Solitude and Desolation

 

Solitude And Desolation

An Introduction

Looking back, one specific year in my life has been more transformational than any other. To be more precise, it was a thirteen month period from late August,1994 through late September,1995. During that time, three major events conspired to lay what has proved to be the bedrock for a path I have been forging ever since. I have already written about two of those events.

The first was reading a book called The Way of a Pilgrim in August of 1994. In it an anonymous mendicant pilgrim travels 19^th century Ukraine, Russia, and Siberia learning about and saying The Jesus Prayer. This short prayer, said repetitively, was first practiced centuries before by the Desert Fathers in response to an exhortation from St. Paul to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). While reading the book, I began saying the prayer and continued saying it for the next sixteen years. Along the way, I came to know it as a mantra. Twice have I changed mine (a brief history and commentary about that can be found in the 5-7-5 Daily Haiku archive for the dates of March 16-18, 2023). Other references are scattered throughout the Daily Haiku archive. More importantly, repeating my mantra as unceasingly as I am able has underpinned my interior life and nourished me from the day I began it to this one.

The second event unfolded over the course of the thirteenth months and consisted of a series of thoughts that came to me and have stayed with me. I call them The Eleven Sayings. I write about them in the About… section of 5-7-5 under the heading The Eleven Sayings. The haiku inspired by them appear in the Archives under the same name. The Sayings continue to serve as guide posts on my path, always marking the way.

The third event was the special journal I kept, starting on December 3, 1994 and ending on September 14, 1995. I say special because it contains little about my life circumstances at that time, recording instead quotes from my current reading, my reflections and observations about them, and what was happening in my interior life. During this time I was a devout Catholic. I no longer am. I believed in a conceptual God, the God about whom I had been taught and whom I had accepted. I no longer do. I do not denigrate those beliefs today. I respect those who hold to them. I simply have no concept of God nor desire to have one. What is the same is the path that was being forged and inexorably brought me to where I am today. While journaling, I approached and then entered the void, stepping into groundlessness, leaning to live without purpose, coming to being only being.

From such a place I embark on these haiku, having no idea what the journal will inspire. The journal itself has a title, Solitude and Desolation, taken from the fifth of The Eleven Sayings.

Live the life of solitude and desolation

live it today

I will show you

be silent

Since the journal is unpublished, for those who want to read the source upon which the haiku are based, I am going to publish it here, unabridged, unedited, just as it was written. I do so with some trepidation. It contains my innermost thoughts and this presents me with feelings of vulnerability and of being exposed. What will people think? They will think what they think, that’s what. As to logistics, the journal and haiku will be be published in concert. First I will transcribe the journal entry for the day with its date; then I will write the haiku that it inspires, posting them both on the same day. If the past is any indication of how the project will unfold, I will not be surprised if it takes more than one day to publish all the haiku inspired by one entry. At the end of some of the entries there might be listed a book or maybe more. These are not footnotes They are simply noting what book or books I was reading at the time. With that, I will being…

Solitude and Desolation

A Journal

(December 3, 1994 – September 20, 1995

 

December 3, 1994

Teach me to go to the country beyond words and beyond names. (Thomas Merton)

And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion.  It is wordless.  It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept.  Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity.  My dear brothers, we are already one.  But we imagine that we are not.  And what we are to recover is our original unity.  What we are to be is what we are. (Thomas Merton, quoted in The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton)

It has been more than two years since I have written in a journal.  September 8, 1992, was my last entry.  I remember why I stopped.  I was still intellectualizing, and I wanted to move toward “no think,” to step aside and let God speak.  All this time I have been moving that way.  I try not to think deeply about spiritual matters – trying to figure them out. For a long time I practiced “thinking in tongues,” which is nothing more than mental babbling. It worked.  I learned not to think, trusting blindly that God would let me know anything I needed to know.  And He did.  All the time.  Things – truths – would just come to me.  I was careful not to write down any of them or even to remember them.  They became a part of me.
 

Now I say The Jesus Prayer – all the time even while working or holding a conversation.  If I awake in the night, I say it almost immediately.

 

                                   Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy

I want to lose myself.  I want to be totally focused – but not intellectually – on God.  I don’t want to receive anything back.  I just want to do it for no reason at all, just like God does.  Why does God love me?  Because for no reason.

I don’t really know why I am writing again.  I don’t want to analyze it.  It is another way of being aware of God’s presence.
_________________________
The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott
Chuang Tsu – Inner Chapters translated by Gia Fu Feng and Jane English

 

 

 December 6, 1994

 

A path is formed by walking it. (Chuang Tsu, Page 30)

Two things have become more clear.  First, in reading the biography of Thomas Merton, I was introduced to Lady Julian of Norwich and am now reading her Showings  or at least its introduction, which goes on for 119 pages.

In the introduction, the editors write of Julian's "visions" and of her "locutions."  Before I began reading about this, I experienced two distinct locutions, both on Thursday morning.  This is also the day I decided to resume writing a journal, though at the time I didn't understand why I should undertake it at this particular time.

What I see now is that I have come to the place where I must admit that I am receiving direct communications from God.  Even as I write these words I sense my intellect mocking me, sneering at what it regards as my foolishness or spiritual pride or religiosity.  No matter.  I am a fool.  I am glad to be a fool.  I have long realized that it is futile to try to figure out God, to finally "understand" Him.  Whatever truth I am to know about God, it is going to come from Him.  It is going to come directly, without any conjuring on my part and without being processed by conscious self, even though, obviously from what I have received so far, it will at times surface to conscious awareness in some physical form - but not always.

I will delay writing about these experiences I have had since Thursday, waiting until I have more time - and perhaps to see if the passage of time dilutes them.

For now I can see that this writing is necessary to give an outlet for speaking honestly and straightforwardly about these things without revealing them to anyone else until that is called for - if ever it is.

_________________________
Julian of Norwich - Showings, edited by Colledge & Walsh

 December 7, 1994

 

The first locution came to me just as I was receiving the Eucharist.  Christ said, I will give you the answer at the right time.

I know this was in regard to [name withheld], who was angry with me at the time for telling her she had not been honest and was being deceptive in dealing with her fears.

Later, while I was walking, Christ again spoke very clearly, saying, Follow me deeper.

I know this is what I must do.  Abandon myself more than ever before, cast aside and leave behind my feeble efforts at being good, thrusting myself entirely on His mercy.  Even when I feel that it is brash to do so, I must walk beyond my failures, in the very midst of them, and look to Jesus with the trust, not of a child, but of an infant who is totally incapable of taking even rudimentary care of himself.

 

Then on Monday, during Mass, I was given wordless understanding - nonintellectual knowledge -  of an aspect of Jesus that I had never known - or even considered.  i saw clearly that not only had Christ abandoned Himself as a man for me - His humanity - but He had at the very same time abandoned His divinity.  He actually became nothing!  The mystery is incomprehensible and yet clearly the truth.  Somehow, not only did He suffer and die as a man - that I can visualize - but He actually died as God!  That I cannot fathom.  No wonder he cried out on the cross, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me!  He was utterly desolate.  God Who is all knowing, all powerful, and eternal is reduced to being less than a worm.  He is a dead worm.  And for what?  For me!

 

How can I balk at my calling?  How can I hold back?  In the face of God's radical action, can I settle for the conventional?  I must plunge beyond peace and joy and serenity.  These are false gods - they are the most subtle of temptations.  After all, what was in it for Jesus?  To do the Will of His Father?  Yes, but what did He get out of it while He was doing it?  Nothing.  Worse than nothing.  He lost - gave up actually - both His human and His divine life.  Need I ask what is expected of me?  Follow me deeper.  How deep?  What is deep?  Where?  I don't know.

 December 8, 1994

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

 

Yesterday, right after writing the words, “How deep? What is deep? Where,” I read the following from Chuang Tsu:

Among the ancients, knowledge was very deep. What is meant by deep? It reached back to the time when nothing existed. It was so deep, so complete, that nothing could be added to it. Then came men who distinguished between things but did not give them names. Later they labeled them but did not choose between right and wrong. When right and wrong appeared, Tao declined.

This morning I could not get through more than two pages of the introduction to Julian. Affirmations and insights just kept exploding off the pages. Some instances:

Prayer is on our part the simple realization and acknowledgment that God is for us and we are for God. (Editors, Page 62, italics mine)

This is exactly what came to me during the first six month of 1992 and has stayed with me ever since as one of the foundation truths that direct my life:

You are

I am

Together

This moment

Then, in reading about Julian’s familiarity with the spiritual senses, for time I actually tasted the sweetness of God about which I have read in so many writing – Song of Songs, St. John of the Cross, the Little Flower. I remembered later old Brother Mel from [name of organization withheld] skittering around, his eyes always twinkling, and saying to anyone who was with earshot, Sweet, sweet Jesus … Sweet, sweet Jesus. God filled my mouth and flowed down my throat into my stomach in an unfolding, smooth, and delicious warmth.

Next, the editors spoke of Julian’s teaching that contemplative prayer for us must be seeking, suffering and trusting under the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I know this to be true, for that is what my life has been these past three years. But, although I have told others that the mere seeking of God is the most sincere prayer we can pray, I had not really attributed this to myself.

Then there was this beautiful insight about her prayer: I saw him and sought him, I had him and lacked him (Ibid.,Page 63). What a wonderful, clear expression of how I have God and have Him not, see Him and see Him not.

From St. Bernard of Clairvoux: You would not seek me, had you not found me (Ibid., Page 63).

All during this time, I had the sensation of being around in the activity of the Trinity. But the whirlwind was not violent – or at least I was not swept up so. I floated and drifted like a feather in soft breeze. Yet the activity – the divine activity – was no gentle breeze. It was not restrained at all. No, it was vital, powerful, wondrous.

And throughout this time which was almost thoughout the hour preceding Mass, my intellect kept trying to hold me back, but my soul was bold and kept breaking the bonds of self, refusing to be contained in the prison of my mind.

_________________________
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana

 December 9, 1994

Some thoughts:

On the day of George Washington’s inauguration it might have rained in Arizona.

My prayer is so serious a matter that I cannot take seriously my distractions.

Observation:

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can see the cross on my wall painted in light on the backs of my eyelids.

Last night, at the French Alliance Christmas party, I found myself standing among a group of [name withheld]’s friends from Corpus Christi parish and had nothing to say. So I was thinking, “I’ll just stand here saying nothing and maybe they will think I’m holy.” Such depressing nonsense. So puffed up with spiritual pride.

This morning I feel nothing. No closeness to God at all. I don’t like it, but I prefer it to fervor. In this state, I see things closer to what they are. I see clearly my illusions about holiness, exposed under the glare of my faults. Feeling abandoned by God is also an opportunity to experience a little of what Jesus endured for me. He, too, felt forsaken but to a degree He will never subject me.

From Chuang Tsu:

There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning. There is no beginning of that no beginning of beginning. There is something. There is nothing. But between something and nothing, I still don’t really know which is something and nothing. Now, I’ve just said something, but I don’t really know whether I’ve said something or not (Page 35).

December 11, 1994

Yesterday I saw a billboard that depicted a smiling mother and child. Superimposed on the picture were the words, Happiness and Human Health Care Systems. On of the most insidious messages that hawk daily at me is that which equates laughter and smiles with happiness. When I see someone laughing or smiling, I do not know if they are happy. I only know that they are laughing or smiling.

Morality does not truly spring from not wanting to “offend God.” Morality – right action – truly springs from desiring union with ourselves in God, where truly we exist, and in being sensitive to those actions which open or close that union.

If I try to escape emptiness, I run from God, for, in trying to fill up the emptiness, I push out God. This is because God is nothing – Nothing – which pure spirit must be. This, which I have known deeper than intellect, is now surfacing. Then, yesterday I read this:

...in Zen enlightenment, the discovery of the “original face before you were born” is the discovery not tht one sees Buddha but that one is Buddha and that Buddha is not what the images in the temple had led one to expect; for there is no longer any image, and consequently nothing to see, no one to see it, and a void in which no image is even conceivable. “The true seeing,” said She Hui, “is when there is no seeing. (Birds of Appetite,” Page 12)

Interesting quote from Thomas Merton on Karl Barth who protested again calling Christianity a “religion” and vehemently denied that Christian faith could be understood as long as it was embedded in social and cultural structures. (Ibid., Pages 11-12)

_________________________
Zen and the Birds of Appetite, by Thomas Merton

December 12, 1994

All thought is the same. All of it keeps me from communion with God. All is self consciousness. In this sense, there are no “good” or “bad” thoughts. All of them are best ignored, when not needed for earthly living.

Things are serious only in relation to other things. For example, it is a serious matter if I do not go to the office today only because I have an agreement with my employer to do so. In this way, going to the office is very serious indeed. In itself and of itself, however, going to the office is not serious at all. It is all right for me to go to the office because doing so does not fill my emptiness, not unless I want or allow it to. When going to the office begins to fill up my emptiness, I must stop going to the office.

December 13, 1994

Thought – any thought, bad or good – stands between God and me, because all thought by its nature puts me in self consciousness. Only when I am empty of thought can I be said to be God conscious. But rather than to fight thought, which results in me being even more self conscious, it is better to relegate it to its true place – petty, non-consequential, a gnat in the mind buzzing around the manure heap inside.

To be removed from mystery is to be removed from God, for as long as I comprehend, I am merely comprehending myself.

How divinely irrationally rational is the Eucharist! What I see is not, and what I do not see is. Could one of the reasons Christ gives Himself to us in the Eucharist be to give us as well a glimpse into His divine nature?

If right is indeed right, there need be no argument about how it is different from wrong. If being is really being, there need be no argument about how it is different from non-being. Forget time; forget distinction. Enjoy the infinite; rest in it. (Chuang Tzu, Page 46)

But on the day George Washington was inaugurated was no Arizona. True. And there still isn’t.

December 14, 1994

Be now.

For a while this morning, “being now” was sadness in remembering how, exactly 30 years ago, I was using [name withheld], who was not too bright and who was dumpy and vulnerable. I was engaged to her with no intention of marrying her. As soon as I arrived in the Philippines in January of 1965, I wrote her a Dear John letter. I was cruel.

God is showing me the way to rest in His mystery without having to do away with thought. I am learning it is not necessary not to think, only to relegate thought – me – to its true perspective in relation to what is most real. Whether or not there are thoughts, no matter what their content, they are like the air around me, all over, there but of no consequence to what is going on. Air is. Thoughts are. God is. I am. Being in the now, contemplating God, resting in Him, is something like sitting on a still hillside, with nothing to break the peace, a gentle, not too warm and not too cool breeze caressing my cheek, with no pressure to do anything else, be anywhere else, feel anything else, think anything else, not wishing. Whole. Enclosed.

December 20, 1994

It has been a rough few days, most of it spent at [name withheld]’s. The chaos, or my perception of it, is disturbing. I don’t feel centered. It is difficult to maintain an awareness of God, and I get sucked into the drama of their lives much too easily. The old need to take control becomes very strong, even after leaving them. I can only trust more and abandon myself to God because it is obvious how weak I am. In that sense, it was and is good for me to be in such a foreign environment, because it reveals to me my fragile spirituality when I am depending on myself and gives me an opportunity to see how strong it is when I depend on God.

I have been receiving a variation from a past message received on Easter Monday morning, 1992: instead of Rest in the Mysteries I have been hearing Life in the Mysteries or Live in the Mysteries, exactly which I am not sure. Once, I heard Get mixed up in the Mysteries.

From Merton in Zen and the Birds of Appetite:

...if revelation is regarded simply as a system of truths about God and an explanation of how the universe came into existence, what will eventually happen to it, what is the purpose of Christian life, what are its moral norms, what will be the rewards of the virtuous, and so on, then Christianity is in effect reduced to a world view, at times a religious philosophy and little more, sustained by a more or less elaborate cult, by a moral discipline and a strict code of law. “Experience” of the inner meaning of a Christian revelation will necessarily be distorted and diminished in such a theological setting. What will such an experience be? Not so much a living theological experience of the presence of God in the world and in mankind through the mystery of Christ, but rather a sense of security in one’s own correctness which is based on the reflex awareness that one holds the correct view of the creation and purpose of the world and that one’s behavior is of a kind to be rewarded in the next life… (Pages 85-86)

December 21, 1994

What does it take to become a marathon runner? Training? Proper diet? Good equipment? Technique? No, none of these. To become a marathon runner, one need only run in a marathon.

I spent an hour or so with [name withheld] yesterday. I feel myself getting impatient with those I sponsor. They want answers. They want to analyze. I am tired of both.

I feel spiritually desolate. I’m glad. I don’t want to feel good. I don’t trust that. It is full of self. Now, I think I see myself more truly – self seeking, afraid, proud, self righteous. I don’t feel holy and that’s good. I just want to trust God for no reason at all. It would be best that God game me no spiritual consolation whatsoever – except I don’t know what is best so I don’t need to desire not feeling holy either. Just be.

I have no desire to convince others to believe in God. I don’t subscribe to the “when you have something good, you want to share it with others” school of thought. God is speaking to everyone, everywhere, all the time. They can listen. Does this mean I don’t love them? That I don’t love God? I don’t know, but I don’t think it does. I know God speaks to me. Sometimes I listen. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I hear Him. Sometimes I don’t. Is that your fault?

December 22, 1994

You have not yet given all. This is what God said to me this morning at Mass.

Yesterday my application for an apartment for [name withheld] was turned down because my record showed a felony. I was hurt and felt sad. I am still sad, but I also see that I was using the apartment as a means to give me leverage to “make” [names withheld] behave. The incident did show me how much I am still holding back, but not until I heard those words this morning: You have not yet given all.

Lord, this Christmas may I go farther, dig deeper, open my heart ever more and give all, lose all, dare all.

December 28, 1994

Peace does not come from being filled with answers but rather from being emptied of questions.

The Christmas holidays are over, at least the part that holds most people’s attention for a few weeks. The time spent with [name withheld] – or more correctly, at [name withheld]’s – was tough. [Name withheld] is completely alienated from any reality outside a pathetic romance in which he has invested his whole being. He has no life outside of that. Very sad. [Name withheld] is lost in herself and uses sentimentality to sweeten the bitterness of her emptiness. My time with [name withheld], on the other hand, was priceless. What a neat person she is, despite how much she protests that her life is a disaster. Actually, her life might be a disaster. My life is a disaster. The truth is – whatever our circumstances – the person somehow does shine through.

Christmas night, as I began to doze off, I pictured the baby Jesus, not as the usual blonde two-year old of statues and pictures, but as a red-faced, wrinkled, closed-eyed, crying infant who wanted to be nursed by his mother, and I thought of Him throwing up and pooping – all the things babies do. Somehow that brought to me a greater realization of how radical was the act of God becoming man. Thinking of Christ as a grown man, even nailed to the cross, gives me the feeling that He was still always in control. But thinking of Him as a messy, helpless newborn is more impressive to me of his true humanity.

...We who say we do not know God but only love Him and believe in him are the ones who are most able to know God. (Nishido Kitaro in Zen and the Birds of Appetite, Page 150)

If my heart can become pure and simple like that of a child, I think there probably can be no greater happiness than this. (Ibid.)

Or, as Christ put it, Trust me when I tell you that whoever does not accept the kingdom of God as a child will not enter it. (Luke 18:17)

What does this say about intellectual knowledge, about logic, about reasoning? My arguments against simple faith (trust) are no more than futile attempts to hold on to the primacy of self whose lifeblood is thought.

December 29, 1994

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the Lord. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after these days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsman how to know the Lord. All, from the least to the greatest, shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more. (Jeremiah, 31:31-34)

It is difficult these days not to wish evil on [name withheld] and, to a lesser extent, on [name withheld] for their behavior. Yet my course is clear – love them, pray for their awakening, trust in God, live in the moment, see the beauty of my life. In the end, this situation is already a blessing, driving me deeper into God.

After reading the above, I read the following from Chuang Tsu:

The Master (Lao Tsu) came because it was time. He left because he followed the natural law. Be content with the moment, and be willing to follow the flow; then there will be no room for grief or joy. In the old days this was called freedom from bondage. The wood is consumed but the fire burns on, and we do not know when it will come to an end. (Page 59)

Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Page 40)

December 30, 1994

Two days after returning to stillness, much of the oppression of being embroiled in the behaviors of [name withheld] and [name withheld] has been lifted. The lesson is stark: I leave the stillness only at the risk of losing my center. Whether it will always be that way, I don’t know, but it is so now. I don’t feel the necessity of changing anything in the way of altering my relationships. I don’t think this is called for and, in fact, it would be the wrong choice, for it would be trying to change inner life through changing outer circumstances. It is enough to see and assent to the effects of how I lived in those circumstances, choosing to focus on behaviors instead of the out flowing of God into His creation. I need to see behavior, to recognize it for what is in terms of being life giving or life destroying, without allowing it to become my focus. The focus should be on seeing things – and people -as the are rather than as they are behaving.

Christ is the way. He is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6) Zen is a way. It is a way of being present in the world. As I am understanding it now, Zen is not a religion or a philosophy or a theology. I would almost say it an attitude or a mind set, but I don’t think that is accurate, because both attitude and mind set are terms which are locked into the intellect. The closes I can come up with in words is to say that Zen is an attitude of the spirit or, perhaps, a “spirit set.”

If one reaches the point where understanding fails, this is not a tragedy: it is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking. Perhaps there is nothing to figure out at all: perhaps we only need to wake up. (Zen and the Birds of Appetite, Pages 112-113)

December 31, 1994

New Year’s Eve

It has been a wondrous year. There is no way to describe it, nor is there a need.

To know is to be ignorant; to be enlightened is to be empty. To be is to be as I am. I am full yet empty, ignorant yet enlightened, fallen yet innocent. This is my state. It is the human state. God did not become man not be man. This is the great mystery – how he was – is – able to be simultaneously God and man. It is also my great mystery. I cannot be other than what I am. To try to do so is misery, but I must not only accept my nature as it is – fallen yet innocent, ignorant yet enlightened, full yet empty – but I – like Jesus – must truly live that mystery. It is beyond understanding but not beyond actualization. It is unthinkable, unspeakable but it is there. It is. And what is this “it” that is? This “it” is the truth of my being. My being is the act of living at the same moment the life of a fallen and innocent man. There can be no negating either! The mystery is that I can be simultaneously full and empty, ignorant and enlightened, fallen and innocent. Not only can be but must be. How? I don’t know. Through Christ. By Christ. In Christ. With Christ. His Spirit. It fuses me. Maybe. Or something like that. It does something. Makes it possible. Mystery. Live it. Now.

January 1, 1995

What appears to be

is not;

What appears to be not,

is

If knowledge is ignorance, then the task of this life is to unlearn

Immediately after writing the above, I read the following in Chuang Tsu, quoting Confucius:

Tao must be pure. When something is added to it, there is confusion. When there is confusion, there is anxiety. With anxiety, there is no hope. The wise men of old realized Tao in themselves before they offered it to others. If you are not certain that you have it in yourself, how can you change a tyrant’s action?

Besides, do you know how virtue degenerates and learning arises? Virtue is consumed by fame. Learning is born of contention. Fame causes men to fight with one another. Learning is the weapon for the struggle. Both can be evil instruments. They are not the means to perfection. (Page 162)

January 2, 1995

This morning, riding back home on the bus, after receiving communion, I heard:

Come into, and I will flow out of you.

Thoughts this morning:

Living the Christian life based on a moral code is like eating an orange with the rind attached. While it is true we are eating an orange, the taste will be unpleasant, distasteful because of the harsh acidity. We will be at great risk of joining the legions who have eaten oranges that way and eventually ended up by saying, I used to eat oranges, but I didn’t like them.

