Mystery, Madness & Musings

Circles

2012-01-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

Don't let anyone fool you,

Everything really is connected.

I have walked the circle too many times

to the deepest, most inner grooves

of life's longing for itself...a

labyrinth of faith,

tired, weary and still filled with hope;

Only to see the face of the beginning

In every threat of the end.

Don't let anyone fool you....

Now is always the only time there Is

and the willow stands to show us how to weep,

to sway,

and to bend.

resurrection rose

2011-03-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

It wasn't one moment, or was it?

And there were so many that wrestled me to the ground

and so many that reinvented me

Years revealing the specks of stars

that smiled on the ragged and the mending

edges of me.

It feels cumulative, tho...

cobwebs in an oft times, neglected corner of our days

where the spider crawled up unnoticed, and observed;

a surreptitious winter activity;

spinning, producing, living.....

all the while, overlooked miracles

And I am more real because of their creeping

Because of their watchful eye.

But something broke the chains didn't it?

something outlined the defining hour

between yesterday and tomorrow...

setting in motion all the hidden future.

It wasn't one moment, or was it?

If it was it was the light,

the blinding, burning cleansing Light,

that threw It's arms around me

and a resurrection

Rose....

resurrection rose

2011-03-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

resurrection rose

An Act of Praise

2010-07-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

A Poem by mysticgmekeepr

This isn't a poem, but it also isn't a story, a chapter or any of my other choices:-) Its just a late night thought in prose.

An Act of Praise

You know...I was just sitting here thinking about how difficult it often is to help someone see what is so obviously truth. But I forget that we simply are not viewing life from the same perspective. Our levels of observation are not the same. Some ascend to heights that others simply cannot glimpse or imagine. Some descend to depths where others would simply choose not to go, and most would fear drowning or the bends . We see the world around us differently and it is futile to try and change another’s reality. It is as ingrained as our own is on us. But there is a universal connector that surpasses all perceptions, erases all differences, rises above all circumstances, and connects us to our inherent similarities. It often effects the very change we are powerless to force. We all have the same needs and desires beneath the personas we have erected to present to the world, we all are pilgrims walking with feet of clay. I think that connector is kindness, the empathy we extend to another that springs from the well of our humanity and our recognition of a brother....that place of knowing where love covers a multitude of sins and celebrating ones authenticity is an act of Praise.

© 2010 mysticgmekeepr

If I Had Gotten My Way...

2010-05-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

If I had gotten my way
I wouldn’t have seen
the light fall softly
on a particular leaf in a particular way.
I would not have witnessed the
branches held by light,
or the fading sun turning
emerald into a pale chartreuse
Before the darkness fell.
I wouldn’t have seen
how the breath of the universe
gently moved the leaves
that offered no resistence, only
shimmering with pleasure & peace.
If I had gotten my way
I would have missed this twilights gifts.
I would not have been embraced by
the harmony and the magic of the woods.....
The plethora of birds that followed my movements.
The fish that jumped 2 ft out of water with my passing.
I wouldn’t have felt the movement of air
as the blackbird flew swiftly over my shoulder.
I would have missed the displaying gobblers
with their blazing red heads and fanned out tails
trying so desperately to make an impression
on their unperturbed hens.
I wouldn’t have seen the ducks fly in
to gobble up our offering....
I wouldn’t have experienced the serenity
In the twilight of this day
If I had gotten my way.

The Where & The When

2009-06-20T20:56:00.001-07:00

Do you know
the stairs that I have been willing to descend
for the sake of love’s fulfillment?
Only to find in the hidden folds of my willingness
that I had actually ascended to heights foreign even
to my imagination,
and I discovered myself in the clouds.
The places the world calls depths
were really mountain tops
and I who thought I was falling was breathless in the climbing;
weighted down with the roles I was playing
that at the top transformed to winged things.
I have kissed unholy places you know, and pierced the forbidden
with the spear of my folly
with a tongue of fire I have licked clean the tears of indecision,
and simply lept.
I have pried open the shunned and the damned
and found they contained the bones of the Holy Grail of love;
entering the profane and exiting through the sacred.
I experienced the weightless wonder
of flight without the shackles of fear.
Do you have any idea the things I have done
or the gowns I have worn?
The roles I have played, the costumes I have donned
to prance across life's stage in time to the beat,
from a drum that I alone was listening to,
all the while peeling back the layers like petals on a rose,
revealing the beauty of each one individually in the scent.
Rejecting nothing, I followed with a child’s abandon .
Fiercely I clung to the fingers of faith, and found
There is no door we enter through in which God is not.
I was not afraid to go where most would fear to venture
Because I know He hides in the mystery at the center of His calling.
He disguises Himself in what the world judges
He dresses up as paupers and kings, hides in the secrets of
angels and dervishes, and always goes to places man misunderstands
like the Pied Piper He sings inviting us to follow in the dance.
He gives to the daring a special touch of grace,
a twinkle in His eye, a smile upon His face, a snap of His great fingers,
a skipping through the race.
Do you have any idea the places I have been?
The journey, or the where and the when?

Collapse of a Spineless Happiness

2009-05-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

This is the saddest hour
isn’t it?
Long drawn out minutes marked
by bleeding hands moving on the face
of a round reality...
Ashes are rising from the playground of
yesterday’s laughter; from the
stilled swings that sit in backyard sorrow,
under trees that house no song.

Flames and circles consume seconds of lost trust.
Murdered by the scorching of their lives lies
Where the strings of too much joy and promise
stretched to breaking,
And preoccupied parents like puppeteers let go
allowing the collapse of a spineless happiness
no more real than a puppets smile...
The broken face
The smashed hands
The shattered hours
and their left over ashes
from the life they burned; the
remains of a child’s innocense.

As Effortlessly As Rain

2009-03-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

I sit remembering the girl I was;
small, spindly, speck my Father spawned,
and tears fall as effortlessly as rain.
Not from a roof of regret,
but a canopy of trust.

She took the road less traveled to be sure.
Where two paths converged
She always followed the song bird
singing from trees
where beneath few feet had trod.

I sit remembering the girl I was;
a fleeing, seeking cloud of a child,
a tiny tornado of dust blowing wild
forward movement on the breath
of some great angst and destruction.

