Yes and no

Yes,

though we may loathe to admit it,

there is a real insiders versus outsiders status

in terms of Christianity.

 

Not everyone,

even very nice, or very smart people,

or celebrities that we like,

is a Christian,

not even some very famous people

who claim to be, or claim to have been,

Christians.

 

No,

just as Jesus had an inner circle,

His disciples,

apart from the outer circle of everyone else,

ranging from those who hung on His words

but were not prepared to follow,

all the way to those

who simply liked to be seen in His company,

there are insiders and outsiders in Christianity.

 

The insiders know what the truth is

when they read the Bible,

know how to distinguish the authentic

from the nonsensical in the tradition,

and do not argue.

 

The outsiders live by, in and for

controversy, appearances and prestige.

 

They gobble up or serve up ludicrous lies as food.

 

No,

Jesus wasn't married to Mary Magdalene,

but yes,

He has a bride,

as the Bible itself teaches.

 

No,

they never found His body,

but yes,

He has a body,

and in that body He walks the earth

from the day He disappeared

in full view of His insiders.

 

All myths and outsiders' gossip fall flat at His feet.

 

Papyrus fragments old

or hot-off-the-presses new

will never tell the insiders anything about the Lord

that they don't already know.

 

Bits of cloth or bone,

or incised stones,

even splinters of True Cross wood,

cannot add to what insiders believe or who they know,

but outsiders clamor for more.

 

Yes,

everything we needed to know

to start our following of the Lord

was contained in His call,

and following Him

we never needed any proofs of this or that,

nor had time to debate or even discuss

the latest evidence pro or con.

 

Inside or outside,

where we stand,

is shown by our walk,

not our talk.

 

It is I

‘Death is a sickness like any other,’
it has been written,
but so is sickness a death,
and so is death an invasion of privacy
and illusion-shatterer like no other.

We live our lives peacefully and prosperously
in the short spells of quiet
that are evacuated between cataclysms,
we live as individuals, as societies,
even as worlds.

Clenched between the jaws of inflexible fate,
without daring to delve the depths of the illusion
that has captured us and freed us
in the vise of time,
we wait purposely ignoring the end of all.

Like the sudden darkness and violence of a storm
that makes our road impassable and causes us to halt,
either for an hour or forever,
without our foreknowledge or permission,
an unwelcome diagnosis of terminal illness,
or the death of a child,
puts an end to what we were
and pushes us into what we must be.

Nothing remains the same, if anything remains of us at all.

By whose mercy or caprice,
or whether by mindless, existence-taunting chaos,
these brief moments of order and reason,
that tempt us to hope,
open to receive us and feed our illusions,
we dare not ask.

Swept along with the whole universe,
if there be such a place,
we cannot keep anything material
but wisdom that adheres to the soul,
that the soul itself, our souls, are nonetheless real,
though everything around us,
our implacable enemy,
denies what we know to be,
crushed by what is not.

We do not choose, we realize,
and in fact there is no choice.

We march because that is what we are,
seen between two unseens,
without destiny or destination,
proof only to ourselves that we exist at all,
movements excruciated from primordial clay.

Neither yesterday nor tomorrow hold meaning,
so we grasp today to convince ourselves
that if we can have nothing else,
at least we can have that.


God appears,
uninvited if not unexpected.

The religious delightfully moan in welcome,
the illiterate cover themselves with rocks,
neither make sense of this
or can really distinguish epiphany from mindless fate.

Inexorable,
impossible of deflection
like the high walls of the narrowing chasm
inside which we will disappear
as we have seen others disappear,
we hope we can charm him or her or them or it
by clever constructions.

Instead, though we fear to admit it,
we fail to follow the only avenue
that would focus our attention on the opening,
as we crumple in self-defeat
and congratulate ourselves on having avoided the end
one more time.

Meanwhile, the Light shines,
we do not know from where,
and so we shut our eyes,
and fight on.

This is why we are made,
we think that we think,
but know that these are just the turnings of immense wheels,
and once again swoon
to be mashed between their teeth.


In the night, awake,
always awake in the night while others sleep,
obsessed with the science of unknowing,
in the darkness discerning light,
out of wandering being delivered to the mark
as an arrow takes flight,
the archer aiming not at the bird perched on the high branch,
seeing not even its head,
only its neck,
does he pass his test.

Always, everywhere,
overcome by the terror of the task,
thinking it is kill or be killed,
we are charioted forward to engage,
what is
against what is not,
and we emerge,
as we have been forewarned,
almost alone.

