On the cross, Jesus said, “For­give them Father, for they know not what they do.” Did he carry the sins of the world, or drop them? The cen­ter of the cross is a place that is light and free, with­out sin or blame. At the cen­ter of the cross, Jesus car­ries noth­ing. If you load your cru­elty, your bit­ter­ness, your blame upon his shoul­ders, he won’t take it per­son­ally. Cen­tered on the cross, Christ-Consciousness radi­ates with­out judg­ment, from a van­ish­ing point beyond “sin.” In this cen­ter, there is no “I” to react or be offended, for “I” am cru­ci­fied. The cen­ter of the cross is the cross­road of para­dox where oppo­sites col­lide, anni­hi­lat­ing one another in an explo­sion of pure aware­ness. In the cen­ter of para­dox, con­cepts dis­ap­pear. Aware­ness becomes avail­able as free energy, no longer bound up in oppos­ing view­points. At the cen­ter of the cross, past and future dis­solve into Pres­ence. Joy and sor­row merge in Com­pas­sion. Mat­ter and spirit fuse as the body of Grace. Cen­tered in the place where there is no “I” to take it per­son­ally, for­give­ness hap­pens. When we wit­ness events from the cen­ter of the cross, through the gaze of the cru­ci­fied, we see Read the Rest…

In the begin­ning, God looks into the mir­ror of his own Spirit and sees Christ as the bril­liant sun. This mir­ror is the womb of eter­nal silence and the Mother of God, for even God is moth­ered by a Spirit inside. Now Christ looks into the mir­ror and sees You. You are the same reflec­tion. You were born of that joy!

Read­ing, I think, is a fun­da­men­tally spir­i­tual expe­ri­ence. The phe­nom­e­nol­o­gist Georges Poulet once remarked that, when we read, another person’s “I” enters into our own souls. Think about it: when we read the word “I” on a printed page, that silent mono­syl­la­ble res­onates within our own being. That is, this is the only way (out­side of purely gram­mat­i­cal and lin­guis­tic con­sid­er­a­tions) the word “I” sounds within our souls while not simul­ta­ne­ously mean­ing our­selves. This is a kind of inti­macy we habit­u­ally over­look, but one which can carry with it pro­found impli­ca­tions. In a let­ter to the Domini­can priest Jean-Marie Per­rin, the 20th cen­tury French philoso­pher Simone Weil describes a way in which one exam­ple of the reli­gious writ­ing of early mod­ern Eng­land ini­ti­ated for her a kind of reli­gious expe­ri­ence: There was a young Eng­lish Catholic…from whom I gained my first idea of the super­nat­ural power of the sacra­ments because of the truly angelic radi­ance with which he seemed to be clothed after going to com­mu­nion. Chance—for I always pre­fer say­ing chance rather than Providence—made of him a mes­sen­ger to me. For he told me of the exis­tence of those Eng­lish poets of the sev­en­teenth cen­tury who are named meta­phys­i­cal. Read the Rest…

Please click on the link below to my offi­cial blog, Run­ning on at the Ink, to read my lat­est poem, “The Shower Prayer.”  For a brief, poetic respite from the world through a med­i­ta­tion on the heal­ing power of water, I hope you will enjoy this poem.   http://www.firkinfiction.blogspot.com/   For more sam­ples of poetry from my books: Land & Sea: Poetry Inspired by Art, The Red Drum and Unsung Love Songs, feel free to visit my web­site!   http://www.FirkinFiction.com

Elo­him Raise my pray to be clean Renew and feel like a new­born Feel like the white snow fresh and clean My pray raise to Elo­him Wait­ing for be renew and restore For you the only one who can do Elo­him my God of restora­tion and restart Elo­him my God who can trans­form every­thing And every­one is the most beau­ti­ful cre­ation Elo­him clean my heart and soul make them New and fresh, make me a new cre­ation Elo­him my God of trans­for­ma­tion and restora­tion To you my praise and prayer I raise Because only you my Elo­him make me new