I sit remembering the girl I was
with the perspective of aging and its
gifts of so called wisdom;
You know there is absolutely nothing
that doesn’t have a flip side,
Nothing.
There is no positive that can’t turn negative
with the errant flip of a coin.
There is no negative,
None
that can’t set the stage for immense good.
In the end we see it is all of our choosing.

My Mother never knew the gem she birthed
because it had not been polished by the years
before she faded....
I remember her and I remember the girl
encrusted in a shell constructed of layers
of generational pain, gestating a pearl.
A holy stone tucked against a rock of faith
beneath a sea of uncertainty......
And tears fall as effortlessly as rain.

Women and Roles

2009-03-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

Nature assigned women a very special and unique role, she also infused us with great power, but it is so different from the power of men. It is receptive and transforming rather than forceful and aggressive.
As we evolve it seems the boundaries and borders of the sexes get a little more blurry, and we dabble in each others roles giving us more understanding of that which is "other".
Today's woman is a metamorphosing secret in a soft fist of possibility.

DO YOU EVER

2009-03-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Do you ever really think about how once a spirit has touched us, really touched us, we never really lose the connection. It is as close as our photographic imprint of remembrance.
People cross our path all the time, some touch us, and some we touch. We are never quite the same as before we met along the way, for we leave our imprint on each others soul and impact its growth and enlightenment.
It doesn’t really matter what level the relationship is on or even if its in the physical reality. People of words relate without bodies. Some of you I will not forget and some of you will not forget me, and we may never see one another. But something about you that transcends time and space and age and status connects us in the silence of our words. Some of us hear each others depths, vibrate to each others song, inspire each others poem. It is the depth of peoples touching, not the length or the means. It is resonating we do with another spirit , the simpatico of recognition, the comfort of understanding, or the apparent conflict so full of hidden jewels of meaning that it spews forth love for those worthy of the fight.
Death and parting are not endings, they are changes in the way and form of relationship, but relationship goes on. Love does not die and spirits live on, we never really lose someone we have touched, someone we have loved.....they are as close as our photos of remembrance, their lingering scent in the very air we breathe, their touch, where our skin suddenly feels warm, as if spread ever so gently with warm melted butter left out in the sun..................

Don't You Know

2008-06-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

...don’t you know
that this is too much to tell you about;
too deep, too vast,
too all encompassing.
I have no words!
Me who has too many,
have none sufficient...
They hang on the heart beats
between our thoughts.
The very cells of me,
and the flesh and bone of you, held captive
in the fist of nights unclenching.
Sounds seep out around
the tightly woven fingers of concern.
I can’t decipher or decode,
can’t translate or convert to song.
I only hear and comprehend for us both.

Nesting In The Niche

2008-05-01T11:33:00.001-07:00

We reach out
we touch the silent leaves
hanging on the trees of one another’s lives.
We smell the flowers of hope, feel
easy satin petals rubbing up against
the warm breast of nurturing....
Our leaves lie still on the emerald tips
of our words where they fall.
They wait for someone to mow them down
and take the fertile leavings;
the compost of our thoughts, nutrients for their need.
A grass sowed full with bursting seed.

We reach out,
We tangle ourselves in one anthers twigs,
swing from the strong straight branches
of years of growth.
We seek shelter and freedom in our touching,
we find quiet and peace
and nest in the niche
of each other’s dreaming.

5/1/08

Listening To You

2008-04-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

I appreciate your need,
a compulsion really, to over explain.

That is why I admire
the ones who can craft
the short poem,
and state themselves with few words...
I rarely can.

I overwrite, overstate, over do,
In a desperate attempt
to try to make you understand,
to assure that you get it, that you get me....

Truth is you either do or you don’t.
And the poet’s secret is to grab
in the first couple lines,
and hold captivated and charmed,
pulling across each stanza, to the final
wrapping up of a trail of words.

We speak to the ones we are
supposed to reach and we find the
voice crying in the wilderness, that
we are supposed to hear.
To the others, we speak a foreign tongue,
they will sluff us off with disinterest,

As they have no need of our personal experience,
can’t find themselves like pieces of fools gold,
lying glittering between our lines....
And we will be bored, unmoved, unfulfilled
by the banal chatter of the uninitiated.

The universe is busy drawing us.
We are simply the wordy players,
on some great stage of acting out a God’s plan.

We are the ones crafted and called,
the ones opened by fire and sword
to listen and to speak;
to uncover and to endlessly seek.

Bumping Into My Awareness

2007-07-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

I am holding these
gems of mourning and grace
feeling both the weight and the wings
of their lessons...
woven tightly with tear threads and tenderness.
I clutch them now
and like marbles with their centers of brilliance
flashing in the light with each roll,
they create a cacophony of colorful sound,
slipping thru my fingers of thought
bumping into awareness
and turning on the Lights....

But We Are Reaching

2007-06-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

I have climbed the ladder of suspicion
one shaky rung at a time,
beating back the jaws of betrayal and
its snarling offspring, mistrust.

Yes, I have been lied to,
I have been used;
but I have been the liar and the user too...
Scarred truth carved into my tongue, and I
spit out the stitches of deception.

Yes I have been cheated on,
splayed and nailed
to the sheets of dishonor,
swaddled in the blankets of broken promises, the
crucified victim of my own willingness to surrender;
But I have been the cheater too.......

In those secret couplings,
some which I sought after, more
that I disdained, but gave into anyway.
And I didn’t tell my lover at the time
That I had spent my afternoon
fondled, branded and owned for a meaningless hour
by hands I couldn’t even remember.

My own shame over riding any pleasure as well as
all the guilty pain...I kept my secret in a vault called numb.
So its my own failing that keeps me climbing,
my own wretched, lovely humanity
that allows me to ascend the ladder of suspicion...

Lacing each fearful finger thru the frail hand
of one who will surely fail me,
just as surly as I will no doubt, fail them.
But we are reaching! We are touching!
Where we dance the light fantastic
on the head of our own sins....

But that I still can trust just enough,
knowing how frail we both are,
means that in the end, I win.

2007-05-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

“Lil Star”

I am she,
your shadow and your light,
limping and leaping,
singing and weeping.....
Reflecting you to you.
I am the deep and secret hues,
that flow in the turbulent rivers
of your thoughts...I am
your colored dreams.
I am she, that
calls to you
with eyes that see
piercing your soul with rainbow and sight.
Come, come
enter into me tonight
dance with your shadow and your light.

