Awareness – Page 5 – It's All In Me

Death Is Not a Failure

November 28, 2018November 28, 2018 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

We all succeed at dying

One way or the other

Despite the value we place on holding it back

We have this in common with one another

Even Jesus couldn’t escape it

Though we say it’s a revolving door

He begged if the cup of death could pass

How much less should we implore?

For the living’s only reality

Is to live, and be, and move

Death appearing a contradiction

What can we gain

For all we lose?

Yet, Death is not an ending

Not a new beginning or a door

Nor does it ever take from us

Or give the peace we’re longing for

All we think it is it isn’t

Because we lack the point of view

To see it for what it really is,

We need a different mind to see it through.

One not born through separation

One complete in its perception

One that sees all things for what they are

Present wholeness without rejection

Such a mind must not fear death

In fact it’s grateful for its inclusion

For the only Death there ever is

Is the Death of our illusions

Stillness Speaks

November 12, 2018 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

Out of the stillness emerges the Voice that calls us each by our true name

And every name is Beloved

Mistaken identities are replaced

Forgotten callings are restored

The darkness that hinders light is broken through

And what is revealed makes all things new

Peace has always reigned

On the surface waves are crashing, but they are held up by still waters.

Maker in the Middle

October 24, 2018October 24, 2018 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

In the center of all things

Is the One Who is All

From the infinitely large

To the infinitely small

Nowhere not the center

Even that which you call edge

Split the atom and there is fullness

There’s no space that you can hedge

There is no private matter

As far as matter is concerned

In fact matter doesn’t matter

Once it’s spiritually discerned

Reality is Oneness

This thought called two has never been

It’s the illusion of separation

Denying the truth of what’s within

We live, move, and have our being

In the One Place all things Be

Once we receive the “I” that sees this

There’s nothing ever more to see

The Soul You Rob Is Your Own

October 17, 2018October 17, 2018 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

Eyes filled with tears

Heart so full

Can’t say it’s spilled milk

Seeing all this bull

Everywhere soul robbers

Work to dig our graves

Offer carrot stick freedom

Keep us unseen slaves

Two faced leaders

Both mouths lie

Stick those needles

In the public eye

So we see nothing

But we don’t know why

Place our hopes in the illusion

They are on our side

But what I see lately

Merely comes to this

In a win-lose world

Someone will be missed

And in a rank based system

You know who it’ll be

Those who don’t pass muster

And those who look like me

But my tears aren’t for pity

For those who play that role

It’s for those who kill worlds

Trying to find their souls

Because in the grand scheme of things

Nothing’s here for the keeping

This is a seed planting realm

So we can live our own reapings

Forever!

How Close is God?

August 29, 2018August 24, 2018 Higher Up IDEALS1 Comment

Like there’s a tree in the seed
There is God within me

The Unseen is clearly seen
When the love of Christ has set us free

Just as the drops that make the Ocean
Are full of all the Ocean is

So when we pour out who we are
We are receiving what we give

There is nowhere God is not
To include the reflection that we see

Closer than we could ever imagine
In every breath we ever breathe

The Visitation – Being a Healing Presence

August 22, 2018September 6, 2018 Higher Up IDEALS1 Comment

In our spiritual community at First Congregational Church Boulder, UCC some of our members are reading a small book called, The Art of Being a Healing Presence. Those of us reading it, are part of a small group of people who are choosing to heed the call to embody a healing presence with community members who are open to our invitation. Over the months that we’ve been meeting, my heart has increasingly found joy in our time together encouraging each other as we discover the gift of Visitation together. I wrote the following poem to/for them to both express appreciation for their gifting of themselves and to remind them that when we are being present, every moment counts.

The Visitation
It was only for a moment
It was here and it was gone
But when they think of the Visitation
The Presence lingers on

Breaking into Time-space
Eternity in half an hour
When two or more gather here
We’ve invited in the Power

Never underestimate,
What a moment can unfold
A single earthly encounter
A lasting balm for the soul

You were called to bring the Presence.
Being is what you do.
Giving form to the Love,
That preceded me and you

Matthew 18:20
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Spoken Wordless

May 5, 2018March 13, 2023 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

Words cannot express

What words cannot express

But Silence is compelling me

So I will do my best

Though everything is backwards

There is something coming forth

That is leading us to where we’ve never left

So that we’ll always be on course

It’s fullness is not religious

Truth’s Way will free us from our binds

But first we must deny ourselves

So that our True Selves we might find

That is the Revelation

That so many before us bore

But, we lost our Way living outside in

And always keeping score

The Way Showers wants to free us

But we have to kill them first

Because we refuse to be what we will not see

Thus labeling them a curse

But as soon as we can’t see them

We see them as they are

Exposing what we once denied

That we never were that far

Then suddenly we’re speechless

If only we had known

We’d’ve been deliberate in our reaping

So that our freedom could be sown.