Gurucha­ranam Saranam The man with the power of clair­voy­ance slowly opened his eyes and said: ‘When I observe your life, I see a bright light, which is very rare.  It is the true light of God. I am able to see the essence of all souls who come to me. But I have never seen such a Blessed Light with any other peo­ple’. Shaji and his wife looked at each other in amaze­ment when the clair­voy­ant said this. The clairvoyant’s wife also was sit­ting with him in the small room with por­traits of gods and god­desses. The cou­ple had gained the power of clair­voy­ance after return­ing from a long pil­grim­age to the famous Palani Hills, the tem­ple town con­nected with Lord Sub­ra­manya. Appar­ently, dur­ing their long spir­i­tual wan­der­ings, the hus­band and wife had met some spir­i­tual mas­ters or had become pos­sessed by spir­i­tual enti­ties who gave them the power of read­ing the minds of other peo­ple and their soul imprints.  They per­formed their med­i­ta­tions and con­veyed the extra sen­sory per­cep­tions to the occa­sional vis­i­tors who came to them seek­ing spe­cial infor­ma­tion or guid­ance for resolv­ing per­plex­ing prob­lems. The middle-aged cou­ple belonged to a farmer com­mu­nity and led a rus­tic life in Read the Rest…

When there’s much too much of this great life to be had and or seen So much so that it becomes impos­si­ble for any­one or any­thing To be let down or left behind in truth or in mem­ory for this dream When we know that there are so many great gifts first given And then to be received and passed on thru love and for­give­ness Then we can­not help but see our souls rejoice in that new real­ity And faith would be that we are at last sov­er­eign and eter­nally free again Drown­ing our sor­rows for this life­time in The Heal­ing Stream

My eyes are closed–and my heart wide open. With a soft and gen­tle spirit I AM HERE. Ask­ing, implor­ing to know What would you have me do? I am yours–to serve, to love, to pray, to sup­port. Show me the way, for I AM HERE. My soul’s great­est desire is to love, to con­nect, to share And bring together the many across this Planet In har­mony, love, joy and peace. Love. Laugh­ter. Life. Avail­able to all. I AM HERE. Quiet mind, open heart. As the waves wash over the shore, Let Love sweep over me–through me. Let her ten­der­ness pen­e­trate my every cell, expand­ing through all of my being. Let the fire of her Grace warm my very soul. Let her ten­drils wrap around my body in its entirety. I AM HERE. Quiet mind, open heart. As the bird sings his song, Let my voice be freed. Let its melodic tone be played aloud. Let the lyric of my inner truth be heard. Let the singing of my own heart­song bring joy to oth­ers. Let the utter­ance of peace­ful bliss inspire a Spirit of Unity. I AM HERE. Feel­ing.  Lov­ing.  See­ing. My eyes are opened within–the veil drawn back. I see me.  Beau­ti­ful, glow­ing, radi­ant Being of Light. I am the essence of Love and Grace. I am a reflec­tion of Divine Pres­ence. I Read the Rest…

There are times in life when I must return to the great sim­plic­i­ties, which some would call cliches. That’s all right with me. A cliche is a truth that never needs to change because it always works. You learn some­thing old every day.  ~ Fred Rogers What are the great cliches, the great sim­plic­i­ties? God is. God dwells in the inti­mate cen­ter of my soul as an incom­pre­hen­si­ble Other. I do my best when I sur­ren­der my work to God. And if I wish to know God’s gift of Grace, all I have to do is breathe. Breathe out: pour the mind’s con­fu­sion into the heart’s silence. Pray when empty, “Lord I am noth­ing, you are all, I rest in your Pres­ence.” Now, breathe in radi­ance and joy to share with every­one who touches your life. Prayer clears the mist and brings back peace to the soul. ~ Rumi

Within the begin­ning God cre­ated us in God’s own image; God formed us from dirt, yet blessed with Divine vis­age.  We are caught between the human and the Divine; par­tic­i­pants of God’s king­dom in our midst of time. Some assume they are keep­ers of God’s sacred  flame, some seek show­ers of acco­lades to cover their pain. Some even think they are cursed or they are ones to blame; every­thing they do in life is steeped in ran­cor or in shame. We are all a blend of  wounded heal­ers seek­ing to be healed; Some are called to be the hands of Christ, oth­ers sent into God’s mis­sion field.  Upon you O Lord, we throw pain, our desires, our curses, our ran­cor, and our shame; With our whole hearts we seek to  serve, so strengthen us with your Spirit, and give us the nerve; to speak the truth of love to all,  to seek your voice and  beck­oned call. Give us the courage to love all peo­ple, those clay formed clods we would rather hate; Enable us to see their Divine image from within the begin­ning you did lov­ingly cre­ate.  Almighty God who gives us breath of life, whose reform­ing light from the divine heart does flow; Read the Rest…