Category: Being

The Soul You Rob Is Your Own

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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!

© Copyright 2018 Pedro S. Silva II

 

 

 

 

How Close is God?

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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

© Copyright 2018 Pedro S. Silva II

The Visitation – Being a Healing Presence

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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

© Copyright 2018 Pedro S. Silva II

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

Spoken Wordless

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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 down.

© Copyright 2018 Pedro Silva

 

Into Your Hands

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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

© Copyright 2017 Pedro S. Silva II

The Way of All Flesh

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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

© Copyright 2016 Pedro S. Silva II

bruce-2The 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

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infinite-crisis-worlds1
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

The Truths Cannot Die

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The next time that you kill us
Remember we never really die
Suppressing us won’t free you
Because Truth can’t sustain a lie

I know our presence scares you
We make you feel unsure
Nothing can quite prepare you
For seeing your prejudice impure

You’ve been taught we’re inconvenient
You try to hide us from your view
But locking us up doesn’t keep us out
Since you can’t get away from you

Your history of violence
Towards those who look like me
Has left so many people silent
That we barely know how to be

You say that we are valued
And yet you try to hide the Truth
But there’s no escaping what’s evident
We are the living proof

But where does this knowledge leave us
For too many it ushers shame
The one thing no one wants to feel
Because we can’t escape the pain

See that’s not what we’re seeking
What we want to share is hope
But in our face you see a mirror
And hang the image from a rope

Your guilt too, is not of value
It’s just denial in different dress
Which leads to justification
Which fosters anger and unrest

So what is the solution?
Where do we go from here?
How can we live by a better Way,
When we hold on to our fear?

The answer is we cannot
We have to let love win
Or die in the darkness that we choose
And then do it all again

Fighting Over Crumbs

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All things to All things
Nothing is denied
But we’re fighting over bread crumbs
Because someone believed a lie

So now we kill each other
In our constant pursuit of more
We believe we are “consumers”
Because we don’t know what we’re for

Infinite Creation
Nothing more or less
But instead destruction follows us
When we put us to the test

Addicted to the thought of conquering
Sixty steps till we unlearn
That the truth of life is obvious
When we’re not looking for our turn

In the mean time there’s confusion
We’re told we have to choose a side
Contests between “us” and “them”
Where the winner doesn’t die

But what if someone told you
That everything is yours
And everything is everyone’s
And no one’s keeping score

The House is not divided
Upon the Rock is where it stands
Never to be shaken
By unreasonable demands

But because it can’t be broken
It won’t resist what it is we do
We can lie all the hell we want to
Because all of it’s untrue

Though we deny the Absolute
It simply continues as it is
Fully realized. No need to strive.
For it’s the life that we all Live

It’s the Bread that’s not devoured
Though we eat it to our fill
Diminishing every sense of loss
Like nothing ever will

 

Spontaneous Cypher

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Wonder where I’m coming from?

Let me get you up to speed.

If it’s true–God provides

What I want, I don’t need

Being less never is

In the One Source of All

But let the world tell it

We’re divided by our falls

Makes us so small

Man this grift amaze me

Used to say, “We all One”

But they called me, “Crazy”

Now to me it seems lately

It’s the Word of Truth

The lie of separation

Is now busting loose

Because I Am you are

One Light Two Stars

Shining inside out

So we never go too far

Well that’s about it

That’s All I want to say

Now that that’s off my chest

I bow down to pray.