The Heart of It

The Heart of It

And as I breathe,

I see you there
between the breaths

waiting as a tree does
in the winter

quiet and still.

And as I dream
of the city,
you are sitting

reading books in a cafe

that my mind has built

hastily, partially,
in my sleep.

And as I walk by
on the street,

I know you are inside
and my longing
finishes
the doorway.

And so you are everywhere,
as you always were.

And ceaseless

in the fervency
of your wayfaring.

And you are
a mapmaker
of these things,
and more.
 

And you have

 marked down,
carefully,
all the paths
that have led you to me,

and me to you.

And we meet
at the center,
the heart of it.

Aegukga

가을 하늘 공활한데 높고 구름 없이

밝은 달은 우리 가슴 일편단심일세

 

The Autumn skies are void and vast, high and cloudless;

the bright moon is like our heart, undivided and true.

 

Lecha Dodi

Let's go,

my beloved,

to meet the bride,

and let us welcome

the presence

of Shabbat

	לכה דודי לקראת כלה
			פני שבת נקבלה

What are we missing about Christ?

I once read a good book entitled "What Jesus Meant" by Garry Wills. I was enchanted by Garry Wills candor and open faith, poignant to me as a disillusioned but hopeful christian mystic. In the book, Wills expounds on various points Jesus made and puts his words into both spiritual and historical context--this kind of academic approach to the New Testament can certainly come in handy when reading a particularly vague or confusing passage, such as Jesus' statement that he did not come to bring peace to the world, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34) (A very loaded statement to be sure...and one that strikes terror into the hearts of most theology teachers at your average catholic high-school. Trust me, I know.) Wills' book was a good read, but it left me with a question that had already been growing in my mind. Are we missing something essential about Christ?

Modern Christianity seems to focus very much on Christ as a kind of two-dimensional savior. His life, death, and resurrection--this is the mantra often repeated by those of the evangelical lot. But isn't there more to Christ than that? If Christ is God manifest, in whatever way you prefer to look at it, then that same complexity that is inherent within the Divine Mind or Ultimate Reality should be manifest within the Christ. True, Christ may have appeared as a man, but what is he now? Is even a he? Does the personality of Jesus of Nazareth still exist, or is Christ now something completely different? Can Christ be experienced as a feeling? I don't want to go as far as to say Christ could be a "concept". This to me is the same over-simplification of Christ that Modern Day Christianity is guilty of. I am rather saying that while the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is an amazing epic of spiritual enlightenment, perhaps in this day and age we should focus less on the "Jesus" and more on the "Christ"...that is, the Divine, Eternal nature of Jesus. Perhaps this is what many christians refer to as the Holy Spirit...but the Holy Spirit, of all the different parts of the Trinity, is the least understood and the most separate...we talk often of the unity of the Son and the Father, but what about the unity of the Son and the Spirit?

Prime

I'm not going to claim that I'm going to update this blog with any great frequency. If anything, this blog is a brainchild of mind that is just as likely to miscarry as all the other half baked projects I've had floating through my mental ocean over the years. I'm not even sure what I'll write about here--I mean philosophy, sure...if you want to call it that. Musings, but that word is overused nowadays and overly cute. Who am I kidding, this blog will likely not even be read by anyone. After all, I write like I think. What would they call that? Organic. Maybe not, maybe not. But I can't say my thinking is very organized...so my writing won't be either. Then again, my thinking works just fine for me. So I guess in a way I'm only doing this so my mind--or, well, thoughts--have a passage through to the "real world". That's all I'm really going to try to do here. If it interests no one else but myself, then I suppose I at least have one reader.