Category: Transcendence

What Artists Reveal

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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

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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

Listen Once and For All

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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

Grief is a Midwife

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Grief is a midwife, giving birth to who we’d never be without loss’ seed.
Realizing that you’ll never again be who you used to be makes room for who you are becoming
So let yourself weep. Be emptied of who you’ve been
Because someone wiser, more capable, and more honest is waiting to emerge
Everything you held back, waiting for the right time can be released from its temporal prison
The time to be who you were created to be is always now
And yet, in the realm of human relating, there is always an order
First the mother and the father, then comes the child is the way it is written
But also true, is that before mother, father, or child took residence in the womb, they were wholly conceived and fully known in infinity
BEING from the beginning AND dwelling in time is the Spiritual reality of those who embrace the human reality that in this life we must learn to hold grief in one hand and joy in the other
So grieve as you must, tremble with the pangs of rebirth
It is the falling away of who you can no longer be
So that who you’ve always been can come to LIFE

© Copyright 2023 Pedro S. Silva II

In my last poem, Higher Dimensions, I mentioned that my friend, Bishop Carlton Pearson was sick. Well, a few days ago on November 19, he died. Since that moment, I have been going through the 5 Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. pretty much in exact order and quick succession.

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

I don’t know if I am going through them in an orderly fashion because I know of them or because they are natural. Either way, I am going through them without resistance and telling everyone that I am meeting up with in person during this holiday season that if I go in and out and look disinterested it is because I am grieving someone I felt very close to.

The Sixth Stage of Grief
The poem above is part of the lesser known sixth stage of grief by David Kessler, Finding Meaning. In the text below from Carlton, he was ministering to me in my grief about leaving ministry. But, I find that it is equally applicable for grieving him.

I have been holding back so much over the years because I didn’t feel like I could bear to relive the rejection I received from the Pentecostal church I was a part of years ago. I met Carlton in the height of his rejection and the scarring over of mine. For a season I had easy access to him because many in his life had turned on him. In that time, we talked out all we had endured and marveled at how our lives mirrored each other even down to both of our wives working for airlines and the adventure of flying on standby. It was kind of uncanny. What differed was that he still wanted to go back to the folks who rejected him and make plain what he had not fully been able to articulate at his dismissal. I did not. I only wanted to talk to people who indicated their openness. And that’s where our paths diverged.

Now that he’s gone in the body, I’ve been trying to make meaning of the last couple of years. He was way busier and folks who formerly rejected him started popping back in. He was terribly hurt by Trumpism and how easily evangelicals surrendered to this so called “strongman” and seemingly put him on par with the Christ Carlton loved so much. He was trying to reconcile how he gave so much of his life to that expression of Christianity and how in some ways he felt complicit in many folks, especially Black folks, believing such painful doctrine. He wanted to make up for it. And in that way, he was like a modern day Paul of Tarsus trying to preach his new understanding of Christ.

I totally understood AND I couldn’t get into it with people who didn’t want to meet even halfway. Twice in his life, he gave up everything for his love of God and people. The first time it almost cost him his life. The second time, it did.

Even though I foresee myself writing out a lot of words in my grief processing, words can’t begin to express the contribution this man has been to human evolution in consciousness. I predict that we’ll be discussing him for generations. As for now, I’m going to keep talking to him in my heart and writing my way into who I’m becoming.

