leaves of faith

[lilithu]

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt;
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven,
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

[lilithu]

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

-Ranier Maria Rilke

 

[lilithu]

Be ours a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere
Its temple, all space
Its shrine, the good heart
Its creed, all truth
Its ritual, works of love
Its profession of faith, divine living.

-Unitarian theologian, Theodore Parker

 

[lilithu]

Look at yourself, trembling, afraid of nonexistence:
know that nonexistence
is also afraid
that God might bring it to existence.
If you grasp at worldly dignities,
it’s from fear, too.
Everything, except love of the Most Beautiful,
is really agony. It’s agony
to move towards death and not drink the water of life.

-Jalaluddin Rumi

 

[lilithu]

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

 

[lilithu]

As a doe longs
For running streams
So longs my soul,
For you, my God...

My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God:
when can I go and meet with God?

My tears have sustained me
day and night,
while they continually say me,
Where is your God?

When I remember these things
I pour out my soul:
for I used to go with the multitude,
to the house of God,
with the voice of joy and praise,
among the festive throng.

Why so downcast, my soul?
Why do you sigh within me?
Put your hope in God:
for I shall praise God yet,
My savior, my God.

- Psalm 42:1-5

 

[lilithu]

The Heart is right to cry

Even when the smallest drop of light,
Of love,
Is taken away.

Perhaps you may kick, moan, scream
In a dignified
Silence,

But you are so right
To do so in any fashion

Until God returns
To
You.

- Hafiz

 

[lilithu]

The sum of human wisdom is not contained
in any one language, and no single language
is capable of expressing all forms
and degrees of human comprehension.

- Ezra Pound


The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.

- Tao te Ching

 

[lilithu]

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:

How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:

What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,

If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,

O someone should start laughing!

Someone should start wildly Laughing –
Now!

- Hafiz

 

[lilithu]

Abba Lot came one day to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Father, I keep my little rule to the best of my ability. I observe my modest fast and my contemplative silence. I say my prayers and do my meditation. I endeavour as far as I can to drive useless thoughts out of my heart. What more can I do?’

The elder rose to answer and lifted his hands to heaven. His fingers looked like lighted candies and he said, ‘Why not become wholly fire?’

- Sayings of the Desert Fathers

 

[lilithu]

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

--St Francis of Assisi

 

[michel]

Lilithu, Namaste.

That is lovely.

 

[lilithu]

Yes, I have been reading a lot of Hafiz lately.


If someone sits with me
And we talk about the Beloved,
If I cannot give his heart comfort,
If I cannot make him feel better
About himself and this world,
Then, Hafiz,
Quickly run to the mosque and pray--
For you have just committed
The only sin I know.

--Hafiz

 

[lilithu]

If you meet the Buddha on the side of the road, kill him.

--Zen koan


Jesus said, "Whoever has come to understand the world has found only a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world."

--The Gospel of Thomas 42: 30-33

 

[lilithu]

If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.

- Albert Camus

 

[lilithu]

Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard-surfaced and straight-forward.

Having died to self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.
Gambling yourself away is beyond any religion.

Religion seeks grace and favor,
but those who gamble these away are God’s favorites,
for they neither put God to the test
nor knock at the door of gain and loss.

--Jalaluddin Rumi

 

[lilithu]

The color of a wall
depends on the wall.

In the same manner
the isness of creatures
depends on the love of God.

Take the color from the wall and the color would cease to be.
So too,
all creatures would cease to exist
if they were separated from
the love that God is.

-Meister Eckhart

 

[lilithu]

You, you only, exist.
We pass away, till at last,
our passing is so immense
that you arise: beautiful moment,
in all your suddenness,
arising in love, or enchanted
in the contraction of work.

To you I belong, however time may
wear me away. From you to you
I go commanded. In between
the garland is hanging in chance; but if you
take it up and up and up: look:
all becomes festival!

-Ranier Maria Rilke
(transl. by Stephen Mitchell)

 

[lilithu]

By protecting oneself, one protects others;
by protecting others, one protects oneself.

-- the Buddha (SN XLVII.19)

 

[lilithu]

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

-- Sheenagh Pugh