Variations On A Theme

2012-01-22T18:19:00.001-08:00

I weep at what is beautiful. And when the children are near, they ask, “Why do you cry?” and I try to explain, “Because it is beautiful.” It would be too difficult to describe the joy of realizing (again) the impossible has happened: The world, after all, is not irrevocably broken. A tenderness – however small – whether real or imagined – has been witnessed. And I imagine the remarkable magic itself would weep too, for having been found.

2012-01-11T06:48:00.000-08:00

What does forgiveness look like? Freshly cut forest clearing, allowing a fluttering checkered cloth to be spread with fruit and bread? The end of a provoking novel and beginning of a new, pages scented with first opening? Some would say a rising from the dead, but my faith is spread now among the open spaces of the seldom traversed, sometimes whispering, sometimes dazzling bright landscape. The way it feels now – what I long for – is the waking from an exhausted, heavy sleep, dreamless and gray. But first I must rest and my eyes are too occupied to close. Succumbing though, feels near, and I am afraid of not waking. Not despairing of forever sleep is what I’d call hope.

2011-09-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

When I meditate, it would appear I’m in a living room, shades drawn, dryer rumbling, needy dog pawing at my leg. But no. I am living with monks on a mountain, sunlight steady through windows of the monastery, where every morning we gather and sit cross-legged, facing each other.

They smile beautifically as I struggle to breath, amused that I see myself as anything other than worthy of every kindness. So they show me. Figs, fruits and soup. A soft bed. Silence. And they smile with understanding when the tears come, though I myself do not know why I cry.

Is it resistance? Fighting the idea that I am anything other than a permanently broken being?

Is it acceptance? A final understanding that I have been believing a lie.

I’d like to believe it’s gratitude. For finally allowing that sunlight to touch my skin, letting it rejoin the light which has always been within.

2011-05-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

A much-needed purge was in order.