source and power of our relationships."
I think this is true in all faiths, with all of life. We may call it by another name or use another metaphor or image if you wish, but for me it is simply a mystery, or a very intimate divine memory that draws us to one another. I can easily live in that mystery, accept it fully and watch it be revealed fully in and with and through all of you as our lives unfold together.
Many Blessings,
Ron Starbuck
October 12, 2014
Book Review Hyperlinks
1) Tiferet Journal by Adele Kenney – July 2013
2) The Loch Raven Review by Lois P. Jones
3) Leila A. Fortier ~ March 31, 2014
4) Gayle J. Greenlea ~ February 14, 2014
Notes & Links
When Angels Are Born
Hélène Cardona is a poet, actor, linguist, literary translator, dream analyst, author of Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry), winner of the Pinnacle Book Award and the 2014 Readers’ Favorite Award in Poetry; The Astonished Universe (Red Hen Press); and Life in Suspension, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2016. Ce que nous portons (Éditions du Cygne), her translation of What We Carry by Dorianne Laux, came out in September 2014. She also translated Beyond Elsewhere by Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac.
Hélène holds a Masters in English & American Literature from the Sorbonne, taught at Hamilton College & Loyola Marymount University, and received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut & Universidad Internacional de Andalucía.
She is Main Editor of Dublin Poetry Review and Levure Littéraire, and a multiple-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Other publications include Washington Square, World Literature Today, Poetry International, The Warwick Review, The Dublin Review of Books, The Irish Literary Times, The Los Angeles Review, and many more.
Acting credits include Chocolat, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hundred-Foot Journey, X-Men: Days of Future Past, etc. For Serendipity, she co-wrote with director Peter Chelsom and composer Alan Silvestri the song Lucienne, which she also sang.
http://www.helenecardona.com
http://www.pw.org/content/helene_cardona
http://www.imdb.me/helenecardona
Paul F. Knitter - Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Oneworld Publications
http://www.amazon.com/Without-Christian-published-Oneworld-Publications/dp/B00E31Q4OI/
Union Theological Seminary Biography - Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture
http://www.utsnyc.edu/paulknitter
Union in Dialogue: http://unionindialogue.org/2011/06/05/the-miracle-of-mindfulness-and-the-miracle-of-being-in-christ-jesus/
Fr. Laurence Freeman
First Sight: The Experience of Faith
http://www.amazon.com/First-Sight-Experience-Laurence-Freeman/dp/1441161570/
WCCM site: http://www.wccm.org/content/laurence-freeman-osb
1) Tiferet Journal by Adele Kenney – July 2013
2) The Loch Raven Review by Lois P. Jones
3) Leila A. Fortier ~ March 31, 2014
4) Gayle J. Greenlea ~ February 14, 2014
Notes & Links
When Angels Are Born
Hélène Cardona is a poet, actor, linguist, literary translator, dream analyst, author of Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry), winner of the Pinnacle Book Award and the 2014 Readers’ Favorite Award in Poetry; The Astonished Universe (Red Hen Press); and Life in Suspension, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2016. Ce que nous portons (Éditions du Cygne), her translation of What We Carry by Dorianne Laux, came out in September 2014. She also translated Beyond Elsewhere by Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac.
Hélène holds a Masters in English & American Literature from the Sorbonne, taught at Hamilton College & Loyola Marymount University, and received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut & Universidad Internacional de Andalucía.
She is Main Editor of Dublin Poetry Review and Levure Littéraire, and a multiple-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Other publications include Washington Square, World Literature Today, Poetry International, The Warwick Review, The Dublin Review of Books, The Irish Literary Times, The Los Angeles Review, and many more.
Acting credits include Chocolat, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hundred-Foot Journey, X-Men: Days of Future Past, etc. For Serendipity, she co-wrote with director Peter Chelsom and composer Alan Silvestri the song Lucienne, which she also sang.
http://www.helenecardona.com
http://www.pw.org/content/helene_cardona
http://www.imdb.me/helenecardona
Paul F. Knitter - Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Oneworld Publications
http://www.amazon.com/Without-Christian-published-Oneworld-Publications/dp/B00E31Q4OI/
Union Theological Seminary Biography - Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture
http://www.utsnyc.edu/paulknitter
Union in Dialogue: http://unionindialogue.org/2011/06/05/the-miracle-of-mindfulness-and-the-miracle-of-being-in-christ-jesus/
Fr. Laurence Freeman
First Sight: The Experience of Faith
http://www.amazon.com/First-Sight-Experience-Laurence-Freeman/dp/1441161570/
WCCM site: http://www.wccm.org/content/laurence-freeman-osb
There is Something About Being an Episcopalian (Anglican)
If you haven’t seen this new video on YouTube, I would like to encourage you take a moment to watch and share it if you wish. It is a witness and a testament on being an Episcopalian within the Anglican Communion, and a Sacramental Christian within the Church Universal.
