Deafening Silence

This is an invitation to look at everything around us as consciousness trying to emerge through us so that we can accelerate our relational evolution. I cannot pretend like that there is not a loving force that is working through the best and worst in each of us to wake us up so we can see both the forest and the trees and neither the forest or the trees. I’m not suggesting that I am fully awake all of the time. But my alarm clock is hella loud and goes off pretty frequently. And when I am awake, I see that we are often only seeing one side of the tip of the iceberg, when there is a whole other side as well as everything underneath and the ocean within which the iceberg floats, and the land that contains the oceans and so much more. All this to say, none of us gets all of everything about anything. And this is why we need to break through after this breakdown. Not all of us. But some of us have to take the hits and not hit back unless it forwards individual and collective liberation. In that case get to smacking. But only smack (figuratively) in love.

Deafening Silence
___________________

Silence is not violence.

These words just rhyme

Violence is violence 

And we see it all the time

Some of us say nothing 

For a whole lot of reasons

Some because we’re cowards 

Some because our words are out of season

And there’s a whole other reason

For our unspoken ploys 

When everyone is screaming 

We choose not to add to the noise

Instead we align with true peace

Working from the inside out

So that a single sentence can break through

The din of 10 million shouts

It’s a strategy too uncommon

But often the only one that works

Because the source of all the turmoil 

Is often a battle of hurts versus hurts

Hurt People hurt people

Healed people heal

So the best we can do for all of us

Is to master how we feel

Controlled by our emotions

The good we mean to do’s distorted 

Our goal is to bring about a better world

But our methods are contorted

Pain cannot undo one’s pain

Though it may keep it at bay

But this is only temporary

The pendulum will always swing the other way

And when it does, there will be a backlash

This is always the way it goes

Like peaks and troughs in an ocean

This is just the way it flows

It will be no other way

No matter how hard we try

Because just like if you try to push a wave

You efforts will always be denied

But do not be discouraged

Just pay attention to the patterns

In time you will be able to anticipate

The unfolding of all that matters

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it

The only response is to surrender

Accept your best was never good enough

So that a better way can enter

A Way that that acts from Stillness

That speaks from the cataclysmic Sound of Silence

The Undoing that undoes all that humans contrived

Until there is no such thing as violence

© Copyright 2025 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

This Is My Body

You don’t get to tell me
That I am not who I am
You will never know me
If you are using you
As a frame of reference
You haven’t been through what I’ve been through
Held what I am holding
Grace in physical form
Giving better than what I was given
Because I believe in a myth that I need to be true
Forgive them for they know not what they do
I want to be like you
Remembering even in the face of violence
This is my body
I choose how it feels
Regardless of others’ projections
Regardless of their rejection
With or without protection
This is my body
I will be who I will to be
Because no one knows this body but me
And those with whom I choose to share it
Becoming One
This is our body
These are our bodies
Broken for each other
By one another
Healed by the Lover
Now we are One Body
No longer broken
Life created by Words spoken
My body is your body
Your body is my body
Every Body and No Body
Can be Any Body
When we break
But don’t shatter
Resurrect by Mind over matter
Choose the Former over the latter
Being made in the image of the One Body
Who births all bodies
Time and time again

© Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

This poem will be featured at the event below. Click on the link below to learn more about the other poets. And if you are local to Boulder County, CO and want to join us, you can RSVP by going to this link.

The Cost of Discipleship

When I feel like I don’t deserve what’s coming
I get tempted to run away
Often I make it to the door
But 95 percent of the time I stay
The reason isn’t because I’ve gained some clarity
Or feel like I should be a screen for folk’s projection
It’s because I know that he didn’t run away
Which created the path to resurrection
All of us have been crucified before
It makes sense to want to escape it
But the power that’s on the other side
Only comes when we choose to face it
That doesn’t mean that you should be a victim
Or try to keep your abusers near
It simply means that only perfect love
Can cast out the toxicity of fear
You see this Universe has a crazy way
Of calling up what causes revulsion
Through a process that rarely goes away
It’s called repetition compulsion
That means even when we’ve been hurt before
We keep the patterns in our life
With the hope that one day we’ll learn the lesson
And handle the situation right
But that’s a peculiar kind of insanity
That makes us become what it is we hate
In a backwards way of trying to save ourselves
From the behavior that becomes our fate
That’s why I’d rather wind up dead sometimes
Than become what tried to destroy me
Efforting to cast out all my cares
So that the Creator can employ me
To most this sounds like a justification
Or an extreme version of denial
But to me I can’t return to innocence
If I never go on trial

© Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

What Artists Reveal (WAR)

There’s a war happening
There’s a war happening 
In the Artist’s heart in All Ways
There’s a War Happening 
War of the worlds 
War inside
Collateral damage 
Even if no one dies
There’s an internal battle
When a baby cries
Hunger and no food
Creates a world of lies
Open your eyes
It’s not just me that’s singing
It’s an entire Universe 
Of controlled screaming
Destroying ourselves 
Just to find meaning
I defy meaning
With my dreaming
Because there’s a war happening
There’s a war happening
In the Artist’s heart in All Ways
There’s a War Happening
Artists exist
To control the chaos
But the irony is 
They don’t want to pay us
When tyranny comes 
First thing they do is take us
But we just keep creating
As they all forsake us
We’re springs of creation
They cannot remake us
Transmitting love
To even those who hate us
There’s no argument 
They cannot debate us
Proof of God’s Love
Is that God creates us
We just surrendered to the fact
That we can’t create ourselves
Then miraculously
We can create ourselves
Given the authority 
To transform our hells
These prison walls 
Are no more our cells
Our presence is the secret
That no one tells
The holes in our hearts 
Have become our wells
And it’s from these wells
That your soul’s drinking
Thoughts become things
So we’re not thinking 
We live by inspiration
We only move when still
Translating silence
To express our will
Channeling frustrations
So the truth’s revealed 
And we’ll keep on creating
Until the world is healed

© Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

In an upcoming article for the People Are Not Things Linkedin Newsletter, in reflection on a training I was just a part of in DC, I will examine the role art plays in creating new models for human compatibility and flourishing even in the face what could appear to be imminent institutional collapse. In addition to the folks present at the convening, I was inspired by Asha Romeo (https://www.asharomeo.com/) to write this piece and use AI to create this image. Asha sang the hook on my rap single, Take This Life (Make It Light) and sang for several services when I was a pastor to include the final song on my last Sunday. She is a singular talent with amazing musical range. She will soon be relocating from our neighborhood to LA to pursue her music career.

When I thought about her journey as a child from a small town named Gondar in Ethiopia to Boulder, CO and how because of that journey this community has been filled with music that would have not otherwise been here, I realized something about art that I had never considered before. Artist transmute chaos into culture. Even when I think of my own artistic expressions, I know them to be the result of wrestling with a lifetime of polarizing tensions that through inner struggle show up in the word as–at least semi-coherent–expressions of the underlying harmony that I believe turns potential danger into a potent dance with what could be considered conflicting loyalties.

Mindful of this, in this poem, I wanted to celebrate what she and other artists bring to our spaces by bending chaos to their creative will. Without them, where would we be? And more than that, I want to encourage each of us to tap into the artist that lives in each of us. I hypothesize that much of the challenges that we are experiencing in many of our social landscapes is because of unmetabolized traumatic experiences that work themselves out in our interactions with others on every level from interpersonal to international. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. With artistry, we can choose to create systems that works better for more people.

