THE WIND BLOWS 

WHERE IT WILLS - 

EVEN INTO AN EGGPLANT 

Poem for Today - Thursday - September 25, 2014

PENTECOST

What is this Holy Spirit?

And what is it doing in the eggplant?

© David Craig

page 116 in Upholding Mystery,

An Anthology of Contemporary

Christian Poetry, Edited by

David Impastato,

Oxford University Press,

New York, Oxford, 1997

ANGER:

THE FIRE COMING FROM AN ANGRY HEART

Poem for Today - Wednesday - September 24, 2014

TO THE READER

Black tulips in my heart,

flames on my lips:

from which forest did you come to me,

all you crosses of anger?

I have recognized my griefs

and embraced wandering and hunger.

Anger lives in my hands,

anger lives in my mouth

and in the blood of my arteries swims anger.

O reader,

don't expect whispers from me,

or words of ecstasy:

this is my suffering!

A foolish blow in the sand

And another in the clouds.

And is all I am –

Anger, the tinder

Of fire.

(1964)

Mahmud Darwish (1942-2008 )

pages 194-195 in

When the Words Burn,

An Anthology of Modern

Arabic Poetry: 1945-1987,

translated by John Mikhail Asfour

TRYING TO PUT IT 

INTO WORDS.......

Poem for Today - Tuesday - September 23, 2014

THE DICTIONARY FOR LOVERS

I've always thought of writing a dictionary for lovers—

my friends, the lovers.

I've always thought of making them happy,

those marvellous people ... thought of

lighting a small lantern

for the lost thousands,

and making my heart

a wheat field for all the hungry.

I 've always considered making my eyelids

a sheet to throw over the weary

and finding out

where the birds of sadness come from

and when the trees of longing bloom.

Considered discovering what fire has burned us

for millions

of years.

I have, without a doubt, been a big fool

calling myself

the official spokesman of lovers.

Can it happen?

Is it possible to hold the sea in a bottle—

imprison jasmine?

Can the flowers of love be compressed

in one book?

I ask mercy from the God of all!

(1981)

© Nizar Qabbani (1923 -1998)

Pages 100-101 in

When the Words Burn,

An Anthology of Modern

Arabic Poetry: 1945-1987,

translated by John Mikhail Asfour

SALEM:

TRANSLATION "PEACE"

Poem for Today - Monday -  September 22, 2014

JERUSALEM

I cried till there were no more tears,

prayed till the candles melted, knelt till kneeling bored me.

I asked about Muhammad in you, and about Jesus.

Jerusalem, City which smells of prophets,

shortest of roads between the earth and the sky

Jerusalem, lighthouse for ships,

beautiful girlchild with burnt fingers—

Your eyes are sad, City of the virgin,

luscious garden where the prophet passed.

The stones of the streets,

the minarets of the mosques, are sad.

Jerusalem, beauty wraps in black:

Who rings the bells in the Church of the Resurrection

Sunday Mornings? Who carries the toys to the children

Christmas night?

Jerusalem, city of grief,

large tear that roams under the eyelids:

Who repulses

your enemies, O pearl of religions?

Who washes the blood from the stones of the walls?

Who salvages the Bible

Who salvages Christ from his assassins?

Who salvages man?

Jerusalem, my city

Jerusalem, my love

Tomorrow, tomorrow the orange trees will bloom

and the green wheat rejoice,

and eyes and olive trees will laugh.

Migrating doves shall return

to the blessed rooftops

and children will come back to play.

Fathers and sons will meet

on your tall hills, my country,

country of peace and olive trees.

(1968)

© Nizar Qabbani (1923 -1998)

page 100 in When

the Words Burn,

An Anthology of

Modern Arabic Poetry: 1945-1987,

translated by John Mikhail Asfour

GOD’S WAYS

ARE NOT MY WAYS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my thoughts for today is: God’s Ways Are Not My Ways.

The heart of prayer is for the human being to shut up and listen to the heart of God. It’s as simple as that. And in prayer, we find out what Isaiah found out in prayer. I am not God. God is other and God has ideas and thoughts and loves of his own and they are not the way I think and feel and love and see. In prayer Isaiah heard these words, 

          “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.”

This morning I’d like to reflect briefly on that reality: “God’s Ways Are Not My Ways.”

Or shut up and discover you’re not God.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel gives a concrete example of what Isaiah heard in the principle that God’s Ways Are Not My Ways. It’s the Parable of the Generous Vineyard Owner.

George McCauley said, “If Jesus got killed for any single teaching, the teaching in today’s gospel might have been the one.”

Doesn’t God have the right to do what God wants to do? We cry for that gift for ourselves, yet we often don’t want or don’t allow God to be God. We want God to fit into our image and likeness. Isn’t that a horrible form of idolatry? And of course, God laughs at us and his laugh can be heard in the halls of prayer.