Surviving Heartbreak

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Day 104 of 365

You finally gave your heart away
The recipient returned to sender
Now you don’t want to ever hurt again
So you’re incapable of surrender
You barely survived the heartbreak
You say you can’t do it again
But if you don’t keep putting your heart at risk
Love will never win
I know it’s a dilemma
I’ve known that pain myself
If the first person thought I was not enough
How can I ever trust someone else?
There’s some validity to that logic
No one wants to suffer
But putting ourselves out there despite the risk
Is how we find each other
Besides holding back doesn’t hurt the one
Who caused you so much pain
In the end you only hurt yourself
By not giving your heart to gain
You see every time you survive a heartbreak
Then get back in the saddle
You’re secretly becoming more like God
Whose Love will never lose a battle
Didn’t you know that while God’s watching us
God’s heart is always breaking
But Love always comes in and fills the gaps
In the midst of our forsaking
Imagine if most of your children
Lie and say they love you
But take the gifts you have to them
And put those very things above you
You try to teach them to use them wisely
They push you away and will not listen
Only thinking of themselves as usual
They take what’s One and cause division
So you send them Love’s instructors
But they won’t listen to them either
Instead they ignore or murder them
Then label them deceiver
Or worse they pretend to worship them
In order to make them something special
And when they fail to live like them
They blame it on the Devil
Any excuse that they can think of
To do what they want to do
Their only goal is simply to feel they’re right
To justify ignoring you
Meanwhile your heart is breaking
You feel like you’ll die inside
But you surrender because you know the Truth
And instantly you’re more alive
It’s the Mystery of the Heartbreak
By giving your Love you will get more
For Love is the gift that you received
That by faith is always restored

Image by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash

Lies Hurt

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Do we say, “the Truth hurts”,
Because we’re all a bunch of liars?
100 percent smoke
Zero percent fire
Addicted to desire
And other folks approval
Saying what they want
Is business as usual.
Programmed by patterns
Like an algorithm
Access to knowledge
But we’re lacking wisdom
Can’t make decisions
Because we’re scared to see clearly
That what we want to be real
Is actually nowhere nearly
We’re scared out of our wits
Because we know we’re dying
So we pay for distractions
Even if we know they’re lying
And there’s no denying
But it’s all we do
Because we’re afraid to be hurt
By the One and only thing that’s true.

© Copyright 2022 Pedro S. Silva II

Indescribable Impetus

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You will ask me how I got here
In reality, I do not know
I surrendered to my brokenness
What you see now is emergent flow
It is not a part of Creation
Since it was before things are
The zero point of beingness
Collapsing distance from what seemed far
Be still and then you’ll know
Has nothing to do with stopping
Just as rising from the fall
Is not a consequence dropping
It is more like finally arriving
To the place I never left
By getting to the “other side”
Through borrowing another’s death
Now coming back to life
I choose to live like I’m twice born
Reinhabiting an incarnation
Through the veil that has been torn
Now when looking through the windows
I see what cannot be described
To those who breathe like they are living
But have yet to come alive
This is now the indescribable impetus
For everything that’s coming through
My actions coming from inaction
A human being before I do.

© Copyright 2022 Pedro S. Silva II

You can listen to this poem on Pedro’s Poetry Podcast.

Desparation

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If I had a dollar for every time we say, 

“If I had a dollar”

I’d have enough

To never even bother

I’d buy a private island

In a land faraway 

Take every single dollar

And give it all away

I’d be the poorest and the richest

And no one else would know

Buried my treasure in the sand

To see if it grows

Then in a state of desperation

For all that I have lost

I will hold myself for ransom

To see how much I cost

We weren’t born for this 

But still we do it daily

We let the world we created

Drive us crazy

“I choose the lie over life

Believing it will save me”

Is the thought

Of the emotionally lazy

You’ve been lied to

How is it possible you can’t see this?

It wasn’t God

Who created us to be this

To the One we are Beloved

It’s our Name from the Beginning

It’s believing otherwise

That’s the Genesis of sinning

Desperation

How did we get this way?

It defeats the very purpose

Every time we try to pray

I can’t stand it

How many times can we be told?