Choosing Wisely

2007-05-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

The large, over sized screen screams
from the corner...
feeds me morsels of gloom and doom from its kitchen where the morning offerings are cooked to a palatable tenderness.
a bowl of global sorrow on my china plate, stuffing me with dissension and sadness,
i become nauseated.......
Take my overfilled heart and stomach to just sit instead, for a silent moment,
partaking of God's generous morning offering,
where i eat of natures beauty and her innate harmony of purpose...
like bacon and eggs and I soak up the yolk of faith with the bread of my soul...
satiated by the songs of simple birds,
feeding and jostling for position on a plain mesh sock
unperturbed by the dog or the screeching world of pain swirling around man's madness.
dog sniffs out her new world and the leftover footprints of a cats midnight crossing...and dreams.....
a cacophany of morning,
opinions and angst and war and terror scream from the screen
while peace and harmony and natures beauty are dished up by God
as close as my front porch swing.....
and I choose wisely to sit and partake.

2007-01-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

Cosmic Dancer's Sharing Wings

2007-01-14T13:03:00.000-08:00

Your absolute insistence
at holding on to the integrity
of your identity,
has always forced me to grow,
always made me confront
my own lack of acceptance,
my own unfairness,
my own need of nobility.
Climbing some ladder of enlightenment,
you nudge me irritatingly
to some higher rung.
You shove me up and push me thru the
self induced trance;
the inertia of my selfishness.
Pioneering unfamiliar mountains
of magnanimous thought,
Rising above
the valley of sightless limitations.
the message of love clearer here
where i touch the clouds....
And struggle to inhale the breath of compassion;
reaching to take your hand
as we follow on,
paired opposites
braided deftly into
One Cosmic dancer sharing wings.

2007-01-11T17:15:00.000-08:00

As Unseen As Tomorrow

2007-01-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

Like a fisherman I
cast my net
into the vast sea of thought,
hopeful as a clear morning
waking from dreams of abundance.
But the sea that offers up
the secrets of its depth and darkness
does not release and give
its sacred treasures easily.
It first has demands....
and the net hurled
into the wrong place
returns empty to the dreamers dismay,
and the mighty musings of a clear morning
can be aborted into the storm
of a turbulent afternoon as unseen
as tomorrow.
So I cast my net
into the streaming O of
thought and breath
and hope the vapors pour forth
the fullness of my words.

Silent Witness To Harmony

2006-09-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

Morning Glory/06
.....I awoke this morning to find 7 deer out there playing on the lane on other side of the pond. It was a first visit for a buck who chose to accompany the does and Bambi's this morning. They were out there chowing down on the apples we left for them and kicking up their heels in celebratory play. In a little while the turkey family will amble down .....Mommy and her 5 babies that have chosen to roost in our trees despite the activity of the dog and the small children's glee. They walk down thru the yard looking for scattered bird seed, around the back of the pond thru the woods and out the other side. They eat their fill and wander back up the lane to the front yard and across, all in a row led by an alert Mother. They lift my heart with regularity, and dot the corners of my mouth with a quiet smile.
My husband and son-in-law were watching the deer this morning thru a completely different lens than I was...they saw their tree stand they've worked so hard on, their bows and arrows, and their warm, winter stew.....and the fate of my turkey friends, well they get skinned and cooked in oil come spring, and everyone raves about their taste and texture...everyone but me. I like them in their present alive condition..
I caught a 5lb catfish last night before dinner, and no it didn't become the mainstay of the meal. We always toss em back.
Life in rural Northeast Ohio is very, very different from the suburbs of Los Angeles, where I looked out my window to greet the morning and saw cement mixers and tools and trucks. Now I sit up in bed and look out the window and touch the hem of God's gown as he passes thru my world in His creation. He reaches out and touches me with the hand of harmony, and shows me the peace of co-existence.
THere are so many lessosn to learn from my woods friends. My little grand daughters and I are learning them together. We walk thru the woods and find tracks and treasures, these small children and me.

Thru the woods on the trail of time........

2006-08-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Irony of Clarity

2006-08-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

...Funny the things we remember, even funnier the times we remember them. The further the distance between them, the clearer they often seem ...the irony of clarity. Childhood walks thru the aging of a soul where my mothers voice dwells in the creases of my ear and my Fathers grey eyes follow me, seeking to make some sense of his only living seed.

2006-05-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

And He Parted The Heavens To Touch Me.....

2006-05-26T18:40:00.000-07:00

Caught between the spaces of someone elses beliefs and my own, cornered by someones absolute certitude my only dueling weapon, my faith.
Herded behind pickets of passion built by fear where everything outside that pristine place is demonized and cursed as evil.
I only want to sing my simple song in praise. I am not afraid to be wrong because I have faith in Him who is right....After all God has not yet appeared to me in a burning rose bush in my yard speaking from the Phoenix of his everlasting truth.
He has spoken to me thru the hands of a deaf autistic child. He has quieted my soul with the simple songs of sparrows and finches...reminding me that he is familiar with every one.....He has parted the heaven's and come down to touch me with His own hand, where my whole being quaked and opened to a flood of joy and sorrow that had accumulated for a lifetime, and He filled me to overflowing with his Grace.
He has rung a gurney round with angels in an operating room, that his child might not be cut from my flesh and sacrificed to fear and doubt....where a physician entered the room and looked down where i lay vulnerable in surrender, and he spoke only these words, "I will not touch her!" and turned to walk away.... and I and my unborn child were spared. Could I ever doubt His power or His presence again?
I live and breathe and have my being in Him and yet it is not enough for those who would judge anothers faith and how they go about living it. I am not a person whos soul fits well into confines and limitations, and I can't put them on God. I won't limit His power nor will I package and sell His will, I won't bottle belief, and tell you how to drink.
I don't have all the answers and I have passed thru those places that claim that they do, where they told me, but did not show me.....
So I shall choose the simple faith of my porch swing and trust God with all the bigger things...How could I not, after all His hand parted the heavens to reach out and touch me.

