truth – A Thread You Follow

For they are not permitted to speak… – 1 Corinthians 14:34

As you began
the conversation long ago,
Divine, speak us
into being once again,
for the self-made gods
have declared and said
who can and who cannot
speak in this world 
at this time
and in this place.
Amen.

To change daily space

To change daily space 
to brave space
ensuring safety 
rather than comfort 
where young people, 
not interested in training
but in knowing 
who controls the narrative,
toil to reclaim stories 
stolen from human families 
and affirm the truth 
that we all stand 
on the shoulders 
of the great cloud of witnesses 
who have gone before us.

change

when 
the seeds 
of parables
plant 
the first steps
of a walk
toward
an answer

For Giordano Bruno

(For not renouncing eight statements, Bruno was burned at the stake on this day, February 17, in the year 1600 at the Campo de’ Fiori, Rome)

I refuse to renounce my writings.
     Words revolve around worlds.
I refuse to renounce my beliefs.
     Each leans along the other.
I refuse to renounce the work of my mind.
     My teachers lived and died to shape what I know.

I affirm: the beautiful earth rounds the fiery sun.
     The light moved across my face this morning as I lay in my cell.
I affirm: the world has a soul and all matter derives therefrom.
     My mother and I screamed together when my soul-full body arrived.
I affirm: all reality is accompanied by a spirit and an intelligence.
     The breezes crossing the seven hills of Rome bring voices from Tuscany.
I affirm: the bread and the wine are bread and wine.
     Sister Paolina’s slipper-shaped ciabatta tastes of heaven.
I affirm: the earth moves.
     How many times have I injured the bare ground when falling?
I affirm: the infinity of the stars and the infinite number of planets.
     Counting the lights in the endless night sky never ends.
I affirm: the spirit and the body are one. 
     Cut by a knife, I bleed.  Cut by a word, I bleed.
I affirm: the stars are messengers and interpreters of the ways of God.
     Just look up.

“Perchance you - who pronounce my sentence - 
are in greater fear than I who receive it.”

May the fire of my burning body 
in the Field of Flowers flare 
brighter than the sun on that day.

An Experiment

An experiment: put the face 
of the quarter moon on the rising sun
to see if there really is a deck of cards
inside a cutout Bible that the holy man
after Sunday service pulls off his top shelf
with news of a bottle of the good stuff 
to pass the deal and begin again 
the game contrived from birth 
to see who crosses the start line last 
running the wrong way with one hand 
raised waving to the crowd and in the other 
holding the queen of spaced.

How many trips…

How many trips to the outside
to make peace in order
to draw breath in the moment
and hide from virulent virus strains
with ends justifying the means
and ideology trumping all thought and heart?

Is there a thing of which it is said, “See this is new?” – Ecclesiastes 1:10

Maker of all things new,
does finishing the work of creation on the seventh day
mean nothing thereafter is new?
Or, does the Teacher mean:
though the spectacle changes,
human's need for spectacle remains nothing new?
Silly, hypothetical questions aside,
some folks, creators of the wacky and the weird,
give two and two together away
as if the sum were five.
Give us an abacus for truth.
Amen.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart… Acts 2:37

O, Divine butcher,
splitting our breastbones
wide open to get to
the guts of our heart,
give us ears to hear
the clean cut 
of the sharp edge of truth
for fat of ugly lies
lies heavy on us.
Amen.