As a contemplative tradition and prayerful path, as a way towards a knowledge and understanding of God, by whom we are fully known in and with and through an indwelling of the Spirit. And how God as the “Connecting Spirit" calls us into relationship with one another and all of creation.
Corinthians 13 (NRSV) ~ 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
If you haven’t seen this new video on YouTube, I would like to encourage you take a moment to watch and share it if you wish. It is a witness and a testament on being an Episcopalian within the Anglican Communion, and a Sacramental Christian within the Church Universal.
As a contemplative tradition and prayerful path, as a way towards a knowledge and understanding of God, by whom we are fully known in and with and through an indwelling of the Spirit. And how God as the “Connecting Spirit" calls us into relationship with one another and all of creation.
Corinthians 13 (NRSV) ~ 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
It is no secret that I love what the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion have to offer as an open inclusive boundless community of loving-kindness, and as a transforming faith and spiritual practice within the world. In our beautiful liturgy, the work of the people, and as sacred art, literature, and poetry that is transforming, an invocation of the Holy Spirit.
As I love how the Holy Spirit is actively at work within the world, as a divine presence and mystery, formless ~ without form, unseen and invisible, unbound, eternally open, indwelling, and transforming; God as a verb, acting to transform creation, in a world without end.
Romans 8 (NRSV) ~ 26 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. 27 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.
Transforming our lives and creation if we will only open ourselves up to the peace, power, and joy we find in a relationship with and in and through Christ. And the hope Christ offers to a weary world through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even as the Holy Spirit prays within us when we do not know how to truly pray ourselves to God, with God, invisible and unseen, indwelling and always present.
John14 (NRSV) ~ 26 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. 27 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.
To be reminded is to remember, in Eucharistic remembrance. In remembrance of Christ. To remember whom we are as Children of God, as a People of God, living in community with one another and helping to heal and repair the world. Tikkun Olam.
Allow me to end this note please, with this beautiful and ancient liturgical poem and invocation of the Holy Spirit written by the Eastern Christian Orthodox monk, Symeon the New Theologian, over a thousand years ago.
Within these words, I find a connection to many other contemplative traditions and faiths, in an interfaith dialogue, that touches on the mystery and formlessness of the divine. Symeon uses a Christian vocabulary, but his words are timeless and eternal.
Words that may take us beyond all our images and symbols of God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery. Seeing God as the “Connecting Spirit” as my friend and theologian Paul F. Knitter has written and spoken of in his books and teaching.
Symeon the New Theologian's Invocation to the God, the Holy Spirit
Come, true light.
Come, life eternal.
Come, hidden mystery.
Come, treasure without name.
Come, reality beyond all words.
Come, person beyond all understanding.
Come, rejoicing without end.
Come, light that knows no evening.
Come, unfailing expectation of the saved.
Come, raising of the fallen.
Come, resurrection of the dead.
Come, all-powerful, for unceasingly you create, refashion and change all things by your will alone.
Come, invisible whom none may touch and handle.
Come, for you continue always unmoved, yet at every instant you are wholly in movement; you draw near to us who lie in hell, yet you remain higher than the heavens.
Come, for your name fills our hearts with longing and is ever on our lips; yet who you are and what your nature is, we cannot say or know.
Come, Alone to the alone.
Come, for you are yourself the desire that is within me.
Come, my breath and my life.
Come, the consolation of my humble soul.
Come, my joy, my glory, my endless delight.
Many Blessings,
Ron Starbuck
Saint Julian Press ~ The Poem: http://www.saintjulianpress.com/there-is-something-about-being-an-episcopalian.html
God the Connecting Spirit ~ Third Recording with Paul F. Knitter
http://www.saintjulianpress.com/paul-f-knitter---interview.html
9/18/2014
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast
A brand new poetry collection from Saint Julian Press by Houston poet, Melissa Studdard, who will be one of the poets presented at the Houston Poetry Fest. You may read some of her poems from the book online. I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast ~ http://www.saintjulianpress.com/press-release---i-ate-the-cosmos-for-breakfast.html
With Whitmanesque exuberance and voracity, Melissa Studdard’s I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast is a collection that devours the world even as it offers it—a collection that, through all its doubts and wounds, through “fire, ice, hurricanes, tsunamis, and quakes” arrives “with that tornado in its throat”—love—to spark renewal again and again.
Noting the voluptuous, yet spiritual thrust of the book, Robert Pinsky states, “Melissa Studdard’s high-flying, bold poetic language expresses an erotic appetite for the world: ‘this desire to butter and eat the stars,’ as she says, in words characteristically large yet domestic, ambitious yet chuckling at their own nerve. This poet’s ardent, winning ebullience echoes that of God, a recurring character here, who finds us Her children, splotchy, bawling and imperfect though we are, “flawless in her omniscient eyes.”
Poet Cate Marvin observes, “In so many ways the poems in this book read like paintings, touching and absorbing the light of the known world while fingering the soul until it lifts, trembling. Gates splayed, bodies read as books, and hearts born of mouths, Studdard's study, which is a creation unto itself, would have no doubt pleased Neruda's taste for the alchemic impurity of poetry, which is, as we know, poetry that is not only most pure of heart, but beautifully generous in vision and feeling.”