Don’t we get angry when others peg us, when others try to mold us, when others try to shackle us, when others try to force us to do what they want us to do, when others want us to be what they want us to be, when they want us to be in their image and likeness?

Doesn’t every man and woman grow up fighting their parents dictum: “My will be done.”

The boy whose father is an admiral doesn’t want to go to Annapolis. The boy whose father is a surgeon doesn’t want to go to med school. The daughter whose mother was an Olympic diver or gymnast, doesn’t want to spend hours and hours on becoming an athlete.

We want to choose our own salad dressing, our own college, our own hair style, underarm deodorant, our own future and our own friends.

THE OTHER IS FREE

One of the great learnings in life then is not only allowing another person to be free, but that the other person is free: free to choose, free to do what they want to do.

Yet people spend millions of dollars for cosmetics, cars, clothes, dinner engagements, health spas, weight loss to get another to like and love them.

Yet people spend millions of pounds of psychic energy planning and trying to get others to love them.

Yet people spend millions of units of time on phones, writing letters, visiting others, to get them to love them.

And the crash comes when we discover that love is free. If another loves us because of looks, cars, clothes, age, money, etc. all that can crumbles in an earthquake. Relationships need to be built on love that is free. Those are the best relationships. Those are the kind of relationships that stand in the test of time.

GOD

So too with God. God is free to love as God wants to love. God chooses. And all this is mystery and it causes anger and frustration. Yet look around. Go to class reunions. Look at who married whom. You'd be surprised. Some people settle in Scranton and some settle in Seattle or Sacramento. Life is funny. Choices are funny.

Can’t we allow God a sense of humor. Can’t we allow God to choose his friends. Can’t we allow God to do life as God wants to do life - to give some people more than others.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

So once more, once again, we come back to today’s gospel. We see that God has a sense of humor. God isn’t fair. Love isn’t fair. God has favorites. God plays favorites. God is free to do what God wants to as God. If God wants to make penguins and hippopotamus’, monkeys and octopus’, then God can make all of the above and all of the below - funny birds of the sky, fascinating fish of the sea and those who walk or run or slide along the surface of the globe.

US AGAIN

We want that freedom for ourselves, let’s let God have the same.

The heart of prayer then is letting go and letting God - letting God be God. The heart of love is being loved not because of anything we do, but because the other chooses to love us.

And that’s the shock of love: to find out that we are loved by another - and we had nothing to do with it.

CONCLUSION

And the greatest shock is that we are loved by God, not by any thing we do, but because God simply loves us. Sit in prayer and you’ll begin to hear the sounds of love: God’s love for you and maybe God’s love for the other person as well as that crazy guy you read about in the morning paper.

AH SWEET MYSTERY 

OF LIFE .... I STILL 

CAN'T FIND YOU 

Poem for Today - Sunday - September 21, 2014

THE GAME

When the travelling planes pass at great altitudes

over distant villages

the children halt their play

and raise small hands over their eyes

to view the beautiful travelling toy

and as soon as it disappears behind some scattered clouds

they rush along in full force

after a torn ball

and repeat short songs

but no one knows

where their lyrics come from.

(1978)

© Banda ‘Abd al-Hamid [1957- ]

in When the Words Burn,

An Anthology of

Modern Arabic Poetry: 1945-1987,

translated by John Mikhail Asfour

Page 129

BE OF HATE 

A LITTLE MORE CAREFUL 

THAN ANYTHING 

Poem for Today - Saturday - September 20, 2014

WHEN I KILLED MY LOVE

I hated you, till there was nothing

but my terrible hate to converse with.

Into it I poured tomorrow's blood

and drowned my present.

I fed it the fire of curses, revolution and revenge,

inflicted my cries of hatred upon it in my dark song,

sustained it with the sleep of the dead

and drew a curtain of ghosts and gloom around it.

I despised your name,

its shadows and echoes.

I loathed its colour and tune,

rhythm and form

and the rough memories

which fell, were consumed

and dwelt in eternity all in a moment:

and I was resurrected as a new poem

which says that the past is only a word.

Victory was mine as you fell,

a statue over a cliff.

I came to bury the pieces under the grief of the cypress.

Hungrily my spade split the earth,

and touched

a cold and frightful foot.

I proudly dragged to the light

—Whose corpse? the remains of regret ...

The night was a mirror where I beheld my hatred

and my dead past, but not the centre of my being.

I knew then,

having killed you in my cup and night

and borne my murdered slowly to the grave—

knew, by the lugubrious hue of my face

that I had only killed myself.

(May 12,1952)

© Nazik al-Mala’ika (1923-2007)

pages 78-79 in When

the Words Burn,

An Anthology of

Modern Arabic Poetry: 1945-1987,

translated by John Mikhail Asfour