It seems no one has survived,
the world is full of ghosts,
but flesh and blood,
decapitated, mangled forms fill the field of vision
where great deeds were done.

This was no mere clashing of worlds.
We find no one with whom to share the victory.
We return to forgetting all, because all is pain.

Then He comes to take us by the hand,
and we walk upon the ageless sea.

‘It is I. Do not be afraid.’
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We know the Way

Yes, we know the Way,
we know they also know, but they,
like idiot children
who know not their right hands from their left,
who let run to waste
the precious oil of the vials they have broken,
to no profit or even pleasure,
who let fertile fields remain fallow
while plowing and seeding sterile salty sand,
only play
unknowing though they know,
as sleepers dream,
unwanting ever
to awake, and never choose,
as if they want to lose, not win
the game that they imagine,
yet the Way lies open
through the narrow spear slash,
oozing fragrant myrrh.

They are not deaf.

They heard Him cry out words,
Forgive them, for they know.

Not what they do,
but what they do not do,
draws to them and us His mercy, His love.

Yes, we know the Way,
it is mercy, it is love,
yes, love, love, and more love.

For them, and for us,
it is only love that heals.
Yes, we know the way.

— Romanós

The inevitable step

The ascension of the Christ.
Yes, this is the inevitable step in the progression of mankind
into the new reality of the sons of God.

The first new Man has appeared.
He walked the earth in full humanity
cloaking His full Divinity for a mere thirty-three years.

Then, delivering Himself up, to both sorrow and certainty,
He let Himself be taken for a common criminal,
though not at all common,
for kings and prefects do not bother themselves
with the crimes of common men,
nor do noble ladies dream dreams about them.

What no one has ever seen before occurred.
No one could visualize it then or even now.
It is surely incomprehensible,
because we have no eyes for it, not yet.

Still, what men fear most happened in time,
and happens now and ever,
every day till the end of time,
inevitable death has been rolled away from a tomb
then, now, and forever void of the dead.

No, it is not death that men fear most, but life,
unending, beginningless life,
that which they were made for,
but which they cannot bring themselves to accept.

What is worse than being sentenced to death?
To be sentenced for life,
to be condemned to live forever,
beginningless, endless, without respite,
before the face of Him who creates,
loves and preserves all beings.

This is the eternal fire that enlightens those who love Him
and burns those who hate Him.

Hate Him?
How can they hate the only-lover of mankind?

God is mercy to those who run to Him,
and judgment to those who run away.

Yes, the inevitable step.
Pierced feet fly upwards.
We follow them with our eyes, ignoring angels who tell us,
He returns in exactly the same manner that He departs.

Yes, the inevitable step.
He has taken it.
Now it is our turn, as it has always been.
Die in order to live.
Rise in order to receive what cannot be taken away.
Ascend in order to be present everywhere, to fill the earth.

‘Greater works than these are to be done by you,’ He says,
‘because I am going to the Father.’
He has taken the inevitable step, calling us to follow.

‘Why do you stand there gazing into the sky?’
Do not follow His feet only with your eyes.
Run after Him.
He comes again, in clouds, as we follow Him.
‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…’

He has taken the inevitable step.
There is no going back, for Him or for us.
Yes, the inevitable step.
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Encaustic sacrifices

Talking about the tools,
but not teaching how to use them.
Showing the treasures,
but not knowing how to spend them.

This is the road of religious orthodoxy,
that makes orderlies
more important than the doctor,
that postpones surgeries
except those merely cosmetic,
that abandons therapy
as unsuited to our mortality.

Stories, stories, and more stories.
Entertainment, naturally religious
drama, replaces true miracle,
while what passes for miraculous
is confined to what drips
from painted planks and holy bones.

Meanwhile, the living body
putrefies for lack of healing,
starves for dearth of real food,
dies of thirst before bucketless wells.

This is how faith is handed over?
The living faith of the dead
transformed by verbal acrobatics
into the dead faith of the living?

Tight-rope walking and levitation,
sleight of hand impossible to detect,
harmonized palms all around
paralyzed in monolithic salute,
statuary in stone rejected,
yet idols of fleshly fantasy erected.

Who would want to weep
over this pile of stones?
Who would want to rule
over this heap of ruins?

Destitute of all good,
clad darkly yet prey to desire,
marauders indulge themselves in holy rapine,
pectoral jewels gleaming
in the glory of clerical smiles.