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, poems by Melissa Studdard, is published by Saint Julian Press
62 pp. * 6 x 9 * ISBN 978-0-9889447-5-6 * Hardcover $18.00
Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Other Fine Book Retailers
With Whitmanesque exuberance and voracity, Melissa Studdard’s I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast is a collection that devours the world even as it offers it—a collection that, through all its doubts and wounds, through “fire, ice, hurricanes, tsunamis, and quakes” arrives “with that tornado in its throat”—love—to spark renewal again and again.
Noting the voluptuous, yet spiritual thrust of the book, Robert Pinsky states, “Melissa Studdard’s high-flying, bold poetic language expresses an erotic appetite for the world: ‘this desire to butter and eat the stars,’ as she says, in words characteristically large yet domestic, ambitious yet chuckling at their own nerve. This poet’s ardent, winning ebullience echoes that of God, a recurring character here, who finds us Her children, splotchy, bawling and imperfect though we are, “flawless in her omniscient eyes.”
Poet Cate Marvin observes, “In so many ways the poems in this book read like paintings, touching and absorbing the light of the known world while fingering the soul until it lifts, trembling. Gates splayed, bodies read as books, and hearts born of mouths, Studdard's study, which is a creation unto itself, would have no doubt pleased Neruda's taste for the alchemic impurity of poetry, which is, as we know, poetry that is not only most pure of heart, but beautifully generous in vision and feeling.”
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, poems by Melissa Studdard, is published by Saint Julian Press
62 pp. * 6 x 9 * ISBN 978-0-9889447-5-6 * Hardcover $18.00
Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Other Fine Book Retailers
5/17/2014
Beloved One
Beloved One
Yes, there you are
hidden within
these pale amber,
rose tint
and snowy wings.
Trusting me to discover
your eternal beauty, now
visibly known and
seen as mystery.
Angel wings enfolded
in a pale delicate texture
of softest skin and satin.
Yes, I see you, so clearly now.
Open as you are, waiting
in expectation, in this grace
filled moment of adoration
and consecration.
Wondering how I
lost the memory
of your quiet
passionate touch, resting
in your subtle divine light,
resting in this
timeless moment
of reflection. I am
naked again, my
long sought soul.
I am immersed,
bathed in your light,
your countenance of
graciousness, bidding
me to enter into
such a gentle
consciousness of spirit.
As light itself, as honey
poured out upon my
humanity, my beloved
one - eternal self,
whose light is at no time.
ever lost.
Here is the self who
lives forever captured in
the reminiscence of each
constellation affecting
the firmaments,
bound together
in heaven’s truest realm.
You have broken
me open, again and again
with the beauty of being.
By beauty itself, aching to know
intimately the touch of
hand and thought.
Casting away all grief I am
supple once more,
renewed in the promise
of your colors, your softness
and strength. Knowing you
were always there waiting
with patience for me to
rediscover this beauty
of the self, ever changing
as it is, resting softly like
the reflecting light and color
from an angel’s wings.
So, we come to know.
So, we are ever known.
So, we are born and born
again and again
through many lives
into this
translucent holy light.
hidden within
these pale amber,
rose tint
and snowy wings.
Trusting me to discover
your eternal beauty, now
visibly known and
seen as mystery.
Angel wings enfolded
in a pale delicate texture
of softest skin and satin.
Yes, I see you, so clearly now.
Open as you are, waiting
in expectation, in this grace
filled moment of adoration
and consecration.
Wondering how I
lost the memory
of your quiet
passionate touch, resting
in your subtle divine light,
resting in this
timeless moment
of reflection. I am
naked again, my
long sought soul.
I am immersed,
bathed in your light,
your countenance of
graciousness, bidding
me to enter into
such a gentle
consciousness of spirit.
As light itself, as honey
poured out upon my
humanity, my beloved
one - eternal self,
whose light is at no time.
ever lost.
Here is the self who
lives forever captured in
the reminiscence of each
constellation affecting
the firmaments,
bound together
in heaven’s truest realm.
You have broken
me open, again and again
with the beauty of being.
By beauty itself, aching to know
intimately the touch of
hand and thought.
Casting away all grief I am
supple once more,
renewed in the promise
of your colors, your softness
and strength. Knowing you
were always there waiting
with patience for me to
rediscover this beauty
of the self, ever changing
as it is, resting softly like
the reflecting light and color
from an angel’s wings.
So, we come to know.
So, we are ever known.
So, we are born and born
again and again
through many lives
into this
translucent holy light.
Ron Starbuck
Poem and Photos
Copyright 2013
Following the Theme from When Angels Are Born
http://saintjulianpress.com/when-angels-are-born.html
Poem and Photos
Copyright 2013
Following the Theme from When Angels Are Born
http://saintjulianpress.com/when-angels-are-born.html
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Publisher's Blog
RON 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.
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This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.