Body – It's All In Me

This Is My Body

October 17, 2024 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

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

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.

I Always Feel Like Crying

February 18, 2020 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

I always feel like crying
But it doesn’t mean I’m sad
It means I’m paying attention
To the issues that we have

In my soul I see a vision
Oneness is our Way
But in my body I feel division
As I watch morality decay

I have prayed and prayed for comfort
But it seems it’s nowhere near
Until I accept that I can’t save this world
And release my brokenness with tears

I wish that I was stronger
But my weakness keeps me humble
I would love to never make mistakes
But I was put on earth to stumble

I see heaven’s door wide open
I call on all I see to enter
But I’m afraid that if I go in first
I’ll forget what I remember

I know that’s backward logic
But they say the first’s the last
So when I came here from the future
It was to finish off my past

I hope that I’m not losing you
By speaking in ways that are not clear
I just had to get this off my chest
In case I’m drowned out by my tears

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.

Life Without Hunger

May 17, 2015 Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

My body has just revealed the news

I’m not the only one who’s ever me

Others will walk in these tattered shoes

And see what I can see

Perhaps you’ll be attending

The event we call this person

And I’ll attend from the other side

Our situations now reversing

You will see I cannot be lonely

So far this has kept me away from you

Since the fear you have of abandonment

Has been guiding what you do

I also cannot be thirsty

And this will change the way you think

When realizing all that’s been cut too short

Every time you pause to take a drink

Plus you’ve been taught you die from hunger

It’s just their ploy to keep you filled

What I’ve found is that by running on empty,

The truth of who we are cannot be killed

At first this thought is frightening

But you cannot figure why

I say it’s because to you death is release

You have parts you want to die

Now you feel that death’s deceiving

You’re still you after it’s all over

Death’s not the escape you thought it was

You still have yourself to shoulder

It’s the cross you have to bear

Until you accept what we’re trying to tell you

Be an empty vessel or lose yourself

The very lesson of the deluge

In the midst of being nothing

You get the chance to see it all

Becoming everyone who ever was

Until you never had to fall

Then we’re standing face to face

You know the secret that can’t be told

Minus hunger we all are One

Emptied fullness reveals the soul

It’s the Life that has no hunger

Desiring nothing you are complete

Every step you take is a victory

No more suffering of defeat