Shalom (from "Enchantment (Pt. 1)")
A poem from the April 2024 installment, "Enchantment (Pt. 1)
As my Beloved and I walk in the stinging cold along 2nd Street, the Holy Spirit, in a slowly descending weight of glory, reminds me how little the loudest things (ambition, dogma, esteem, shame) really mean. I can almost taste the sadness & holiness & truth, the fullness that pours out onto the sidewalk from the front porch of each life we walk past. I can almost make out the silhouettes of all God's children and weep with them; almost escape the petty, flimsy veil of my self into the Death and Love and Fullness of All This... And in the sway of this Overwhelming Mystery, the Terrors of Death and Suffering are not eclipsed. They are not escaped or avoided. They are transfigured with me, with my Beloved, with the Words, with the Breath—in and out—of each front door and each sleeping or waking One inside. I am not carried off, away from the Terrors. They are not blunted or deflected. I’m only made One with them, and only for a while: a glimpse of what will be in that final Beginning, that first of all Endings, when She and I and Everything that Is will Be finally made into the Image of our Redeemer, made One, Anointed with the Anointed One. And as my Beloved and I walk along 2nd Street in the sway of this Victorious Mystery, one slowly descending and ascending melody conveys to me the Cosmos: Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, & Holy Ghost. Amen.