Tag Archives: faith

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DiSpiritual Aches and Pains

I have questions
about spiritual problems
with natural causes.

These questions
themselves
assume a metaphorical double-bind
co-passion in-between
Left with Right hemispheres
in Nature with Spirit bilateral dialogue

Informed, I hope,
by win/win historic experiential roots:

What has “nature v spirit” tension meant
in my life?

What have been my win/win
win/lose
lose/lose experiences
with natural Earth?

How has my relationship with nature
been a solitary
and/or communal
experience?

What are my poems,
music,
choreography,
photographs,
scripture
about nature
that feel meaningful?

How do these communications
separate humanity
from nature
and/or include human beings
becoming compassioned within nature?

In my learned theology
ecology,
are we spirits
or saints
or souls
or divinely inspired supernatural creatures
creations,
wanting to be raptured away from natural Earth?

Is Earth both an exterior natural
and interior spiritual potential
integral Paradise,
an EarthTribally cooperative Garden,
growing both spirit nurturing healthy truth
and nature healing wealthy beauty,
democratic health/wealth trust,
secular/sacred energy
synergetically balancing democracy?

Do I sometimes feel hopeless,
and do I long to be able to feel warmth,
welcome,
and belonging from Earth HerSelf?

Am I often confused and bewildered?
Do I wish I remembered
or knew
what eco/theo-logically harmonic clarity
might feel like?

Do I feel a distrust so deep
that I would need a win/win trust transplant,
a replanting revolution,
in order to ever feel faith
in anything again;
including my own ego/eco-identity?

Do I need acknowledgement of my original mortal life-line,
from win/lose natural beginnings
ending in inevitable loseEgo and loseEarth?
Was mortal self-identity
like a spirit v nature bomb
that destroyed my original win/win promise
born of Earth
and all of win/win rapturous humanity
in each timeless moment
of human nature’s spirited experience?

Do I need absolute guarantees
of win/win protection,
compassioning simplicity,
and restorative peace
reweaving short-term
through long-term
ease?

After engaging this list of self-medications,
does climate resonance,
internally spiritual
and externally natural,
feel lose/lose further apart
or win/win
more cooperatively ego/eco-therapeutic?

 

Note:

Most questions above are adapted from two sources:

Justice On Earth Discussion Guide, by Gail Forsyth-Vail and Susan Lawrence, p. 14

and

Your Resonant Self, by Dr. Sarah Peyton, p. 177

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Powers Over Me

I once read,
If I am a parishioner,
(or a student
or a child
or some other non-elite identity)
Then someone has power over me.

It would have been more helpful
if this “someone”
had been named,
finger-pointed outed.

I am left wondering,
Who could this Someone be?

And, is this non-indigenous power
used to empower and disempower me?
And/Or, disempower and empower We?
And possibly some of both,
and all fractal four, above?
Or, with the And/Or,
is this actually another variation
on a perfect octave circling string?

This “someone”
could not mean clergy,
usually civil,
civic-minded
more than uncivil;

Called to suffering of servant facilitators,
moderators,
mediators of democratically inclusive theological reflection
on real world experience,
the scripture of ecological dynasties,

Natural relationships
learned as also,
at our best and most resilient,
theologically resonant health
and safe-valued wealth
of co-passions,
positive
equivalent to double-negatives,

Stories
and histories
and herstories
of double-binding bilateral ZeroZone Souls.

Two intersectional stories
for all relationships,
secular Yang
with sacred non-elite bilateral yin-squared power
climates inside/outside,

Fractals of positive empowerment
and negative disempowerment
forMe/ofWe

Within ecosystems ego-sufficient
and concomitantly co-arising
ego/eco-empowerment;
co-incidental transubstantiation

When Ego equals LeftYang hemispheric framing lenses
and Eco equals RightYin political GreenCommons network
of interdependence,
intersectionality,
sufficient left/right co-affirmation

Then, when reading,
If I am a parishioner,
(or a student
or a child
or some other non-elite identity)
Then someone
slightly less LeftBrain dominant
and more RightBrain affirming
empowers warmly with me.