California Heart

2006-05-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

To everything there is a season,
but in some regions
seasons just flow together with little change...
Almost indistinguishable, fall and winter merge;
and spring can be as hot as an August night
with the Santa Ana’s blowing across the west.
Yes, I lived thru the spring of this love as a child,
believing in all its flowering promises;
despite all the evidence to the contrary.
I have known the heat of love’s summer like a women,
and I have been burned in its wake,
left with new wounds to become old scars
to add on like another trolley, on the streetcar of loss.
The winter was the worst and lasted the longest;
a winter of cold and ice
I breathed hoar frost by day and shivered alone by night...
Here in this land of December warmth
we nearly froze to death under its brilliant sun,
there on the great tundra of our isolation.
And the seasons came and the seasons went,
and a line of demarcation was drawn
while we wern’t paying attention
that would separate out past and our future
severing our bond, and forever changing the climate of our lives.
Yes, change it was a coming, and we were not watching.
So now the season has ended, but I’m finding it hard to let go....
For you see, I’m a west coast child from birth
with a warm California heart
and that heart doesn’t seem to know
when a season ends with coming wind and snow....
So I’m standing still in the heat and the rain,
just wondering which way to go....................
P. Kent 4/24/98

2005-11-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

We Leave Our Imprints On One Another's Soul

2005-11-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

Do you ever really think about how once a spirit has touched us, really touched us, we never really lose the connection. It is as close as our memory; our photos of remembrance.
People cross our path all the time, some touch us, and some we touch. We are never quite the same as before we met along the way, for we leave our imprint on each others soul and impact its growth and enlightenment.
It doesn’t really matter what level the relationship is on or even if its in the physical reality. Some of you I will not forget and some of you will not forget me, and we will never see one another. But something about you that transcends time and space and age and status connects us in the silence of our words. Some of us hear each others depths, vibrate to each others song, inspire each others poem. It is the depth of peoples touching, not the length or the means. It is resonating we do with another spirit , the simpatico of recognition, the comfort of understanding, or the apparent conflict so full of hidden jewels of meaning that it spews forth love for those worthy of the fight.
Death and parting are not endings, they are changes in the way and form of relationship, but relationship goes on. Love does not die and spirits live on, we never really lose someone we have touched, someone we have loved.....they are as close as our photos of remembrance, their lingering scent in the very air we breathe, their touch, where our skin suddenly feels warm, as if spread ever so gently with melted butter left out in the sun..................

2005-09-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

From the human dump of dung and debris.........

2005-09-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Life digs itself deeply into
the core of a soul destined to become a poet;
clearing away the brush of his defenses with
sharply honed sickles,
walking down a flight of stairs into the entrails of his being
with hot coals, and vinegar.
carving into the landscape of the poets existence;
fashioning a poets soul there in the dung pile of his years,
the ruin and pain from acid rain in his raw wounds.
But God fills that dung pile He has made of someones tears,
fills it with words and phrases and singing birds of hope, side by side with longing and despair...
and He is always there.
One day we find God Whispering flowers into being with His breath,
flowers from the seeds He planted in the dung pile ....
His blowing petals....a sacred fragrance from a field of aching.
THe poet tastes God's imagination on His tongue;
he is belching grace from the human dump, the dung and debris.....
God has created beauty with His breath and His song
He was crafting with this life all along.

2005-08-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

together in peace

Do Me With The Power of Your Words

2005-08-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

you can do me with your words,
do me like i've never been done before...
make my skin scream, ,
my blood boil with the flame of your ache.
your tenor, your vibrations, your rhythmic flow all over me
making me completely yours.
Own me body and soul,
possess me with the power of your words.
enter me now and make me feel
what you are sculpting with the digits of your dowry...
your heart's calligraphy falling like rain
in fancy tear-dropped letters on an onion skin page.
lay me down and bed me between each line
tracing yourself across the highway of my electric flesh...
take my breath away with wonder,
and hold me for a moment...for all time.
Capture me with the honeyed story of your words
my pores sucking up the very heartbeat
of your depths.

2005-06-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

within the lacy shadows

Beneath The Bow

2005-06-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

God breathes
My flesh responds.
He makes melody on me, bending downy hairs
with a tingle...
And wind chimes whisper secrets, as the
tree bends,
ferns like lacy emerald shadows
move with the curtains parting.
I hear wood and metal dancing, touching;
creating moving sound with their unique expressions of air.
God passes,
the ancient porch bows...I kneel,
He breathes,
and my flesh quivers
like an instrument beneath the bow,
in the Master’s hand.

2005-06-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

a little place of tranquility

The Exploitation of Divinity

2005-06-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

...My heart is heavy today with the news of our world. Never has it seemed so divided, so hate filled, and so ripe with righteous judgement. It seems brick by brick, piece by piece, my country, my beliefs, the very foundation on which I stand is being dismantled.
Religions have hijacked God...lassoed HIm by the neck they have and made HIm their mascot, the captain of their team...the spokesman for their new way. He is on their side and their cause a holy one.
This is the exploitation of Divinity like never before. If I was a better history student I suppose I would be less shocked, more cushioned to the fact that to some degree this is how it has always been.
Why do our leaders continue to push agendas that the people clearly don't want? Why do the talk show hosts and TV pundits continue to whip us up into some kind of mindless frenzy against each other...seeking to "define" events and politicians for us...telling us what is the truth. Why would a pastor vote out of his congregation...a democrat. Thats a political affiliation guys, not a disease or a criminal behavior. I'm a registered democrat, I even voted for Kerry, not very enthuastically to be sure, but thats the box I clicked ( he's way to the left of me on many things)...I thought I was being a good constituent to go cast my vote in our political system....it obviously wasn't the most popular vote and therefore he didn't win....the other guy did....again. So I get behind my President, and try to be supportive. But my President I'm afraid is viewing his win as the country giving him permission to do whatever he wants with us. He views his political capital as a permission slip to change the world. If 59% of americans disagree with the dismantling of social security as we know it, and he continues to push the agenda what does that say he feel toward the 59% who are saying whoa, slow down, think this thing thru. 3 Trillion dollars folks, to change over...to put your future, your old age in the hands of the shell game artists on wall street. I certainly don't know what is the best answer for the future of social security and don't claim to, but i do know we already have a huge deficit, and to add 3 trillion more for a transfer of funds will only dig the peoples hole much deeper..our progeny will inherit our folly the world over.
I won't even begin to go into John BOlton, and the future supreme court justice nominees, the nuclear option...or the dance of disaster that they are doing on capital hill....both parties. I'm far too moderate and centrist, have far too many conservative ideas blended in with my liberal ones to really align myself with any kind of extremism. What I will say is that it is foolish, very foolish indeed for the party in power to change the rules that protect the minority party, for in this topsy turvey world we live in the positions always reverse...and those in power this time will find themselves on the bottom sooner than some because of their great arrogance. They have greatly over played their hand...and shown their true colors. The people there now believe that they are setting up this country to be ruled by one party for generations to come....thats not what we want folks. Politics is a very, very corrupt arena and religion has stepped into the middle of it and soiled it garments terribly. We need look no further than the mistakes of the catholic church....which I am afraid she will repeat again, this time including the evangelicals and fundamentalists in her arrogant push for control of the people.
God has a way of rubbing our nose in our own misconceptions...its just a teaching tool of His. And He applies the same tools to Kings and Presidents as he does to the people they rule.
You cannot hijack God and make HIm captain of your team and then run rough shod over your country and the world.......we will answer for our folly.