Into Your Hands

April 4, 2017April 4, 2017 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

Into Your hands I commit my spirit
Because I won’t endure this lie
This prison system cannot be True
Built on the illusion that we must die

Death’s nothing more or less than a doorway
Or when a movie changes scenes
Different characters embody roles
But there’s just One Dreamer of these dreams

Yet somehow we’ve conceived to deny this
Even though it makes no sense
In the beginning there was always One
And there only has been ever since.

I struggle everyday to express this
To live wholly in Your call
Knowing that I’m denying One
If I can’t see You in All

This is the fruit of religious life
Bonding body and mind to soul
Forsaking the separate self that never was
And abandoning false control

This is when the journey ends
We’ve found the only thing worth finding
And teaching each other is no longer done
We simply trust in Your reminding

This is what I live this Life for
Every other way must be undone
My spirit in the hands of the All in All
Completes what never had begun

The Way of All Flesh

January 30, 2017 Higher Up IDEALS1 Comment

There is a path that all flesh must take
We’ve always known this from the start
It’s the very awareness of this fact
That reveals the nature of our heart

For the spirit of immortality
Wrestles with the ways of form
Tempting us with corporeality
As if it were the norm

There are hearts that surrender to this way
As long as we are here
While other hearts struggle with time itself
Certain that eternity is near

The struggling heart will not surrender
It crams eternity into space
Living life with all it has
And in its wake leaves waves of grace

It knows the way that flesh must go
But it and flesh are not the same
And on that day when the two must part
It receives that which is its to gain

The poem above was written by request for the Rev. Bruce MacKenzie Pastor Emeritus of the church I serve in Boulder, CO. “The way of all flesh” was a saying Bruce loved to say when referring to anything that is temporary in this world. At one visit I had with him before his passing he said to me, “Soon I will be going the way of all flesh, but you and I know that is nothing to be concerned with. So no tears.” I said to him, “Well we teach that Jesus wept when Lazarus died and he was just about to resurrect him, so I cry when you leave.” He laughed at that and changed the subject. Bruce’s body might have gone the way of all flesh. But though the outer man is beyond our seeing, the inner man remains eternally abiding.

There’s A World

December 17, 2016December 18, 2016 Higher Up IDEALS8 Comments

There’s a world we all are living in
But not everyone can see
A World of eternal spaciousness
Where everyone is free

Inside that world is another world
Where people choose to live a lie
“Special people”claim to know the Truth
And teach the “forgetting” we can die

Some of those people know the Truth
And twist it tight for so called gain
Telling us that we can’t get along
And that the Other causes pain

Their clarion call is “SAVE YOURSELF”
So that’s what many of us try to do
We can’t see it’s just a cattle call
And all they want to hear is “MOOOO”

They have no purpose if we’re not scared
“Can’t you see that there’s a threat?”
They know that we will sell our souls
Only as long as we’re fearing death

They tell you they’re here to protect us
That’s the job for which they’re paid
In exchange you can focus on other things
But you lose consciousness in the trade

The world of lies that we think is real
Does not objectively exist
Like a picture of a sumptuous meal
On which no one can subsist

Meanwhile in the eternal world
One is the Truth that always reigns
~~“divided houses”~~ do not exist
And there is no loss or gain

No one’s seeking for the joy in life
For Joy is the Cause of Life itself
And value isn’t used as we use it here
Since everything springs from eternal wealth

There also is never a use for Welcome
Because there’s never a time that we aren’t here
We can tell ourselves that we’ve gone away
But to Truth we’ve never disappeared

Like children with their hands on eyes
Who think they’re unseen when they can’t see
Here we can choose to chain ourselves
But that doesn’t make us less than free

We’re only bound by the limits that we project
Our own judgments become our jail
But our sentence is never for our entire life
Because the Truth always prevails