EVERY THOUGHT IS A PRAYER (1)

from Every Thought Is A Prayer:

Week 1: Moleskin Memoir

Introducing Moleskin Memoir, a notepad tributary from my first thirteen years, to be presented and supplemented in weekly installments throughout this year.  But first, an invocation...

01/01: Beginning
01/02: ...life is good
01/03: Simple Prayers, Each Beginning The Same
01/04: What The Poet Wrote
01/05: Beginning, continued
01/06: Translations
01/07: Moleskin Memoir 1.1: A Preface


01/01:

Beginning

The voice of the Lord is over the waters  
- Psalm 29:3

I begin with the challenging premise of God.

In the beginning: we start all over,
Where every good book must begin,
Not “at” or “from” or “once upon,” but IN.

This is the story, the truth of our challenge,
And here is the first thing we ought to know:
There is no moment where God did not exist.
 
Here is the beginning, the action, the whole creation;
There can be no single point at which or from which
The great I AM began to be.  God is

In the beginning, and in the present
And in the ever after, God begins
Not “to,” “until” or “of a time,” but IN.

And notice: as it was in the beginning
Is in our premise now; God is, and we are,
In the days of Adam and in the days of Jesus;

Now is the spark of our creation,
And now the start of our salvation:
God is in our birth and in our redemption,

The beginning of being and the stretch of eternity,
The breath of our formation and our resurrection,
All at once, our first day and our seventh day.
 
Evolutionists may stumble over the number of days,
Skeptics might question the progression of things,
But believers believe in the beginning,

And those who believe will know
The same beginning can continue
From chapter to chapter, can be on every page:

God, who is, can be in our every hour,
Can breathe and beat with us forever,
Part of the conversation and in our endless prayer.
 
This is the premise I begin with:
And God said, and God saw what God created,
And it was good.  Another day.

May good be in your days, every day,
In your challenges and in your prayers;
May this be your premise now,
In the beginning and throughout the year.


01/02:

...life is good

...life is good:
the breath and the beat of it,
the wake and the feel of it,
the wonder and the find of it,
the pose and the prose of it,
the challenge and the dare
and the fight of it and then
hoping it might never end
even as light touches the horizon,
the seeing and the saying
   that it is good...

It’s what I have to give to you,
all you will ever need,
what you will struggle to accept
and learn to look beyond,
the season and the turn of it,
the give and the take,
the light past every sunset,
all that cannot be seen
and the saying, seeing still,
   that life is good.


01/03:

Simple Prayers, Each Beginning The Same

  For the sparrow reluctant to sing
(an introduction to Melodia):
      Thank you God for all that you give us.
      Thank you God for everyone among us.
      Thank you God for being here with us.

  For the routine discovered
(an introduction to My Walking Song):
      Thank you God for walking with me.
      Thank you God for talking with me.
      Thank you God for setting the path before me.

  For untangling our lives
(an introduction to Denouement):
      Thank you God for the fields around us.
      Thank you God for the winds that lift us.
      Thank you God for letting us go.

  For sanity beyond suffering
(an introduction to A Starry Night):
      Thank you God for the ground and the sky.
      Thank you God for lights familiar.
      Thank you God for places to return to.

  For the sun that rises over us all
(an introduction to An Open Field):
      Thank you God for language and perspective.
      Thank you God for place and time,
      Thank you God for poetry and possibility.

  For unexpected moments
(an introduction to The Pecatonica):
      Thank you God for the winding river.
      Thank you God for times together.
      Thank you God for the banks that rise above us.

  For all that we have to learn
(an introduction to Montrose Harbor):
      Thank you God for small sanctuaries.
      Thank you God for lakefront dawns.
      Thank you God for everywhere our journey
leads us.

  For hope beyond the grave
(an introduction to Mimus Polyglottus):
      Thank you God for chances to smile.
      Thank you God for lives to celebrate.
      Thank you God for songs to keep singing.


01/04:

What The Poet Wrote

The Word of life --- this is our theme.
                       --- 1 John 1:1

In the beginning the Poet wrote
the tangibles and the intangibles.
But the lines were formless and empty
and it was too dark to see the Poem’s depth.
So the Poet breathed life into the Poem,
a breeze across the surface of the deep.
This Poem needs light, the Poet said,
and there it was, and the Poet could see
     that it was good,

Is now and ever shall be, when
night changes into day.

Poetry precedes religion, said an editor,
and religion dims its energy.
Inevitably.  But renouncing religion
is renouncing that which would see
the life within the poetry.
I’m paraphrasing, of course,
looking for the words to see,
looking beyond complacency
and wanting to believe in more
than an old catastrophe,

And past the old dependency
of day and night and day.