2005-05-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

cottage angel watching over me

For Only God TO Understand

2005-05-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

....What are you doing walking around in my today? Bumping into chairs and tables in my well ordered now, colliding into the mistakes, the needs , the relationships with their still unlearned lessons, the passions and fears of my yesterday, pulsing wildly with your fingers reaching?
Why are you salt and peppering my feast with nuance and complexity, mystery and madness I'm not sure I'm up to anymore. Such forays down the path of enchantment following some charming Piper's call takes energy I'm not sure I have. Why are you ruffling the waters of my life, calmer more settled than ever before.
But then its not you is it? You are simply my partner for this peculiar dance. You have no idea why you hold me under the light of Grace on life's stage and twirl me round and round under a moonless sky. Flesh intwines itself in flesh where wounds in need cry out thru the hunger in our skin.
I am a temptress, a seductress, a sensual sylphlike creature calling you into my forest to play. You really shouldn't follow me because I'll slip away.....my only defense against your asking too much of me, extracting my essence from my soul, is to run, to flee your fingers reaching. I will slip thru them like air, my long perfected Houdini escape, before you can suffocate me with your need. I cannot be held and I cannot be tamed. Be forewarned, I will leave you limping and lame....why have I drawn you into my flame. Why have I invited you to the banquet table. Why have I asked you to kneel with me at the alter in my heart and pray? Why have I allowed you to reveal to me your hunger and why have I lain my vulnerable being in your massive hand...
why are we two souls twirling on this stage for only God to understand?

2005-05-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

Once
nothing between us but moonglow and heartbeats
filtering thru the darkened kitchen
washing the linoleum with beams of stillness and shadow;
swimming, spinning i lost my footing on reality.
suspended in time he held me tighter than arms
and the thin cotton stretched taut across my chest
where desire and need with their ebb and flow
volcanic in intensity, seeped thru my rising nipples...
Flaming flamingos flaunting!
Pulling my finger from the dyke for just a brief second
just a tiny release of pent up aching...
offering him only my left breast, that sat upon my heart and sang.
He ran in fear,
climbing under the sheets, hiding in the covers of his wife's snores.
the next morning he awoke and called the fire department
saying his house was on fire
and pointing an accusing finger of blame at me...
I was the keeper of the torching flame...
this was insane,
and I hung my head in shame.
He wishes now he had touched me;
that small, soft breast, just a tiny handful of the forbidden.
Still he has unanswered needs, and hidden fears
and a new wife to hide behind if he should need to run and confess.
He thinks if i or another child in a woman's body
don't give him that long ago offering
he'll die imagining...innocense wrapped in a halo of sin;
an old man wondering about the thrill of forbidden secret love,
that only adolescents fully understand...
an old man wondering why the young man ran
from the touch of a small pink mound of love
in a kitchen washed in moonglow long ago.
but if i did as he ask...
he just might have an overwhelming need to call the police in the morning
and say i was a thief in the night
who stole his innocense.

2005-05-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

spring promise

2005-05-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

poppies in spring

Morality & Values

2005-05-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Society does not determine morality...motive does.
Society governs the way we preceive morality,
It builds a structure defining the boundries of moral behavior;
It builds it with stones of politics and bricks of religion,
It constructs its edifices of ideas and reins it's people in.
But societies differ greatly,
Religions embrace all extremes
From the most cloistered to the most open and free.
Politicians sway like circus acrobats
Between the left and right.
Sexual morality, like any other moral issue
Is ultimately determined by motive,
Not something imposed by the outside,
Outsides come in all kinds of values...
It has to be something inside thats unchanged by custom
And universal in its truth...
Morality is how we treat one another
Morality is both
Innocense and wisdom embedded in the human heart.

2005-04-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

believe

Pope John Paul ll

2005-04-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

....I hope our politicians and world leaders are really sitting up and taking notice of just what it is that the people of the world community respect in a man. The extrodinary outpouring of love, respect, and gratitude that is being shown for Pope John Paul should alert everyone of us who is witness to its unprecedented display, to just what is really impotant to mankind in the end. I would imagine that half the worlds people disagreed with the Pope on some or maybe even many of his church doctrines, but that was not this Pope's primary message...rather it was the message of the Christ which was inclusive, forgiving, tolerant, merciful and loving. This man of God truely knew how to condem a sin and embrace the sinner. I didn't personally agree with the Popes positions on birth control, Africa and aids, Priests marrying, women priests, his condemnation of homosexuality as a larger evil undermining marriage and family, or his dealings with the priest sex abuse scandal in america...but none of those things (those positions and beliefs) mattered to me in the end. He took his position and I took mine, but he walked in the footsteps of our Lord and he showed me how to follow Him in love...Mercy triumps over justice, love over laws.....this was a man whos larger than life heart had room for the humanity that agreed with him, and those who did not. He stated his positions, stuck by them as any good believer does, and then reached out to the world, to other religions, to all mankind and drew them to him. He was a Shepherd of men, just like the Man he followed, and he preached Jesus' message with his every breath, his every step, his every call to follow in the way of Grace. He was bent with our burdens and still he went and still he loved. He was, in my opinion, a Holy man....on a holy mission to the world.
Take notice Kings, and Presidents, Prime Ministers, & Leaders...it is not our differences, but our similarities we should be concentrating on. Make room in your hearts for people of different opinions and beliefs, different religions and different rituals...see the masses of humanity that cry to you...lead us in a way of peaceful resolution.