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Reverberating Synergy

When we look at life,
contingently standing out from death,
historically and futuristically absent,
co-passionately present,
we can see death and dying
as a logical default,
a statistical reality,
almost a necessity
so likely that life emerges
as a reverse default,
experienced only by vulnerably mortal living beings
mutually becoming

Whom each day awakens to another miracle
of living
unfolding further Earth history
and to ego-identified internal life process,
a holonic gift,
an inheritance
borrowed from past generations
to invest in present and future regenerations
of life
emerging from past death and dying
fueling fertile soil,
cleansing water,
stirring clear air
and incensed warm-lit flames
of reverberating annunciation.

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Swing Low Sweet Chariot

One way
I know this afrocentric music,
rather than a eurocentric mere performance piece,
is longing for
a sweet and swinging chariot,
rather than a messiah white and male.

I know
this is a cooperative-felt spirit,
and not so much a competition,
because of how
word choices and round rhythms
combine to pitch longing free safe home.

A freestyle journey
to a rich robust and polycultured freedom
of tribes long living
loving Earth’s peace paradise.

A paradise
western civilization
has not sung or danced,
out loudly joyed about
for far too long
without a warm cooperative song

Swinging low and high
in sweetly waving gold
ruled and ratioed
traveler’s chariot,

Coming and going
racing forth and back
to carry us
in and out of home

To freedom’s too long lost,
stolen, kidnapped
while we were dreaming,
singing and dancing with another day
dreaming nights of disembodied free,

Anxiously anticipating,
weary
and yet warmly welcoming.

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Inclusive Epiphany

Your euphony
sounds like my epiphany
he explicitly noted.

Your polypathic resilience
feels like my polyphonic resonance
she compassionately warmed and comforted,
nurtured and nutritioned.

Your theologically divine relationships,
progressions through historical multicultural experience
think and feel my ecologically natural communions,
processions through polyculturing anticipations,
s/he silently sang,
imaginatively danced,

Not for future performance,
but from past inclusive participations,
investments,
compassionate regenerations,
dispassionate degenerations,
passionate incinerations,

Euphonic epiphanies.

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Outdoor Sanctuary

I am much more likely to feel like a respectful,
trusting family member
than an entitled warrior,
when outside “property improvements”
than when inside anthropocentric habitats.

Sometimes
even as I approach my favorite sanctuary,
an AllSouls Unitarian-Universalist built structure,
I feel more sacred peace before I open our front door
of intended mutual hospitality
accommodation
conversation
accompaniment on life’s great spirited journey,
than after closed off into merely human monoculturing nature.

It’s not that I see or hear myself
as some great and profound nature mystic.
A post-millennial John Muir
I am clearly not,
although I would like to at least feel myself this communal way.

This contrast between indoor and outdoor trust
and resonance
comes not from feeling trees embrace me
but from me embracing trees
through sight
and sound,
smell,
touch,
occasionally taste, if no humans are watching
with judgmental eyes.

Trees are much more tolerant of my curiosity,
intrusiveness,
than my cousins,
and most of my siblings.

Perhaps tolerance is not the best word choice.
Acceptance sounds more reassuring.
Inviting into co-presence feels too grand,
yet honorable,
worthy of vocational commitment,
loyal

Where indoor mistrust and distrust relationships
speak of selfishly heartless patriotism
and national monoculturing identity
and language and cultural antipathy,
rather than positive integrity
of a sanctuaried people
longing to live free
and comparatively loving lives
under and within paint
and textured sheetrock
looking a bit like bark
if high-end
and if I am feeling generous;
boundaried boxes smelling like chemical toxins.

This unfortunate comparison feels too simple,
for sustained resolution
of internal unsancturied sensitivity,
to notice I need to get out more,
because this means leaving my good faith community behind
as if I were so autonomously strong
in active outside hope and passionately robust love
that I need not hear human stories,
songs,
Need not see and conjoin liturgical non-verbal dance,
sacred rhythms
and patterns of compassionate dialogue,
mutual esteem and support,
appreciation,
warm accompaniment,
not of warriors,
but of peace-builders,
resolvers,
cooperative listeners, prayers
non-predative.

My oppositionally defiant daughter,
when in a forgiving mood,
refers to me as a “Talking Head.”