Take This Life (Make It Light) [https://youtu.be/pMVTFt5cYk4?si=KtoVSqVXh0-u4Z13]

Embracing Nothing

I just want to be defeated
And no longer have a care
Let this last battle have me
And sink into despair
Raise the white flag
Settle into the abyss
Deleted from the world’s memory
So that I won’t even be missed
Get absorbed into the Void
Go from I was to now I wasn’t
Undo whatever it seems I’ve ever done
So that what I do becomes a doesn’t
Utterly erased
Even from anyone’s imagination
An unmanifest impossibility
Not even a consideration
I don’t want heaven and don’t want hell
Nor any concept in between
No good or bad illusions
Nor awakening in the dream
I only want to be empty
Completely uncontained
I’ve given everything I have
I just want to rest in being drained
But this doesn’t mean I’m giving up
I’m just finally seeing clearly
To be who only I can be
I cannot let earthly desires near me
They function how they’re supposed to
They promise what they cannot give
So wanting anything in this life
Never shows us how to live
It is only in wanting nothing
That I can receive everything and more
It’s only in surrendering everything I thought I had
That I can be what I came here for

© Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva II

Ego Trippin’

A million opportunities
For me to be
A million different people
Who were never me
Negative one
Plus infinity
Makes me less than the man
I’m supposed to be
Made like the Creator
Supposedly
But show up in my power
They’re opposed to me
The essence of the One
Is meant to flow in me
And flow inside of you
Hopefully
But we’re taught not to try
To live in a lie
See ourselves as less
The higher us we deny
On earth as in Heaven
I see it so clearly
While the Logos Way
Is disappearing
We’re called to show love
But we’re steady fearing
Wanting to escape
We hope the end is nearing
But we’re back in the beginning
There’s no loss and no winning
Reality is virtual
So we’re virtually sinning
Missing every mark
Too fast and no aiming
Preaching to the choir
Is so spiritually draining
But here is my thesis
We’re stuck in mimesis
Copying the bound
So we don’t know what free is
It’s not supposed to be this
Leaders who just hinder
Taking advantage
Because your souls are so tender
Don’t knock, but still enter
Hypocritical mind splinters
So consistently cold
It’s like perpetual winter
Frozen in place
Condemning with no Grace
Filled with emptiness
Like a room with no space
So come face to face
Breathe the Breath of the Living
Surrender everything
To be eternally giving
Take part in the Whole
Out of the many become One
A million choices become choiceless
Now the ego trip’s done

©️ Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

Body of Evidence

Looking out into the distance
I wonder what is beyond the horizon
Out in the yard, we build our outer strength
To prepare for the war that’s waged within
“I am worthy”
For my body tells me so
And all I am here is a body
A body of evidence
A body of work
A body made for work
Nothing more and nothing less than a body
I just am what I am
And no one gives a damn
They don’t want to understand
That more than a body of work, I am
A Body of Intelligence
A Body formed and informed by Divine Intelligence
The same Intelligence that created the stars
Made maps of my scars
Came near from afar
And drew closer to me than breathing
Made knowledge out of my believing
Taught me that giving is receiving
Never forsaking or leaving
Grief more intimate than all my grieving
Descending into the depths
Soul bleeding
On the mission of retrieving
The part of me I lost
When I believed that all I am is a body
A body of evidence
A body of work
A body made for work
But I am more than a body
I am somebody
A member of the One Body
Undeniably valuable
By the virtue of my being
My eyes are now seeing
Beyond the horizon
Noticing now
What I couldn’t see before
There is no wall
There is no door
There is no one keeping score
I am imprisoned no more
But I am not free
For I am my brother and sister’s keeper
And giving is receiving
I can go but I’m not leaving
Until you see what I see
We are somebody
A member of the One Body
Undeniably valuable
By the virtue of our BEing
A Body of Evidence
A Body of Work
A Body made for the Work
Of giving form to the Divine Intelligence
The same Intelligence that created the stars
Made maps of our scars
Came near from afar
And drew closer to us than breathing
So that seeing can become believing
Joy can replace grieving
When one leaves we’re all leaving
Going out beyond the Horizon
To discover what we were made for
Amen