This is another paradox. The easy way is the hard way; the hard way is the easy. How is this?

Basing our Christianity on a moral code is easy in the sense that it seems to be the first way that comes to mind – it is easy to grasp, i.e., we can figure it our or, at least, we think we can. It goes like this: in the Bible, God says love your neighbor, do not kill, do not judge, visit the sick, do not commit adultery, etc., etc., etc. From this we conclude that, if we do all the commands He tells us to do and not do what He forbids, then we are following His commandments and, if we follow His commandments, then we are doing His will and, so, we are good Christians. To bolster this conclusion, we can cite passages, such as, If you love me, keep my commandments. It is exactly here that the problem arises. We can understand this passage in two ways – either keep my commandments and that will prove (or show evidence of) your love or love me and don’t worry about it, because, if you truly love me, you will automatically keep my commandments. Or, as St. Augustine wrote, Love God and do what you will.

What seems to be the hard way is actually the easy one. The more we submit, the more we surrender, the emptier we become, the less we are inclined to do the things we used to struggle not to do and the more we thirst to do the things we tried to do before but could not.

This is because Christianity based on a moral code is misfocused. It is focused on behavior, which puts the focus on us, whereas, the more we are emptied, the sharper is our focus on God, so that we become God centered instead of self centered, and our behaviors simply flow out from us because they are in fact not our behaviors at all but God’s.

January 3, 1995

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

“But how, Lord?” I asked.

I will show you.

Be silent.

This I was shown and understand it to mean that I am to be alone with God. I truly want to be alone with Him. But to be truly alone means that no one else can be there, particularly me. Before I can be alone with God, I must leave. And to be desolate is to see me as I am – destitute of any strength whatsoever to bring this about, nothing but a sower of mean thoughts spawned out of fear. Even what I think to be good thoughts are nothing other than a desperation to escape the reality of how self-worthless I am. There is an over swelling, a deep joy in these truths. To know that I am utterly dependent on God is to plunge into ultimate earthly freedom from self reliance which is the cruelest of traitors.

Julian of Norwich:

...Every man and woman who wishes to live contemplatively needs to know of this, so that it may be pleasing to them to despise as nothing everything created, so as to have the love of uncreated God. For this is the reason why those who deliberately occupy themselves with early business, constantly seeking worldly well-being, have not God’s rest in their hearts and souls; for they love and seek their rest in this thing which is so little and in which there is no rest, and do not know God who is almighty, all wise and all good, for he is true rest. God wishes to be known, and it pleases him that we should rest in him; for all things which are beneath him are sufficient for us. And this is the reason why no soul has rest until it has despised as nothing all which is created. When the soul has become nothing for love, so as to have him who is all that is good, then is it able to receive spiritual rest. (Pages 131-132)

Does this despising mean contempt of all created things? No. Not at all. It means only that we hold all created things in perspective, in their relation to God, the uncreated, and recognize that in them there is no rest but only in God. As Julian writes on the next page:

… God is everything which is good, and the goodness which everything has is God. (Ibid, Page 133)

One final note:

With this sight of his blessed passion and with his divinity, of which I speak as I understand, I saw that was strength enough for me, yes, and for all living creatures who will be protected from all the devils of hell and from all their special enemies. (Page 130)

And among these special enemies, the greatest, of course, is myself.

January 5, 1995

Faith is belief willing to be lived, belief for which I am willing to die.

Today, I am weary of my thinking self.

Again, like so many times during these months, after expressing or feeling something, I read a passage that comes as an echo or an affirmation. From Chuang Tsu:

Confucius said, “Your will must be one. Do not listen with your ears but with you mind. Do not listen with your mind but with your vital energy. Ears can only hear, mind can only think, but your vital energy is empty, receptive to all things. Tao abides in emptiness. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind. (Page 68)

My spirit – emptiness? Living in the spirit – living in emptiness? Do I live in the spirit or do I allow my spirit to live? Isn’t my spirit always living anyway? Yes. But how aware am I of its life? How aware am I of God? The one comes with the other. Thinking self obstructs spirit, obstructs God, obstructs awareness of them, experience of them. Is this frustrating? No, not unless I do not accept what I am – thinking/spirit being, lost/found, fallen/innocent, full/empty, knowing/ignorant, mortal/eternal. Yet one. Mystery. Miracle. God’s doing. Gift.

January 12, 1995

If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart.

(Psalm 95, from today’s Responsorial)

I have gone and come back from burying Dad. It was a special time in many ways – the time spent with [name withheld], and with my sisters, my thoughts and feelings about Dad, about growing up, the experience of death as joy. Upon my return, my life is, at least for the moment, in clear perspective. If it stays there, fine; if not, fine.

One of the things that happened during the time in [name withheld] was my acceptance of myself as a frail, imperfect human being. Even as I prayed in the funeral home and at the early Mass on Tuesday, I had to endure my thinking self making its presence the center of my consciousness. The old clucking hens, as Alan Watts called it. This is the biggest cross I have to bear – accepting my thinking self and praying “through it.”

Today, at Mass, without asking for it or even desiring it, Jesus made His presence felt so intensely I felt as if my heart might burst out of my chest. It ached more than if I were a young boy experiencing his first love. The deeper-than-seeing faith that Jesus was – is – actually there communing with me is such a gift and its surety is apparently without limits, for every time I might think that this was all I will be given, I receive more. Truly, I know there is no limit, not even here on earth. I have no idea how far this will go or where God is leading. I just want to follow. Understanding is not important nor is being able to express it. God will show me whatever is right, just as He allows me to experience Him sometimes emotionally and sometimes only in the darkest, emptiest depths of faith. Either way, He is there, abiding, strengthening, feeding, drawing me out of myself, preparing in me the emptiness in which He lives.

Today, I feel closer to my father than ever I did when he was alive. It is the feeling of having another ally in heaven. Thanks, Pop.

January 13, 1995

Let me be, Lord, empty for you.

Dad is in heaven, not because he was perfect, not because he was not a sinner, but because God is loving, God is forgiving, God is merciful.

I am not without sin. Strip me of my stones.

January 14, 1995

Love is love’s seed. Love is love’s flower. Love is love’s because.

Love is love’s therefore. Love is for no reason, without season.

Love is.

I am filled with God’s love. I know it more certainly than that I live.

He loves me for no because.

Lord, I want nothing from you. No peace. No joy. No sorrow. No suffering. No rest. No pain. No relief. You are what yoou are and that is enough. You give what you give and I want no more, no less. I trust you in all you do or do not do. If you give me understanding, I accept it and accept as well total darkness, for you are in both. For two days, I have not done much thinking and that is fine. It made room for more knowing – but not the ignorant kind. Rather, the mindless knowledge that cannot be told and, therefore, is safe from being destroyed by words.

January 17, 1995

At this time, I don’t want to say anything about it. Maybe later I will, maybe not. I will only note that this morning, about ten minutes before Mass, God revealed Himself in a way I have never experienced before.

January 18, 1995

I cannot describe what I experienced yesterday morning, except to say that the revelation was spiritual, not apprehended by or through any of the five senses.

Also, for now and perhaps forever, I will not tell anyone about it. Shortly after receiving it, after Mass, what came to mind was Jesus’ admonition on several occasions to those He cured: Tell no one of this.

I will say what occurred before the revelation. I awoke with thoughts of [name withheld] and the situation involving [names withheld] on my mind. On and off, as I prepared to go out and on my way to church, I found myself repeatedly being drawn into formulating stratagems for dealing with the situation. I would dismiss these thoughts, but they kept returning. Once in church, resting before the Blessed Sacrament and saying the Jesus Prayer, slowly the thoughts lessened. I began thinking about “God’s Plan.” It came up of its own. It became clear. Plain. Simple.

1. I am created.

2. I am sustained.

3. I am loved.

The last thing I remember thinking was that God does not love me to console me. He does not love me to relieve my suffering. There is no reason at all for his love. No because. Then came the revelation.

Last night, in conversation about a great many things, [name withheld] asked me what I knew about spirits. I told him I knew nothing about spirits and wasn’t concerned about not knowing. I said when I need to know, I’ll know (or perhaps it was I’ll know when I need to know). He said, Did you say you know all you need to know? I answered, no, that I had said, “I’ll know when I need to know.” He said he was relieved because he thought I had said I know all I need to know.

This morning I realized what Jim had misunderstood is indeed the truth. Actually, I do know all I need to know.

1. I am created.

2. I am sustained.

3. I am loved.

This is all I need to know. Of course, all of these are mysteries, of which I will be given enlightenment as God wills and as I am emptied to received. Of the three mysteries, the third is the most incredible and infinite in its expression. It is living, ever pulsing, ever unfolding. And, riding home on the bus, I realized too, that the old man seated next to me, who smelled of urine, is also created, sustained, and loved.

January 20, 1995

There is information. There is knowledge. There is reason and experience. There is window. There is belief and faith. And there is truth. They are not the same.

The hens are clucking. Emotions would like to come forward, but this morning they are exposed in their insignificance and find themselves relegated to their play pens. Nothingness resides and, if it could be felt, it would feel most delightful. But it can’t be and that is delightful. Does that mean that nothingness is in fact a delight? I don’t know. I know it is, which would seem to be an impossibility – that nothingness exists for, if it exists, how can it be nothing? I don’t know. I know it is. God is. I am. It is the nature that we share. We are. We am! Always, it seems to come back to that, doesn’t it?

January 22, 1995

Fixed in self reliance, I am as unstable as a soap bubble but, adrift in the care of God, a mountain am I.

Adrift in the care of God means being unfettered by thought, having no agenda, embracing the unknown, the unimagined. It means wishing neither for understanding nor for tranquility, not even desiring suffering for sanctity’s sake. Does this mean I ought not desire God? That’s foolish. Whether or not I desire God has nothing to do with anything. That is nothing more than placing myself at the center of things. Whether or not I desire Him, God is. My part is to assent, to be present. I cannot be where God is not.

In the silence, in the sounds of gravel being crunched underfoot and of snow being tramped, in these God speaks.

From an article by Rev. Keith Clark, O.F.M., “Good Reasons for the Celibate Choice,” Visions ‘95, page 60.

I have tasted, however momentarily, the radical all-sufficiency of God.

This sentence captures what I experienced on the morning of January 17. When I read it, even though it was buried in an article that covered many aspects of celibacy, it jumped out at me, and I knew exactly what the writer was talking about.

January 23, 1995

This morning I attended Mass at All Saints. Several things occurred.

First, before Mass, I stayed out in the main body of the church, where I could sit in quiet. The people who regularly attend Mass there were in the chapel, reciting the rosary. It came to me how pleasing their prayer was to God, just as mine is. Then my insight broadened to encompass how all who pray – no matter what form they use or what their beliefs – all are pleasing to God – Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Lutheran, Mormon, Jehovah Witness, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist. Not all beliefs are “correct.” They cannot be, because many are contradictory. But the prayers – the sincere, heart prayers – all are pleasing to God.

Then came to me again the instruction given to me previously:

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

I am seeing more clearly the direction in which I am being guided. Recently I have even spoken of it to [name withheld] and [name withheld], though they might not have taken me seriously. I told them I thought, eventually, I would live the life of a hermit. I feel increasingly drawn to it, even though I have no idea how it might be in its circumstances. This instruction is related to this way of life. This I know. The second part, Live it today, tells me I am not to wait for a time or a place but to begin immediately, as I can, as I am led. Right now, the word solitude is the aspect that seems most immediate. I find that whenever I think of solitude, I think of silence. I do not think of being alone or living alone or being apart from people. I think only of silence. I will ponder the practical aspects of silence as it might be integrated into my present circumstances. Praying and thinking, perhaps I will arrive at a workable plan.

Finally, after receiving the Eucharist and kneeling only a few feet from the tabernacle when one of the Eucharistic ministers was placing the Divine Presence back inside, I felt like reaching out and touching the containers. And God spoke and said:

Touch me with your heart.

On this I have no comment at this time.

January 24, 1995

Sing a new song to the Lord! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Truth and beauty surround him, he who lives in holiness and glory. (Psalm 95: 1, 6)

Look up to the Lord with gladness and smile; your face will never be ashamed. (Psalm 33: 6)

Here I am Lord; I come to do your will. (Responsorial, January 24, Year I)

Last night, [name withheld] said she was giving the church six month notice of our marriage. I don’t agree with this, for I see no grounds for thinking marriage will be a possibility in six months. Yet, when I think of my reasons for believing this, I discover rancor creeping into my heart and meanness, all of it directed at [name withheld] and [name withheld]. I see that is incompatible with what God spoke yesterday: Touch me with your heart. He cannot be touched by a heart that is mean spirited. So, whatever my reasons and thoughts about this situation, I pray they are not petty and spiteful.

January 25, 1995

This morning, all of the locutions that I have received since I began writing again came together into one clear message.

I will give you the answer at the right time.

Follow me deeper.

You have not yet given all.

Come into me, and I will flow out of you.

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

I will show you.

Be silent.

Touch me with your heart.

These are words that have been given to me since December 7, 1994. They seem to be specific instructions on how to follow the more general, broader message:

Live the Mysteries.

January 30, 1995

Silence begins in the heart.

Four days ago, just before going into church for Mass, the words, Silence begins in the mind, came. But, upon leaving church, these words were replaced by, Silence begins in the heart.

I see now that my progress into silence will not follow a thought out program, as I had begun a few days ago. Then, I was prepared to establish definitions, degrees, and boundaries. That was before God intervened and took charge of the project. And the first dictum is, Silence begins in the heart.

What are the heart’s silence breakers? Anger, rancor, greed, envy, resentment, fear, self seeking. All of these create an uproar in the heart or, perhaps, a steady din. They shout, “Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!” God speaks but cannot be heard.

It is in the silence of the heart that solitude and desolation are found, for even consolation is noise. Only in silence, only in solitude, only in desolation can I encounter emptiness and only when I am emptied can I experience God as God would have me experience Him, however keenly or faintly that might be.

Yesterday I told [name withheld] that the hardest part of loving was to have to stand aside and separate oneself from the one loved because of behavior that is going on. I told her it was not because I did not love her that I was standing away, but because I cannot be a part of what is going on.

January 31,1995

From today’s readings, three gems:

In your fight against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. (Hebrews 12:31)

And to Him my soul shall live. (Psalm 22:31)

Fear is useless. What is needed is trust. (Jesus in Matthew 5:36)

I feel no consolation. There is no comfort to be drawn from knowing whether what I do is right or wrong, good or bad. I don’t even know whether or not I love anyone, even God. Even if someone were to assure me that my course is true, I could not believe them because they do not know. And, if they said I walked in error, I could not believe them. Even when my senses, whichever one, tell me a truth that I think is from God, truly I do not know because it came through the senses. Then to what do I cling? Simple faith, trust, saying the Jesus Prayer, rejoicing in my lack of knowledge, free from the false props of confidence, left with nothing but trusting and being, forced to abandon myself to His Mystery. It is better than happiness.

February 1, 1995

Desolation. When I first received God’s call to live a life of solitude and desolation, very quickly I was also shown that solitude would come with silence. Desolation, however, remained veiled and shrouded in a sense of negation. It is now emerging as anything but negative. Desolation is an emptying of self, a loosening of attachments and an opening to God. This morning I realized that, on a physical plane, it is true that often what you get out of something is what you put into it. But in the spiritual realm, what you get out of it depends on what you do not put into other things. Desolation is being there, being aware. A desert is said to be desolate. Why? There are no distractions, nothing to keep it from being a desert. In a desert, there is room for a million trees.

From Zen Catholicism, a quote from Kierkegaard:

The larger the crowd, the more probable that that which it praises is folly, and the more improbable that it is the truth, and the most improbable of all is that it is any eternal truth. (Pages 3-4)

From the introduction, five things which no power in the universe can bring about:

That what is subject to old age should not grow old.

That what is subject to sickness should not be sick.

That what is subject to die should not die.

That what is subject to decay should not decay.

That what is liable to pass away should not pass away. (Ibid.)

To these I add:

That which is human cannot be other than human.

That which is divine cannot be other than divine.

Another way of understanding Zen: To be reconciled to the inevitable. (Ibid., Introduction)

From the Tao Te Ching: those who say do not know; those who know do not say.

Confucius: I wish never to speak.

________________________________

Zen Catholicism by Dom Aelrod Graham

February 2, 1995

Confucius: Be content with what is happening and forget about change; then you can enter into the oneness of the mystery of heaven. Chuang Tzu, Page 136.

What a wonderful gift God has given me in leading me to read about Tao and Zen. How well they open me to living the mysteries. It is as if Christianity is saying, Here there is truth. And the Eastern writers are saying, Yes, it is the truth. It is also wonderful to read Christ’s words in light of this way. All of the misconstrued harshness is gone, and the love is left to stand by itself in beauty, softness, gentleness. A case in point is the quote above. Place it beside this one:

Seek you first the kingdom of heaven...and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew, 6:33)

They are, in fact, saying the same thing. But, for me, reading the latter by itself motivates me to do something. Understood in the light of Tao (which is also Christ’s teaching), it motivates me to be present while God does something.

February 3, 1995

The totality of life rests in God

Praying does not sanctify me.

Doing good does not sanctify me.

Loving does not sanctify me.

Knowing truth does not sanctify me.

God sanctifies me.

God sanctifies me and I pray.

God sanctifies me and I do good.

God sanctifies me and I love.

God sanctifies me and I know the truth.

February 4, 1995

Before I can lose self, I must trust.

Before I can utterly lose myself, I must utterly trust.

Desolation – This morning it was knowing in the core of my being that I am mysteriously bound with God in an intimacy beyond human experiencing, knowing that He loves me with an infinite love, an eternal love, knowing – at the same time – that during this life I will not be able to truly experience that intimate love and yet being willing – even eager – to endure this human condition how He wills and for as long as He wills.

I am an ocean whose surface is at times calm, at times clear, at times murky or storm driven, yet always, in my depths, at peace and surrounded by surprising beauty.

February 5, 1995

Today is the anniversary of my creation!

Thoughts: Thomas Merton says Zen is a way of being present in the world. That way might be described by using Dom Aelrod Graham’s definition of Zen, which calls it reconciliation with the inevitable. To this I would add that reconciliation with the inevitable is reconciliation with nature, including my own nature, my own nature being eternal spirit fused with mortal body fused with God.

Opinions are judgments and, when my opinions are about people, they are judgments about people. Five times in the past week I have expressed my opinions to others. Four times, the expressions were unsolicited. About these four I was afterward troubled. Why? I think because expressing one’s opinion, especially when it is not solicited, is self seeking and prideful. My conclusions are that forming opinions and, worse, expressing them, especially unsolicited, is an act that separates me from my communion with God.

February 6, 1995

This morning I read these simple words from Julian of Norwich:

He may make all things well; and He can make all things well; and He shall make all things well; and He will make all things well...(Showings, Page 229)

And I was let to stop reading and pray thoughtlessly, only repeating Jesus’ name in various forms of praise and the Jesus Prayer, and I know in the depths of my being how God is in all and all in God and that this truth is deeper than happiness or sorrow, wisdom or stupidity, goodness or evil, black, white or brown, beauty or ugliness, well-being or dysfunction, health or disease, rich or poor, good reputation or bad, saint or criminal, sobriety or addiction – beyond and deeper than anything I can possibly conceive or apprehend. I do not understand what this means. I only know that it is true. It brought tears.

February 14, 1995

[Name withheld] is being baptized today – probably has been as I write this. What a wonderful legacy [name withheld] has left her.

Too often we look at others through a cloud of our own emotions. To see another person in his or her “suchness” means that we must be free from antipathy and aversion or, at the other extreme, from uncontrollable emotional attachment or separation. (Zen Catholicism, Page 48)

The past few days have been empty. There were times when my mind was disposed to thinking about God or spiritual things and times when it actually began to. But they passed or I did not participate or God spared me and left me to inner silence. At times, it is scary, at times not pleasant, this absence of emotional and mental activity. It is still unfamiliar ground and, who knows, perhaps will be so always. Below and beyond or deeper than the fleeting discomfort is the sure knowledge that my spirit’s calling is to be present to God’s presence. All else pales in comparison with the reality of God’s shared divinity – and shared not only by me but by everyone and everything according to God’s mysterious measure. Of all my endeavors, none is so lofty as the constant recitation of the Jesus Prayer, which of course is not truly incessant. It is persistent, however, and, after six months of it, still the surest course to enduring communion. Oh, how I am beginning to long for the deepening of this life of solitude and desolation. What gifts are its two aspects, now silence calling more strongly, now desolation, each complementing the other. How wonderfully adapted they are to my nature of eternal spirit fused with mortal body fused with God.

February 17, 1995

Last night and this morning, I am filled with tremendous sadness. I don’t really know all the details, and what I think I might understand is actually muddled and could be right or wrong or some of both. [Name withheld] got dismissed from [name withheld] school because of her threats made to other children and because of [names withheld]’s gang connections. [Name withheld] was humiliated in front of the principle, four teachers, a policeman, and Father [name withheld]. She loved that church so much, and now she is crushed. I accept my sadness and give everyone concerned...[name withheld], the school and parish, myself...into the loving hands of Jesus. Oh yes, this is solitude and desolation. I acknowledge my sins and my wrongs and mistakes but I do not ask to be delivered from their consequences.

Today’s gospel:

if a man wishes to come after me, he must deny his very self, take up his cross and follow in my steps. Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’ will save it. (Mark, 38:34-35)

What are my steps? Solitude and desolation. Alone and without solace. What means for my sake? To abandon my will, my wants, my needs, my fears and worries to God’s care, not even formulating what I might desire much less actually desiring it.

… There is unanimity among those qualified to instruct us: the Buddhist “emptiness,” the Zen “no-mind,” the “void” of St. John of the Cross, the “cloud of unknowing,” are various descriptions of the same prerequisite: to see thing in their “suchness”… above all, to bring the mind into contact with the ultimate source of all things one must keep one’s own thoughts out of the way. (Zen Catholicism, Page 79)

Zen saying: Tao may be transmitted only to him who already has it. (Ibid., Page 71)

Another: Those who say do not know, those who know do not say. (Ibid., Page 70)

On Knowing Oneself or Enlightenment: Those to whom it has never come - that is, to judge by the present state of the world, the vast majority of the human race – are hardly in a position to describe it. Those who have received it, or think they have, do not normally attempt to give an account of their experience. (Ibid., Page 69).

February 20, 1955

I will correct you by drawing them [your sins] up before your eyes. (Psalm 50:21)

That is what God has been doing a lot lately, drawing up, making me aware of my sins. Particularly have I been aware of the dislike and aversion of black people which bubbles up from a prejudice and bigotry that I don’t like to admit simmers within me. I don’t like it and yet it is there. As the gospel related today, Some evil spirits can only be expelled by prayer.

Another way I am experiencing solitude and desolation is by feeling alienated from main stream Christianity and even from main stream Catholicism. Their concern with family values, virtue, social issues, and abortion evoke no response from me. My reaction is to pull back and to become even more inward. At times, I feel arrogant. At time, I am arrogant. What nonsense. Puffery. I am not better than anyone. I feel I have no meaning in life, that is, no cause to espouse, no crusade to join. Actually, I rejoice in this. I don’t want a cause to be the focus or even a part of my life. I have joy in being simply me – mortal human fused with eternal spirit fused with God. My humanity tends to question simple joy, wanting to dissect it to show how it is flawed and expose to me why I should not be so. Yet, that is simply my humanity being what it is meant to be – human. So these feelings – like thought – become no more than clucking hens. Cluck, cluck, cluck, let them cluck. That’s what hens do.

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

I will show you.

Be silent.

You are.

I am.

Together.

This moment.