I find too much truth in her smiling tolerance
of this inflamed ego’s hunger and thirst
for regard
rather than a quieter mutual righteousness
of co-presence,
stalking hearts
inside as necessary for communion’s nurture
and outside as profitable for everyday sane nature.

I respect the limiting fact that pipe organs
and grand pianos
cannot sustain in the rain,
but I also seem to respect the possibility
of rapture in a cappella chant
and fire-circle sanctuary dance
witnessed by trees
and stars,
spoken of only by sacred smoky breezes.

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Fear InBetween Faith

Gratitude’s past grief
brief repast

When re-articulating grief
becomes transparently warm passion,
yet without terrifying overheated anger,
we are together filled with resonantly vulnerable sound
and traumatic sight,

Therein opens new possibilities,
avenues,
tides,
streams,
neurological highways
surfing for resiliently polypathic gratitude,

An experiential reminder,
a virtuous feedback loop,
in which daily reborn life intends love
extends above
down beyond,
deeply rooted within
all Other
awareness;

Grief of anciently fore-shadowed separation
to repair EarthTribe’s loyal gratitude.

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Communion Parasites

I worry about being unfair to other benign parasites
in my feeding-frenzy faith community,
and to myself,
because I need
and/or want
a residential
intentionally cooperative
resiliently win/win consensus
co-investing
co-managing
eco-responsible and responsive
health-wealth community.

This feels rather much to ask
of someone already satisfied with a weekly sanctuary bath,
washing off some of the weekday BusinessAsUsual compost,
looking for ever renewing possibilities for repurposing trash
into refueling treasure.

I fear afflicting innocent souls
with my competitive capitalistic commodifying infliction
endangering all sacred values
averse to genuflecting before all secularized disvalues;

My own intentional community dreams
of relief from justice as revenge
anticipate double-binding win/win commitment to mercy
as peace restoring justice
for mutually healing purposes,

Sacred sanctuary relations between and among
strong-faithed cooperative parasites on MotherEarth,
actively seeking ego-systemic kindness within
and eco-systemic compassion
communioned
communicated
through commonly-held metaphoric verbals
and metaphysical non-verbals,
motions and emotions also shared
without my own comfortably sacred faith community.

I worry this desire of mine
bears little difference
than a hope to live in a multicultural gym
rather than to come in,
invest in twenty aerobic minutes on empty rows of exercise bikes,
take a quick, very private, shower,
and leave enough hot water
for all future regenerations.

Efficient,
like commercial sandwich bread,
but not really the stuff of robust communion.

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Slow-Cooked Conversion Stories

I was raised in one of those white nationalist churches,
passing itself off as a Christian evangelical Bible church,
where “evangelical” meant fundamental
and “fundamental” meant we did not interpret scripture
but accepted it as God’s literal trans-historical Word
of universal white male dominant
Bible thumping supremacy,
transcendently un-changing like…
like…
like nothing I’ve ever seen or heard
or smelled or tasted

Which is why we call not-Him-or-Her “God”
and not “SuperEgo”
or multicultural “Gaia”

Or anything else.
It turns out “God”
is a bit like not saying Valdemore’s name;
As Yahweh
is more about the ambiguously missing vowels
than their YHWH
YYXY
Either/Or-Both/And
bicameral structure.

Anyway, enough about sacred bisensory ecology.
While at People’s Bible Church
I was told, by all the white heterosexual adults
supporting and educating me
that being born again is not a gradual thing,
like growing into a pubescent body,
but instant,
like convenient oatmeal
or inferior mashed potatoes.

If I could not say,
with one hundred percent persuasion,
that I was reborn in Christ
on May 8, 1964
at 2:53 PM
Eastern Savings Time,
Just as I was originally born
on May 8, 1952
at 2:53 A.M.,
much to my mother’s inconvenience–
finished just in time to get home
to our dairy farm
for an unleisurely visit with “The Girls”
during her morning milking parlor gig–
Then the deviant
devilish mark of Satan
still clouds my not so milky white
not straight enough
not truly pure soul.

Such instant and yet resilient grace
felt unlikely to me.

I did not instantly lose hope
for a hot SantaDaddy
sliding down our family chimney
emerging from the family wood-burning furnace,
scorched of unnecessary
and superfluous clothes
to give me all the fruited manly gifts
I have felt so empty without
warm and wet accompaniment,
accomplishment.

