The Truths Cannot Die

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

Our Guardian Whose Art Is Heaven

Our Guardian Whose Art is Heaven

On this and every other plane

Thanks for calling us into being

And holding us in Your Name

We seek to find your Kingdom

We live for it to come

A world beyond division

Where all are known as One

A place of infinite creation

Where all that’s good will last

Our future and our hope

Without the burdens of the past

Thy will for us is done

By Your Heaven born Design

As soon as we surrender

And walk the narrow line

By Your Word You feed us daily

With everything we need

Satisfying Holy hungers

That this world could never feed

You share the joy of Your forgiveness

By instructing we do it too

Forgiving others when they trespass

For they know not what they do

This frees us from temptation

From error we’re delivered

We enter into the Kingdom

When we imitate the Giver

In that State we behold Your Glory

And Your unassuming Power

That’s been our Light in a world of darkness

Preparing us for our hour

You’ve been creating us in Your Image

Though invisible it may be

Teaching us to practice the Art of Heaven

That only opened eyes can see

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

Everything and Then Some

When someone asks you to prove your love,

You better prepare to die

Anything less is just holding back

In this beholder’s eye

Though they do not think they’re worthy

They want you to make them feel they are

But no matter how much you offer them

They won’t believe it without your scars

They want to see you bleed

They want you to give it all away

How much your heart has love for them

Is the last thing they demand you say

Your last words should be a testament

To how much they mean to you

But they’ll find a reason to doubt it

No matter what you do

On them the sun should rise

On them the sun should set

Give yourself to anything else

And their whole world will be upset

Even if it’s your own children

Or your faith in your religion

Any focus that is not on them

In their minds will cause division

They will say it’s because they love you

But this can’t be further from the truth

Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from love

Is that it never asks for proof

It gives with no thought of getting

It’s sole hope is that we receive

And even after we’ve denied it thrice

We find Love is the One who grieves

Abandoned and abused

Love still keeps us in its prayers

Compelling us to fulfillment

While we are focused on other cares

Love is so relentless

That it will even refuse to die

Coming back to bless its murderers

Despite this fact we still deny

Love forgives us before we seek it

Keeps its promises while we’re debating

And when we arrive in the hells that we create

We find Love is right there waiting

 

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

After the Walls Come Down

Walls now crumbled, things start shifting

No one can deceive you

You find yourself where you always were

But no one will believe you

You tell them your new story

Because in Truth you know it’s theirs

In the Mind of God where we live and move

Death has no power there

Resurrection is a promise

Because no one ever dies

Once they choose to live the Life

Which reveals that Love abides

Now you’d think that this was good news

And the simplest of decisions

But soon you see that’s not the case

When people have the habit of division

At first you understand it

Since you were living by those rules

But once it became so clear to you

You start to think of them as fools

How could they not get it?

Can’t they see that we’re all One

That there’s no such thing as separation

When we focus on the Son

But no one you’re telling wants to hear it

Especially not from you

“Suddenly you’re so high and mighty.”

“We know what you used to do.”

“Don’t act like you’re so holy.”

“Remember the way you used to be.”

“Then you go and find religion.”

“Now you stand here judging me.”

You try to tell them you’re not judging

And that religion is not what guides you

It’s just that now you see the Truth

That all our lives we have been lied to

This is bigger than religion

The Truth is so much more

Religion is a roadmap to the Center

But it can’t take you to the Core

When you see it you can’t forget it

It transforms your entire life

Now you’re willing to surrender everything

For the Pearl of greater price

You’ll let go of all attachments

To receive what God’s ordained

But you never thought in doing so

Your relations would be strained

But now it’s starting to hit you

The Truth does not always bring accord

That’s what Yeshua was trying to tell us

When he said he came to bring a sword

This is rarely preached in churches

For this fact we don’t prepare you

When people just want you to join the club

We fear that it will scare you

We try to tell you of the joys

But forget about the costs

Which is natural when we choose our words

From a paradigm of loss

You see the connections we think we’re losing

Are ones that never did exist

Who they accepted was a false us

That’s why the true us gets dismissed

But we shouldn’t take it personally

It’s not the real you they’re rejecting

They doing what the ego does

It’s the false them they’re protecting

To do this they will attack you

Your temptation is to get them back

Which insanely makes them happy

Since it seems to keep the lie intact

Yesh says, “Pick up your cross and bear it.”

“Come and follow me.”

“The Truth is that since we’re all One

If you get lifted they get free.”

“I know that it’s a mystery.”

“But as I told you it is Light.”

“Being low is the way to go

If you’re to see the highest heights.”

“But you cannot take them with you.”

“Still you must give the invitation,

So they can see how much they’re loved

And perhaps surrender separation.”

“While you can’t control the outcome,

You’ve power over what you give.”

“So while they may not see it now,

One day they’ll remember how you lived.”

“They’ll know you lived forgiveness.”

“They’ll see you knew what you were worth.”

“That you saw yourself as a child of God

Despite the conditions of your birth.”

“And perhaps that will be the trigger.”

“That they can live forgiveness too.”

“But in the meantime you must show them,

By forgiving what they do.”

 

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

 

See 1 John 4 for perspective.