2005-04-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

contemplation

I Am Watching, I Am Humbled

2005-04-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

I am quite taken aback really, by the incredible courage that people come along and display for us. Such beacons of humanity’s light, able to share with us their most naked and vulnerable selves. The dignity with which they bear the burden of illness and suffering in the public eye...to be witnessed by the world.. Pope John Paul 11 was such an extraordinary example of openness, willing to have his physical being laid low before the worlds’ eyes....bent and burdened by limitation and pain...a broken body , the vehicle for a soaring soul...a man true to the example of the Shepherd of man that He followed. I am overwhelmed by the grace that some men display in their willingness to share weakness, suffering, failing and ultimately dying. The Pope’s gift to the world of his authenticity, his human connection to you and me even in death, truly was a holy gift.
I am deeply touched by Peter Jennings’ announcement that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer. And honored that he has chosen to continue to anchor World News for us. To be cranky or not cranky, to be hoarse or not hoarse...to be open and vulnerable and real. To touch our frail humanity with his own and remind us once again, the bell tolls for all of us .
I remember witnessing the raw, poignant, agonizing, beauty of Adrienne Alperts’ public struggle first to survive and then to thrive...and she did it before our eyes... in such an incredibly short time really, she was back on the news baring witness to the fact that we are only limited by our belief in limitation. Courage beyond imagining, showing us the golden links of destiny that are our shared connection to one another. We are all so very vulnerable...
And in this topsy turvy world we live in, nothing stays the same, no power is always in power, no young and vital man remains that way, no youthful blush lasts forever on any rose, the wealthy sometimes lose their wealth and the poor sometimes find themselves on top...but of one thing we can be sure, nothing stays the same, nothing lasts forever and death claims us all but for a moment....some people face their "changes" with grace and show the rest of us how. I am watching, and I am humbled.

2005-03-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

...and the river runs

Christians, like Joseph's coat, have many colors

2005-03-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, you can be a good Christian without believing the literal interpretation of the bible. I suspect that you might be a better example by "living" your life as best one can in accordance with the way that was shown by Jesus, and hidden in his parables and stories, allegories and metaphors...they are mysteries to be unraveled by each individual thru the lessons of his/her own life, his relationships with others, and the search of his own soul...for one must know oneself in relationship to God . Our faith is as individual as our spirit. Our capacity to perceive God, extremely varied and personal. I think the believer in Jesus' message has certain traits and two of those are inclusion and tolerance...something largely lacking in today's evangelical movement of Righteousness as they understand it, in the political arena. The most disturbing thing to me is that they allow no one else a way of interpretation of the bible or God, there perception is the only right perception. There is a certain stunning arrogance in that...as no one can have that kind of certitude in regards the mysteries of creation and the Creator. Not possible. Jesus was not a big participant in the politics or religious heirarchy of His day...in fact He shunned it. Jesus was not about outside laws, he was about changing hearts to live the law thru its understanding of our connectedness to each other. So much of the self righteous attitudes and decisions coming out of the religious right community, remind me far more of the Pharasies of Jesus day than they do Jesus. It is not about the literal meaning of a book of words, rather the spirit that moved across the page inserting the mystery of God's relationship to man...His love and longing for us and ours for Him.. Painted, word pictures of His Grace.

2005-03-14T08:31:00.000-08:00

folds of grace

Humanity

2005-03-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

Ah sadly, no ones immune are they? When I heard of the Wisconsin tragedy this morning I thought first of my family & friends who attend church regularly. If something like that is almost impossible for me to process, how much more difficult it must be for them.....
who draw such strength from the fellowship of their congregations, and the love and communion, and sense of safety in community. I was deeply saddened for them.
The BTK killer being the President of his 400 member church was a good way to hide in plain sight...but the sad irony is he wasn't there to hide really, that was who he was. Psychopathic people dwell everywhere and they are masters at pretense and manipulation. They copy being human, not having the crucial component of empathy and conscience. I don't know that this latest guy was a sociopath, but the BTK guy was I suspect. Its a frightening and humbling knowing that we are all capable of the most heroic and the most heinous of acts...all of us have the seeds of both sown into the fabric of our humanity, and to deny the existence of either is foolish indeed. Look at how the murderer of the judge and others in Atlanta, was able to be reached by God's mercy...and the tenderness of a gentle soul. He is definately not sociopathic, displaying conscience and empathy for his captive....both were heros in their moment together. Most of us live our lives somewhere in the middle, never really harming another, beyond the less than heinous wounds we inflict on those we love and never being a hero other than on the battlefield of our daily struggles. What tragedies, what twisted hurts of humanity bend us in directions we would not choose to go. I wish for mankind to dwell in the folds of grace, wrapped in the mercy of love...but where do we look for such comfort. Only within I suspect.

2005-02-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

....tranquility

Soul & Spirit

2005-02-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

....I think that what separates soul and spirit is eternity. The soul is who we are and lives on forever in whatever likeness we imagine, depending on our belief. And the spirit is life, energy, the way by which a soul expresses its depth in moveable magic across our days...the spirit is light, diaphanous, breathable, the soul full from its lives of learning, humbled by its encounters with the Light.......p. kent

2005-02-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

Indomitable Faith

Wild Abandon

2005-02-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

...such beauty in the faces of oppressed and suffering people aglow with belief in something better... a light at the end of their tunnel of tyrany. Such beauty in their song, their laughter, their dancing feet, all giving testimony to the wild abandon of human faith, the spark in the hearts of mankind willing to be lit with promise, to rejoice and believe in the face of darkness.

2005-01-27T17:13:00.000-08:00

the piper plays, inviting us to dance

2005-01-27T17:02:00.000-08:00

...We are but fragments, dust of the same magnificent humanity that spawned both Hitler and Mother Theresa.

Interwoven fates

2005-01-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

How interwoven are our fates. Apparent strangers lives coming together to effect one another forever,to alter, to change, to sometimes wipe away. Effect in some way for the greater good, or the greater evil...I'm never really sure, as life has a way of flipping over revealing hidden sides and componets before I'm thru viewing and passing my little judgment, deciding whether something is good or evil....and then it shows me another face, another perspective, another way of "seeing". Yes, how interdependent we all are, what a house of cards are our decisions with their domino consequences, one interacting with another and another and another, unaware all the while of the mysterious undercurrent of the universe moving us along, in some strange synch we cannot comprehend.....strangers with their random acts and deeds of malice and of kindness.... which are never random at all.