February 21, 1995

My son, when you come to serve the Lord,

prepare yourself for trials.

Be sincere of heart and steadfast,

undisturbed in time of adversity.

Cling to him, forsake him not;

thus will your future be great.

Accept whatever befalls you,

in crushing misfortune be patient;

for in fire gold is tested,

and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation.

Trust God and he will help you;

make straight your ways and trust in him.

(Sirach 2: 1-6)

The Lord watches over the lives of the wholehearted. (Psalm, 37: 18)

Wholehearted, I like that.

The more we are under God’ denomination, the more we are ourselves. (Zen Catholicism, Page 87)

The solution to the problem of our moral energies lagging behind the intelligence, of disobedience to the heavenly vision, cannot be found in the will itself. Strength of will does not lie in the will’s spontaneous energy, but in its clear motivation. What is needed, then, is not more penetrating intelligence, but a total insight, such as invites a response from the self at its deepest level. Without this enlightenment the restless activity of the separate self, the conscious ego, remains unsubdued, with the inevitable result that much of our conduct is willful where it should be wise. We notice that we most frequently go wrong, not by failing to act, but by precipitate action, by commission rather than omission, or by acts for which, had we reflected, we should have substituted others. Obeying the self within, moved by God’s grace, we learn restraint, how to be silent, how to forbear. (Ibid. Page 92-93).

The whole world is tormented by words and there is no one who does without words. But in so far as one is free from words does one really understand words. (Buddhist Scripture, Ibid., Page 102)

The object of faith is not a proposition but a thing. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II,1,2,2)

Whereupon Lieh Tsu realized that he had not yet begun to understand. He went home, and for the next three years he did not go out. He did the cooking for his wife and fed the pigs as though they were human. He took no interest in worldly affairs. He stopped making complications and returned to simplicity. Rooted in the earth and centered in his body, amid all the confusion and distractions of life, he remained one with Tao until the end of his days. (Chuang Tsu, Page 157)

Everything points to the rightness of the path: Live the life of solitude and desolation. Live it today.

I have little or no consolation, neither human nor divine. Talking is painful. Except for [name withheld] and [name withheld], I feel aversion for interacting with others. My sins and faults and weaknesses are starkly apparent, before me all the time. My thoughts want to have control and offer me a seductive highway of escape. You, O Lord, are never absent. You allow me to be alone with myself. The one who seems to be suffering is not in reality me but rather it is my humanity rebelling at not being given primacy. It shouts endless objections and, when these fail, it whines pathetically. “At least think about it. Don’t make up your mind. You are cutting yourself off!” I am able to stand aside and observe its fear. Such a spoiled, self indulgent, illusioned child is that part of me. Well, let it be.

February 23, 1995

Try not to seek after the true.

Only cease to cherish opinions.

(Seng Ts’am, On Believing In Mind,

Quoted in Zen Catholicism, Page 118)

This morning, just before Mass, I was struck deeply with the fact that, when all else is stripped away, what remains is my one-on-one communion with God. All else is nonessential, until and unless whatever else there is flows from God out of that communion and, therefore, is not from me at all.

February 28, 1995

I’ve been busy building an arbor on the side of the apartment. It is good work and provides good solitude.

I did not put you here to criticize.

This was spoken to me clearly two days ago. It is so simple, direct, and powerful. Although it might be considered a chastisement, it did not sound that way. It was a loving statement of fact and has made more of an impact on me than anything I have heard or read about charity or not judging others. I am truly grateful for this gift.

Here, understandably, is the most difficult field for the practice of nonattachment. We cling, grasp at, the lives and well-being of others, until we learn that these, too, are in better hands than our own. (Zen Catholicism, Page 149)

March 2, 1995

I want you to be free, but you will not be free.

These words were spoken to me by my Lord, Jesus, this morning in regard to my attachment to the lives of others.

The service of God is not something we make up our minds about, and then perform. God, in the first place, makes up our minds for us; if we let Him. That is our contribution – let Him. (Zen Catholicism, Page 181)

Whatever is substantive in any philosophy or way of life should have its counterpart, even though as yet largely unrealized, in Catholicism. (Ibid., Page 163)

What a bold and powerful statement!

March 3, 1995

This morning’s thoughts:

The lives of others are not extensions of mine.

No man is an island. But a peninsula maybe?

The more I try to win you over to my God, the more surely is my God me. This sounds true. Is it? In fact, all three of the preceding sound true. Are they?

March 6, 1995

If it is God’s nature to love,

And I am likened to God,

Then it is my nature to love.

To the extent that I live opposed to my nature, I am unwhole, incomplete, broken, and unhappy. To the extent that I stake my happiness on the unnatural, I am unfulfilled. But, to the extent that I plunge unreservedly into God, I am complete, I am true, I am me.

I have taken on another person to sponsor, trusting that God will hold me together. The more I am surrounded by people, the deeper I must descend into that well of God’s presence. The more I am with people, the more I must live in solitude and desolation, caring not if they bring me joy or annoyance. The more I am with them, the more I must keep my silence about the things that are given me in secret.

March 8, 1995

Last night, with the topic being spirituality and God, there was the usual religion and Christianity bashing at the meeting. My inclination was to defend my beliefs – which actually were not under attack. Even stronger were inclinations to discuss or comment on the meeting with [name withheld] and, later, with [name withheld]. I kept my silence. I am glad I did. These discussions have nothing to do with me, after all.

Instead, this morning has been a reaffirmation of the path Jesus has given me.

I will give you the answer at the right time.

Follow me deeper.

You have not yet given all.

Come into me, and I will flow out of you.

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

I will show you.

Be silent.

Touch me with your heart.

It is not a relationship with God that I seek but rather an experience, an eternal, moment-to-moment experience.

March 10, 1995

Last night, while lying in bed, feeling critical of others – thoughts actually – bothered me until part of God’s message replaced them:

Follow me deeper.

You have not yet given all.

Come into me, and I will flow out of you.

How deeply ingrained in me is this desire to rid myself of faults, to not think or feel “bad” things, to be “good,” to not “offend” God. Come into me, and I will flow out of you. Concentrating on ridding myself of faults, of sin even, only focuses me more on me, on my own powers and resources. Concentrating – drifting in trust – on Coming into God takes me out of me, empties me. When that is happening, there is no room for focusing on me or on others. What flows out is God.

Today’s Introit verse spoke to me in this vein:

Lord, deliver me from my distress.

See my hardship and my poverty,

and pardon all my sins.

(Psalm 24:17-18)

What is my distress? It is my struggle to rid myself of critical thoughts or, more broadly, a critical attitude. It distresses me me because I try and so often fail. This is my hardship: that I rely on myself, that I am self seeking in that I want to “feel” like I am good. And that is due to my poverty – my poverty of trust that, rather than try to “be good” and “please God,” all that is required is to adore God, to be in His presence, to live the eternal mystery. Doing that, I let Him guide my thoughts, my actions, my all. I let Him flow out of me.

How foolish would a flower be to try to make honey. The flower needs only to be present for the bee. The bee will make the honey.

March 13, 1995

I will give you the answer at the right time.

Beginning last night and then clearly this morning, God gave me an answer: in the form of wordless, thoughtless sure knowledge. It became deeply apparent that my whole being is created and destined to turn to God in praise at every moment during which the necessities of my humanity do not dictate otherwise – and even then, the praise continues but in the form of the way I perform the tasks called for by the necessities. All else is curiosity or anxiety or fear or materialism. One thing again made clear is the futility of trying to figure out the mysteries, whether God’s or mine or ours.

March 14, 1995

To be aware of the presence of God is one thing; to live in the presence of God is another. To be aware of the activity of God is one thing; to live in that activity is another. And what is this activity of God? It is the activity, this act eternal and all encompassing, of love. God is loving. To be aware of God loving me, you, the grass, the bird, the dirt, the moon, the star is one thing; to live in that loving, to be a part of it, to participate – to be there as a receiver, giver, observer, a child in wonderment – yes, that surely is another thing!

I live but not I. Rather God lives in me, loves in me. And, so it is with you and all beings – you live but not you. Rather God lives in you, loves in you. All is the activity – the action – of God’s love. We are not living – God is loving.

March 17, 1995

During our lifetime here we have in us a marvelous mixture of both well-being and woe. We have in us our risen Lord Jesus Christ, and we have in us the wretchedness and the harm of Adam’s falling. Dying, we are constantly protected by Christ, and by the touching of his grace we are raised to true trust in salvation. And we are so afflicted in our feelings by Adam’s falling in various ways, by sin and by different pains, and in this we are made dark and so blind that we can scarcely accept any comfort. But in our intention we wait for God, and trust faithfully to have mercy and grace; and this is his own working in us, and in his goodness he opens the eye of our understanding, by which we have sight, sometime more and sometimes less, according to the ability God gives us to receive. And now we are raised to the one, and now we are permitted to fall to the other. And so that mixture is so marvelous in us that we scarcely know, about ourselves or about our fellow Christians, what condition we are in, these conflicting feelings are so extraordinary, except for each holy act of assent to God which we make when we feel him, truly willing with all our heart to be with him, and with all our soul and with all our might. (Showings, Page 279)

March 19, 1995

Forty-nine years ago today, I came to Texas.

And so I saw most surely that it is quicker for us and easier to come to the knowledge of God than it is to know our own soul. For our soul is so deeply grounded in God and so endlessly treasured that we cannot come to knowledge of it until we first have knowledge of God, who is the Creator to whom it is united. But nevertheless I saw that we have, naturally from our fullness, to desire wisely and truly to know our own soul, through which we are taught to seek it where it is, and that is in God. And so by the leading through grace of the Holy Spirit we shall know them both in one; whether we are moved to know God or our soul, either motion is good and true. God is closer to us than our own soul, for he is the foundation on which our soul stands, and he is the mean which keeps the substance and the sensuality together, so that they will never separate. For our soul sits in God in true rest, and in God in endless love. And therefore if we want to have knowledge of our soul, and communion and discourse with it, we must seek it in our Lord God in whom it is enclosed. (Showings, Page 288-289).

...It must in insisted from the outset that there are certain conditions apart from which … dialogue cannot genuinely and fruitfully occur, and the first of these might strike the modern reader as unusual. He will be accustomed to supposing that one can read what one likes and how one pleases. This principle cannot be applied to the teachings of the Christian spiritual masters … it is the man who lives a certain kind of life who is in a position to understand the doctrine. There are some kinds of knowledge to which experience is the only key … those who are disillusioned with what their Christian faith has so far offered them, and those who are accustomed to feeling lost in any case, may take the rough, but honest comfort that, if they are prepared to pay the price for it, the true doctrine of the great teachers will never shut them up within a world that is safely bounded by notions that are easy to master in any odd, spare moment. These teachings define the frontiers of the unknown, and they do not pretend anything else. The security they offer – which is the only one there is to be had – is that of always being ready to pass beyond what one imagined one understood. They ask nothing less than a total renunciation, of a kind with which it will be necessary to become acquainted, and teach a life at which one cannot merely play… (Asking the Fathers, Page 3-4)

For God who made the word and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands; nor does he receive man’s service as if he were in need of it. Rather, it is he who gives to all life and breath and everything else. From one stock he made every nation of mankind to dwell on the face of the earth. It is he who set limits to their epochs and fixed the boundaries of their regions. They were to seek God, yes to grope for him and perhaps to eventually find him – though he is not really far from any one of us. In him we live and move and have our being, as one of your own poets has put it, “for we too are his offspring.” If we are in fact God’s offspring, we ought not to think of divinity as something like a statue of gold or silver or stone, a product of man’s genius and his art. (St. Paul to Greek pagans, Acts of the Apostles, 17:24-29)

Or, for that matter, we ought not to think of divinity as something like a concept, idea, or theory, which are also products of man’s genius and art.

When [name withheld] dropped me off at the bus stop last night, I felt a deep sadness that continued through the night and this morning. It stems from the fact that I feel – rightly or wrongly – that she is distancing herself from me and that our intimacy is approaching an end. When the intimacy leaves, the relationship will of necessity change, no longer having the kind of love we have shared these passed eight years. I am very sad but at peace.

______________________________

Asking the Fathers by Aelrod Squires

March 20, 1995

Faith. Trust. Knowing. These three flow one into the others and are melded together. In faith, I ask for trust and from trust, or with it perhaps, comes the quiet emptiness in which knowledge becomes manifest. Inherent in this is that knowledge - as well as every other of God’s gifts – is always there. God does not decide one day to give me a gift any more than one day He decides to love me (when I am worthy, I suppose). No, knowledge is already within me as are all of God’s gifts. I need only to see them, need only to experience them! To do that, I must reduce the clutter that hides them. What is this clutter? Thoughts, fear, wants, noise, greed, pride, focusing on others.

Right now, the knowledge becoming visible to my soul is that God not only loves me but I am His love! All of creation not only manifests His love but, to its own God determined degree – it is His love. An outpouring of His love or an over pouring or a consequence – all of these concepts are inadequate graspings but, in fact, mysteriously and wonderfully all things are God’s love. It is this essence which truly makes us one.

March 24, 1995

Asking the Fathers contains many striking passages. Quoting from St. Augustine’s Confessions:

“And I said, ‘Is truth, then, nothing at all, since it is not spread out in space finite or infinite?’ And your voice called from afar, ‘Yes, I am he who is.’ I heard as one hears in one’s heart, and there was no further room for doubt. I could have more easily doubted that I myself was alive than truth not to be, which is known to be by the thing he made. Who can understand this, and who can talk about it? I am filled both with awe and with ardour: I am overawed in the measure I am unlike God; I glow with fire in the measure I am like him.” (Asking the Fathers, Page 31)

The fathers all agreed that human nature is profoundly wounded by the Fall, but they are equally agreed that is it is not destroyed by it. Hence the experience of deep disharmony in those who become aware of their true possibilities, their true selves. This experience is a genuine ground of hope. St. Bernard’s conviction, like that of the entire tradition is that in the unlikeness to God which we find in man after the Fall “the soul has evidently not put off the form it was originally given, but has put on, over it, a false one. The latter is added, the former not lost, and that which covers it is only able to hide the original but not destroy it.” The human tragedy is that “what makes the soul unlike God makes it unlike itself; hence it is compared to senseless beasts and becomes like them.” Its opportunity occurs when it realizes that this has happened to it. “The more it is disgusted with the evil in itself, the more it urges itself towards the good which it equally sees in itself and longs to become what it was made, simple and upright.” (Ibid., Pages 31-32)

I did not go to Mass this morning. My body was becoming run down, so I slept an extra two and a half hours.

[Name withheld] and I spent a nice evening together, eating out, talking, and going to a couple book stores. I found a good book at each, both by Thomas Merton. The Way of Chuang Tzu and The Wisdom of the Desert.

I have very little feeling right now. I am glad – grateful – for that. I am content to “sit” in God. Rest in trust. Wait. Wait for what? Nothing.

March 25, 1995

[Name withhold] picked me up from the hotel and gave me a ride home. I like my time with her. I spared her too much “wisdom.” When I was her age, my mom had just died and I was in the beginning of an angry spiral that lasted 26 years. And I didn’t even know why – actually I didn’t even realize I was in it. Mom was my link to the family. When she died, the family died. She was my motivation to “be good.” When she died, that died too. I never grieved. I just got angry. That is all healed now. The anger is gone. When I die, Lord, give [name withheld] someone to guide her in her grief, so that it gets done and she can go on with her life knowing I am always with her, just like my mom and my dad are with me today.

More from Asking the Fathers, quoting Pascal:

“Let each of us examine his thoughts. He will find them entirely occupied with the past and the future. The present is never our purpose. The past and the present are our means; only the future is our purpose. And so we never live but rather hope to live and, since we are always getting ready to be happy, it is inevitable that we never really are.” (Page 36)

It is not in man’s nature, but in his activity that the wounds of original sin manifest themselves. They manifest themselves in every aspect of his life as someone actually knowing and loving and, at least to some extent, freely choosing and, further, as embodied and hence with appetites rooted in instinctive drives. From the cradle to the grave we are, either consciously or unconsciously, involved in activity, whether that activity is externally manifested or not. It is also in our activity that we are all the time becoming what, at any given moment, we are. Under stimulus from without or from within, our life perpetually erupts into activity, and then it is that we see how things lie with us. How very different, and significantly different, we all are, and yet how much in the same general situation. (Ibid., Pages 40-41)

Our human situation is one in which our individual powers and capacities, left to themselves, simply tend to run away with us. It is often assumed that it is only the so called “lower powers” that are envisaged in this picture of human inner disharmony. But Augustine … was the last to believe any such thing. For him, the overriding tendency to iniquity was that powerful substitute for sex which is the peculiar prerogative of the spiritually minded: the desire to dominate! In what he has to say of this form of libido as a perversion of authentic love, he thus contributes a shrewd personal insight to a tradition about the wounds of original sin which were normally characterized in the ordinary catechisms of more recent times as being darkness of mind, weakness in the will, and lust in the appetites. This is simply to say that, as a result of original sin, it tends to be more difficult to grasp the truth, to act on it when we see it, and to free ourselves of compulsive drives in the basic instincts of love and aggression. Any one of these facets of our total make-up acting automatically and, as it were, in the saddle, can pull us apart and make us less than the whole human being who is called to relationship with God and his fellows. (Ibid., Pages 41-42)

What the foregoing says, without negating or minimizing, the influence of early childhood abuse or dysfunction, is that ultimately the root of addiction lies in original sin.

...Precisely because the image [ours] is rooted in that which is dynamic about us, because it is rooted in our distinctively human kind of life I must, if I am alive at all, from moment to moment become more like that of which I am the image [God] or more unlike it. There is no middle ground in this matter. For even not to act in some respect about which I have a choice is really to act. Whether I lie on my bed or run a mile, I can rightly be said to “do” either or both, since it is I who am the source of the running or lying. (Ibid., Page 43)

Which is another way of saying that all of life boils down to a series of moment-by-moment decisions to act in a way that either brings me more in harmony with God (true self) or less (false self).

There is more but it will wait until tomorrow.

March 27, 1995

More from Asking the Fathers:

If we yield in the direction in which the push is strongest then, even without our wishing it, we strengthen the force of that particular “necessity” over our lives. It is not difficult to see, as St. Augustine visibly does, that a man who makes himself the servant of the forces of disintegration within himself by yielding every time he experiences their drive, is inevitably more and more necessitated in every aspect of his life. It is not that he ever radically loses the capacity to see the truth about his situation or to desire what would be genuinely good and choose it; but more and more he becomes less and less disposed to see that truth, to want it or to choose it. As time goes on it requires nothing short of a miracle of grace and conversion to break the chain which we ourselves have been steadily forging, link by link. Buddhism also has its own technical term for this terrible phenomenon, which it calls karma. (Page 44)

What he is describing – taken to its extreme – is addiction.

Quoting from Gregory of Nyssa:

“Who does not know that all things that are subject to change never remain identical with themselves, but pass continuously from one state to another, which is always better or worse.” (Ibid., Page 50)

Again from Gregory of Nyssa:

“The most paradoxical thing of all is that stability and mobility are the same thing … [Consequently] perhaps the wish to go further in the good is, after all, what perfection for man is.” (Ibid., Page 50)

I have decided to stop working at [name withheld] on May 14. From now until then I will use all I make at the part time job to repay the last of my debts. After that, I will trust in God that my full time job will meet my financial needs and responsibilities and will dedicate the extra time, as much as possible, to quiet and to those I love.

March 29, 1995

...Ignacius of Antioch reminds us, even the things we do in the flesh are spiritual, and there is in fact no such thing in this world as a life of the spirit which is not also in some way a life of the body. It needs no argument to show that God has made it so, and experience confirms that we shall always live perilously if we do not look straight and true at what God has done, in this as in all other natters. (Ask the Fathers, Page 59)

When we are considering the mysteries of God and the human spirit, we are, in the Christian view, considering the mysteries of two deeps that call to each other. For it is not God alone who is mystery. We are mysteries to ourselves and to each other, and the body is an essential factor in this human mystery. (Ibid. Page 62)

So much of this is an affirmation, not of what I have come to conclude, but of what God has given me. Really, it is more an affirmation of God’s speaking into my quiet. I am mystery. Mortal body, fused with eternal spirit, fused with God. Live the mystery. Follow me deeper. Live the life of solitude and desolation. Live it today.

These are days of stark faith, devoid of spiritual consolation, days of desire, gratitude, serenity.

April 4, 1995

Boo-Peep’s birthday. God is with her. She is loved.

I have waited a few days to write. Saturday [name withheld] made an impassioned plea that I accept her as she is. I have to honor that, because all I was doing was beating her down with my constant haranguing for her to change what I see as self-destructive codependent and victimized behavior. But, if I accept that way of life in her, I cannot be by her side, walking with her. And so, as of Saturday, our relationship of almost nine years is over. It hurts very much, but I feel no need to and will not dull any of the sadness or sense of loss with sex or alcohol or TV or recreation or work or activity, no human consolation nor even spiritual. I rest in God but do not ask that He make me feel good. My strength is in this: that, although I am suffering, nothing essential has changed. He is. I am. Together. This moment. All is well.

April 5, 1995

Thoughts: Everything I do has consequences. I I judge someone, that has consequences too. It creates disharmony. It moves me away from God. Dire consequences.

… “Salvation,” or saving ourselves, which is what life is about, consists in a kind of losing. It consists in the taking up of the cross in so far as this means the denial of our egotistical selves by submitting to what really and positively is. This is always a kind of continuous death. It is a death to our own perceptions, to own understanding of things, to our own merely private point of view, and it is a death we desperately need to die in order to live. But it is one to which we can only wisely and properly submit if we understand that the work of our saving is primarily God’s work, and that in that work he will not fail us unless we insist upon making it impossible for him to succeed. It is precisely for this freedom of God’s action in our lives that we have to struggle and pray every day. (Asking the Fathers, Pages 102-103)

The key words for me are it is a death to our perceptions, to our understanding of things, to our merely private point of view. All of these stand in the way of seeing things simply as they are.

Chuang Tzu dryly observed that the pursuit of the ethical Tao becomes illusory if one sought for others what is good for oneself without really knowing what was good for oneself. (The Way of Chuang Tzu, Page 21)

___________________________________

The Way of Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton

April 7, 1995

Yesterday night, I went to the library with [name withheld]. Afterward, we spent about half an hour in my room. I showed her the broken pottery, and she was able to listen as I told her the many ways she had been abused as a child, how she had been cheated and robbed of her innocence. We hugged.

I awoke at 2:15 this morning and was never able to regain more than a fretful sleep. My spirit was fearful and deeply grieved. Though I tried to rest in God, my thoughts and emotions were overbearing. First one person whom I love, then another would come to the fore. I felt their suffering and felt my helplessness to lift their burdens.

Finally, before Mass, between 6:00 and 6:30, that same time when so many gifts have been given to me, God led me to surrender them all, to trust Him to care for them. His words, You have not yet given all, were clear, more clear than ever. I have kept clinging to those I love and to those I have injured, willing to give up self to God but unwilling to surrender them.

How powerful, how true, and how direct is His message. I am coming to understand it as my own personal God sent blueprint for living:

I will give you the answer at the right time.

Follow me deeper.

You have not yet given all.

Come into me, and I will flow out of you.

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

I will show you.

Be silent.

Touch me with your heart.

Have I now given all? No. I have only made a start. But there is no hurry, for, as I am able to give more, God will let me know and I will not so much give as be still more unburdened.

