More Evidence - Part 2

2.

Where are you when you’re not thinking?

Frightening, isn’t it?

Where are you when you’re not feeling anything?

Oh, worse!

Except for faith and imagination, nature is that hard fortress you can’t get out of.

Some person are captive to love, other would make the beloved a captive. Which one are you?

As we travel through Guyana, conversations frequently turn to experiencing birds in the wild that in our home countries are kept in cages, often with harm, suffering, and death as a consequence.  There is no doubt that humans love their birds, but in so doing, they make the beloved a captive. What would it look like if instead we were bound by love instead of being the binders?

Perhaps I would not even be here to hear the sound of the White Bell Bird.  I would not be using the earth’s resources to travel so far to behold beauty and to save it.  Instead I would be at home with a simple bell calling me to meditation, to awakening, and to liberation.  I would be swooning with every sunrise that lights the grandeur of the tall pines in the oak hammock.  Yet it is the beloved birds that bind me and bring me to these places in Latin America to be with them, and perhaps contribute if I can.  I am ever captive, and the captor.

We go through our days, with cages around us and the door open. 

We can step out into freedom, or we can lure others in with us.

Which will you do this day?

About Angels and About Trees - February 11, 2011

Where do angels
        fly in the firmament,
and how many can dance
        on the head of a pin?

Well, I don't care
        about that pin dance,
what I know is that
        they rest, sometimes,
in the tops of the trees

  and you can see them,
        or almost see them,
or, anyway, think: what a
        wonderful idea.

I have lost as you and
        others have possibly lost a
beloved one,
        and wonder, where are they now?

The trees, anyway, are
        miraculous, full of
angels (ideas);even
        empty they are a
good place to look, to put
        the heart at rest--all those
leaves breathing the air, so


peaceful and diligent, and certainly
        ready to be
the resting place of
        strange, winged creatures
that we, in this world, have loved

I have never lived on the ocean, but when I visit the eternal vista holds me in blissful transcendence.  So too have come to me the vistas of western mountains where you can see forever.  It was with some trepidation then when we moved to central Florida – no body of water, no mountains, no suns or moons rising on the horizon – just trees filling the view wherever you turn.

Florida has taught me to look up. Now I stare up into the branches as I might onto the ocean or from a mountain.  I strain to see who lives there, for surely there are some passing spring warblers daring me to behold their beauty.  Even if I don’t see any movement, I can hear the earth’s pulse through the miracle of the trees, and it echoes in my heart to last me through the day.

Today I am up in the level of the trees at a hotel at the University of Georgia, Athens. The trees are sprinkled with snow – natural angel dust to drug the soul with joy.

What do you see in a tree?

When I Cried for Help

Where are you, Angel of Mercy?

Outside in the dusk, among the flowers?

Leaning against the window or the door?

Or waiting, half asleep, in the spare room?

I’m here said the Angel of mercy.

I’m everywhere – in the garden, in the house,

And everywhere else on earth – so much

Asking, so much to do.  Hurry!  I need you.

Ah, the old joke.  A man is in the middle of the flood and has retreated to the high ground of his house’s roof.  The water is rising and he begins to pray to God, “Please save me!”  As he is praying a boat comes by and offers him a ride, and he refuses.  He awaits God’s hand to save.  He returns to praying as the water now laps against his ankles on the roof.  A helicopter hovers overhead and offers a life line down. “No thanks he says, God will save me.”  He returns to praying as the water rises to his waist, his neck, and finally over his head. He is swept away and to his death. Up in heaven the man confronts God. “I believed in you my whole life.  I prayed every day. When I needed you the most I asked that you come save me and you let me down. Why didn’t you help me?” God responds, “My son, who do you think sent the boat and the helicopter?”

We all are the hands of mercy.  So what am I doing writing this blog entry when the pleas for help abound?  There is so much to do. What are you doing reading this?  Hurry and wake up – the world need us!

Where do you see the hands of mercy evident in your life?