Friday, July 29, 2011

Gods

Divine humanity, or human divinity?
Which would we rather have?
This is the question that is presented to man
in every generation
from the first to the last.

The first is not in our control,
something we could not even guess at,
something only dreamt of
by those whose hearts persistently seek the Most-High,
wondering what He is.

The second is what we found ourselves left with.
Since we couldn’t discover divine humanity,
we consoled ourselves
by inventing human divinity.

Human beings,
worthy or unworthy,
raised some of themselves to the status of gods.
The ancient heroes of the Greeks,
of the Indians,
of the Chinese,
gods.

The wielders of earthly power,
those in whom their peoples invested
the ring, orb and crown of authority,
lauded ‘guardians of mankind’ and ‘benefactors,’
gods.

Those fools who once graced the courts of kings
with levity to assuage the harshness of our earthly exile,
now electronically glorified,
our entertainers,
gods.

Human divinities all,
they are sculpted images of the human nature,
to be worshipped by their adorers,
or vilified by opponents
who worship not men
but things.

Yet, divine humanity,
after long ages,
He did appear.
He,
the bedreamt of prophets and prophet-kings,
has appeared,
does appear,
and now lives among us.

No sculpture, no painted image
can convey Him to us better than He Himself can,
walking in our midst, as one of us,
though we do not recognize Him
but in retrospect.

He is Divine Humanity,
having taken our human nature
into the fiery folds of His sixfold wings
up to the Throne of the Divine Nature,
making us enter heaven,
and the heaven of heavens.

Making us sit upon His Throne
and upon His Father’s Throne,
making us sup with Him and with His Father
and the Spirit Holy
at the banquet Table,
in the light of a thousand suns.

Every molecule of our humanity
transformed in Him into Divinity,
no particle of darkness remains,
no shadow,
only light, light, wonderous light,
bright, bright, brighter.

Divine humanity,
or human divinity?
Which do you choose?

‘No one lights a lamp to hide it under a bushel.’
‘A city set on a hill cannot be hid.’
‘I set before you life,
And death.’

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Inevitable gate


Die at Vrndávan, die at Práyag,
die where Ganga is born,
or where she flows,
or die where she meets her lover the sea.

Die at Makkah,
or at Yerushaláyim,
or in a cave on Holy Athos,
or where heaven meets earth,
a mountain no one can see.

It is only a meeting at the inevitable gate.
He will not carry you away like a thimble tied with string,
for she makes her request.

Faithfulness has its reward,
a power that breaks the claims of Death,
Yama cannot resist, for his prison has been imprisoned.

Lightning strikes, shining from east to west,
returning from west to east,
to earth itself in the soil of the heart,
making holy ground.

To die is different from what anyone expected,
and luckier,
and the place of death
lovelier than any choice can arrange.
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