Even goat's hair once was accepted in sacrifice,
but now, only holocausts of souls.
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When Christ walks in hell

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                    When Christ walks in hell,
                    will I follow Him even there,
                    will I walk inside His footsteps,
                    out of fresh and sunlit air?

                    He suffered, yes, and suffers
                    though no longer on the tree,
                    whose standing from the grave
                    gave God glory freeing me.

                    Do I go down as He descends,
                    delve deep my brother’s grave
                    to hold him close and cradle him,
                    help Him one soul to save?

                    The nether regions of the dead,
                    not painted myths and lore,
                    are open if I only dare
                    to go through Him the Door.
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Except those that free

Avoid ever eating with a woman 
who is not your wife. 
If forced by circumstances to eat with a woman, 
tell your wife about it 
every time.

True words of advice. 
Following them, even to this day, 
has not prevented the worst from happening. 

When a woman listens to the seducing spirit, 
not to infidelity herself, 
but to doubt and accuse her innocent spouse, 
finally driving him from her, 
not noticing even how her family is destroyed 
because she has loaded the blame on him, 
can even the Lord break the bondage 
of this deception? 

What we only see 
is not the whole picture. 
The Lord's mercy, also, 
sometimes looks like destruction, 
except to those who, 
enmeshed in the accidents that fill time, 
know that even there, the Lord is with them, 
and that there are no losses except those that free.
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Where the sea is no more

Growing up in the oceanless, midwestern prairie, 
when I finally saw the ocean—
Where was it? 
It must have been Oregon or California 
when I was about twenty-one 
and traveled 
from my new home in Canada for the first time—
I was awed. 

I am in awe of the majesty of the sea. 
It draws me into it like the Divine Nature, 
being at once the womb of my conception, 
the nurturing mother of my life, and yes, 
even in the sometime future, my watery grave. 
Like water evaporated from it 
to fall as rain on the land and rejoin it finally 
through creeks, streams, and rivers, 
I feel my life to be iconified 
in the migrations of the sea’s waves.

When I go to the coast, 
I walk out into the ocean barefooted
and offer my veneration 
by bowing and touching it, 
because all water is holy, 
now that the Lord Himself enters the waves 
by His life-purifying baptism. 

All mythologies ancient and modern, 
of west and east, 
meet in my memory with the Spirit 
who hovered over the waters 
from which dry land and life appeared. 

I see before me Vishnu reclining 
on the primeval many-headed cobra 
Shesha floating in the sea of milk 
dreaming of the world 
and in dreaming preserving it, 

no less than Jesus Christ lying asleep 
with His head on the cushion 
in the boat on the storm-tossed Galilean lake, 
while His disciples feared for their lives, 
until He awoke and stilled the waves, 
waking even our infant mythology 
into the dawn of the day of truth.

Yes, and John Klímakos, 
ladder-bending John, 
showing us its rungs by love’s candlelight 
in the night of this world. 

Faithful reading too 
wakes desire in us to ascend with the Lord, 
not just watch Him disappear in the clouds. 

Let the angels wake the others from slumber 
who gaze heavenwards, 
but let us follow those pierced feet 
as they disappear upwards into unattainable light. 
Unattainable, yes, 
but only to those who walk for fear of flight. 

John, help us to keep from falling from that ladder, 
as we ascend not by our own efforts, 
but in His arms strong to carry and to save, 
so that we may join you in that world 
where the sea is no more, 
and where we see no temple, nor sun, nor moon, 
for the Lord God and the Lamb, 
are our temple 
and light.
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offerings

             some things that are cannot be told in prose
             evincing poetry, these acts unrhyme
             the past, the present, future, and all time,
             rewriting all that happened, all we chose


             a son returns a man still aged fifteen
             his dreams as flowers scattered on a stone
             remember still the land where they were sown
             so he his heart unearths, uncrushed, unseen


             too large, let it be written as it may
             mine eyes have seen it, truly, through a veil
             a tear in time admits one lately born
             to regions where the mind can surely stay
             awaiting all that left behind must trail
             until all shall be mended that was torn

Live

live for yourself in every creature
live for the calm in the storm
live but to love though no one notice
live but to know, not be known

wait for the time in every moment
watch for the day in the night
witness in joy though all be sorrow
wonder at dark, hid in light

give of yourself and never tire
give of the pleasure and pain
give but to gather what only matters
give but to go, not be gone

nothing there is though all surround you
no one is here but your own
never is new though old be ever
no way but this, truth is one
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Always

The air is cool and the evening dark.
Only an hour after sunset
the sky is indigo black,
laced with high cumulus clouds
faintly glowing with light from a waxing gibbous moon
bright in the zenith above.

