The Vision of God

To truly experience God, our eye of contemplation
Must turn its focus, and all its consideration
Deep within the soul to find what we have sown,
In hidden compartments, previously unknown,
Where our habits reside, flourish and reproduce.
Those unhealthy desires which once did seduce,
Have now left us, yet we continue in their snare
Until from all we wrestle free – an act we must dare.
Then and only then, what will be seen,
Is the soul in its glory pristine,
And God will be reflected within, because his image
Is what we shall encounter in our purified visage.

The Saga Of The Cave

From a caveman, it is said, we came;
And yet, in salvation, we find the same.
From start to finish, Alpha to Omega,
Cave to cave, there is one long saga.
In the darkness of its hearth,
We felt protected by the earth.
Even Cain, that impious knave,
Had for his home an artificial cave.

Its darkness protected our vision,
From our disfigurement by sin.
Lights danced upon the wall,
And we hoped God would stall,
The wrath that we feared.
From the sun we fled, lest it sheared,
The conscience with its illumination:
We were afraid of its devastation.

Dancing with the shadows,
Mixing our dreams with sorrows,
We bound ourselves in the muck and mire.
In it all, God saw how dire
The need we had to be set free.
Thus, born in a cave amidst the sea
Of suffering, came the new man, the new creation:
The Godman offering us his jubilation.

Adam and his kin enslaved by the cave,
The new caveman came to save.
Into the darkest, cruelest depths of the cavity,
He journeyed, looking for all held in captivity.
To all who would follow, into the light he led:
By his love, all their fears were shed.
Up they went and out at last into the light,
They beheld a fantastic sight:

Beauty.

The Spirit's Breath

It has been said that in Christ all aspects of our life, even the dark terrors we face daily, and the horror of death, find their proper place. Therefore, in a work of Christian aesthetics, even the darkness can and should be represented. Ours hopes as well as our fears find their life and fulfillment in the incarnation, from the joy of the nativity to the grotesque glory of the cross.

A poet and dear friend of mine, using the pen name of Shea Jacobs, is ever fascinated with the crucifix. This is often manifested in her poetry. It is not without surprise that we see her write with the mix of beauty and sorrow that one finds in the cross. Her love for humanity manifests itself especially in her fascination with the glorious works of art we have, as a race, created; yet, not unlike Jesus following the path to the cross, we see her write with great sorrow and despair. What has been made can be destroyed. Do we have what it takes to preserve our glorious heritage and the earth we live on? There is much to learn here, much to contemplate, and it is without further introduction I give to you her poem, this on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Worship the Tin God: From Genesis to Revelation.

Worship the Tin God

From Genesis to Revelation

Brooding Spirit breathes

The darkness shone

Night as dark - Day as light

Crepuscular glowings

Aqueous ripples of Spirits breath,

Gihon, Pishon, Euphrates

Green planted, blue saturated

The brooding Spirit sang ! – a falsetto range

Permeating echoes

Ticking time awoken !

Genesis of man

Of all !

Teeming embryos, growing, changing

The waltz beganExploring, loving orgasmic rhythm

Seed planted

Womb fattens

Man from manEozoic finger of Buonarroti’s Adam

Pointing to his makerArising from dust to glory

Life is sweet.

Silently the slippery serpent slides

Tricking, tempting, taking, turning,

Envy, greed, jealously.

The spirit sighs.

Wait for the Lamb, He is coming!

“Love one another’

Is killed

RISES!!!

Sins of the father live on,

Killing plundering warring

Riches unshared

Land raped

Waters soiled

One invidious World Power

Scrapers burners pushers cutters

Warrers haters killers hurters

The mantle groans

The white flash – melting all to shadow

Buonarroti’s Adam, fallen – gone for all time

Oceans boiled, faeces rise to break the surface

No arc of Noah nor olive branch

No dove of peace nor saving grace

That inverse globe of deadened life

Inert, sent spiralling to the sun.

And the timekeeper stopped the clock

And the Spirit wept.

Drawing Near The Light

Lo, when we wade the tangled wood,

In haste and hurry to be there,

Nought seem its leaves and blossoms good,

For all that they be fashioned fair.

But looking up, at last we see

The glimmer of the open light,

From o'er the place where we would be:

Then grow the very brambles bright.

So now, amidst our day of strife,

With many a matter glad we play,

When once we see the light of life

Gleam through the tangle of to-day.

Poem: William Morris.

Picture: Taken in The Effigy Mounds Park, 07-15-2006.

An Ode To Modern Thought

Descarted him away, he knew not the reason,

From pluralism and personalism’s once bright season,

He could smell the Bacon, though he be Locked away,

Behind bars where the sense of Hume’s heirs play.

Leibniz assured him, ‘tis the way it should be!’

For only a tail-Spinoza-rationality.

'Diderot a boat ever as sure?'

‘Hobbes on in!’ they yelled, ‘no water’s more pure!’

‘But I Kant!’ he explained, with judgment unclear

‘Such a Kant-tickle to freedom makes it hard to steer!’

It all seemed Kantumelious right from the start,

‘With the mind so Kantingent, I’ve lost sight of my heart!’

‘It’s the world outside where one should lay blame!

Let us dive deep in the mind, and Darwin the game!

Reality’s held by a subjective union of all,

And the objects beyond took a Schelling to fall.’

They told him, ‘Comte on, think positive my friend!’

But Hegel-erred with eyes of Fichte-hated contempt.

‘Why do we Nietzsche be so sure?

Are we not guilty of losing irrationality’s cure?!’

Husserl-ly man, who’s Brentano-wing the facts,

Can ill afford to look beyond the phenomenon’s acts.

So we’ll dig to new heights, with great vigor and vim,

And find even Christ had a Heidegger in him!


"...are we having 'pun' yet"...sorry

The Light Shineth In The Darkness

The Sun of Righteousness has come upon the land,
Revealing the glory of the Lord’s bountiful earth.
From the bottom of the well to the top of the mountain,
The light of Tabor radiates with joy and mirth.

From the law and the prophets to the philosophers and saints,
We join with the cloud of witnesses ascending Jacob’s ladder.
Reaching up to the unseen depths of Christ’s accomplishments,
We are enlightened by the grace which permeates all matter.

The dawn has come, the aeon everlasting.
The Sun shines in the kingdom with no end.
From glory to glory, we are ever progressing,
Further and further to where it doth us send.

A World Full Of Beauty

For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our grateful hymn of praise.

Pictured: The Mississippi River viewed from The Effigy Mounds Park in Iowa.