The more one seeks “the good” outside oneself as something to be acquired, the more one is faced with the necessity of discussing, studying, understanding, analyzing the nature of the good. The more, therefore, one becomes involved in abstractions and in the confusion of divergent opinions. The more “the good” is objectively analyzed, the more it is treated as something to be attained by special virtuous techniques, the less real it becomes. As it becomes less real, it recedes further into the distance of abstraction, futurity, unattainability. The more, therefore, one concentrates on the means to be used to attain it. And as the end becomes more remote and more difficult, the means become more elaborate and complex, until finally the mere study of the means becomes so demanding that all one’s effort must be concentrated on this, and the end is forgotten. Hence the nobility of the Ju scholar becomes, in reality, a devotion to the systematic uselessness of practicing means which leads nowhere. This is, in fact, nothing but organized despair: “the good” that is preached and extracted by he moralist thus finally becomes an evil, and all the more so since the hopeless pursuit of it distracts one from the real good which one already possesses and which one now despises or ignores. (Merton in The Way of Chuang Tzu, Page 23)

Some neat thoughts from Sharing Silence:

Peace is not the absence of strife. Peace is acceptance and surrender to that which is. (Page 49)

In silence we discover ourselves, our actual presence to the life in us and around us. When we are present, deeply attentive, we cannot be busy controlling. Instead we become beholders – giving ourselves up to the mystery of things. We become more willing to let things be. And, as a consequence, we can also let ourselves be. (Ibid., Page 19)

Silence reveals. Silence heals. Silence is where God dwells. (Ibid., Pages 8-10)

When we strive to do things we are learning strife. When we strain we are learning straining. We must learn to move rhythmically, easily, to be un-driven, to flow. (Ibid, Page 31)

______________________________________________

Sharing Silence, by Gunilla Norris

April 9, 1995

Palm Sunday

Much is happening, but the time to write deeply is not now. Yet broad events can be noted – gotten outside a little.

Yesterday morning, the depth, the reason, the truth about judging others or controlling others or other things or even about the destructive practice of always perceiving people and things and God in relation to me or something else – all of this lessens me, holds me back and, ultimately, can destroy me, not only because God says not to but because of why He says not to do it. It is because all of these outside beings are His, not mine. I am appropriating what is God’s!

The other clarity is that – once not only self but all else is surrendered back to God where it belongs – I am left with a wonderful, unfettered, and unique direct experience of God and all His creation. This is the beginning of being truly present or – as it is said in Zen – the beginning of pointing to what is.

April 10, 1995

Leave them alone. They are mine.

These were Christ’s words to me this morning right aftr I had received His Body and Blood. They were spoken in reprimand, right after a lady had passed by me and judgmental thoughts began bubbling up in my mind. The message is being hammered into me, day after day. I am to separate myself from God’s other creation, so that I can see it and accept it as it is. And it is His! I will never be empty of self so long as I stay the reference point of other things.

April 12, 1995

Though he was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. (Paul, Philippians 2:6-7)

Could anything be more to the point than this readig from last Sunday? If Christ, who indeed is God, did not appropriate that by the very nature of things is God’s, how dare I?

It is becoming much clearer the perspective of viewing everything in terms of relationships – which is the chant of this age – throws me way off target. From the perspective of relationships, the one constant in the equation is me. Me in relation to God, me I relation to this person, to that person, to my job, to society, to my cat – always me! Hence I cannot simply see you or see God or see a twig. Viewing everything in relationship to me is not only self-centered, worse, it is not reality. Sadly, it is also the cause of much sorrow in the world. And hurt.

About cats…

Do you have a cat?

If you do, ask her,

“What do you think

about those cats down the street?”

Will she answer?

I think not.

Probably, she does not think

about cats,

down the street

or otherwise.

April 13, 1995

Last night, at a meeting, I spoke about my lifelong habit of appropriating what is God’s. It was all right.

“The truth is not to be defended, it defends. It does not need you, but you need it.” (Guido, quoted in Asking the Fathers, Page 131)

“All souls who seek God with any great depth of desire, all of them, are more or less tangled up in their own aspirations. God means to be content with them for having carried their good will and their search for goodness thus far. But a time comes when peace establishes itself in a simplicity, humble, reasonable, and confident. It is then that God makes up for things by making the soul whose agonies he has accepted feel, I do not say his consolations, but his consolation. One understands that God is good and one never swerves from that position. It is exactly what happened to St. Chantel when she met St. Francis of Sales; it is what happened to St. Teresa too. It is what will happen to you.” (Henri de Tosurville, quoted in Ibid., Page 135)

And it is happening!

Doctrine without practice is dead, and the only book which can adequately instruct us in all we need to know is the book of our own life. This is a book into whose making written books and spoken words enter, but also many other kinds of “words,” which we learn sometimes painfully to listen to, slowly discovering how to spell them out from the things that God does or permits in us, in others or in the world at large. This book of our life with the mystery of God and ourselves is a book whose pages we can only turn one day at a time and we cannot go faster or further than the limits of each day lead us. (Ibid., Page 137)

This holding back, this stealing from God what is God’s alone, is a deep, deeply ingrained habit. More than a habit, it is a way of living. I have brought my full energies to God in regard to nicotine, alcohol, and sex and I have said, Lord, I am helpless. Help me! And, with me committing all that I have to commit to the task, He has more than helped me. He has set me free! So it must be in regard to this deepest of all vices – robbing from God, regarding as mine that which is outside of me, “saving my life.” No, I must lose it, must give that all up.

April 14, 1995

Good Friday

I have the day off. I have been spending it in contemplation, in solitude. Here in the Rose Garden in [name withheld], I have been reading this journal, from February 9 to the present. Truly it is an account of God working. Without consciously trying to connect anything, everything I’ve written is in some way connected. Even before reading the journal, while walking along [name withheld], it was once again clear that God has given me His plan for me.

I will give you the answer at the right time.

Follow me deeper.

You have not yet given all.

Come into me and I will flow out of you.

Live the life of solitude and desolation.

Live it today.

I will show you.

Be silent.

Touch me with your heart.

Sometimes one part of this message comes to the fore, at other times another part. But it is all there. It seems there is enough there for my entire life. It seems.

April 16, 1995

Easter Night

Seek the Lord while he can be found,

call him while he is near…,

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

As high as the heavens are above the earth,

so high are my ways above your ways

and my thoughts above your thoughts.

(Isiah 55: 8-9)

[Name withheld] was baptized last night. The ceremony was climatic. Today was the advent of calm. Life has been given us. Now we must live it.

I got off work early today and took a long walk, more than two hours. I listened to a John Michael Talbot tape [name withheld] had given me for Easter – Meditation in the Spirit.

Throughout the day and on into the evening, the wordless message was strong, that it is time to truly enter into the contemplative life, the life of solitude and desolation.

April 17, 1995

Spent the early morning with [name withheld], looking at a house she might rent. She is angry and harbors resentments. We aren’t communicating well.

I have a vacation day today. I will go to Mass at noon and meet [name withheld] at 4 pm for something to eat and a movie.

The message is clear. Follow me deeper. I am allowing myself to slowly become used to the idea of actually entering into reclusive life. I understand to do this I don’t have to go anywhere or drastically change the circumstances of my life. I can arrange to spend a large portion of my time alone, simply by being out of the house or by shutting my door. When I am with others, I can curtail much of my conversation by 1) not speaking badly about anyone or being judgmental and 2) not putting forth opinions unless asked for them. Foregoing these, I am actually left with little to say. That is a telling commentary on my speech habits to this point.

More than at any time in my life, right now I have a sense of identity and uniqueness as a person, as one of God’s created. Though the place where I am is unfamiliar, I am at peace with the feeling that, trusting in God to lead and sustain me, my path will be my own, not one that is walked guided by how others are traveling or by what others think. How can I know what they think? Who are “they?” This morning, “they” was [name withheld]. She said she felt sorry for me because I felt so miserable. I was flabbergasted. I don’t feel miserable at all. Maybe I appear that way. If so, that’s just the way it is going to be. Reminds me of an article I read in the newspaper about the Mennonites. The writer mentioned to one of the members that some would say the Mennonites didn’t seem very happy because they didn’t smile much. The member simply said, I suppose we don’t smile all that much. Since he didn’t go on to explain they were happy anyway, I think they probably were – but not as the world is happy.

Some quotes from Asking the Fathers:

Presence to oneself, faith in him who is the self’s secret foundation and gives himself there, silence to everything that is not him in order to be wholly his, that is preparation for prayer. Naturally, such a state of soul does not come about without it being itself prepared for by an entire range of circumstances. It is this we do not sufficiently grasp in practice. One prepares oneself for prayer by leading a divine life, and the prayer is, in the long run, that divine life. Everything which conforms us to the image of God, everything which leads us beyond and above the created, every sacrifice which detaches us from it, every glimpse of faith which shows us in any being him who is, every movement of true, selfless love which puts us in harmony with the Three in One, all that is prayer and prepares us for a more intimate prayer. In us, as in God, there are many rooms. God dwells in the innermost, the most secret. It is there in us, but by sin we left it. Since then, God is in us, but we are no longer there; the preparation for prayer consists in returning there. One must close the door to that which is not, and enter into him who is. The whole secret of prayer is there. (Dom A. Gailerand, quoted on Pages 139-140)

The man who links together his prayer with deeds of duty and fits seemly actions with his prayer is the man who prays without ceasing, for his virtuous deeds or the commandment he has fulfilled are taken up as part of his prayer. For only in this way can we take the saying “pray without ceasing” as being possible, if we can say that the whole life of the saint is one mightily integrated prayer. Of such prayer, part is what is usually called “prayer,” and ought not be performed less than three times each day. (Origen, quoted in Ibid., Page 143)

April 19, 1995

Many good things to write:

We are afflicted in every way possible, but we are not crushed; full of doubts, we never despair. We are persecuted but never abandoned; we are struck down but never destroyed. Continually we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may be revealed. While we live we are constantly being delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh. Death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:8-12)

Come, you whom my Father has blessed; inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world, alleluia. (Introit, Wednesday in the Octave of Easter Matthew 25:34)

Glory in his holy name;

rejoice, O hearts that seek the Lord!

Look to the Lord in his strength;

seek to serve him constantly.

(Responsorial, Wednesday, Psalm 105: 3-4)

Then they recounted what had happened on the road and how they had come to know him in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:35)

One should not go to prayer to be calmed, to think splendid thoughts, or to solve difficult problems. One should go to prayer to seek God, and in the seeking one finds everything else one needs. (Asking the Fathers, Page 158)

What an exciting adventure this life is becoming. The freedom I am experiencing comes from throwing myself into the unknown way that God has created only for me. But it is not really “a way;” it is not even a “way of life.” It is me! It is the being which God has created and continues to create. I am an unfolding of that creation, just as everything and everyone is an unfolding. But how do we unfold? There is the vital point. Do we clinch, ball up, hold fast to our fears and preconceived notions, truly prisoners of ourselves? Or do we abandon ourselves to God, turning inward or outward, wherever He leads? In the former is death which comes from trying to live. In the latter, life which comes, first from being willing to die and, then, from dying in fact.

April 21, 1995

Yesterday morning it was given to me to see the difference between: knowing but knowing not and knowing not but knowing.

The more I know, the more I know not; the more I know not, the more I know. This hearkens back to a couple months ago, when I was reading knowing being ignorance and not knowing being enlightenment. Yesterday morning, I experienced it.

This came following a second major insight, it being that in judging others I am appropriating what is God’s. This related insight came in regard to self seeking. Like judging others and being concerned with their lives, I have “known” for a long time that I should not be self seeking. This, in fact, was found to be my major character defect upon working my fourth step. What I really knew was that the consequences of self seeking were not good, but only yesterday morning did I actually see the basis for this: it is because, when self seeking, I cannot be God seeking which, more then being “good” for me, is in reality my true nature – to seek that which I am most like.

I also had this homely picture:

Whichever of the four taps I open is the one which will fill me up. With self, other things, and other people I get unreality which leads to misery and confusion. With God I get reality and grace which bring wholeness – “wholiness.” Do I try to run them all at once? Two at a time? Or just one? Which one?

April 26, 1995

I have been on vacation for four days – four busy days. I had time to work with my camera, taking four rolls of film, most of the time using the manual mode. I also gathered wood and bricks and helped [name withheld] move and get settled into her new house. [Name withheld] and I came to at least this understanding – that perhaps we do have a future together after all. Realizing that much work needs to be done, we agreed not to write off our relationship.

He spoke the truth who said, everything works together for good to those who love God. To the soul that loves God the body is valuable in its weakness, valuable when it is dead, valuable when it is raised from the dead. In the first condition it serves to the profit of penance, in the second for rest, and in the end for completion. It is right that the soul does not wish to be fulfilled without the body, since it is convinced that in every condition the body has been its servant in good. It is evident that the flesh is a good and faithful friend to the good spirit. For when it is a burden, it is also a help or, when it does not help, it is an unburdening, and when it undoubtedly helps, it is no burden at all. The first state is toilsome, but fruitful; the second leisured, yet far from wearisome; the third simply glorious. (St. Bernard, quoted in Asking the Fathers, Page 171)

April 28, 1995

Last night, when feeling no closeness or consolation whatsoever, I renewed my willingness to love God for “no because,” to not seek self or to expect or hope that I can somehow rid myself of my many faults but just to be in His presence by acknowledging His presence. And last night, I had a long, funny, and sometimes touching dream. I am not going to describe it except to say its message was evident – It is simple. Just live it that way. I’ll take care of the rest. Then, this morning’s responsorial psalm:

I believe that I shall see

the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord with courage;

be stout hearted and wait for the Lord.

(Psalm 27: 13-14)

Live the life of solitude and desolation

Live it today.

May 1, 1995

I know nothing, therefore I know God.

This came to me last night while walking home from the bus stop. It is true.

I have finished reading Asking the Fathers. It was a good book. One last quote, this one from St. Francis de Sales:

Contemplation is nothing other than a loving, simple and permanent attention of the spirit to divine things, as you will easily appreciate by comparing meditation with it. We meditate to gather the love of God, but having gathered it we contemplate God and are attentive to his goodness on account of the sweetness which love makes us find in it. In sum, meditation is the mother of love, but contemplation her daughter. (Page 201)

He continues by speaking of a recollection, which is not made at the command of love, but is love itself, that is to say, we do not bring it about by our own choice, since it is not in our power to have it when we want and does not depend on our care, but God brings it about in us when he pleases by his most holy grace. Thus when our Savior makes his most delightful presence felt in the center of our soul, all our faculties turn their points in that direction to unite themselves to this incomparable sweetness.

When you are with our Lord in this simple and pure filial confidence, stay there, without disturbing yourself at all to make sensible acts, either of the understanding or of the will. For this simple love of confidence and this loving slumber of your spirit in the arms of the Savior comprises beyond compare all you could go and look for here and there according to your taste. It is better to sleep on this sacred breast than to watch elsewhere, wherever it may be.

Sometimes it is only in the will, in which it is sensible at times and at other times imperceptible. At other times the soul has a certain ardent sweetness at being in God’s presence, which is for the moment imperceptible to her. At other times she hears the beloved speak, but she does not know how to speak to him, because the delight of hearing him or the reverence she bears towards him keeps her silent or perhaps she is in dryness and such a languor of spirit that she has only the strength to hear, but not to speak. But finally, sometimes she neither hears her well-beloved or speaks to him, nor yet feels any sign of his presence. She simply knows that she is in the presence of her God, to whom it is pleasing that she should be there. (Pages 201-202)

As Thomas Merton said: Contemplation is simply the awareness of the presence of God.

May 2, 1995

In today’s first reading, before he was stoned to death, St. Stephen said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (Acts 7:58). This reminds me of Christ’s words on the cross, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. (Luke 23:46). Finally, the responsorial for today was Into your hands, O Lord, I entrust my spirit.

I am going to modify my Jesus Prayer to incorporate this statement, replacing Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me with Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit. I want to express and keep in mind as much as possible my desire to die in spirit that I might live in my Lord. Like St. Stephen and like Jesus Himself, I want to give up my spirit, my self, to God. I want to die.

May 3, 1995

Yesterday evening was special – three times there came opportunities for me to expound – with [name withheld], during a meeting, and with [name withheld]. But I did not and thank God I did not.

At the meeting, the topic was giving away our power. My own conclusion is that I am, in fact, powerless over just about everything and, in reality, have no power to give away. I think I do, but that is an illusion. Power comes from God. It can pass through me but, if it does, it is not mine and I do not give it. What I actually give away to other people or horde for myself is self. This I can do. In doing so, I am giving or keeping something that is not mine to give or keep. My self is God’s. That I do not see this, understand it, live it – this is a tragedy.

Getting It Straight

They cast themselves as my masters,

tried to train me,

mold me, teach me,

force me, cajole me

to abide by their whims.

What an illusion!

They are people.

I am a cat.

This understood,

apparently

they

became

happy.

May 4, 1995

Christ died for all, so that living men should not live for themselves, but for Christ who dies and was raised to life for them. (2 Corinthians 5:15)

If his acts are done in public,

In broad daylight, He will be punished by men.

If they are done in private

and in secret,

they will be punished

by spirits.

Let each one understand

the meaning of sincerity

and guard against display!

He will be at peace

with men and spirits

and will act rightly, unseen,

in his own solitude,

in the tower of his spirit.

(The Way of Chuang Tzu, Page 135)

If everything in my life points to powerlessness, what can I say about giving away my power to others? What an illusion.

May 5, 1995

The man of spirit … hates to see people gather around him. He avoids the crowd. For where there are many men, there are also many opinions and little agreement. There is nothing to be gained from the support of a lot of half-wits who are doomed to end up in a fight with each other.

The man of spirit is neither very intimate with anyone, nor very aloof. He keeps himself interiorily aware, and he maintains his balance so that he is in conflict with nobody. This is your true man! He lets ants be clever. He lets mutton rush with activity. For his part, he imitates the fish that swims unconcerned, surrounded by a friendly element, and minding his own business.

The true man sees what the eye sees, and does not add to it something that is not there. He hears what the ears hear, and does not detect imaginary undertones and overtones. He understands things in their obvious interpretation and is not busy with hidden meanings and mysteries. His course is therefore a straight line. Yet he can change his direction whenever circumstances suggest it. (The Way of Chuang Tzu, Pages 148-149)

May 5, 1995 (concluded)

                                                    A Great Day!

                                                    Ah, the sun.
                                                   Wake up. Blink.
                                                   Yawn and stretch.
                                                   Scratch a flea.
                                                   Hungry.
                                                   Meow for food.
                                                   Eat.
                                                   Lick chops, lick paws, lick fur.
                                                   Drink water and walk.
                                                   Deposit and cover.
                                                   Walk. Sit. Walk. Sit.
                                                   Snooze a while.
                                                   What a great day!
                                                   What a great life!
                                                   being!
                                                   a cat!

The Haiku 

were I to live life
simply like other beings
how full it would be

doing just doing
whatever the moment brings
being there present

how great days would be
were I to live them fully
moment by moment

like my cats taught me
going about their business
doing what comes next

May 8, 1995

The Meeting

They met,
like City Council,
on Wednesday.
High noon, in the driveway,
hot or not.
Bella.
Hobbs.
Dora.
Fat Yellow.
All answered the call,
except for Frankenfeline.
(Vote that scalawag out!)
They were calm.
For a while.
Then -
pandemonium!

 

Fat Yellow opened an eye!

                               Dora lolled on her back!
                                             Hobbs strolled off to sniff a rock!
                                                           Bella Yawned!

Might have raged on forever,
had not food arrived.
Meeting adjourned!
Myself?
I’ve sat through meetings
less productive.

 By far.

The Haiku

lolling on my back
strolling off to sniff a rock
yawn...open an eye

I do stuff like that
though it might not be the same
carries as much weight

just this and that stuff
all of it is important
and none of it is

if I don’t do this
probably I’ll just do that
circumstances all
 

that is what cats do
might take a page from their book
could do a lot worse

May 9, 1995

I spent yesterday with [name withheld]. We just “hung out.” I read some of my journal to her and made only one caustic remark all day, which is a record for me, having spent sixteen hours with one person.

The Haiku 

 

caustic...quite a word
...capable of destroying
...marked by sarcasm

never justified...
words like this that can injure
from where do they come

a bitter spirit?
long festering resentments?
insecurity?

dislike or hatred?
any such might underlie
poison...one and all

is there no relief
a cure...as if by magic
yes...but not magic

it comes from within
where loving kindness begins
from where it flows out

first comes emptiness
once poisonous attachments
from spirit are drained
 

then in emptiness
the loving kindness can grow...
such words disappear

May 9, 1995 (continued...)

This morning I am aware that seeking God – rather acknowledging, gratefully acknowledging His being – is what my life is for. That rather than the self seeking treadmill of being good.

The Haiku 

 

what my life is for…
an interesting old quest
asking, who am I

what is my purpose...
surely there must be a plan
why else would I live

questions so profound...
or for many years I thought
trusting in my brain

there must be answers...
had to be answers I thought
never asking why

need there be answers...
to satisfy brain I guess
what other reason

leave brain for a while
let go conceptual thought
try going within

silence...solitude
enter into emptiness
dare merely to be
 

the answers they come
once the questions they depart
when being begins

May 9, 1995 (continued...)

Merton’s little book, Thoughts in Solitude, contains many good thoughts. Having finished the first part, I note only one.

We begin our renouncement of creatures by standing back from them and looking at them as they are in themselves. In so doing we penetrate their reality, their actuality, their truth, which cannot be discovered until we get them outside ourselves and stand back so they are seen in perspective. We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our own bosom. When we let go of them we being to appreciate them as they really are. Only then can we begin to see God in them. Not until we find Him in them can we start on the road of dark contemplation at whose end we shall be able to find them in Him. The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created as supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be wasted by men because it offered them nothing. There was nothing to attract them. There was nothing to exploit. The desert was the region in which the Chosen People had wandered for forty years cared for by God alone. They could have reached the Promised Land in a few months if they had traveled directly to it. God’s plan was that they should learn to love Him in the wilderness and that they should always look back upon the time in the desert as the idyllic time of their life with Him alone. (Thoughts in Solitude, Pages 4-5)

The Haiku 

 

since times long gone by
the desert has made its call...
to spirit beckons

both as a symbol
and as a physical place
leave all...come to me

forego distractions
surrender all attachments
enter emptiness

where awaits wonder
in the simple not complex
in little not much

there lost in silence
solitude...desolation
there in the desert 

 
nothing more to want
futile seeking at an end
enough is enough

May 9, 1995 (concluded)

Strangely, as a child I learned to spell desert and dessert by remembering dessert had two S’s because I always wanted more of it. Now I want more desert.

The Haiku 

 

since I left childhood
surely as I live today
one thing I have learned

more is not better
most of the time worse in fact
leading to excess

along the same lines…
in medio stat virtus
Latin for...balanced
 

and my favorite
again...same kind of thinking…
enough is enough

May 10, 1995

I will be a witness to you in the world, O Lord. I will spread the knowledge of your name among my brothers. (Psalm 17:50, 21, 23)

The Haiku

 

how can I witness
what message have I to spread
to whom shall it go

it begins within
there the message first appears
found in emptiness

from seedlings planted
husbanded with loving care
thus the message grows

from silence rising
in moments of solitude
there it is nourished

the harvest ready
it is reaped and stored and kept
waiting to be spread

for all to receive
as we meet along our ways
all who are being
 

simple the message
a life of loving kindness
witnessed by living

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

The Lord says, I have chosen you from the world to bear fruit that will last. (John 15: 16, 19)

The Haiku 

 

from what world am I
and how have I been chosen
what fruit do I bear

the first of three worlds
being in a human way...
I am from this world

not of my choosing
this way in which the brain rules...
circumstance prevails

I like all mankind
am born and live in this way
as always I will

swayed by perception
thoughts arise and concepts form
attachments accrue

from these am I called
allowed to choose other worlds
other ways to be

these ways are the fruit
they are born in solitude
in desolation 

lasting they become
if faithful is my practice
in three worlds being

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

These two passages from today’s Introit and Communion were to the point regarding something that was on my mind when I awoke. I have been reading a woman’s journal – or rather her story based on her journals. She has a strong recovery, yet several times she wrote that she did not know how the steps work, just that they work. This is heard often in 12-step circles. Yet, in my own life, I know how they work, at least how they work for me. As I thought about this, I began to think about a booklet I might write. I read the verses quoted above as a confirmation of what I am considering. When I return from convention, I might write The Steps: How They Work and Why.

