Today is my day
to be thankful for
my every-new-moment wholeness
To break free from old cellular debris
Awakening in the morning
with a promise
to recommit to myself
with the energy of Nature’s God
in synchronistic song
(National Suicide Prevention Day, 2016)
Yeshua has told me to hold on to the story of the Prodigal Son.
Not because my adult child (no proper terminology exists) is expected to come back to me on her hands and knees begging to be called a man again.
No, it is about those who are already home, fixing up their bedrooms just so, and holding themselves enamored with their chosen existence.
It is about those who feel they have more of a right to exist in their own spiritual space and to keep others out based on their idea of what it takes to be worthy. They place appearances and their ability to discipline themselves over and above others’ sense of honesty. They weigh themselves on the scale of life and find others wanting. It is as if they were on a see-saw, holding the weightier worth in their being; they keep the others forever down and helpless as they suspend them in the air.
Don’t be surprised if they stop playing with you, children.
We won’t be surprised when we visit, imperfect, and you don’t want to let us in.
Lord, I pray that you will make me an instrument of your peace
even though Jesus said sometimes there would not be peace, but a sword.
I’d like to sow love
but my fear drives me to defend against what you hate.
If I could pardon, I would, and be pardoned;
But after I died, I might not still know
how to get along with others.
I’d love for you to give me faith in place of doubt,
as doubt has been the mechanism of fear
which has been the driving force for me to try to be good
so that I won’t be consigned to eternal torture.
If you could replace my despair with hope,
I would still know that
for everyone,
life is being prophetically preached as getting much worse
in a literal way
before it gets better.
If your light could be shined into the darkness,
there is not a better time than the always now.
And I feel I cannot change
a part of my being that you put into place
which is so much a part of your empathy for those who are not special;
You’ve given me the Spirit of Sadness that supersedes the joy in the feeling
of getting mine.
For I do not want to be consoled out of caring for the unimportant,
the ones who can’t call themselves a man-made label,
but who possibly know your Spirit anyway.
For there is no ego in Christ,
and His generosity of heart does not require puffing up,
only Love.
I will not be understood. I mirror you in that.
I will not say flowery words that preach to the choir
to receive the seal of approval from the many.
I will give to whom I give, without speaking of it.
I will ask you to pardon me when I complain because dying hurts,
or I can’t understand others.
Help me to make you happy and to bring joy
in the uniquely peculiar way you have bestowed on me;
I ask you to help me forgive myself and others
when we enjoy our false feelings of competition
as if in some race to be the best over being loving.
If I have trouble loving rightly,
help me to see what love there is in me and you together.
If each person knew the joy of existing in love
they would never leave it.
Therefore, since the potential and seed-planted desire of all your creation
is to intrinsically experience the high of love,
help me to see all my brothers and sisters
as operating in only the highest degree of love
that they can in this moment
even if it is mainly out of self-preservation.
From this perspective, most are operating
from the highest level capable
in the cumulative consciousness.
Help me to be part of a shift that helps the collective move forward.
Help me to have empathy for those
who are seemingly tethered to the generalized quality of this mirage,
and for the areas of my life
where I am blind to it myself.
Help me to care for the collective wholeness, even as I know
I have to account for my individual self.
Correcting in self
Loving toward others
May it be so.
How I treat my Body is how I treat the world;
Forgiving of my belly folds, which are the proof of carrying, nurturing, and developing my babies;
Understanding of my upper arms and wrinkled elbows, too much skin from my ancestral DNA; my mother is in my arms;
Empathy for a back that does not flex without feeling pain, representing all the times I have bent my learning in a painful direction, but am still able to stand aligned;
For a right leg that is shorter than the left, which is just asking for time and patience to stretch enough to catch up;
For downward-turned shadows on the face, that because of gravity, cause me to consciously focus on building my smile muscles;
And the right and left arms that for 15 years have gradually and steadily borne the discomfort that comes with the unnatural position required to play the violin;
For the brain that has recovered so many times through pharmaceutical intrusion and accidental neural-pathway forming of dead-end roads;
And the heart that with the center of my chest has held the tension of the realization that back-tracking those roads is a journey fraught with dangerous turns that appear out of nowhere;
For the hands that have typed or written my journey into a record so that I may find my way out;
And the hair that has acclimated to many dye jobs so that there is one thing that allows me to not just accept what is;
For the Body that needs loving kindness, the Body that is all members, and for those cells that are believed to somehow exist outside;
The way I treat my body is the way I treat the world
I poured out my heart
to the wall
and laughed with false jovial glee
at my own nervousness,
disclaiming my pain
in my aim to please;
The magnifying glass
test tubes and beakers
all bubbled and broke with questions
as my pain was dissected,
(with smoked salmon on the side)
A beige blandness
shining as bright as the white of your eyes
covered me with your ashes;
never again
Meeting today
Grace would rule
only because
they’d believe they could change one
But having instead
known one forever,
they’ve projected the butterfly
into a worm
Perception changes not the butterfly
When pleasing Wrathful God
ye bear with patience
all cleansing of thine holy place
yea, holy of holies,
ye are called
Ye shall be
like a camel
unburdening thyself
of thy smallness,
accommodating
thy passage
through the eye of the needle
into the welcoming
Holy Gate’s
City Arms
Their alabaster sheen
unveiling
a face too bright yet to see
without blinking
Yes,
Ye shall accomodate
as if by a thread
though the opening into your self
is an ego-based blessing
Ye shall be qualified to enter
into
the city of ransomed souls
If you stand for love
after you’ve spoken your truth
you fix your lenses so that you can forgive
Your staying and working through the tension
until you are given a definitive change of direction
is a part of taking your practice
off the mat
It also processes the ego
Learning the lessons and applying them
is what allows us
to discharge the encrustation from our lives
Willing wellness to others
regardless
is the Divine Way
I hang on the cross with Christ each day.
Each day
I die and resurrect again
My prayers are for the peace of the world, for Love to fully blossom and grow. It is unnecessary to demonize another group. No zero game is needed.
I always knew I was a Stephen, a speaker of the truth Love gives me. I am willing to be the scapegoat, but not a seeker of martyrdom; I’m not seeking it, but open to what God gives me to do.
Long ago, God allowed me to be more comfortable with black people than many of their white counterparts. I’ve always gone for the underdog — the One who was cast out, the one they said could never be accepted. I root for the rejected, the downtrodden, the seemingly hopeless. I am a prayer warrior for those deemed to be the unchosen, knowing that God made all people to be more than Hell’s play things.
It seems my lot in life is to be rejected by the orthodox, to see the meaning behind the words, and to know the Love that only seeks to create a kinder world, not a retributive one purely for the sake of punishing the infallible.
I went to where my service was needed
not unto those who were sufficiently able
and not to those who had made up their minds
I came to the downtrodden
to those rejected
who, if anyone else, would be tied to public opinion
and made subject to manipulations
of whether love was deserved
I came to those
who moved toward growth
verses protection
I come for the fearless in loving
for the energies spent
in accepting
what is
Sophia's Voice 