You can’t serve two masters

And the worst of them is gold

©️ Copyright 2021 Pedro S. Silva II

Miss You While You’re Here

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Lately I’ve been thinking about
All the moments that we missed
When we’re younger we think we have plenty of time
And don’t think about stuff like this

We put so much off until later
But what if later never comes?
All tomorrows repeats of yesterdays
The future setting like the sun

I’m not ready yet to miss you
When I know that you’re right here
There’s so much I wanted to give you
Before my chances disappeared

Now it hurts that we talk almost everyday
And yet we never talk at all
Or that I battle with all these tempting thoughts
Not to answer when you call

Of course I want to be here for you
But it seems this is always where we’ve been
You telling me about how hard it is
While I listen on the other end

I look back and feel like a failure
I wish I could’ve spared you from some pain
But the best I can do is be a witness
And pray for something else to change

I still have hope that you’ll get better
That perfect love will cast out fear
But for now I’ll be grateful for what we have
Because I don’t want to miss you while you’re here
© Copyright 2020 Pedro S. Silva II

I wrote this poem as I started to think about how many conversations I have with my mom are about how to make it from month to month. We talk everyday. Sometimes multiple times a day. But rarely are our conversations about thing that I would like us to talk about. Because of all of the stress over the past few years, there has been a strain on the relationship. I’ll be honest and say that often I am acting like I am her parent rather than the other way around. I want her to be safe and make decisions for her well-being. I know how hard she tried to be whatever and whoever she felt she needed to be to make sure we survived growing up. That took a toll on her. And I know that she had huge dreams–most of which never got fulfilled. This is a wound in her heart.

She always told me that she wanted to leave my brothers and I with a legacy. What she meant was money. That hasn’t happened and it saddens her. She apologizes for not being in a better financial situation and asks me to believe in her that she can still pull it off. I want to believe, but… And now that I am witnessing her forgetting so much and yet still holding out hope for a miracle or for her “ship to come in” as she says, I feel a twinge of regret.  I ask myself, “If I knew we were going to end up here anyway, what would I have done differently?”

At first, I told myself I would’ve stayed in the military so that I would have my retirement right now and I could be working another job to provide for her. But then I look at my wife and kids and know that I had to take the course I did.  I then think that I should’ve chosen a more lucrative profession than being a pastor. But then, I was having a conversation with a guest at the church who is experiencing homelessness and watching members of the congregation–to include children–serving food and sitting with our homeless neighbors and I thought, “I am glad to be in this moment.” And then I thought, well maybe I was called to be a pastor for a season, but now that my mom needs me, I need to move on and do something else because my responsibilities demand it. And then I prayed and I felt the spirit moving me to be honest about how hard this is and to tell my friends. And so I did. And they stepped in and blessed my family and gave me room to breathe so I could figure out how to make the next best move for my mom. They showed me the truth of the teaching that says, “[God’s] strength is made perfect in our weakness.”

And so then in that space, I asked God what I could do differently for my mom. And in my soul’s language I heard, “Don’t miss her while she is still here. Because that’s what you’ve been doing. If you want to have different conversations with her, change the subject. Talk about the things that you wish you could talk to her about. If she misses it and repeats something else she just said, tell her you love her. Tell her your dreams and maybe she’ll get joy in knowing that she is a part of them. Have an unreasonable belief in miracles because you never know what might happen. And don’t forget, you are not in this alone.”

So if you are reading this, what my soul spoke into my life, I speak into yours. There are so many things in life that can distract us from the moments we are in–something to tempt us to forget that there is always the possibility of great beauty around the corner. In my weakness, I found strength in hitting my limits and reaching out. My hope is that in sharing what I am learning, it is blessing you all too.

With true love,

Pedro

My Creator

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You are the Love of my Life
And the Life in my love.
Every love poem I write to You
Has been plagiarized from Your Heart.
Though words cannot contain You or express You,
You have endless names
So that anyone who will
Can know the satisfaction of calling on You.
But Named or not,
We cannot beckon You to come where You’ve never left.
You are always here.
The places we go where we cannot find You do not exist.
As the Psalmist wrote,
“When I awake, I am still with You.”
Am I still with You?
I must be.
Or I would not be writing words that only Love can speak.
Am I awake?
I must be.
Or I am dreaming the only thing worth dreaming—
That You are the Love of my Life
And the Life in my love.