The Haiku

 

after convention…
thought I might write a booklet
a good intention

finally I did
but not a booklet...haiku
many years later

twenty-seven years…
it took that long to begin
after much practice

no doubt for the best
over the years much has changed...
so much has evolved

The Steps became mine
beyond something handed down
by practice instilled

years of formation
over months put into verse
a task quite daunting

for whom did I write
as it turned out...for no one
unless for myself

what I learned was this…
practicing for no because
becomes the because

unseen until done
then revealed in the outcome
a path has been forged
 

mine alone it is
no one else needs to walk it
may they walk their own

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

To love solitude and to seek it does not mean constantly traveling from one geographical possibility to another. A man becomes solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of his own inalienable solitude and sees that he will never be anything but solitary. From that moment, solitude is not potential – it is actual. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 87)

The Haiku   

 

why I love Merton…
once again he speaks to me
voices my own heart

before solitude
begins life in solitude
a way of being

a mindset it is
an abiding decision
daily in practice

composed of pauses
moments short or extended
of silence within

aware of being
and aware of nothing more
lost in emptiness
 

nothing else matters
neither circumstance nor time
such is solitude

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

In our age everything has to be a “problem.” Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside. We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 90)

The Haiku 

 

what causes problems
if not conflicts within us
the wars of our wills

what it is we want
collides with what we perceive
neither being real

suffering ensues
often as anxiety
fear of not knowing

having no answer
anxious turmoil roils within
perceived as without

it is “a problem”
to be solved from the outside
rather than within
 

soon life is thus lived...
focused on what is outside
rather than within

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

Sanctity in such an age means, no doubt, traveling from the area of anxiety to the area in which there is no anxiety or perhaps it may mean learning, from God, to be without anxiety in the midst of anxiety. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 90)

The Haiku  

 

what is sanctity
about this I did wonder
elusive it seemed

it seemed so fuzzy
was it holiness perhaps
whatever that means

more concrete maybe
like just trying to be good
something I could do

so I hoped and tried
yet never quite succeeded
mostly I was bad

until I gave up
quit trying to be holy
no more being good

instead...I practiced
set about forging a path
leading to nowhere

living in the now
surrendering attachments...
conceptual thought

saying a mantra
solitude...desolation
being just being

all for no because
just doing to be doing
called it my practice

still unsure of stuff
like sanctity...holiness
and really don’t care

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live. Thus, if one is called to be a solitary he will stop wondering how he is to live and start living peacefully only when he is in solitude. But if one is not called to a solitary life, the more he is alone the more will he worry about living and forget to live. When we are not living up to our true vocation, thought deadens our life, or substitutes itself for life, or gives in to life so that our life drowns out our thinking and stifles the voice of conscience. When we find our vocation – thought and life are one. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 95)

The Haiku

 

a solitary
must be called to solitude
it is not a whim

it is a calling
a vocation as some say
a way of living

a decision, yes
but first an invitation
received from within

answered, too, within
not a choice made by the brain
something desired

it is simply there
found within in solitude
heard by those who hear

it takes no thinking
no planning...no logistics
it is simply done

the place matters not
neither does living alone
nor circumstances

taking time alone
quiet time...foregoing thought
shedding attachments

living the moment
being in a human way
but being awake

not waiting to be
being in the now right now
there where being is

such is solitude
perhaps to be lived alone
perhaps with others

if there is a call
in solitude it is heard
there to be answered
 

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

Suppose one has found completeness in his true vocation. Now everything is in unity, in order, at peace. Now work no longer interferes with prayer or prayer with work. Now contemplation no longer needs to be a special “state” that removes one from the ordinary things going on around him for God penetrates all. One does not have to think of giving an accounting of oneself to anyone but Him. (Thoughts in Solitude, Pages 96)

The Haiku 

 

unity...order…
at peace...completeness described
true vocation found

Merton’s description
brings to mind A Life of One...
a true vocation

three ways of being…
human way, awakened way
way of emptiness

happening at once
all ways in the same moment
being completeness

working is praying
and both are also playing
all ways of being
 

nothing divided
one in being and moment
as is all of life

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

Contradictions have always existed in the soul of man. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become a constant and insoluble problem. We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them and see them in the light of exterior and objective values which make them trivial by comparison. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 91)

The Haiku 

 

not to have answers
or answers that contradict
this can be vexing

yet it need not be
answers come at the right time
some wait...some evolve

in silence they come
away from the noise of thought
clamor of the brain

with patient calmness
knotty problems are untied
as if by themselves  

 

or they do not come
sometimes there is no answer
which is the answer

not over controlled
thought or analyzed too much...
things just take their course

almost too simple
so seems life in solitude
not vexing at all

May 10, 1995 (continued…)

We put words between ourselves and things. Even God has become another conceptual unreality in a no-man’s land of language that no longer serves as a means of communication with reality. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 92)

The Haiku

 

at times I have doubts…
my concepts about concepts
as an example

then I read...we put
words between ourselves
written by Merton

conceptual thought
a no-man’s land of language
that is what words are

thoughts and perceptions
they are not reality
cannot transmit it
 

articulation…
the killer of mystery
that is found within

May 10, 1995 (continued...)

At times, I forget how much I owe to Merton. Then I run into this kind of stuff.

The Haiku

let me now list them
those who have influenced me
most (among many)

first is my mother
more than model or teacher
she was my conscience

then there is Jesus
to this day his words ring true
his the way of love

Lao Tzu...ancient sage
he gave me the Tao Te Ching
way of true wisdom

dear Thomas Merton
who opened so many doors
one toward the East

the awakened one
Siddhartha Gautama
teacher of practice

a friend to millions
they call him Bill W...
twelve practical steps

finally Huang Po
he crystallized everything
showed me the way home

May 10, 1995 (concluded)

A Flower Under My Collar

Who stuck a flower under my collar?
A Morning Glory at that!
Now I feel an itch,
and so I scratch,
but this time at a flower instead of a flea.
Yet an itch is still an itch,
and a scratch is still a scratch,
so is there really a difference
between
a flower and a flea?

(Composed May 10, 1995)

The Haiku 

grateful for whimsy
the freedom to be silly
with time for giggling

writing just to write...
so the poetry is bad
let those who wince...wince

it’s all this and that
flowers, fleas, itches, scratches
poetry or prose

or even haiku
nothing but thoughts to paper
or to computer

nothing will be changed
except of course everything
that's the way it is

May 12, 1995

That which appears is unreal,
while that which is real appears not at all.

The Haiku 

all that I perceive
not a whit of it is real
perceptions...no more

this I can't perceive
beings being...that is real
as I am being

were I to wonder
as in the past I have done
asking who am I

the answer would be
I am being...as are all
which cannot be seen

May 12, 1995 (concluded)

This is a complete thought that came to me out of nowhere this morning while I was walking to Mass. It preceded a time when I was given sure knowledge of Jesus as God and God as all. Without thoughts or words, concepts or images, in the depths of me I could see without seeing and understand without understanding that in relation to God all else is nothing except in the sharing in the life of God.

The Haiku

for many years now
this is the way things have come
sure knowledge it is

seeing not seeing
and hearing but not hearing
knowing not knowing

much of my practice
like things I do and I say
they have come this way

the mantra I use
and The Eleven Sayings
and A Life of One

all have arisen
in quiet times...unannounced
within...they appear

May 13, 1995

Tired. Worked at the hotel. Walked. At peace. Just listening to the ball game. Wrote a somber poem.

The Haiku 

moments and days spent
doing this thing and then that
feelings of all kinds

all is important
yet important not at all
doing just doing

this is how peace looks
and how tired looks as well
each in its moment

all done mindfully
working, walking, listening
soon it is a day

May 13, 1995 (concluded)

Cat Memory

No words nor thoughts.
Just sensations,
not connected, not good.
Not for a stray.
Like hunger.
Like bites from ants, spiders, dogs, and rats.
Not to mention other cats.
Flashing, booming, wet to drowning,
hit and rolled and tossed by cars.
Prowling, growling, hissing, clawing.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Every night!
Lost an eye, half a foot.
Scars, sores, tics, tattered ear.
Too much to hear!
But no.
God,
thanks for
cat memory.

(composed May 13, 1995)

The Haiku 

cats have memories
they recall good times and bad
just like we humans

I’ve seen them cower
someone has mistreated them
they’ve been taught mistrust

they show up to eat
a welcome meal remembered
that’s how they survive

a rough life they lead
these kitties without a home
may they find one soon

May 18, 1995

I’ve been busy. Maybe occupied is a better word. Finished [name withheld]’s cross. Made one for [name withheld]. Started on another. Took pictures of cats.  Laid some more of the sidewalk. Getting things ready to go to the convention.

The Haiku

doing just doing
odd tasks that seem different
yet all are the same

whatever it is
if it harms not, it is good
an act of praying

done in the present
with good will and in kindness
it benefits all

doing for others
seeing and honoring them
creating beauty

performing one’s job
all such deeds and many more
make eternity

in but a moment
a life’s work is carried out
noble endeavor

May 18, 1995 (continued...)

I am not feeling “spiritually ambitious,” meaning I am content knowing that God lives in me and I in Him, no matter how I feel. I am now definitely desiring only God rather than His gifts. Oh, thoughts still flit through my mind, just as all kinds of other thoughts flicker to life and then fade. But, in my heart, there is a deep and steady contentment that only God matters, with all else, everything else, including me, having substance only in relation to Him.

 

The Haiku 

what really matters
to where did this long quest lead...
a place unlikely

from what does life mean
to seeking one’s true self to
only God matters

perceptions believed
thoughts conceived and gestated
concepts given birth

all to be exposed
mere creations of the brain
illusions they were

radical the change
when what matters is being
being...nothing more

living in the now
freed from brain and circumstance
new way of being

ever more distilled
clarified in solitude
life becomes simple
 

strange this happening
the move into emptiness
dot of no matter

May 18, 1995 (continued...)

Christ died for all, so that living men should not live for themselves, but for Christ who died and was raised to life for them. (2 Corinthians 5:15)

The Haiku 

 
since Christ died for all
says Paul in Corinthians
men should live for Christ

for Christ who had died
and was raised to life for them
thereby gave them life

Paul liked his circles…
or so it appears at times
based on his logic

I ought not be snide
judging from my own haiku
I like circles too

this is my belief…
not for self or for others
ought I to live life
 

being just being
for myself and all that is
this is sufficient
 

in moment being
being love, being kindness
this is why I die

May 18, 1995 (to be continued)

As I ready to leave for convention, the thought occurs to me that since convention last year, I have read thirteen books:

                                            Abandonment to Divine Providence
                                            The Way of a Pilgrim

                                            The Philokalia, Volume I
                                            The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton
                                            Showings: Julian of Norwich
                                            Zen and the Birds of Appetite 

                                            Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters
                                            Zen Catholicism
                                            Lessons Learned from the Monastery
                                            Sharing Silence
                                            Asking the Fathers
                                            Thoughts in Solitude
                                            The Way of Chuang Tzu

And now I am reading the fourteenth, Introduction to a Devout Life.

The Haiku

teachers they have been
like a parade of scholars
the books I have read

a part of practice
sacred reading and writing
food for reflection

two ways of being
being in a human way
and awakened way

both involve the brain
the human way creates thoughts
and leads to concepts

the awakened way
engages in reflections
and evaluates
 

it is what comes in
becomes part of what flows out
for all to receive

May 18, 1995 (continued...)

Some final passages from Thoughts in Solitude.

It is a greater thing and a better prayer to live in Him Who is infinite, and to rejoice that He is infinite, than to strive always to press His infinity into the narrow space of our own hearts. (Page 109)

The Haiku 

 

to be without thought
to be without agenda
this is true freedom

to be in the now
unbound by past and future
this is true freedom

to be unattached
not tied to have and have not
this is true freedom

to be unseeking
because what is is enough
this is true freedom
 

to be deep within
in the way of emptiness
this is true freedom

May 18, 1995 (continued…)

Vocation to Solitude – To deliver oneself up, to hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hills, or sea or desert, to sit still while the sun comes up over that land and fills its silence with light; to pray and work in the morning and to labor and rest in the afternoon, and to sit still again in meditation in the evening when night falls on that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and peaceful vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing out but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 113)

 

The Haiku 

 
call to solitude…
to deliver oneself up
its silent response

call to solitude…
the handing over of self
its silent response

call to solitude…
entrust oneself completely
its silent response

call to solitude…
to sit while the sun rises
its silent response

call to solitude…
to pray and work through the day
its silent response

call to solitude…
to sit again as night falls
its silent response

call to solitude…
to let it soak in bone deep
its silent response

May 18, 1995 (continued…)

The solitary life is above all a life of prayer. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 117)

The Haiku

 

solitude’s grand gift
time’s unimagined expanse
the moment spread wide

a life unhurried
space enough for this and that
all deeds in due time

mindfully each done
honorable and valued
with respect for all

 
what is such a life
flowing with love and kindness
what if not a prayer

May 18, 1995 (continued...)

As soon as you are really alone you are with God. Some people live for God, some live with God, some live in God...sitting under the same tree I can live for God, or with Him, or in Him. (Thoughts in Solitude, Page 130)

The Haiku 

 

sitting or standing
no matter under which tree
there I am being

sky high or sky low
burned by sun or soaked in rain
there I am being

basking in success
or by failure embarrassed
there I am being

in the bloom of health
or in pain's throes from disease
there I am being

in the know or not
whether woke or unaware
there I am being

with purpose or none
wandering or on a path
there I am being 

all of these are true
for just one constant there is...
being just being

May 18, 1995 (concluded)

The great work of the solitary life is gratitude. (Thoughts in So,litude Page 138)

The Haiku 

 

a great work indeed
is a gratitude filled life
thankful for what is

whatever it is...
sometimes joy, sometimes sorrow
it is what life is

should I pick and choose
my life will not be lived full
I will not be there
 

for this I give thanks
that no matter what might be
I am there as well

May 30, 1995

It has been a long time since I have written in this journal, not since I started getting ready to go to the convention in Ann Arbor. Looking back, I had to work fifteen hours on Friday, May 19, getting ready at the office. All the next day was consumed with personal preparation, followed by attending [name withheld]’s concert. After that – from Sunday, May 21, to today, Monday, May 30, I have been imprisoned in a whirl of relentless activity.

The Haiku 

 

unrelenting whirl
such is the world of busy
a harsh slave master

likened to prison
shut off from freedom’s fresh air
doomed to suffocate

it takes but a pause
with eyes closed and breathing slowed
a mantra whispered 

 
one moment it takes
to escape the busy trap
spring its rigid jaws

May 30, 1995 (continued…)

It began slowly enough, with Sunday afternoon and Monday morning free for looking around Ann Arbor and the countryside and taking pictures. But once the Board members started to arrive Monday afternoon, there began what I have come to think of as a violent departure from the way I want to live and do live my life. At Mass this morning, I felt battered.

The Haiku 

 

as if blindsided
it is when solitude crushed
violent it seems

amuck it careens
from stillness to a stampede
demands running wild

must flow with the tide
doing this, caring for that
head above water

though feeling battered
no choice but to soldier on
as best as best can 

doing...embracing
what can and cannot be done
solitude survives

May 30, 1995 (continued…)

Now I sit in the Detroit Metro Airport, at last with an opportunity to look back from a perspective of quiet. Although around me people are talking and planes are coming and going, already I can feel the solitude resettling itself within me. In faith, I have known all week through that such would be the case.

The Haiku 

 

once calm is restored
lessons there are to be learned
perhaps learned anew

whatever is deep
remains deep beneath the storm
by surface unmoved

even disrupted
practices faithfully kept
wither not with ease

such is solitude
though for a time intruded
smothered it is not 

it throbs deep within
there pulsing like a heart beat
vital as life blood

May 30, 1995 (continued…)

There were times during the week when I had respite and was able to withdraw into my inner core but, because of mental and sometimes physical exhaustion, my rest came in knowing that I was being protected, sustained, and loved and that it was in my willingness and desire to be in God’s presence that my part lie. God would do all else. On numerous occasions I found myself saying within, “Just walk past all your thoughts, all your feelings, all your distractions, walk past yourself, without dwelling on figuring out anything intellectually; walk past all that, straight to God, and rest there as best you can, in trust.” And, in doing that, I found a deep peace and assurance, which were grounded in God rather in circumstances, feelings, or thought.

The Haiku 

 
always it is there
that inner core deep within
therein find respite

amid exhaustion
mental and physical both
be there protected

dare to walk past thoughts
past feelings and distractions
past even oneself

not figuring out
walking beyond all of that
beyond intellect 

descend into trust
into peace and assurance
rest there in being

May 30, 1995 (continued...)

Once, on Friday night, I went to bed and felt a lot of anger at the delegates’ decision to add $6,000 to the budget. I believed that it was a step back from reality, though done in the name of trust. I thought the Board, which had seemed to want fiscal reality, had not adequately challenged the move. I thought my hard work on the budget had been invalidated. I felt betrayed. Thoughts came up about addressing the delegates the next day or the Board on Sunday. I even thought about resigning. I had a headache. My body felt as if I had been beaten. So, I talked with God and put all before Him and prayed that He protect me from myself, this self that was not sane. He did. The next morning none of the previous night’s thoughts seemed either appropriate or desirable.

The Haiku 

 

of night thoughts beware
muddled they are and fearsome
tricksters in the dark

observe the stage set
shadowy vague images
ominous they are

feelings flit about
emotions weave in weave out
intellect foggy

mind clock set ahead
all action in the future
might be could be time

disguised as thinking
worry gets the starring role
in this plot-less play

best to chuck the script
so bad it cannot be saved
waste of time to try

better to get up
walk a bit...sit in a chair
read a book...or pray

sanity might come
or at the least sleepiness
for sure the dawning 

all will be more clear
when future gives way to now
darkness turns to light

May 30, 1995 (continued…)

Another crucial moment came on Saturday afternoon when, still very tired and strained, I met with Harry to finalize the Board’s Sunday meeting agenda. We got sidetracked and disagreed, and I was argumentative, overbearing, and disrespectful in the way I spoke to Harry. After he left, I got a second opinion from Claude, who had also been present. His answer confirmed my own assessment. After the meeting on Sunday, I had the opportunity to make amends to Harry.

The Haiku 

 

misbehaving still
as I have done in the past
will in the future

why does this happen
being in a human way…
that would explain it

does not excuse it
more important...what to do
when happen it does

remedy there is
of Twelve Steps, it is the Tenth
when wrong...admit it

admit it promptly
take responsibility
sooner not later

which leads to Step Eight...
willingness to make amends
if the wrong caused harm

which leads to Step Nine…
carrying out those amends
to those who were harmed
 

from a human way
to a way that’s awakened
simple...Ten, Eight, Nine

May 30, t995 (continued…)

There were other instances during the week when I could have been silent and was not or when I could have spoken differently. I know this and accept these as a part of my humanity, grateful that, in all cases, I was able to be aware of the failings.

The Haiku 

 

accepting oneself
the one who is not perfect
by definition

three ways of being
the first, in a human way
to this I am born

and so will I die
a life of many missteps
never perfection

in this I glory
success and failure alike
both are my teachers

for I am awake
being in a second way
an awakened way

mistakes will happen...
lessons if I am aware
witness to my deeds

here lives acceptance
of myself...and of others
being are we all

each forging a path
being in a human way
awakened way too 

May 30, 1995 (continued...)

Already while being embroiled in all of this activity and even now, I see it all as a confirmation of my desire to live a life of solitude and desolation. This past week, there was much desolation, little solitude. Yet, in the depths of myself – the God grounded self – there was solitude and a peace and serenity, which was based in the confidence that God lived in me and I in Him and an awareness that this, in fact, was the unchanging reality of my eternal existence.

The Haiku 

 

solitude begins
not on the outside...noises
need not be silenced

not on a mountain
far from civilization
away from people

not shut in a room
in isolation living
a reclusive life

observing silence
never speaking to others
as if under vow

silence is golden
an unhurried life a gift
both of great value

yet not solitude...
this way of life is within
abiding...waiting

amid this and that
doing what needs to be done
solitude is near

in but a moment
a pause...a deep breath taken
a mantra spoken

return to center
live a life of solitude
whatever life brings 

May 30, 1995 (continued…)

Nothing needs changing. This week was a part of my job, an ordeal that must be joyfully traversed once each year. It is an experience that further ingrains in me the will, the desire, and the intent to live a life that is, first, not busy and, second, a life that is marked by solitude.

The Haiku 

 

circumstances change
constantly they are changing
they are not my life

being is constant
at all times I am being
my life is being

whatever happens
happens in its own moment
in my moment too

thus there will we meet
my circumstances and I
if I am mindful

this is what happens
in a life lived in practice
changing not changing

circumstances change
while practice remains constant…
a being moment

May 30, 1995 (continued…) 

Of course, I did get to see, talk to, and be with people who are becoming ever more dear. I am grateful for that, despite the fact that these encounters were usually brief and superficial. Exceptions were my time with Arnold and Ila. I leave Michigan with a stronger love for them.

The Haiku

friends...acquaintances
often confused are the two
the few...the many

people whom I know
many liked and respected
fun to be around

the talk is easy
laughs and good times to be had
some disappointments

yet not intimate
short of the deepest level
the rarest of love

unconditional
that special kind of loving
there because it is

a kind seldom found...
like a parent for a child
true friend for true friend

such a treasure this
to love another...just love
love because they are

if one or a few
numbers matter not at all
love itself enough 

 
May 30, 1995 (concluded)

I return to Houston knowing that my love for [name withheld] is deeper and more committed than I had thought. This, however, is not unusual. I am continually learning this and am content – no, I look forward to coming to this same realization of this for the rest of my life. I am happy to be coming back to her and to [name withheld], too. Through all of this past week, both have been in my thoughts, as has been God, this latter maintained – often and when nothing else was possible – through my habitual recitation of the Jesus Prayer: Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!

The Haiku 

attached...committed
a matter of controlling
driven or driving

attachment burdens
influencing or pulling
even controlling

broken promises
renounced cycles repeated
followed by regret

feelings of unease
controlled but out of control
wanting not wanting

all too familiar
these signs and many others
attachment’s hallmarks

commitment urges
pushing for promises made
deeds deemed to be good

based on being love
expressed in being kindness
faithful in practice

sense of well being
rewarded by the doing
vowing to do more 

such is commitment
to others, to self, to deeds
done for no because

June 1, 1995

When I returned home, two days ago, I received a message through [name withheld] to get in touch with [name withheld] or [name withheld] about [name withheld]. I knew it would not be good news and thought about whether a car wreck or suicide. That I should think about the latter indicates how much pain I see in [name withheld]. And, it was the latter and, thank you God that the attempt was not successful. In the end, she called for help.