2005-01-17T08:21:00.000-08:00

Contemplation

Questions & Answers

2005-01-17T08:11:00.001-08:00

I don't think we arrive at the answers to life's big questions in books, or things outside of ourselves. I think we find confirmation for our truth in other peoples words, and the worlds gifts...Truth resonates with what we know, but first we have to have come to the answer within, for the Teacher resides not in the pages of our great books, but in the folds of our hearts.....and when those hearts open and spill their content on a page it sings in harmony with our soul, confirming for us that which we already know.

Questions & Answers

2005-01-17T08:11:00.000-08:00

2005-01-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

Childhood

Autumn Splendor

2005-01-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

...I hear him outside
raking the remnants
of summer’s emerald loveliness
into his little piles of fall decay,
crisp!
He steps lightly
across the bridge of my remembrance...
I see other piles of play
where the sun beat down briefly
on a lonely child’s autumn splendor.

P.kent

2005-01-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

The Gmekeepr

Roses on My Table

2005-01-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

....And I have roses on my table in January. In the midst of war and catastrophic mystery. While the worlds fractures, both earthly and manmade, stretch to the breaking point. Where we debate the correctneses of worshipping God, and the fundamental right to love. Where humanities greatness is lost in the pages of history being written by the fingers of her errors. Choices to build walls of intolerance, by hearts filled with hubris, self exaggeration, and righteousness, each claiming God as their champion..........and when the sea vomited up the remains of that which she had hastily consumed, were the contents of her depths identifiable by race or color or status or creed? They were one humanity, those which the sea had made her own.....just one, and that united cry of unimiginable loss and grief called out to the greatness in man. Yes, under the same sky we walk, those perpectuating greed and might, and those aching for the worlds wounds of hate to heal. And in the midst of war and catastrophic mystery.......i have roses on my table in January and am ever humbled by His Grace.

2005-01-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

Believe

A Preposterous Faith

2005-01-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

Mankind is asked to endure the untenable, as he awaits the Promise, some promise, any promise that is the reward of his faith..........We are asked to believe in the lunacy of the preposterous. Faith, Trust, Hope...in the existance of the unfathonable as we wait and we watch....our world and its spinning, and the things it offers up with it's rotations. Just a tiny ball in the hands of the universe, holding the emense collective consciousness of man, with all his eternal and varied faiths, that Something holds his hand...and yes, I do believe in the preposterous.

2005-01-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

....Such a mystery really, how life opens us up, slowly, methodically without our even knowing...life has it's way with us. Spilling her seeds that with the waters of the years, will grow into the unique expression of who we are....I have been parted and I have been pummeled. I have been loved tenderly by life, and I have been entered savagely, the flowered petals of my soul ripped and left bleeding....seeds of faith and fear spewed and enbedded in my chaliced womb. Funny, the mystery of our soul's impregnation, gestation, and birth. And yes, we labor many times, male and female alike to give birth to ourselves, pieces of who we are, small and tender and new waiting to be nurtured into life's unique expression of itself.

Mirrors

2005-01-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Don't we see that our opponet, our opposition, is simply our counter part. They are reflecting ourselves. We are but mirrors for one another, and yet we see as in a glass darkly, the smoke of our illusion clouding vision. We throw stones of blame and accusation at one another shattering our own image, furthur distorting reality. We do not understand the mathematics of the Universe, where "they" always reduces to "we"....but then, we do not see.

2005-01-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

life's myatery

2005-01-03T08:22:00.000-08:00

its a topsy turvy world we dance in, always asking us to learn new steps.

Exposure

2005-01-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

I wonder if my little blog will ever see the light of day on anyones screen. Or if it will just flounder in the bowels of the vast internet , twisting and turning in on itself, lost somewhere between the massive coils of words put out by so many. And why does one create a blog in the first place, why put your heart out there anyway, why lay your words on the table where they can be sliced and shred and eaten or tossed aside. My thoughts are not so easy to digest I know. They ask people to think differently, hell they ask me to think differently too.
Heres a thought for today: Just how much will love ask of us if we are really to learn her lessons of authenticity, sacrifice and acceptance? Its a very long journey of the heart from the "love" we think we feel for someone who is making us feel good, all warm and cozy and alive, and the much larger "love" that asks us to sacrifice some of our ideals and dreams for another, the love that asks us sometime to accept that which we think unacceptable. Love, asks us to grow past our small selves into another realm of grace.

2005-01-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

Life is a dance...let us find and sing our song in harmony with its rhythm

Plain Truth

2005-01-02T16:53:00.000-08:00

I am a simple canvas, plain and unadorned it seems...on which some impish angels, paint their bold and playful dreams.

2005-01-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

...and something watches over me

2005-01-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

I wish for us a gentler, more peaceful world.

Tsunami Sorrow

2005-01-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

We are such a devisive people with the capacity for such emmense expressions of unity and connection....Perhaps the earth moves and shakes us to our foundatioin simply because the earth moves, and changes and evolves and shifts, and shakes us to our foundation with its dance..or perhaps nature continues to need to use natural disasters to put mankind in touch with his higher and greater potential. We as Americans, ever more isolated and arrogant, have been busy wandering around in our lower expressions of potential, so divided in our own sweet country over how and who should love, what to do with our elderly and our poor, immigration issues inflame the calmest, unbigoted heart, children still go to school hungry in classrooms that do not teach, and millions walk our streets without healthcare when sick.... and we've immeshed ourselves ever deeper in war and world discord...all tools of seperation. Yes, the earth quaked with grief across the ocean floor and God spread His sorrow across our lands, a heartbeat in time, many thousands claimed, washed away in heaven's tears...and the rest of us for a moment stop to recognize our oneness. These are not Muslims we are seeking to kill or transform, "worshippers of Satan's religion", peopling these devastated lands. No they have been transformed by tragedy into children of God we are trying to save. Perhaps the world needs to swallow its own to awaken us from the slumber of our illusion...............where man's goodness pierces the celestial veil of dark and grey and lets the sun's melody sing for the earth on this new day.