©️ Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

Photo by Kirt Morris on Unsplash

Trusting the Process

I pour my self into You
Trusting You will never spill me
Never fearing emptiness
Because I know You’re here to fill me
The terror known by many folks
Who can’t contemplate Your Promise
Is dissolved the moment I witness You
So I give it all to keep me honest
I don’t want to pretend to Trust in You
Only when for me it is convenient
Then as soon as I don’t get what I want
Realize that I don’t mean it
To me Trusting You is its own reward
In fact it’s my only Treasure
Because anything that does not have You there
Will never stay together
From the beginning and to the end
From the first and to the last
Without You nothing that seems to matter
Ever truly has
Nations continue to come and go
Things that were enter non-existence
While people pretend to get it all
Through selfish one sided resistance
A horrible error in calculation
No one can hold their breath forever
Whether you last exhaled or last inhaled
The project of breathing is both together
And that’s what this world’s forgetting
Perhaps some of us never knew it
Oneness isn’t the strongest wins
It’s polarities congruent

©️ Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

Whenever I write a poem, it is the fruit of weeks if not months or even years of spiritual labor. I don’t write to influence. I write to express. What emerges contains every part of the process that you would witness in the natural process of growing an actual fruit tree. And I never give way to the temptation to pick the fruit early. When it’s ripe, it falls on its own.

As the video explains, this poem was born out of two months of struggling to write about trust and a bout with a short term unwellness that rendered me extremely contemplative. What the video doesn’t say was that for most of the three days that my body was fevered and in pain, I was repeating “Thank you God. I love you.” as if it was my breath. I did this in part because of a practice I developed a long time ago based on James 1:2-8 where adherents are advised to count all of our trials as joy. And the other part is that I imagine that most people’s conversations with God are about asking for things they want to come in and things we don’t want to go away. So, I just decided that I would not ask God for anything and just be thankful. Besides there were a number of times when I was a pastor that I would suggest to people that they say “thank you” as a part of their process. So, I had to take my own advice.

Now, before you get into this video, let me me warn you that it may come off as a little irreverent. It isn’t meant to be. But, it is meant to make folks think. It is meant to challenge you and to basically call out where I think our lack of trust is leading us. I put this out here in trust. I guess that is where I will leave it.

Listen Once and For All

Listen
Without words
To what can only be spoken
With Silence
There is no loss
There is no gain
In the Place where Love is Home
Like the top of the inhale
And the bottom of the exhale
Where in and out are One
And coming and going cease to be
There resides the thought
That tells you what you already know
You are more than enough
And worthy of all Creation
Here is where
In Silence you hear
The Voice of the voiceless
Noiselessly shouting
Everything I Am
Is Communicating
To Everything You Are
Telling You
Once and for All
We have Everything We need
When We have each Other

Learning How to Fly

I was checking in with my soul
About everything that is passing
Then looked out to the world of form
For the answers to what I was asking
What am I supposed to do
When witnessing misdirection
Of people who are inclined to trust too much
Yet, will refuse a course correction?
Should I keep to myself while they keep to theirs?
It will be what it will be
Never choosing to intervene
So we’ll see what we will see?
Then out of nowhere the answer came
I looked and saw an eagle soaring
Symbolizing such a way
That I can’t go on ignoring
Do not judge this way or that
Because you don’t know where folks are going
If they are not on the path you’re on
What you say is not worth knowing
Just receive whatever is yours to have
That makes for truer living
And if some don’t honor what it is you have
Just move on and keep on giving
For it isn’t convincing that wins the day
A reward isn’t what you’re earning
It’s the gift of soaring above the fray
So that you can embody what it is you’re learning
© Copyright 2023 Pedro S. Silva II

As I was talking to God about some of the stuff I’m processing, I looked up and saw a bald eagle. When I saw it, I was in Massachusetts. I lived in Mass for almost 10 years and never once saw a bald eagle. I didn’t even suspect that they lived in this area. But, I googled it and in fact, it said that there are currently 76 pairs of bald eagles in MA. So, there’s a slim chance of seeing.

I looked further and learned that in some indigenous traditions, bald eagles symbolize non judgement, spiritual seeking, and pushing the limits of self discovery and personal liberation. Let’s just say that I can relate.

Seeing the eagle then was a comfort and a reminder that when we ask we receive, when we seek we find, and when we knock the door opens. And I have no influence on who makes these choices or not.


Photo by Mark Olsen on Unsplash

Much of the content that has emerged since November 19 is my processing the death of my friend and mentor, Carlton Pearson.