The Haiku 

 

knowing and doing
not at all times hand in hand
often they are not

seeing someone’s pain
knowing they are suffering
does not empower

provides no magic
no power to give relief
remove their ordeal

to share in their pain
this is what comes with knowing
with it compassion 

 

June 1, 1995 (continued…)

It is so difficult to stand by while someone you love so dearly is in suffering so great that she sees no other way but death. I understand though, because I, too, saw no other way in 1978, when I tried to kill myself. To stand by is difficult but that is what I need to do. Just be there for her, trusting her to the care of God. In this there is peace. To think that I am the one who will save her is insanity. But it is not up to me, and I have faith that [name withheld] will experience His miracles just as I have and do.

The Haiku 

 

pain unbearable
desperation’s final cry
a fatal calling

seeming without hope
a point of true negation
an end to being

when one so chooses
(as if one were free to choose)
what is not one’s own

eternal being
without beginning or end
all in one moment

what is not begun
for this there can be no end
forever only

grandest illusion
to think I can end being
mine or an other's
 

saddest of all states
to want to end one’s being…
to find one cannot

June 1, 1995 (concluded)

One thing I am thankful for is that I have walked where she is walking. I know that the hope for her is real.

The Haiku 

 

to feel someone’s pain
because their pain has been yours
you can walk with them

having gone before
your darkness can be their light
for them a beacon

you can say, I’m here
for you can say, I was there
you can say, trust me

you can say, believe
living proof you can offer
your hope you can share

 
you can take their hand
you can point to your foot prints
you can show the way

June 7, 1995

I tell you solemnly, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:23-24)

The Haiku 

 

for what shall I ask
of nothing can I conceive
all my wants fulfilled

all I need I have
those human-way-being things
they number but five 

for what shall I seek
something worth more than freedom...
no such thing exists

attachments fading
few left and they are not strong
may they go in peace

asking time gone by
no more need to supplicate
believe or receive

June 7, 1995 (continued...)

I have not written for a while. Part of this was due to taking so long to recover from the physical exhaustion of the convention and the first few days after I returned. I have also been busy, spending the weekend with [name withheld] and then with [name withheld]. But also there has been a new deepening of being aware of God’s presence and the completeness of His sufficiency. To simply gaze upon Him with the eye of my most profound consciousness, an awareness in which the mind and the senses take little or no part, though often they seek to intrude but with only minor effect.

The Haiku 

 

quite the paradox
at once aware and thoughtless
seems impossible

to see and to hear
to touch, to smell, and to taste
to simply do them

to experience
without interpretation
clear of perception

doing just doing
keenest of all awareness
by thought unclouded

in this lies freedom
prejudging and attachments...
obstacles dispelled

June 7, 1995 (continued…)

I am in a period almost void of desire for comfort, physical or spiritual. Thought holds little attraction. Even my failings, though they are many and at times despicable, have not enough power to sway me. After all, I truly know that it is God Who works all good, Who is all good, Who gives all that is needed, and Who leads me along a path that is as unimaginably good as it is unknown.

The Haiku 

 

lack of wanting more
not desiring the new
attraction now gone

a void...emptiness
without thought...experience
might be said...care less

might say...negative
some might say...nihilistic
and they would be wrong

what these might espouse
material adventure
 that is negative

to dead ends it leads
endless chase to satisfy
wanting ever more

emptiness fulfills
what is always is enough
sense of well being

desire ceases
with the death of attachment
the dying of need

no longer possessed
neither is there possession
by freedom replaced

July 7, 1995 (concluded)

I think I am grasping something of what St. John of the Cross speaks, for I seem to be living in darkness and yet, paradoxically, the darkness is bright. When I had read about this and had tried to understand it intellectually or to imagine it, I could not. Still, I do not understand it mentally – nor have I tried – but I do know that it is because I am, at times, there. It is not, however, some kind of dazzling, esoteric, or ecstatic experience. Rather it simply and actually quietly is. To put it precisely, as I experience it, I am in the state of knowing that I know nothing and, knowing that, I know everything and know both at the same time.

The Haiku 

knowing not knowing
this phrase I then did not know
the truth is that way

it lies not in words
those shabby tools we must use
so inadequate

truth is in itself
not reliant on wordsmiths
whose skills can beguile

at times...mystery
by brain unfathomable
shrouded in darkness

until it is light
in the deep recess within
by emptiness lit

quietly it is
unveiled by its own presence
known and yet unknown

profoundest of truths
this assurance of being
its darkness so bright 

June 8, 1995

Abbot Pambo questioned Abbot Anthony, saying, “What ought I do?” And the elder replied: “Have no confidence in your own virtuousness. Do not worry about a thing once it has been done. Control your tongue and your belly. (The Wisdom of the Desert, Page 39) 

 

The Haiku

simple suggestions
wisely sought and wisely taught
abbot to abbot

first admonition
be not over confident
not in one’s virtue

guard against such pride
which leads to complacency
followed by a fall

second...don’t worry
the past is the past...long gone
irretrievable

in the moment live
be in what’s happening now
wherein is being

wherein is living
only in this one moment
be there...be alive

third...control the tongue
consider what it can do
thus lessons are learned

none more important
than the power of the tongue
the harm it can cause

of all ways to hurt
none as easy...as often
as is careless speech

bridle then the tongue
and so curtail most worries
most fed by regret

fourth...self discipline
a virtue that takes practice
learning yes and no

many the choices
but none as unique as food
a need yet a want

eating to sustain
using food to maintain health
this warrants a yes

eating for pleasure
using food to fill a want
this calls for a no

thus says the abbot…
trust not in one’s own virtue
don’t live in the past

control what one says
nothing offends like the tongue
use food mindfully

June 8, 1995 (continued) 

Let it suffice for me to say that we need to learn from these men of the fourth century how to ignore prejudice, defy compulsion, and strike out fearlessly into the unknown. (Ibid., Page 37)

The Haiku 

words from long ago
handed down through centuries
wisdom time tested

from the world over
years counted by the thousands
truth does not erode

hearken back to them
wise men and women of old
from what they say learn

what is said today
wisdom too it might well be
given time to prove 

July 8, 1995 (concluded)

Abbot Nesteros: “Not all works are alike. For scripture says that Abraham was hospitable, and God was with him. Elias loved solitary prayer, and God was with him. And David was humble, and God was with him. Therefore, whatever you see your soul to desire according to God, do that thing, and you shall keep your heart safe.” (Ibid., Page 40-41)

The Haiku 

 

there is no one way
there are many...all are true
yet each has their own

risks may be taken
when hearts are sincere and brave
their safety assured

how else can they walk
forging a path theirs alone
a way without light

in darkness they go
enter into the unknown
find there emptiness

without attachments
conceptual thought ignored
they learn a new way

they see not...hear not
neither do they know...and yet
they know, hear, and see 

they forge and they find
that path that is only theirs
it leads where they are

June 12, 1995

Talk flows from thought. Thought flows from self-consciousness. Self-consciousness obscures God.

The Haiku 

 

thoughts can run rampant
like three-year-olds unminded
winsome gadabouts

from them pour forth floods
words and ideas half cocked
like cataracts gush 

from where do they rush
from outside like intruders
yet from inside born

brains undisciplined
allow them freedom to play
mischief makers they

block they the entrance
to the way of emptiness
awaiting within

in silence waiting
for in quiet does it form
from thought’s clamor free

away from the spawn
of a self that is centered
with itself consumed

June 12, 1995 (continued...)

Father in heaven, words cannot measure the boundaries of love for those born to new life in Christ Jesus. Raise us beyond the limits this world imposes so that we may be free to love as Christ teaches and find joy in your glory. (Alternative Opening Prayer, 10th Week in Ordinary Time)

The Haiku 

 

what are my limits
are they imposed upon me
by the world perhaps

by circumstances
of my freedom am I robbed
unjustly constrained

as if a victim
am I by others oppressed
need I be rescued

or is it within
already there to be claimed
mine for the taking

I need only act...
be quiet, be kind, be love
no more do I need 

with these as enough
all limits will disappear
freedom will I find

June 12, 1995 (continued...)

God is love, and he who lives in love, lives in God, and God in him. (John 4:16)

The Haiku 

 

truly one can say
God is love or love is God
either is the same

first comes emptiness
making room for being love
for being kindness

way of emptiness
the final way of being
of three ways, the third

a way deep within
free from attachment and thought
in silence profound

no trick or magic
simple place of no because
being there enough

unknowing flows in
not moving...simply is there
unknowing knowing

gone are agenda
comparisons and judgment
beings just being

embraced as they are
not short or tall, great or small
nothing not to love

kindness is nourished
not promoted...it evolves
born of miracle

truly one can say
being kindness, being love...
either is the same 

July 12, 1995 (concluded)

Abbot Arsenius, when he was still in the king’s palace, prayed to the Lord saying “Lord, lead me to salvation.” And a voice came to him saying: “Arsenius, fly from men and you shall be saved.” Again, embracing the monastic life, he prayed in the same words. And he heard a voice saying to him: “Arsenius, fly, be silent, rest in prayer: these are the roots of non-sinning.” (Wisdom of the Desert, Page 47-48)

The Haiku 

 

men are not the cause
were I to be dissolute
were I decadent

not from the outside
is the spirit eroded
decay starts within

from talking too much
a brain foolishly cluttered
these choke the spirit

block going within
there to pray...in silence rest
to pause in repose

from men do not fly
but from one’s own attachments
from too many thoughts

fly to the center
embrace solitude...silence
in desolation 

June 13, 1995

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love him. ( 1 Corinthians 2:10)

The Haiku 

 

were I to be love
what would happen were I so
would others feel loved

and were I kindness
what then would the outcome be
would others be pleased

in fact I know not
some might not even notice
even while some would

what does it matter
love and kindness have no why
like some transaction

love for no because
be kindness without purpose
do to be doing

expect no return
practice alone is enough
the right way to be
 

June 13, 1995 (concluded)

Right now my life seems suspended, at rest, with nothing happening, no urgency, no anticipation, little care, few desires and those weak and passing. I feel passive. I am willing to wait on God, trusting that He will do only good, though what that good will be is unknown. At least for now, I am at peace with doing nothing.

The Haiku 

 

nothing happening
little care, no urgency
anticipation

desires are few
those that are...weak and passing
passive...just waiting

trusting in the good
though what that good is...unknown
at peace not doing 

what is going on
might there be a word for it
try serenity

June 15, 1995

All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is the spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:16)

The Haiku

 

my gaze is unveiled
only when my thoughts recede
left at the curtain

their entrance denied
into the sanctuary
a place set aside

in solitude’s keep
where consciousness is transformed
emptiness evolved

where unseeing eyes
behold what cannot be seen
yet seen it becomes

veils at last lifted
with glorious clarity
all is lit brightly

not with the world’s light
whereby objects can be seen
by senses perceived

only inwardly
can the unseen become seen
bathed in unseen light

forged in solitude
tempered in desolation
freedom transpired

June 15, 1995 (concluded)

Paul goes on to say that this “veil” is because men’s minds have been blinded by the god of the present age… In my case, I am also “veiled” by my self, which, when it stands in the way, is like a filter through which all - including God – must pass and, in the passage, all become obscured. Ironically, I stand in the way of my own direct experience, and this means direct experience of anything, be it a breeze, a flower, another human being, or, most tragically, God.

The Haiku 

 

a filter that hides
interpreting constantly
all self related

like a smoky veil
obscuring experience
perceptions impede

through them all must pass
be it a breeze, a flower
another being

away from this haze
these busy machinations
from them must I flee

ever taking pause
from such endless busyness
let them both take rest

let the brain take rest
allow the self to rest too
leave them both behind

enter the moment
be fully present in it
sit in emptiness 

June 16, 1995

I believed, when when I said,
“I am greatly afflicted,”
I said in my alarm,
“No man is dependable.”
Precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
To you I will offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the Lord.
My vows to the Lord I will pay
in the presence of all his people.

(Responsorial, Friday, 10th Week of Ordinary Time,
Psalm 116: 10-11, 15-16, 17-18)

The Haiku 

 

my vows … will I pay
so promises the psalmist
in his affliction

he speaks of alarm...
no man is dependable
why is he surprised?

bonds having been loosed
I will offer sacrifice
to show thankfulness

Huang Po would have said
concentrate entirely
upon these four goals...

no thought creation
no reliance on others
no duality

and no attachments…
there would be no affliction
no cause for alarm

vows would have been paid
sacrifices been offered
and no surprises

no bonds need be loosed
for those who have their freedom
live in gratitude

 

July 16, 1995 (continued...)

How much this psalm spoke to me this morning. I feel very far from those with whom I am presently most closely connected, in fact from everyone except [name withheld] (hers is a not a discretionary relationship – it simply is). But from others – [names withheld] – I feel removed. They need not change. I just am not where they are. It is in a way frightening because I feel alone but not lonely. The sadness I feel comes most from an awareness that solitude and desolation seem to mean physical separation. Physical separation means isolation. Isolation is frowned upon, at least it seems to be frowned upon. Isolation means that I might be antisocial and maladjusted. I think I see these fears for what they are – a mixture of self doubt and a care for what people think. But, then, that is the desolation part of solitude and desolation.

The Haiku 

 

alone...not lonely
solitude...desolation
from others apart

hours long...and days
little noise...mostly silence
in moment being

oh, tasks must be done
things to attend, work and such
people call...they text

but between...pauses
emptiness it is that fills
the center within

those I love are loved
they go about their own lives
loved but not needed

this life...so priceless
each pulsing vital moment
embraced as it is

solitude guards it
enshrines it in sacredness
its being moment

June 16, 1995 (continued...)   

 

We are afflicted in every way possible, but we are not crushed; full of doubts, we never despair. (2 Corinthians 4:8)

The Haiku 

 

afflictions do come
but every way possible…
excessive it seems

as does full of doubts
both perhaps self inflicted
somewhat at the least

words like crushed...despair
such dramatic reactions
to what life might bring

what might be lacking
to warrant these expressions...
perspective perchance

heeding the senses
by circumstance overwhelmed
not in the moment

turbulent waters
whirling to pull all under
when all could be calm

afflictions decrease
as acceptance increases
resistance recedes

as do many doubts
when need for assurance wanes
quest for answers flags

a life on life’s terms
lived in what is happening
not what is wanted

on answers given
not on assurances sought
one’s own agenda

a life of balance
to extreme feelings not prone
a life of freedom 

 

June 16, 1995 (concluded)

I rejoice in not being able to see clearly, in not knowing whether or not my path is straight, in walking ahead in darkness. If I knew, were I sure, my need for faith would not be nearly so great. But I know nothing other than that I am weak and prone to every sort of evil, and I hope for nothing but that my very blindness will force me to cast myself ever more at the feet of my Lord.
 

The Haiku

 

what could limit more
than possessing all answers
prideful assurance

why is faith needed
when certitude reigns supreme
all already known

better nothing known
with an openness to all
so much to be found

limitless treasure
for those empty of notion
filled with unknowing

their path lies ahead
nowhere leading everywhere
with freedom to walk 

 

June 22, 1995

 
All is good that leads me into a closer union with God, and all that diverts me is not.

The Haiku 

 

today I would say
all is good that leads to love
that leads to kindness

I would also say
all is bad if it diverts
from love and kindness

for these are my aims
the ends that my practice seeks
to love and be kind 

 

June 22, 1995 (continued...)

It has been six days since I’ve written in this journal, partly because I’ve been occupied with my yard projects. I’ve finished the sidewalk and laid a little patio and built a little palm roofed sitting area. It’s rustic looking and simple.

The Haiku 

simple they might seem
yard projects...working with hands
little might they be

but not trivial
all things done are important
unimportant too

done to be doing
all mindfully carried out
lovingly and kind

done without harming
all treated respectfully
benefiting all

a way well traveled
from dawn to dark each moment
through life as I go

working with my hands
with intellect working too
working not at all

in all things and times
mindfully, lovingly, kind
in moment being

June 22, 1995 (concluded)

But, beyond being busy, I have had little inclination to write or to read or to think. Life is so simple right now. There is a clarity about essentials. Like sin. Sin is an evil only because it turns me from God. This is also true about other things – whether good or bad – that turn my focus from God. Resentments. Attachments. Compulsions. Judgments. Appetites and addictions. Preoccupation. Ambition. Wants. Even the desire to be “good.” After all, when all is said and done, in this latter there is potentially the most subtle, God obscuring type of self seeking.

The Haiku 

 

so much can obscure
the way of loving kindness
cause one to stumble

to list but a few…
resentments and attachments
preoccupations

wants and appetites
addictions and ambition
compulsions...judgments

even what seems good
like wanting to be holy
(whatever that means)

or enlightenment
an obstacle even that
subtle self seeking

simplicity works
keeping life to essentials
steadfast in practice

sacred principles...
reading, writing, mindfulness
saying a mantra

sacred time and place
faithful in meditation
in moment being

a life of practice
to loving kindness will lead
its way will be cleared  

June 29, 1995

Beginning at 4:00 a.m., Friday, June 23, this week has been very rough physically. Seldom have I been without discomfort at least and, at times, pain. It is another aspect of desolation, one I am not used to. Often, I have been cowardly. It is yet another weakness, yet another revelation of my wretchedness.

 

The Haiku 

 

once beyond eighty
the time gone by might seem long
many years it spans

yet passed in a blink
highlights seem not as many
more an ebb and flow

but things do stand out
though at the time unremarked
like absence of pain

little have I had
compared to most I have known
some suffered greatly

a few aches there were
nothing much...nothing too long
quite easily born

even my cancer...
the weeks of radiation
mere inconvenience

laughable it is
that even so...I complained
about so little

today I give thanks
no matter what lies ahead
for what I’ve not had

June 29, 1995 (continued...)

What a paradox (another paradox!). I see more clearly than ever my smallness – nothingness if not for God’s creation – and worthlessness yet feel no depression, no sadness, none of that famous low self esteem we worms are supposed to have. How could I suffer these things, when God sustains me, loves me, communes with me. In Him, my lowliness is made noble, my worthlessness a treasure.

The Haiku 

 

distorted this view...
a God who created junk
no worth of its own

could this be God’s plan
to berate my own being
to render God grand

with this concept scrapped
now grateful just as I am
the way that I am

if not in this way
in a human way being
then why be at all

not perfect...of course!
maker of mistakes...of course!
a human...of course!

embracing what is
no need for interventions
by gods invented

being as I am
aware that I am being
being I explore

entering within
finding what is to be found
being who I am

June 29, 1995 (continued...)

What is peace but being without need? Without worry or care? Without the burden of generating my own value?

The Haiku

 

being without need
or without worry or care
no made up value

thus I described peace
some twenty-nine years ago
could have said freedom

for what is freedom
if not being unburdened
of the weight of such

not by magic wrought…
a life of desolation
by this does it come

constant surrender...
letting go of attachments
of wants, fears, seeking

the fruit of practice…
like living in the present
not past or future

making and taking
space and time to meditate
to be without thought

living mindfully
aware of being...doing
moment by moment

reading thoughtfully
reflecting...writing as well
saying a mantra

practices like these
carried out in solitude
bring freedom...bring peace

 

June 29, 1995 (concluded)

Strip me, Lord, strip me, strip me, strip me. Only naked of pretense can I walk in your presence. Naked I came into this world, help me to leave it in the same way.

The Haiku 

strip me, Lord, strip me
to walk naked of pretense
such words did I write

and still write today
with words slightly different
but not sentiment

for to be naked
is to let go attachments
have them stripped away

no longer held back
freed to walk in the present
to enter within 

July 4, 1995

July Fourth. Independence Day. Fireworks. Well, the fireworks went off last night, when I told [name withheld] I would not pay rent for the adult children who were living with her and not working. She became angry. I was defensive. We argued. There is no winner in a dispute like that. [Name withheld] seems to be going farther and farther away. She seems so caught up in her situation that she has little or no regard for anything or anyone outside of her own little daily tornado. Am I being harsh? Probably. Much of what seems like self contentedness or disinterest or distance also seems like various types of self protection. The way she tries to keep from getting hurt is by putting on a mask of not caring.

The Haiku 

 

not for me to judge
inner workings of others
my own plate is full

this much is certain
angry disputes are useless
there are no winners

likely all are hurt
best no discussion at all
than one uncivil

people disagree
from time to time...it happens
with that be at peace

July 12, 1995

I thought I would write today for no other reason than to put something in the journal. What has been happening is that I have – at least for now – gone past the point where I am interested in my thoughts. Yesterday, [name withheld] asked me for some “thoughts for the day” to put on the bulletin board at her work. I came up with some old thoughts (which are still good thoughts). This morning I began to think of some more and came to realize how little thinking I’ve done lately and how disinclined I am to do any. Whatever I need mentally, God gives me. I am content to simply say the Jesus Prayer and rest in the assurance of God’s loving care.

The Haiku 

 

as taught by Huang Po
not only does thinking stop
it is a main goal

one of four of them...
also no duality
no more attachments

no more relying
on the actions of others…
simple formula

one a mantra helps
as I have experienced
these twenty-four years

part of a practice
solitude...desolation
a way of being

July 19, 1995

It has been seven weeks since convention, and I am now beginning to see the significance of what happened there. It was in Ann Arbor where, each morning during my time before Mass, I was given the desire and the ability to transcend my thoughts. By transcend them is not meant blocking them out or in any way making them or having them go away. No, the thoughts stayed or left as they might. They simply became unimportant or, more aptly, they simply became like the air: they were there but they just as well might not have been, based on my conscious awareness of them. It did not happen quickly, but it did start there in Ann Arbor. It was there, as I first began to experience it, that I asked myself, “Can I dare pursue this?” There was no answer to this question. I trusted God to lead. And He has led.

The Haiku 

 

can I dare pursue…
many times this question asked
dare I take the risk

taken sincerely
from a place of good intent
yes...risk the unknown

so it is with thoughts
can one be without thinking
is it possible

how much would be lost
consider the thoughts themselves
not so much it seems

most are trivial
some can be quite destructive
better not to have

or just let them be
how many will earn their keep
bet on but a few

not much to give up
no need to pay them much mind
one way or other

can I dare pursue…
turns out not much dare to it
prefer unknowing

July 19, 1995 (continued...)

At first, the experience only encompassed thoughts that I considered trivial or distracting. What has evolved and what I am beginning to see is that all thoughts have come under this category, even those I might once have considered profound, even those about God.

The Haiku 

 

let’s talk perspective…
topic always relevant
almost any time

it puts things in place
keeping in mind the grand scheme
emphasis on grand

long seems more like short
or perhaps never was long
like short from the start

much the same with high
who is to say that it was
some low life my guess

could be scuttlebutt
from a long drink of water
water cooler wise

getting the picture
puzzling it together
this whole thinking thing

here one comes there goes
can’t keep track won’t even try
monkeys with one tail

that 'bout wraps it up
everything in proper place
yep...got perspective

July 19, 1995 (continued...)

And, so, there is not much to write about these days. Does this mean I will stop writing? I don’t know, but I would think probably not. First, there is no desire or inclination to stop (once there was), only to pay it little or no mind. So thoughts happen and some make an impression (though certainly not as many as formerly). And, while thoughts mean less, experiences mean more. Why? Because thought is not an act of living. Rather, it is an act of self consciousness. Self consciousness short circuits life because it obstructs God consciousness.

The Haiku 

 

and, while thoughts mean less,
experiences mean more
(might be true, might not)

a bit pat it sounds
after all, humans do think
do so while living

the brain has its place...
being in a human way
necessitates it

the third way does not...
in the way of emptiness
thought is left behind

not an either or
both thinking and not thinking
each has time and place

like experience
sometimes is sometimes is not...
don’t over think it 

 

July 19, 1995 (concluded)

Today’s Gospel was striking:

No one knows the Son but the Father and no one knows the Father but the Son – and any He chooses to reveal Him to. (Matthew 11:27-30)

The Haiku

 

to know and not know
such knowledge emptiness gives
to have and hold deep

have but not reveal
not transmitted not by choice
but because cannot

each enters alone
and each comes to know alone
to keep as one’s own

teachers can but guide
point the way...practice model
private the knowing

found in one’s darkness
emptiness of one’s making
one's own unknowing

dot of no matter
narrow wide door to freedom
pinpoint of being 

July 24, 1995

A new book. I had given up on St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life. Classic or not, it simply held no interest for me other than revealing to me from where came many of my old notions about spirituality. I also tried to read the second volume of The Philokalia, but that, too, was like walking in mud.