Variously gifted people

2005-01-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

We are all variously equipped and gifted for the journey across our life's filed, but each adequately equipped for the particular filed of dreams he must cross, the particular life he is born into: My oldest daughter tells me she is sorry she can't contribute to my blog, as she is only an accountant. The smartest woman I knew growing up, the one who left the most positive mark on my lonely little girl's heart, the most admirable example of a woman I had, was my Father's mother....my beloved Nana. She was an accountant, smart, capable, efficient. I don't think she was a dreamer with a poets soul, like her only grandaughter...but it is she who introduced me to poetry, who read to me, who took the time write out in longhand with bent and painful fingers, a 12 page poem I loved called "Kentucky Belle". I still have that poem tucked away with the handful of things from my life that I treasure most. And everytime I read it, it gives silent testimony to her love for me. My Grandmother, the bright accountant who was such a bright light in my dark world. To me she was the smartest woman in the world, with the most positive, most stable things to contribute to my fragile, fractured foundation. Her steady accountant's heart nurtured my little poets, wild, sad soul and it was she who encouraged the growth of my wings, only stubble and promise when she died and left me, but before she went she planted and watered the seeds of faith that I would one day soar free.
We always have exactly what we need to contribute wherever we should find ourselves...the difficulty seems to lie in realizing and recognizing it, releasing it and believing in it enought to share it....whatever "it" might be. So let us each sing his hearts own song, as even the sun trust and sings each morning, her song to earth.

New Years 2005

2005-01-01T15:25:00.000-08:00

gmekeepr said...
Happy New Year!Welcome 2005! You open your arms and bid the world step into your embrace. And what will we give you and what will we attempt to extact?I do not understand the enormity of the issues currently on the table in the banquet hall of our "topsy turvy" universe. The continued existence of mankind seems somehow connected to the continued perpetuation of war. Ethnic and religious people hurl their swords of savagery at each other in the name of some great god they believe supports them and is against the other. And what they can't see is their fundamental similarity. From primitive hand held weapons to ones of sificient power and sophistication to annililate the present human race if we start hurling them at each other...which seems quite plausible. We find ourselves here, having sent our children one more time to sacrifice themselves on the battlefild of mans distorted dreams of power and glory.But what if we see ourselves as the "music makers, the dreamers of dreams" as Arthur O'Shaughnessy said.What if? Then couldn't we choose , as some do, to dance a the rhythm of harmony, not the discordanct sounds of hate.We can believe in the dream of dismanteling the walls of intorlerance with their bricks and mortor of bigotry, and lies.The rage of our earth runs deep with ancient mans blood, and we spill more today, and we wonder why God shakes the earth and spills His tears across her shores. And I believe that if we do not wake from the slumber of our belief in might as an answer, we will find the world has turned and done a "Topsy turvy" dance as worlds will often do...history bares witness in all her tales. And he who sits at the head of the table in the seat of power shall no longer occupy that place...for no nation rules forever, no ruler lives that long. All things spin in the circle of life, all things connected, no random acts at all...the last shall be first and the first shall then be last...only lessons in the great schoolyard of life, and on that playground we all know the winners always find themselves losers and the losers always somehow end up at the winners table with some beat of the circle dance. So life really is a gamble, without winners or losers as we twirl. We are all ultimately too connected to not be brought down by anothers suffering, and lifted up by anothers celebration..our humanity makes it so.
1:43 PM

An Honerable Man: for Wm Jefferson Clinton

2005-01-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

What I admire and trust most about another human being is their authenticity. I highly prize the qualities that make a persona come across as real, genuine. We craft & create but there is something about real people that makes their carefully crafted mask not so crafted, but a part of the whole, a natural extension of soul into personality, spirit into man....
And real people have flaws. Perfection still remains in the realm of the divine. Real people are self revealing, childlike in their vulnerability, regardless of how strong a figure they project, no matter how strong they may be, they wear see thru clothes in their revealing dance, the hero and the villain entwined on the floor of life spinning, wrapped up in the denim & silk of everything in between.
Those amongst us who grow into larger than life human beings, doing far more than the average, leaving legacies filled with ways in which they left the world greatly altered and improved by their being. Their contribution to humanity entered and honored in the archives of time......where they always grow better in our eyes in age and death...
They have flaws often as large and obvious as their greatness, co-existing in view for all the world to see. Brave courageous men and women who proudly wear the scars of their humanity, the marks of who they are. They dress in clothes as Kings and Queens but stand naked before us, their pain, their heartache, their most grievous mistakes paraded for judgement before our rabid eyes so eager to pounce, forgetting the log in our own eye, their fall from grace plastered across the face of our every day.
Yes, my heros are real...authentically strong and authentically weak, aware of the whole, the connected, the larger picture of purpose. Their failings but tools to carve them out, deepening, their understanding, germinating their wisdom.
Give me real and flawed and utterly dependent on God’s Great Grace.

Circles

2004-12-31T07:42:00.000-08:00

Well Friends, lets blog a little. Kinda like a dance, flowing in and out of each others space in time, holding and processing each others thoughts. The mystery, the maddness, the mayhem of life are both overwhelming to the senses and stimulating to the soul. I chose this template because I have laerned now, viewing the world from the youthful playground of my old age, that life is just that ....a circle dance we do, and we are always being drawn back into that center, smaller and smaller until we are absorbed by some great something that receives our small speck, and takes it home. The world is swirling around us in magnificent power, force unleashed against our small planet, we the people of this planet have unleashed some, others spat out on the tongue of God for us to absorb with awestruck wonder. And my heart crys out with the simplest of questions...how do so many at one time squeeze thru the tunnel of light into the great hand of grace? Hundreds of thousands of people on the head of a pin vying for supremecy, for position, to enter the gates of whatever waits on the other side of this massive devastation. I suspect God is angry at the human race. We have failed so utterly to learn our lessons despite many prophets and many books, many claiming to the the "One", the real answer, from the real God. But each book hearlded humanities connection and people have used the pages to build their insurmountable walls of seperation. But I know there is only one and no matter how many names we choose to give him He will remain just as He is , always has been, and always will be. Therefore I shall simply allow myself to fall into the safety of belief that it is ok to remain in the mystery, to watch the mayhem, to touch the maddness and know that the circle spins and somehow safely holds the specks of creation and tenderly takes them home. For those of us left it is up to us to find a better way of loving one another. For if our beliefs in right and wrong serve to seperate us only furthur then there is something gravely wrong with that which we think is right.