Gradually,
over several years of neglecting this Santa myth
as cultural fantasy,
I did not wake up on May 8, 1956,
at 2:53 A.M.
and announce to all those not listening,
“I no longer believe in Santa Claus.”

De-mythification progress
seems to take me
about as long as my left-brain
dominating commodification process
took to grow into queer adolescence,
feeling unsafe,
unwanted,
with a best case possible future
of invisible insignificance,
hidden deeply beneath healthy humility.

Just as it took awhile to comfortably acclimate
to the toothlessness of myth,
It took me all my development years
on into late adolescence
to be sure that I would never safely
or resiliently convert
into a heterosexual.

When we were mutually experimenting grade school boys
during not much sleep overs
I was sure we shared the same destiny–
future heterosexuals,
Mr. Cleavers,
Mr. Smiths
not all too fascinated with Mr. Johnsons.

I didn’t suddenly realize,
“Oops. I failed to convert.”
Maybe I was a late bloomer,
just as some girls get pubes
and teats
and mensies later on
which seemed like more unfair girl pressure
than just sprouting new hair in old moist places
and growing at least somewhat less girlish voices.

Just as there was no May 8, 2:53 P.M.
of any year
when I knew,
“OK, that’s it.
It’s done growing
in both length and width.”
I had no day or night
when I said,
“OK, that’s it.
I choose to be queer”
so I can be the target of hate crimes,
bad jokes,
white Christian heterosexual predators,
bigoted employers,
homophobic police
and teachers
and parents
and siblings,
and preachers

Fully capable of witnessing against me
the exact date, time, and year
they began their life long love affair
with white male Jesus Christ,
straight (presumably) Jewish carpenter’s apprentice,
Son of God and…
and…
God,
who finished creating Earth,
and at least our entire Solar System,
exactly seven days
after He started, on May 8th
at 2:53 A.M.,
year 0000.

I have developed health-considered faith
in win/win progressive processes.
I accept that faith actively hopes in unseen relationships,
unheard communications,
unnoticed actions and reactions.

Still,
I find an always changing
transparent
vulnerable,
courageously curious difference
between left-brain statements of verbal instant faith,
and right/left-brain emerging lifeskill learnings
conversions
healings
redemptively felt economies,
salvific co-relational powers,

And I have trouble believing
that such ubiquitous differences
between slow-grown processive maturation
and imitative instant role-playing
is only accessible to queers,
white, black, brown, red, purple, green, or ultra-violet,
born on May 8, 1952
at 2:53 A.M.
much to the inconvenience
of busy heterosexual
pre-millennial dairy farmers.

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Bigger v Deeper Egos

The belief that we become healthier,
healed,
redeemed
through commitment to some power
bigger and higher than just ourselves
follows left-brain dominant teaching,
and appeals to patriarchal thirsts
for robust ego empowerment.

Right-brain prominent feelings
do not disagree with,
dissonantly conflict with,
this bigness metaphor
but monotheistic universalism is not right-brain resonant,
while depth is everything
everywhere
every interconnected potential Time
of radically profound interdependent Identity.

Ego identity
feels emerging from
and returning to
deep ecosystemic nutritional streams
of curiously submerged becoming
co-passionate together
as facets of one boundless
unfathomed ZeroZone
double-bound
bilateral win/win becoming whole
holy
holonic
synergetic
integral.

Big and from-on-high colonization
is never historically resilient,
is always unsustainable,
except when intended
and multiculturally experienced as creolization,
benign largess, invitation
from deep compassionate pockets
of resonantly sacred generosity.

Left-brain either-or thinking
about how to be part of bigger
universally monotheistic Power
can become confluent with right-brain both-and feeling
becoming more deeply etched
ego-identified faith in action
within eco-individuating awareness
of nature’s interaction,
deeply spiritual compassion.

Where left-brain egos long to be part of a higher power,
right-brain win/win prime
ego/eco-relationality
belongs immersed in reconnecting deeper co-passioning rivers
of healthy energy streams
flowing up from enlightening dual-dark Source,
sacred resources,
silent webs of becoming
deep wells of resilient resonant belonging.

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