The Haiku 

 

like walking in mud…
so did I characterize
some books I had read

the two referenced…
on spirituality
problematic word

don’t know what it means
when I hear someone use it
don’t know what they mean

for some, quite concrete
perhaps religious beliefs
prescribed rituals

a way of praying
or devotional practice
moral behavior

or might be quite vague
power or forces unknown
revealed in nature

by unseen spirits
maybe a concept of God
taught or imagined

who knows what is meant
perhaps the best thing to do…
just avoid the word
 

July 24, 1995 (concluded)

Breakthrough, at least Fox’s 56-page introduction, is another story.

...Humans have a unique capacity, due to their having been created in the image and likeness of God, to relate to all of being and to return to their primordial origin, which are in God. This journey of return and renewal is a return to the truth of creation: namely, that creatures, like fish in an ocean, swim in an ocean of divine grace. Our spiritual journey is waking up to the divine sea in which we swim. (Page 55) 

______________________________________________________________
Breakthrough, Meister Eckhart’s Creative Spirituality in New Translation, by Matthew Fox, O.P.

The Haiku  

entering within…
like returning to a place
where one has not been

like awakening
from a sleep one has not slept
a dream never dreamed

like fish in the sea
unaware of the water
where always they swim

so it is within
where eternity is met
unknowing is known

July 26, 1995

I have said that the purpose of life is to be. Perhaps the word “life” ought to be omitted, because, to me, “life” connotes the human condition. Rather, I should say, “My purpose is to be,” for, although now I am being in a human way, it has not always been so and will not be so in the future. Before I began being humanly, I was being in God, and, after I cease being humanly, I will continue being in a way that I do not know or comprehend.

The Haiku 

 

A Life of One starts
with the line, there is no plan…
not one with purpose

there is no journey...
not one with destination
the second line reads

then, there is no path...
no path to follow, so says
last of three verses

a question comes next
if not these...what then is there
simple the answer

just...there is being
the essence of all that is
being only being

July 26, 1995 (concluded)

In reading the fourth sermon of Meister Eckhart, I have been given a new appreciation and understanding of the word “Being.” I had always thought of it as being a noun, as in I am a human being, God is a Divine Being. In other words, I thought of being as an entity, a name for some “thing.” And now, suddenly, I understand being not as a static noun but as an active verb (not in the grammatical meaning, however, since it has no object).¹ I am being a human. I am a human kind of happening. I am unfolding in a human way. I am being created, being born. I am not a thing. I am an event. God is an Event, a Divine Event, a Divine Happening. He is eternally creating, and I am eternally being created, as is every other creature. We – all together – God, me, you, dogs, mice, trees, and rocks – We are an event. We are all occupied with being. We are being. We be! 

 _____________________________
¹Grammatically, “being “ is a gerund.

The Haiku 

 

not an entity
not static, like an object
being is being

a process it is
no beginning, no ending
always happening

not human being…
being in a human way
in other ways, too

the second way is…
being in awakened way
in the same moment

and yet a third way…
called the way of emptiness
same moment as well

woven together
are these three ways of being
as A Life of One

July 28, 1995

Last night I went to bed earlier than usual – 9:00 – and now have awakened at midnight. Actually, I’ve been semi awake since 11:00 p.m. I lay in bed, sometimes thinking, sometimes not, experiencing God in a peculiar way – “behind my eyeballs and inside my teeth” is the only way I can describe it.

The Haiku 

 

behind my eyeballs
and inside my teeth...my, my
strange experience

which leads me to ask
when I say experience
what is it I mean

dictionary says...
a direct observation
as a way to know

leading me to ask
as a way to knowing what...
limited I’d guess

stuff inside the brain
like perceptions, thoughts, concepts
feelings, emotions

physical effects
by senses experienced
from pain to pleasure

limited are such
no ocean for mystery
these shallow waters

likened to fool’s gold
shiny but of no value
not a treasure found

beware highs and lows
feelings doomed to come and go
meager their substance

trust what is within
devoid of experience
filled with emptiness

July 28, 1995 (continued…)

I arose and found a coconut covered pound cake [name withheld] had left in my freezer. It wasn’t all that frozen so I ate a slice. While getting it and cutting it and eating it, I was suddenly impressed with how advantaged I am. I have been given many gifts not available to many people – really, not available to most, actually available to only a very few, at least in the tremendous combination they have been given to me.

First, there is faith in God and, through that faith, knowledge of Him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is my Catholic Faith which offers to me the Sacraments, first Baptism and particularly the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (and it can be mine daily!). There is the gift for which I began praying in the summer of ‘92 – Trust – which I have been given in an abundance beyond my wildest imaginings. There are the Twelve Steps, which have provided a down-to-earth and yet mystical way to live out the Gospels. And there is the vast and rich store of literature – old and true and profound – of which most people have not heard and fewer have read and even fewer have experienced its impact. Not only are these gifts in combination rare and wonderful but so is the person God has made me so that I am able to experience them, even though the experience is ever so dark and elusive.

The Haiku 

 

in life at all times
there is cause for gratitude
gifts in abundance

certainly they change
yet their residue endures
long lasting effects

no longer practiced
my Christian roots yet run deep
Christ’s words still abide

trust in the moment
knowing now I am being
always am complete

new way of living
made plain to me in Twelve Steps
one day at a time

wisdom of ages
bequeathed to me by sages
spoken and written

models of practice
teaching not what but the how
as well as the where

within it is found
the treasure of emptiness
of love, of kindness
 

July 28, 1995 (continued…)

I suppose the source of the foregoing is this overwhelming sense of being that Meister Eckhart’s fourth sermon unlocked within me. It is a deeper than intellectual knowledge and understanding of the vitality, the immortality, and the wonder of forever unfolding creation that is happening at my innermost core and the same kind of understanding that this activity in me – in everyone and, in its particular degree, in everything – is actually a part of the eternal and mysterious activity of God, so that I – and all else – am truly God being God! But, of course, I am not God. But, or course, I am.

The Haiku 

 

journey of being
for thirty years it has stretched
deeper ever more

with daily practice
each moment awakening
mindfulness dawning

entering within
led there by sacred mantra
in center resting

aware of being
immersed in its majesty
bathed in completeness

enough...is enough
no attachments...no wanting
grasping or seeking

being in all three ways
from human to emptiness
awakened between

July 28, 1995 (concluded) 

No one is dead. They are merely finished being in a human way, so that now they are being in a way still unknown to those of us who are still being in a human way.

The Haiku 

 

no longer human
yet being in ways unknown
eternal being

 

while in this moment
when being’s brief light shines bright
no shadow follows

no brightness proceeds
for no one knows its before
nor sees its after

only now is known
where being makes its abode
never ending home

in death what happens...
perhaps nothing but being
in ways now unknown 

August 2, 1995

Enlightenment is being awake to the eternal spark of God within me and being guided and illuminated from moment to moment by its ever burning light.

The Haiku 

 

an eternal spark
in the moment awakened
illuminated

ever burning light
different ways of saying what...
being enlightened?

or what the Tao is...
what is happening right now
says Stephen Mitchell

these words and phrases
sincere attempts to explain
grateful for them all

though so short they fall
no need to blame their failure
for what can’t be done

more important...do
go to where the words happen
the land of no names

no explanations
in moment being instead
at one with the spark 

August 3, 1995

Being awake in the ever unfolding of creation is an exciting, awe filled experience. People, clouds, birds, flowers, grass, the wind, the sun and moon and stars, insects – all are in a constant state of being created. All are new! All are fresh from God! Nothing can be taken for granted. Whatever was a moment ago is no more and all that will be in the next moment is not yet, no more than is the cloud that will hide the sun a thousand years from now, at least in a cloud way. And I am not any more nor will I be because I am. God is churning and swirling. He is emanating, pulsing, flowing, throbbing. He is us, His creation, and we are Him, though we are not God and He is not us. Oh, marvelous, unfathomable yet revealed and known mystery!

The Haiku

 

creation unfolds
a story told yet untold
yet being told now

nothing stays the same
whatever was is no more
next moment not come

am not any more
nor will be because I am
always here and now

what is there to ask
to long for to seek to hold
open hand...let go

by the wind be touched
soft cooling breeze of freedom
forever blowing  

August 8, 1995

How much I want to take back control of my relationship with God.  It seems too easy to turn spirituality over to Him, to let Him take care of my sanctification.  Because I am doing so little, I feel like I’m sliding, and I want to jump in there and start “to do something,” to bring myself “closer” to God.  Just let it go.  Just trust.

The Haiku 

 

wanting to control
being in a human way
the way of the brain

that’s how the brain works
begging, bidding, persuading
or blunt commanding

to let go is hard
takes resolve, effort, practice
and time...a long time

yet necessary
if to be in all three ways
live A Life of One

for to be empty
attachments must be let go
foremost...to the brain

full of ideas
of wants, illusions, and fears
freedom blockers all

for that is the prize
eternal treasure within
for those who enter
 

August 8, 1995 (continued…)

It has been about a year now since I began the practice of saying the Jesus Prayer. What a gift. What a turning point in my life. I truly believe only those who have committed themselves to these five words can know their power.

Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy.

It is not enough to say them when in need or when it is “time” to pray. They must be said always and in all circumstances. The very act of saying them persistently is a dogged act of faith and trust in God and a rejection of the power of logic and reason to effect union with God. May I say this prayer for the rest of my life. May my efforts be reduced to nothing more.

The Haiku 

 

it does continue
for almost thirty years now
saying a mantra

for the longest time…
Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy
twenty-two years said

then came the first change...
to being only being
six years it lasted

then changed once again…
being love...being kindness…
being emptiness

what has not been changed…
the commitment to say it
always...everywhere

and for no reason
as a dogged act of faith
in simply being

exactly its point
this surrender of all thought
pure nonsense it is

an inward turning
ever back to the center
where emptiness is

 

August 8, 1995 (concluded)

Nothing so much hinders the soul’s understanding of God as time and space. Time and space are parts of the whole but God is one. So if the soul is to recognize God, it must do so beyond space and time. For God is neither this nor that in the way of the manifold things of earth, since God is one. If the soul wants to know God, it cannot do so in time. (Meister Eckhart, Breakthrough, Page 140)

The Haiku 

thus speaks the Meister…
God is neither this nor that
not in space or time

brain and circumstance
being in a human way
knows not mystery

in timeless moment
within the blink of being
there the spark is glimpsed

in emptiness shown
when all conception is cleared
for space with no space 

August 10, 1995

He who serves me, follows me, say the Lord, and where I am, my servant will also be. (John 12:26)

The Haiku 

 

I am where you are
all are also there with us
in moment being

in this we are one
not this one or another
no duality

let us dwell in peace
inclusive not exclusive
in kindness being
 

August 10, 1995 (continued...)

I will give you the answer at the right time.
Follow me deeper.
You have not given all.
Come into me and I will flow out of you.
Live the life of solitude and desolation.
Live it today.
I will show you.
Be silent.

The Haiku 

 

no gift grander than
are The Eleven Sayings*
long ago given

for so long cherished
and better – so long followed
faithful guides they are

the path unfolded
adventure joyfully forged
The Sayings held firm

answers were revealed
deeper led ever deeper
giving had no end

indeed what came in
did flow out as it must do
in and out...the same

and the crescendo…
solitude...desolation
a way of living

lived now and always
as presented each moment
given in silence
 

here listed but five
more there were and more there are
Eleven in all

*Read about The Eleven Sayings under “More about..."

August 10, 1995 (concluded)

Looking back, I can see the turn that happened in Michigan during convention week. It was there and then that I noticed that my perspective shifted, slightly it seemed yet with radical results. Suddenly almost, I could transcend thoughts – or more like piercing them, cutting through to God’s presence. Then came the experience at times of God as subject, in the way Thomas Merton wrote so often but which I did not understand. Now I have experienced it and now know, even though, if asked to, I could not explain it. And the culmination of all this is being revealed more often and more clearly. Whereas before I struggled to lose self in order to experience God, now the experience of God is dissipating self, with no effort on my part. In the calm, understated brilliance of the fact of God’s being, everything about my human garment pales to almost invisibility. The thought of doing something good is almost laughable. The idea of drawing near to God is presumptuous folly. Me draw near to God? This is God’s work, God’s desire, God’s gift. To be quiet, to be open, to trust – to accept God’s gift of trust – to accept the faith that has been given me and to walk ahead, not fearlessly but boldly into the jaws of fear – that is my work, my blessed, humble and at the same time exalted work, the work bestowed upon me, offered to me lovingly by God.

The Haiku 

 

struggling to lose self
like all struggle, so futile
this want to control

as someone once said...
in striving we are taught strife
(which quickly we learn)

thinking we know best
we start out setting up goals
then on to a plan

complete with schedule
results clearly envisioned...
prison can’t be seen

a box has been built
its walls closing all inside
safe from faith and trust

safe from openness
unbothered by gifts unknown
trapped in agenda

trying not doing
unaware of the moment
and all it offers

no time for being...
to experience what is...
striving bound instead

try this… be quiet
rest in trust and trust in faith
simply be and see

cease fighting the self...
give up thought and it goes too
its feeding ground gone

there will be darkness
on a path of unknowing
but brightness as well

freedom will be found...
with expectations lifted
being sufficient

August 14, 1995

Went on a two-day sailing cruise in the Gulf. Got seasick. Not a sailor. No desire to be one. Actually, the best parts of the weekend were sitting alone on the bow of the boat and the time spent with [name withheld] afterward.

The Haiku 

 

remember it well…
my sail boat experience
first...and, I think, last

not a pleasant trip
much spent retching overboard
should not have eaten

others did have fun
gratifying to observe
such comradery

so it is at sea
this I have read and heard said…
saw but did not feel

yet begrudge not those
who enjoy what I cannot
be glad that they can

as I can and did...
time spent in silence, alone
sitting on the bow

Gulf wind buffeting
sparkling waters chopping by
sails snapping smartly

on land all was well
moments shared with one I love
sickness left at sea

August 14, 1995 (continued...)

From the time spent sitting on the bow: Loneliness is that part of me I have yet to surrender to God.

The Haiku 

 

yearnings unfulfilled
such as the want to be loved
a want that can ache

the want for someone...
a companion on the walk
footsteps that echo

wanting acceptance
whether deserving or not
shortcomings allowed

the want to belong
worthy to draw attention
to cast a shadow

such wants and others
blended and mixed together…
are these loneliness

...or being human
having human desires
in a human way

wants and desires
loneliness not bred by these
being nature’s way

it is attachment...
feeding, holding, indulging
wanting in itself

attachment to wants
begets feelings unwanted
loneliness but one
 

July 14, 1995 (continued...)

From Meister Eckhart in Breakthrough:

“No one can be my disciple unless he follow me” (Luke 14:27) and has emptied himself of his ego, keeping nothing back for himself. Such a person has everything, for to have nothing is to have everything … Those who thus go out from themselves will indeed be given back their true selves. (Page 166)

The Haiku 

 

empty of ego
words used by Meister Eckhart
keeping nothing back

or letting all go
saying it another way
both meaning the same

way of emptiness
and yet completely filled up
losing...gaining self

all things surrendered
but still having everything
unfound treasure found

utter unknowing
leading to total knowledge
paradox abounds

August 14, 1995 (continued...)

“You are truly a hidden God” (Isaiah 45:15) in the ground of the soul where the ground of God and the ground of the soul are one ground. The more we seek you, the less we find you. You should seek him in such a way that you never find him. For it is when you do not seek him that you find him. (Page 169)

The Haiku 

 

seeking not finding
an outcome not uncommon
when outcomes are sought

seek blindly instead
having no expectations
open to finding

being in that place
where what is there can be found
whatever it is

where is such a place
but where nothing is brought in
nothing from outside

for all is within
from eternity it is
there for the finding

be there in silence
without conceptions...waiting
empty of purpose

August 14, 1995 (concluded)

And why is this so? Because he and I are already – always – there.

The Haiku 

 

the true self within
there forever it has been
waiting to be found

silence must precede
quiet moments set aside
be they long or short

a space there must be
a place of simply being
thoughts uninvited

attachments let go
to emptiness surrendered
what has been will be 

 

August 15, 1995
Feast of the Assumption

My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord. (Luke 1:46)

I have read this verse hundreds of times and only now does it register its profound truth with me. My being, my existence, my eternal unfolding, my “am” proclaims – manifests, proves, echoes, mirrors, evidences, shouts - how great God is. And not only my being and Mary’s but all of creation, at every moment, in all ages, forever!

The Haiku 

 

in A Life of One*
it is asked, what then is there
the answer: being

nothing but being
for being is all there is
without it...no is

no was no will be
purpose nor destination
there are none of these

no path to follow
neither is there birth or death
nor a life to live

nor is there a God
for to be God, God must be
being...all there is

*To read about A Life of One click on it under “More about…”

August 15, 1995 (continued...)

From Meister Eckhart:

… if you know something about him [God], he is nothing of that which you think you know. With this business of knowing about God you run into a complete lack of knowledge, and through this you fall into a beastlike state of existence, for that part of a creature that is without knowledge is beastlike. So if you do not want to be a beast, know nothing about God who is inexpressible in words. And if you ask, “How can I keep myself from doing this?” then I advise you to let your own “being you” sink into and flow away in God’s “being God.” Then you will eternally know with him his changeless existence and his nameless nothingness. (Breakthrough, Page 178-179)

This sounds familiar: Come into me and I will flow out of you. Also:

He is
I am
We am

 

The  Haiku

 

all being is one
for all is in one moment
all being at once

the brain grasps at this
noble effort but futile
beyond man’s thinking

thus is mystery
known only in emptiness
nameless nothingness

August 15, 1995 (continued...) 

Again from Eckhart:

How then should I love God? You should love God mindlessly, that is, so that your soul is without mind and free from all mental activities, for as long as your soul is operating like a mind, so long does it have images and representations. But as it has images, it has intermediaries, and as long as it has intermediaries, it has neither oneness nor simplicity. And therefore your soul should be bare of all mind and should stay there without mind. For if you love God as he is God or mind or as person or picture, all that must be dropped. How then shall you love him? You should love him as he is, a not-clear One, separate from all twoness. And we should sink eternally from something into nothing into this One. (Ibid., Page 180)

The Haiku 

how should I love God,
is what Meister Eckhart asks
striking his response

love God mindlessly
mental activity free
a soul without mind

without images
no intermediaries
representations

for if it has these
it will have neither oneness
nor simplicity

your soul should be bare…
and should stay there without mind…
all that must be dropped

love him as he is…
separate from all twoness…
as a not-clear One

sink eternally
from something into nothing
[sink] into this One

what here is described
is it not meditation...
way of emptiness

August 15, 1995 (concluded) 

Live the life of solitude and desolation.
Live it today.
I will show you.
Be silent.

Touch me with your heart.

Yes!

The Haiku 

 

the heart of it all
solitude...desolation
core of my beliefs

Number Five it is
of The Eleven Sayings*
years ago received

shown they are each day
in silence becoming clear
in emptiness known

a guide to living
upon this foundation framed
a daily practice

simple acts each day
five do they number
sacred are they held

a mantra...constant
sacred reading and writing
sacred place within

brings sacred living
leading to A Life of One*
three ways of being

*To read about The Eleven Sayings and A Life of One click on these topics under “More about...”

August 16, 1995

Last night, while walking downtown between buses, I was resting in God and without words or thoughts, I knew that I am going to receive a great gift – the greatest gift so far. It is going to be about love, specifically I am going to be shown – to what extent I do not know – how it is that it is not I who love, that I am in fact incapable of love (or, at least, can love only in the most rudimentary way), that all my striving to love others is just so much flailing about in a futile effort to achieve a self satisfying level of charity, that it is only God Who truly loves and that when we are free of self His love is also free to pass through us and it is not us at all but Him Who loves and ours is to share in that love. This is the gift – or perhaps only the knowledge (sure soul knowledge) that God is about to reveal. When? I don’t know. I simply need not think about it as I have not so far. Mine is to wait. To rest.

The Haiku 

 

August 16, 1995

gifts...they are given
or are they? perhaps not so
not given but found

perhaps we have all
all...before there was a time
before even us...

...in a human way
before consciousness had dawned
before even then

then we were being
in ways which we do not know
not now not ever

yet the gifts were there
and even then they were ours
though yet to be found

this moment they can
but not in a human way
they abide within

there must we enter
where waits eternal treasure
in emptiness found

August 19, 1995

Time. It is part of being a human, yet God has made us so that we are able to set it aside, not easily to be sure but still we are able. And if I do, then I can begin to experience God creating, reconciling, and loving eternally, moment by moment. It is a whirl of divine activity encompassing everyone and everything. People. Rocks. Rivers. Clouds. Stars. Animals. Plants. Molecules. All is new. All is now. All is infused with God for the very first time, because truly there is no time. Each instant is an awakening. A happening. I am being created. I am being reconciled so that I am able to share God. I am being loved.

The Haiku 

 

indeed we need time
being in a human way
time serves a purpose

with it we schedule
what we do throughout our day
or what we don’t do

we begin, finish
use it to work, eat, sleep, play
use time all the time

yet it exists not
being completely made up
our own construction

being does exist
and happens only right now
only this moment

people, rocks, rivers
clouds, stars, animals, flowers
atoms...all are now

each moment anew
all is being created
exists only then 

August 21, 1995

Yesterday I spent part of the afternoon taking pictures of [names withheld] – helping them celebrate their friendship. It was nice. The whole weekend was wonderful, filled with ordinary tasks and projects, each done in its time and with a kind of reverence, even washing and ironing.

The Haiku 

 

each task reverent
done in its time, at its pace
doing just doing

all is important
and unimportant is all
this and that...no more

no plan with purpose
a journey with no ending
no path to follow

nothing but being
now in this only moment
doing that one thing 

August 21, 1995 (concluded)

I really don’t feel much like writing right now. Living is what I feel like doing. Living is what I am doing. Thought seems artificial, a self imposed structure that tends to force being into ideas which tend to seek synthesis. Being in God, on the other hand, is open and fresh, always new, ever surprising, an almost constant state of wonderment.

The Haiku 

 

state of wonderment...
is it not always right there
wherever I am

special occasions
or exotic adventures
unnecessary

being awakened
to what the moment presents
whatever it is

in a human way
or in an awakened way
or in emptiness

in all ways it is
in itself a wonderment
enough to just be 

August 22, 1995

I shall tell you a little story. A cardinal asked Saint Bernard, “Why should I love God and how?” Saint Bernard said, “This I shall tell you, that God himself is the reason we should love him. The way of this love is without a way.” For God is nothing… Therefore the way in which we love him is to be without a way. (Breakthrough, Page 203.)

The Haiku 

 

Meister Eckhart soars!
had he read the Tao Te Ching?
he speaks like Lao Tzu

for the way we love
is to love without a way
love for no because

plan without purpose
journey...no destination
no path to follow

to be is enough
anything else is nothing
merely illusion

be not a seeker
not going, coming, or there
be here where you are

the way is the way
the one being forged right now
there is no other

walk it awakened
being in a human way
a witness being

be in emptiness
yet a third way of being
be them all at once

August 22, 1995 (continued...)