I walk my rent money over to the office
of ‘The Binfords’ where I live,
an old fashioned neighborhood
of ivy-covered white stucco row houses
built about the year I was born,
sixty-one years ago.

Calm is the night, the air faintly tinged
with the smell of suppers
cooking in kitchens as I pass,
the pale lamplight contrasting
with the deeply textured trunks
of giant evergreens lining the path.

Up a stair here,
down another there,
as my walk meanders over roots
that insist on having the right of way,
and have been obligingly paved over.
In these shadows,
if I didn’t know my way,
I might have tripped.

Ranging in the western heavens,
brightly shining, astonishingly luminous and clear,
Venus, looking so close
it makes the vast universe seem small,
a homey place, an astrological garden
planted for His wayward and wandering children
by the great God and gardener,
Jesus Christ.

I feel little but protected,
His love not being doled out grudgingly
as by a measuring and weighing deity,
but by the Lord of all,
to whom size is of no consequence,
nor renown, nor accomplishments, nor wealth,
nor even manly wisdom,
only that we exist,
only that we live, facing Him with trust and thanksgiving,
willing to receive all that He generously gives,
happy to see Him when He appears,
shining in the stars like tonight,
or in the eyes of our brothers and sisters,
creatures like us,
each infinitely different.

The eight psalms of the first day of the month,
the ones I know best,
even by heart,
unravel themselves in no particular order
as I trace my path homewards,
and pacify my soul.

My life is simple,
adheres to stillness,
and finds refuge like the hidden inhabitants of forest trees,
unheard and unseen,
and free.

The care of the Creator God envelopes me
like the strong yet gentle arms of the Bridegroom
that open to receive His Bride,
doting on her as His one and only,
both of them unaware
of anything or anyone outside themselves,
because their love contains multitudes,
includes all.

There is nothing and nowhere
outside this House that the Lord has made,
no roads long and weary laden with the remorse of parting,
only His way, always arriving, always leading Home
where, always welcome,
I live forever.
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Evening Confession

Evening confession.
Outpourings of a blind old Greek with a Jew's heart,
rich in his poverty,
owning nothing but his own sinfulness,
seeking no one but the Eternal,
even knowing that finding Him
is the losing of himself.

The end of all things is nigh,
but not as prophesied by bibliolators
or boasted by Sabine women clothed in the sun
who use the moon as a swing.

The dragon that seeks to swallow the Man Child
is not the same as the dragon
whose year has just begun,
that harmless creature
who carries the Son of Heaven home
when his mandate is foreclosed.

Infinite Mercy stands waiting,
hidden behind our walls, to reveal Himself,
at every moment knowing exactly where we need Him most,
and why we are in need.
He does not wait as we wait.

He is ready when we call,
echoing unknowingly His calling us.
His forgiveness covers even our audacity
in believing we are God,
that we do not need Him,
that our freedom originates in ourselves.

His salvation in bathing us
does not drown us in the process,
but makes us clean again,
forgetting our uncleanness forever.

Yes, and the Woman clothed with the sun,
yes, we will find out exactly who She is.
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Wild Rock Honey

The Word of God written in two tongues,
Hebrew and Greek,
two languages
could not be more different from each other,
the one grounded in bedrock,
the other rushing ahead of the irresistible wind
that sends men to seek life on the high ‘seas of leaving,’
yes, leaving all behind,
yet losing nothing.

Christ the divine Man and the human God,
mortised in the granite of eternity, yet supple
to bear the only nourishing fruit that can make us immortal:
He is what all religion that is true leads us into.
Everything else is mere barbaric yawp.

Holy Triad the mystery,
Sotiría the progression,
Théosis the perfection.

How can we ascend by our own wings?
Only as the angels,
whose wings are ‘not made by human hands,’
but by the Most-High,
only as the angels can we approach the Son without melting.

Yes, ‘we can know God easily
so long as we do not feel it necessary to define Him.’

Lord, 
help us to learn to speak Your language, 
Your words, 
and purify us thereby, 
by the Spirit 
in whom we live and move and have our being. 

Teach us, 
only Rabbi of mankind, 
the meaning of Your words we utter. 

Satisfy us with the wild rock honey, 
let our crowns burst into flower.
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