It is good to be at peace with myself
even with all the scars and baggage.
Today I know I rest safely in the arms of life
like a baby with its mother
whose love is unconditional.

Whatever others might say
about people like me
I am content to just be,
confident on my path
with my choices and beliefs.
This what it is like to simply
be free.

Why do I trip and fall into shame so easily?
I wonder if there is something in me that says:
“Feel ashamed and you will be better.”
But focusing on my limitations and failures
shouldn’t be such a regular habit.
They say that there’s two kinds of shame:
healthy and toxic.
But both of them feel sucky.
It’s healthy to realize I’m not God
and to accept my limitations
Toxic is staying stuck
in that hopelessly defective thought.
This stuckness has a thick cloud of darkness
surrounding it – gripping me.
I guess what people call faith is knowing
there’s always light outside and inside me
if I but look for it
believe in it.

Here we are again
in the presence of green
Life all around us
You saturate everything
It is good to be here with you
alive on Earth
I cannot leave you
even if I wanted to
But who would want to?
Those who live in pain
who wake up again and again
in darkness
who cannot see
who - try as they might -
cannot be awake
and alive in you.
I ache for them
and I can enter their darkness
only because I am saturated
with you
still
alive.

I am holey,
not holy.
At best an imperfect vessel
bearing light and darkness
sometimes winning
but real good at sinning.

I wonder whether
the best I can do
is hope for a rendezvous
to touch and suffer together
in a place we linger where
we breathe common air
fresh and vital and bracing.
Maybe I’ll always be racing
from the desert
into your arms
to exchange our passion
to abide,
me all holey
and you a mountain stream
flowing with melted snow,
me trying to capture
some of that clear water
that will leak slow
back into the flow.
But there we will be
us in good and bad weather
but in love and together.

Justice, justice
You lay sweetly upon our souls
this morning
after the turmoil.
I wish you were not so rare a visitor.

Being here in this creative moment
shows me the power
residing inside of me
if I but pause in silence
or on the wings of soft music
and abide in this space
for just a little while.
Sigh.

A bank of fog
lays snugly upon the river
like a soft white halo
kissing the morning hello.