The End of All Seeking

At the end of all your seeking
You find what wasn’t lost
And that you’ve paid the greatest price
For that which had no cost

You’ve died at least 10,000 deaths
But now you die no more
And killed at least fifty times as much
Thinking God is keeping score

You’ve traveled in and out of time
In your aims to conquer space
And now you see there’s no here or there
To see outside your face

At first this thought disturbs you
“How could this ever be?
All those times I killed to live
I was only killing me.”

Where are all your enemies
Oh soul that thinks you know?
The Ways of God are past understanding
Where thoughts divided cannot flow.

All the chaos you created
To prove that you are you
A self that is not Self Itself
A being not quite True

Then through the gate one final time
Your exits now have ceased
Once again you’re One again
For you refuse to feed the Beast

You made the One Decision
That undoes the first divide
The incision in your vision
That appears as polar sides

And now you see what “He” sees
Why He does what He has to do
And now you’re saying with Him
“Father forgive them for what’s untrue.”

“No one has ever harmed me.”
Darkness does not conquer light.
Who I am in God is True
Now vision usurps sight

We are something like Eternal
We are before we were
The plank no longer in your eye
Free from time distorted blur

Now go and tell a brother
A sister or a friend
That All is One and they are It
No more occasion for our sin

Of course some will condemn you
No longer special will they be
When they hear that what they thought was theirs
Is not real in Unity

But secretly you love this
In Heaven’s realm you’ve found your treasure
No longer striving, all is yours
In the Truth We are Together

Now no longer seeking
For there’s nothing left to find
We see that Truth is never hidden
For there’s no space outside the Mind

Let’s stop seeking for that which cannot be lost.

© Copyright 2015 Pedro S. Silva II

Lamentations On Forgiveness

You tell me to forgive them
But sometimes it’s so hard
To let go of some of the things that people do
You’d have to be a god

If I loved them and I healed them
And then they turned on me
It’d be better for them if I stayed dead
Because they’d never get away from me

I could not have your power
And deal with what you did
And yet I say I follow you
Who am I trying to kid?

That’s why I still need you to hold me
To keep me in your embrace
To lift me when I can’t lift myself
And shower me with your grace

The above poem pretty much sums up why I seek Christ.  Rather than being an original part of the book, it was actually written to accompany a sermon I did based on the words, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  I’ve been meditating on those words for over 30 years. Ever since I realized that my brother and my fighting would never end as long as I kept hitting him back, I have been using those words as the kind of “true north” of my conscience and my consciousness.  Whenever I find myself agitated and incapable of saying those words, then I know I have some more work to do on myself.  Even though I hate the idea of a crucified savior of the world or even the fact that God’s world needs saving at all, I cannot deny my experience that people do great harm to one another and that most of it is cyclical. I’ve seen many hurt people hurt people.  Some people are so used to being hurt that they live in anticipation of it, often see it when it isn’t even there, and may even go so far as to push others to hurt them in order to confirm the only reality that they have ever known.  I know this first hand and in my experience the idea of Jesus saying, “I am no longer going to contribute to this cycle.” through his willingness to forgive has been the only thing to really work effectively in my own walk.

As the poem demonstrates, I still get stuck on some issues.  Especially since becoming a father, I have found that I need to ramp up my forgiveness practice more and more.  I do not anticipate getting to a point where I will no longer need to work on this, because new things show up everyday.  I am not just talking about things in my personal life.  I see it as my job to forgive anything that disturbs me–anything that agitates my soul and tempts me to look away from the world that Jesus saw where God loves those who do evil with the same love as those who do what we call good.  I should say that I am not delusional, thinking that the world is going to become some utopia where people will be singing happy songs and there will be no pain and yet I work toward it because I am certain that the alternative is less promising.  We already know what doesn’t work in this world.  And yet we still do it.  So the way I see it, is that forgiveness is the most viable option.

So as hard as it can seem sometimes, I am committed to the practice.  But I should say, that forgiveness doesn’t mean anything goes and that there are no efforts to correct those who harm.  In my practice, it simply means that people who do evil are ignorant.  I forgive their ignorance and clean myself from using my pain to justify my reactions.  If I do that then I am doing nothing other than justifying whatever harm they cause based on their pain.  It is a cycle.  So what I do instead is to seek forgiveness first.  Then out of that space, I will take the corrective actions that are in my power to perform.  Hopefully I am working out of inspiration so that I can trust that whatever I do is born of the love out of which the person/offender is created.  The hope is that what I offer helps wake the person up to their own inner reality.  If you’ve ever dealt with someone on drugs who is detoxing, you know that helping them can take a lot of forgiveness and that in order to keep them straight, you sometimes have to look like a real a**hole to get them to see the harm they are doing to themselves and others.  The whole point is that whatever you do is out of love and toward that persons healing.  Surgery could be another good analogy where you look to hurt someone when it is for their own good.  Forgiveness can often manifest like spiritual surgery. It starts by working on yourself which then prepares you to work for others. That’s how I work with Jesus.  I see him as the forgiveness master that undoes the cycle of pain perpetuating pain.  When I get hurt I turn to him.  It helps to draw me out of myself and toward that higher way of being that he offers.  No matter how much I feel sorry for myself sometimes for being the person taking responsibility for forgiveness in some situations, I know that it is the Way.  Ultimately it is all I have to offer.