Commenting on this, Matthew Fox writes:

This wayless way is also without a why, a wherefore, or a reason. From this spiritual foundation you ought to accomplish all your deeds without a reason. This doing away with goals for loving God extends to religious goals such as heaven or eternal happiness, however well intentioned, because to operate from such goals outside oneself is to act out of dualism. It is to forget that heaven and eternal life are already here. It is to forget that we are already living the divine life. What kind of life is this divine life? How does God live? It is a life without a why. The life of God is “without a why.” (Ibid., Pages 203-204)

The Haiku 

 

why, wherefore, reason
without these is to be free
to be unconfined

the realm of the brain
constrained to understanding
imposes limits

creates agenda
based on what is preconceived
the already known

a way without way
no ground upon which to tread
the path to nowhere

this is to be free
open to each moment’s now
to be what happens

August 22, 1955 (concluded)

Why do I love God? For no because. Dualism … is to forget that heaven and eternal life are already here. It is to forget that we are already living the divine life. These truths which have been given me are now being affirmed.

The Haiku

 

no one lives in time
yet many believe they do
they drag it with them

clinging to the past
they are blind to constant change
live in yesterday

good old days long gone
still they yearn for how it was
how they remember

the past, true or not,
nostalgia, like a thick fog,
distorts what is now

or they revive it
try to make things as they were
might think they succeed

they delude themselves
for what was can be no more
except in their minds

they troll the future
use it to avoid what is
indulge what is not

chant the litany
of if-ism-when-ism
carrots on a stick

both these two choices
in linear time rooted
mirages are they

to choose either one
is to choose to never live
to hide from what is

a third way exists...
to trade time for the moment
when and where life is

dot of no matter
exactly in life’s center
pinpoint of being

August 28, 1995

In Breakthrough, Meister Eckhart describes the poor in spirit as he who wills nothing and knows nothing and has nothing. (Page 213)

The Haiku 

 

he who wills nothing
knows nothing and has nothing
is poor of spirit

poverty like this
on the far side of severe
might some discourage

no! this is too much!
many might shrink from the thought
of giving up all

so hard to conceive
that one must give to receive
be left with no choice

emptied to be free
no longer to seek, grasp, hold
defend what is mine

not things of the world
these are only what they are
not of the spirit

it is here within
that true poverty must be
spirit poor and free

August 28, 1995 (continued...)

He carries this definition to the ultimate, saying, Therefore we pray God to rid us of “God” so that we may grasp and eternally enjoy the truth where the highest angel and the fly and the soul are equal. There is where I stood and willed what I was, and I was what I willed. So then we say, if people are to be poor in will, they must will and desire as little as they willed and desired when they were not yet. And in this way is a person poor who wills nothing. (Ibid., Page 215)

The Haiku 

 

in eternity
highest angel, fly, and soul
all these are equal

to be poor in will
all these must will as little
as when they were not

such is the person
so poor as to will nothing
to stand where they are

thus are they equal
with every other being
poor of will and free

August 28, 1995 (continued...)

The soul is deprived of understanding that God is acting within it. Moreover, it is that identical self which enjoys itself just as God does. Thus we say that people shall keep themselves free and void so that they neither understand nor know that God works in them. Only thus can people possess poverty … We say God is neither being nor intelligent nor does he know this or that. Thus God is free of all things, and therefore he is all things. Whoever is to be poor in spirit, then, must be poor of all his own understanding so that he knows nothing about God or creatures or himself. Therefore it is necessary that people desire not to understand or know anything at all of the works of God. In this way is a person to be poor of one’s own understanding. (Ibid., 216)

The Haiku 

knowing not knowing
thus in emptiness are gifts
found not understood

does not mean unknown
only inexpressible
not put into words

such is mystery
of the spirit not of mind
nowhere in the brain

inner solitude
without conceptual thought
truly desolate

humbly ascetic
devoid of all attachments
spirit poor and free

August 28, 1995 (continued...)

If people stand free of all things, of all creatures, of God and of themselves, but if it still happens that God can find a place for acting in them, then we say: So long as that is so, these persons are not poor in the strictest poverty. For God does not desire that people reserve a place for him to work in. Rather, true poverty of spirit consists in keeping oneself so free of God and all one’s works that if God wants to act in the soul, God himself becomes the place wherein he wants to act – and this God likes to do. For when God finds a person as poor as this, God operates his own work and a person sustains God in him, and God is himself the place of his operation, since God is an agent who acts within himself. Here, in this poverty, people attain the eternal being that they once were, now are, and will eternally remain. (Ibid., Page 217)

The Haiku 

strictest poverty
so severely writes Eckhart
about being poor

stripped of attachments
to this extreme he exhorts
nothing left at all

such a bleak calling
to live without desire
bereft of all wants

so it might appear
being in a human way
with vision impaired

not in emptiness
the way of the truly free
being without bounds

being eternal
as once all were and now are
will forever be

this kind of freedom
knows nothing but poverty
and its great riches

August 28, 1995 (concluded)

To will nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing is to live the life of solitude and desolation.

The Haiku 

Eleven Sayings...
a gift received years ago
heard, live it today

heard, I will show you
then instructed, be silent
thus was I assured

the life this would bring
solitude...desolation
this was the promise

a promise fulfilled
silent I was indeed shown
slowly I did learn

gospels, Tao, dharma
Jesus, The Buddha, Lao Tzu
Eckhart and Merton

all these fed the brain
nourishment for reflection
wise words to ponder

but insufficient
thoughts and words are limited
can’t teach mystery

only deep within
in solitude and silence
can nothing be learned

to be without will
with desire departed
attachments let go

what is left...nothing
solitude...desolation
nothing but nothing

words cannot explain
like mine...dot of no matter
pinpoint of being

August 29, 1995
Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

The true word of eternity will be spoken only in solitude, where people are made desolate and estranged from themselves and all multiplicity. The prophet longed for this desolate self-alienation when he said, “Oh, who would give me the wings of a dove so that I could fly away and find rest?” (Psalm 55:6) Where can we find rest and repose? Truly only in abject desolation, and estrangement from all creatures. (Meister Eckhart, Breakthrough, Page 240)

Now Meister Eckhart even uses the exact words “solitude” and “desolation” linked together!

The Haiku 

 
what means solitude?
being away from others?
leaving all behind?

living in the wild?
apart from human contact?
alone in nature?

It means all of these
while yet meaning none of them
not as understood

the “others” meant here
these are not other people
rather other selves

my duplicity
the dividing of my life
into compartments

from this I must turn
leaving behind attachments
these must be eschewed

inner wilderness
this is where I must retreat
hid in solitude

wild must be my faith
entering where thought does not
into emptiness

not human contact
no...human dependency
from this must I part

alone are we all
when in nature are we one
where is no other

it is deep within
where solitude is first found
not behind doors locked

it is of spirit
that desolation consists
not of possessions

this is its meaning
solitude...desolation
the life found within

August 29, 1995 (concluded)

 
This morning, as I walked near the church awaiting the doors to open, the phrase will nothing, know nothing, have nothing was with me. I felt the leap of faith that is necessary to live this way. I knew there was a time when I would have wrestled with it, asking myself, “Can this be true? Is this the right path? What if I close myself off from knowing God?” Today I know I have traveled beyond those doubts and fears. No, I have not traveled. The doubts and fears have been dispelled, replaced by God with a gift of confidence that assures me that this indeed is the right path. It is, in fact, the only path. At this point, my choice is to rest in it or to fall hopelessly back in upon myself.

The Haiku  

 

from where does faith come...
no matter what one believes
it comes from nowhere

for faith existed
even before a before
waiting to be found

hidden in being
in emptiness it resides
there to be revealed

then a paradox…
to have faith doubt is needed
why else would faith be

yet faith dispels doubt
as if it did not exist
even though it does

not through denial
does coexistence occur
but through confidence

another gift found
with faith...confidence is hid
eternally so

a gift that assures
the path being forged each day
is indeed the one

faith indulges doubt
allowing assured action
to walk this dark walk 

September 6, 1995

My mind is the desolate street of a ghost town like the ones in old, black and white westerns. My thoughts are tumble weeds, blown across it by the incessant and howling winds of self.

The Haiku 

 

a desolate mind
is this really a bad thing
to be without thought

tumble weeds tumbling
as they will...let them blow by
thoughts of no substance

fear not empty streets
seek not to make them busy
leave them...go inside

heed not howling winds
no more than quiet zephyrs
both come and both go

what is this I say…
disengage from all drama
be as a witness 

 

September 6, 1995 (continued...) 

 

He said to me, Be in Me. This is the summation of all the rest. Follow me deeper. You have not yet given all. Come into me, and I will flow out of you. Live the life of solitude and desolation. Live it today. I will show you. Be silent. Touch me with your heart. Taken together, that is the meaning of the message: Be in me.

The Haiku  

I wrote...Be in Me
many years ago that was
now...be in being

be in being means
nothing more than be awake
aware of being

we all are being
if aware of it or not
all in one moment

yet to be aware
is to also be present
mindful of being

takes only a pause
an instant or an hour
think...I am being

savor the wonder
knowing at this one moment
you are one with all

for all are being
even as you are being
in this all are one

 

September 6, 1995 (concluded)

It is time to finally give all, to abandon, to surrender, to utterly let go – whatever the verb, it doesn’t matter. The words are but symbols. It is what God calls for and what my heart calls for. Skirting around, dabbling, reaching out timidly, holding back – all of this must cease. It is time to give up. Let the tumbleweed roll wherever it is blown. It is of no matter. Never was.

The Haiku 

 

though never perfect
surrender as best I can
no more no less asked

what is given up…
seeking, grasping, holding on
not being enough

wanting something else
not who I am, what I am
wherever I am

controlling others
dictating circumstances
playing director

letting feelings rule
fleeing from those I don’t like
chasing those I do

surfing the surface
afraid to enter inside
find out what is there

but a partial list
enough to paint the picture
of what needs to go

but for what reason…
another thing to let go
always a because

answers I have not
no payoffs am I promised
these too surrendered

to be where I am
in this one moment right now
who I am... enough

what must this be like…
no burdens no chains and such
sounds much like freedom 

September 8, 1995

I am at times able to walk past my thoughts and emotions. For certain, I have come to know experientially what that is and to know non-intellectually that it is the gateway to knowing God.

The Haiku 

 

what is truly real
is outside of perception
totally beyond

all that is perceived
is not reality...none
not a particle

perception is real
but is not what is perceived
confuse not the two

as people oft do
thus rely on their senses
what their brains tell them

but reality…
in itself alone is known
through direct knowledge

now... it is not there
of a sudden… then it is
as if by magic

known in mystery
in a depth deeper than sense
which must be walked by

(to be continued...)

September 8, 1995 (continued...)

This I have been in touch with for some time, at least on a superficial level. The change is more in the depth of my knowing. And an exciting consequence or a corollary has been given me. If I am one with God at my most true self level, at my core, in being; and if at this level God is also in being, at the depth, in reality, where I cannot know God intellectually or emotionally, then it follows that neither can I know myself intellectually or emotionally or at any physical level. I can only truly know me in the same way that I can know God: beyond thought, beyond image, beyond concept.

The Haiku 

what defines being…
not being known or unknown
name or description

poverty or wealth
being admired or scorned
acclaimed or condemned

failure or success
powerful or powerless
stalled or on a roll

being smart or dumb
educated or unschooled
high IQ or low

being needs not these
judgements bestowed by others
or assigned by self

thoughts and images
of no substance in themselves
gauzy waves of brain

what defines being…
being itself defines it
nothing else...no more

without description
beyond thought, image, concept
being is being

nothing more to add...
why futilely search outside
for what is within 

(to be continued...)

September 8, 1995 (concluded)

And there is more! If this is true of me, it is also true of all of God’s creation. I cannot truly know any person or any thing on the physical plane. Whatever I can sense or know know intellectually is not them!

Past all of that – all of it – I must walk.

The Haiku

 

who is it we know…
no one I think...not really
so much is hidden

we see what is shown
behind a curtain some hide
employing deceit

others might lack skill
awkwardly they interact
closed within themselves

that which we do see
limited to what we perceive
woefully obscured

as into ourselves
into others we must go
beyond what is sensed

there we can know them
even as we know ourselves
with them we are one

in this way we know
together all are being
all in one moment

surest of knowledge
this existential bonding
duality gone 

September 11, 1995

It was a fine weekend, spent doing things I wanted to do, doing all that I set out to do, and doing it at a leisurely pace. I “rethatched” the sitting place and laid the brick around the sunken bathtub, and I read. I also spent about seven hours over the two days transcribing this journal to disc. I have decided to print three copies to give as Christmas presents to [names withheld]. Reading back over what I have written as I type gives me a great deal of gratitude. God has been generous with me. It also strengthens my trust in Him, because, as I see the path unfolding, I want more than ever to walk it farther into the darkness.

The Haiku 

 

walking in darkness
travel far and long enough
the path becomes known

so many wants fade
when no longer are they seen
temptations grow weak

I speak not of cars
ice cream, dollars, or gadgets
not of mountain trips

no...wants more subtle...
firm answers and certitudes
soothing assurance

what yields the morrow
to where might this journey lead
how might my life end

to have at least hope
avoidance of severe pain
an end should it come

wants that seem worthy
serenity, sanctity
peace and holiness

righteous in God’s eyes
the apostle whom he loved
seemingly good stuff

a list such as this
wants that are intangible
these fade in darkness

though still they might call
yet still we know they are there
their power recedes

like a spurned lover
whose advances are ignored
soon they grow weary

rather than be feared
a safe haven most welcome
does darkness become

trusting in trusting
embracing what is not known

walking not seeing 

 

(to be continued...)
 

September 11, 1995 (continued...)

Throughout the weekend, I was able to continue what I have come to term “walking past thought and emotion” so that I can be in God. Even so, as if I had gone down into the ocean of God, I came back with a further insight into the thoughts I have been having about the way we truly know God, ourselves, and others. I know this to be true: That I cannot know God intellectually or emotionally, nor myself, nor another. What is also true is that, just as true knowledge is not possible on the physical level, neither is true love. I cannot love God intellectually or emotionally. Why? Because it is not I who loves. It is God Who loves. He loves and to the extent that I am in Him - aware of being in Him because I am in fact in Him, aware or not – to the extent that I am being in Him to that extent am I able to love Him, because I am in fact engulfed or encompassed in His love. And so it is with myself: Only when I am being in the depths of my true self – where God is – am I able to share God’s love for me and, in this sharing, I can say that truly I love myself as God loves me. And so it is with all of God’s creation, including my fellow humans. It is only after I get past intellectual knowledge and emotions that I begin to truly love them.

The Haiku 

 

of the types of love...
eros, philos, agape
much has been written

reading what I wrote
in my journal years ago
most is agape

well should I take care
about eros and philos
disparage them not

each one plays a role
with emotions felt and shared
for those in our lives

one is physical
sexual or romantic
thus is eros felt

friends and family
receive the love called philos
a bond strongly bound

lofty are all three
none to be disregarded
room there is for all

(to be continued...)

 

September 11, 1995 (concluded)

I can even see evidence of this. I can see it in old people whose love thrives long after ardor has dampened and in spite of knowing the entire inventory of each other’s faults, sins, and shortcomings. I see it from the way I love [name withheld], for it is neither rooted in shallow emotions or based on anything I know about her. I can see it from the way I love [name withheld], whom I have not seen in eleven years and might never see again. I can see it from the way I love [name withheld], with fewer “reasons” as each year passes and yet with more certitude than ever. I can see it from the way I love [name withheld], for he is as different from me as one could imagine and, still, through God I have been able to walk past the seen into the unseen and have come to know him there and, knowing him, have come to love him. It can be no other way, for once I begin to know anything – from God to roaches – as they are known by God then immediately I begin to love them as they are loved by God.

The Haiku

 

some tangled thinking
philos with agape snarled
types of love mixed up

the love I describe
for family and loved ones
is not agape

the way of God’s love
only God loves in this way
according to some

maybe it is true
but no doubt about philos
the way humans love

with mind and feelings
being in a human way
a way all its own 

September 12, 1995

This morning’s epistle was powerful!

Continue to live in Christ Jesus the Lord, in the spirit in which you received him. Be rooted in him and built up in him, growing ever stronger in faith as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude. (Colosians 2:6-7)

The message I receive is to keep on, to step forward, moving out in trust. It is just as Jesus said way back in 1992 at the Charismatic Center. You’re doing all right, [name withheld]. Just keep on doing what you’re doing.

The Haiku 

 

moving out in trust
to keep on, to step forward
a message received

the context changes
but not the message itself
keep on keeping on

old AA adage
meaning sticking to practice
about faith walking

not religious faith
but a faith that is faithful
to a path unknown

no guaranties sought
no goals set no end in sight
this path to be forged

(to be continued...)

September 12, 1995 (continued...)

Then comes a warning:

See to it that no one deceives you through empty, seductive philosophy that follows mere human traditions, a philosophy based on cosmic powers rather than on Christ. (Ibid., 2:8-9)

The Haiku 

 

that old deceiver
magnificent cunning brain
font of ideas

figuring out things
arriving at reasons why
theories of all sorts

best of all of course
provider of all answers
mysteries no more

truly seductive
seeming cosmic solutions
dreamed up by the brain

except all are flawed
by finite source limited
flesh and bone fashioned

to know mystery
enter in where it resides
in solitude go

be there in silence
bringing nothing from outside
no thought no image

nothing from the brain
no idea nor concept
not one attachment

thus become empty
open to know the unknown
known without knowing

(to be continued...)

September 12, 1995 (continued...)

Ten months ago, when I wrote the dedication of this journal to [name withheld], I said, “It is through my experience of loving you that I have best glimpsed how God loves me.” Based on my own experience, I know what I wrote is true. Now what I knew but did not know in an enlightened way is being revealed.

The Haiku

unconditional…
truly rare this kind of love
peerless privilege

parents love this way
a few others there might be
though none that I know

so grateful am I
to be among those chosen
to have known this love

may I learn from it
how better to love others
as a parent does

(to be continued...)

September 12, 1995 (continued...)

From The Way of Paradox:

Jesus is supremely mysterious; but then, so are we. It may be, therefore, that the perfect Christological dogma, the final definitive statement about who and what Jesus is, can never be achieved, any more than there can be a final and definitive statement about who and what human beings are. Some statements are better and more complete than others, but none can be perfect in the sense of giving full and exhaustive expression to the reality, because the reality ultimately transcends verbal expression. Once we stop seeing Jesus as a mystery, we also stop seeing ourselves as a mystery; and that means we have lost hold of the truth. In fact, this is not a bad test of how deep our understanding is of another person (a lover, a parent, or a friend, for example). We have only to ask: is this person still a mystery to me? Do I find, the more I get to know him, the more mysterious he becomes? If this is so, then the relationship is deep and truthful, founded on real love and understanding. We can apply the same test to our understanding of ourselves. Do I think I now know myself fully, so that I can predict exactly how I will react in a given situation? Do I have a complete and detailed knowledge of all my hidden desires, hopes, fears, and potentialities? If I think that, then I can be sure my self-knowledge is, in fact, far from complete. It has hardly even started. Once I stop thinking that I know myself and others, then there is a chance that some real knowledge might start to grow. (Pages 74-75)

Wow!
_____________________________________
The Way of Paradox, by Cyprian Smith, O.S.B.

The Haiku

 

thinking that we know
how easily we are fooled...
fooled and fooled again

it seems knowing less
leads us to think we know more
quite topsy-turvy

hard headed perhaps
or intellectual pride
limiting are both

both block mystery 
a place where brain cannot go
which it cannot know

where essences are
where unknowing becomes known
where emptiness is

(to be continued...)

September 12, 1995 (concluded)

One last quote from today’s readings, this one from the gospel:

Jesus went to the mountain to pray, spending the night in communion with God. (Luke 6:12)

This is a mystery. Jesus, Who is God is in communion with God all the time, I would think. Why would it be pointed out that He spent the night in communion with God? Perhaps so that He would not have to be in communion with men? I don’t think so. Maybe it is just another example of God speaking to man in man’s language. Maybe.

The Haiku 

 

going off to pray
seems strange Jesus would do that
why go off some place

God was there with him
at any time any place...
as an example?

set an example
or be an example...which?
intriguing question

one sounds like acting
the other more like living
being and doing

could be more to it
an example that’s neither
acting nor being

mindful example
doing as demonstration
teach by example

strange how words can work
example for example
tricky they can be 

September 13, 1995

When God becomes more real to me than what I perceive sensibly to be real, then I know the transformation has begun.

The Haiku 

 

transformational
to know perception not real
merely what is sensed

in ways of the world
perception...reality
often do align

yet often do not
with consequences dire...
cannot be trusted

always illusion
in matters of mystery
not to be believed

armed with this knowledge
comes courage to find within
new way of being

(to be continued...) 

September 13, 1995 (concluded)

The creation that I see is a manifestation of Got but is not God. The me that I and other people see is a manifestation of me but is not me.

The Haiku 

 

not profound really
that I am not what I do
a straw man statement

who ever said that
no one whom I can recall
debate with myself

made to seem thoughtful
sounding so self important
have some humble pie

how about live life
not think and talk about it
more inner quiet

September 14, 1995

Put to death whatever in your nature is rooted in earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and that lust which is idolatry. These are the sins which provoke God’s wrath. Your own conduct was once of this sort, when these sins were your very life. You must put that aside now: all the anger and quick temper, the malice, the insults, the foul language. Stop lying to one another. What you have done is put aside your old self with its past deeds and put on a new man, one who grows in knowledge as he is formed anew in the image of His creator. There is no Greek or Jew here, circumcised or uncircumcised, foreigner, Scythian, slave, or freeman. Rather Christ is everything in all of you. (Colossians 3:1-11)

The Haiku 

 

Paul has a long list
behaviors to put to death
extensive it is

uncleanness...passion
fornication...quick temper
anger...foul language

evil desires
lust which is idolatry
plus a few others

contrast with Jesus
not too keen on listing sins
more a fan of love

also attachments
did talk about seeds dying
giving stuff away

but most about love
or call it loving kindness
either one will do

(to be continued...)

September 14, 1995 (concluded)

Now you might ask, what is detachment, since it is so noble in itself? Here you should know that true detachment is nothing other than this: the spirit stands immovable in all the assaults of joy and sorrow, honor, disgrace or shame, as a mountain of lead stands immovable against a small wind. This immovable detachment brings about in man the greatest similarity with God. For if God is God, He has it from His immovable detachment, and from this detachment He has His purity, His simplicity and His immutability. And therefore, if man is to become like God, as far as a creature can possess similarity to God, it must be by means of detachment. It is this that leads man to purity and from purity to simplicity and from simplicity to immutability. And these things bring about a certain similarity between God and man. But this similarity must take place through grace, for grace draws man away from temporal things and purifies him from all transient things. (Meister Eckhart, The Way of Paradox, Page 95)

What is being described here is the desolation which marks a life of solitude and desolation.

The Haiku 

leave it to Eckhart
detachment and attachment
links them together

what is detachment
if not ceding attachments
letting go of all

both likes and dislikes
joy, sorrow, honor, disgrace
these and more must go

surrendered at last
nothing left but emptiness
desolation’s home

now the path is forged
solitude...desolation
each day to be lived  

September 20, 1995

Perhaps for a while I will write no more. It is time for deeper silence.

The Haiku 

a deeper silence…
the journal comes to its end
a year it has been

haiku...how many?
more than twenty-five hundred
a lot of verses

and how many posts?
three hundred and forty-eight
quite a lot as well

so gratifying
this daily backward journey
seeing where I was

to where I have come
basic truths remain intact
some perspectives changed

through the years this stands…
solitude...desolation
sacred way of life

The End