In the beginning, said someone else,
    trying to make more sense of it,
    turning the phrase of an older testament,
was the Poem. And the Poem was with
    the Poet, was the Poet, and the Poet,
    who wrote everything, was the Poem.
And the Poet breathed life into the Poem,
    and in this life was the light for all to see.
But the darkness could not comprehend this light,
    so the Poet sent a man out into the world,
    someone named Religion,
and Religion came as the Poet’s witness
    to speak of the Poem’s light
    with words for all to believe,

But Religion’s words were never
meant to be the Poem itself.


Religion, the editor said, is a bit crude,
encrusting.  And yet it persists,
asserting and assenting to
the force that moves through the verse,
not with vanity but vulnerability
nor with idolatry but humility,
opening eyes to a power
that can never be owned,

And it rejoices at the sunrise,
even as its purpose fades away.


01/05:

Beginning, Continued

In the beginning was the Word... - John 1:1

See, and listen, this is my premise:
There is a light that gives
Its light to everyone,
A light coming into our world of darkness,
And light changes everything,
And everything changes with this:

God, Word, light, shining upon us.
Living in our world, walking with us,
Lighting our paths,
Then stepping into our flesh
And setting fire to our souls,
Shining Immanuel!
 
And anyone who recognizes receives,
And anyone who receives the light believes
That God is with us and we are living
In God’s world: IN God’s world.

Anyone who sees the glory of this,
The grace and truth and fullness
Of God, the one and only Word
In the world, this is our privilege.

No one can see God, but anyone  
Can see what God makes known,

And by seeing, we are privileged
To be born of God, children of God,
Willed and determined by God alone.

I begin with this premise.

So in the beginning it was,
And what a beautiful word,
Capitalized and turned into poetry,
Written by Moses, thank you,
And John, thank you,
And God, thank you that every word
I write down, every word I hear and read
Is so wonderfully preceded.

And the word was with God,
And the word was God.
May the words of my mouth be pleasing,
And they will be, of course,
As long as I remember where they came from,
As long as we return with this respect:
We give thee but thine own.

This is my premise:
God is the word, my word,
The being in the beginning,
The presence of I AM, through which
All other beings began:
Without God there is nothing;
God is always and everything,
Life over emptiness, light over darkness,
The life and light of every being,
The beginning of us all.

As sunlight pours into a darkened room
And changes everything,
So does the light and life of God
Shine into the universe: the darkness cannot win.
In the beginning, God said,
Let there be light,

And there was, and it was good.
God was in the beginning,
Pouring light into the void and giving life
Now and ever after.


01/06:

Translations

from Walled Gardens

We tried reasoning our way to Him: 
     it did not work...
Reason took us as far as the door; 
but it was his presence that let us in.
                     - Sanai, tr. David Pendlebury

Reason started writing.
Self became the paper.
Matter took form and
Form took shape.

Love, be encouraged;
Trembling, be reserved.
Reason, be instructed,
Self, become aware:
 
As long as you are here
Your portion is your tomb,
Your home is distraction
And you live in deceit,

But set your eyes on the willow,
Let your soul see paradise;
Let your lips pronounce the letters
And perceive their deeper meaning
With your soul.

While your pleasure is desire
And desire is your treasure
You remain a little child:
Carry on, play away,

But you return with nothing
From the ocean but foam
And empty possessions
Scattered all around you
Like oyster shells
 
Marking your obsession
But missing the essence
Of the treasures left behind
At the bottom of the ocean.

Return to that place:
Beyond the mud, within the shells
Lies the purity of pearls,
But you must go to the depths
Of your soul.

Let this arrow be an arrow,
The reason I am writing.

The letters are written
And the work is framed,
But these words have no meaning;
They remain on the page
 
Until the reader starts reading
Past impurities, beyond
The mud and the shell
And the self’s own veil,

Past the blur of good and evil
To the truth in every scripture:
Open up your Quran
Crack the spine of your Bible,

But you’ll never grow fat
On the shepherd’s call.
The holiest of words
Is itself no panacea
For the soul.


01/07:

Moleskin Memoir 1.1: A Preface

This is a memoir, if it's not too late ...for a backward documentary, a journal reconstructed on whims and maybes making up for years of forgetting to take notes: whims for what and how much I choose to remember, maybes for all that cannot be said with certainty, which is, respectively, nothing (whims) and everything (maybes). Certainly there is purpose in whims and maybes, the never chosen and ever qualified. But it's not for me to say. There will be, anyway, an attempt at order and veracity, as there is, after all, a desire to be read and remembered. So, Chapter One: I was born. And in the end, I will simply stop writing. Which is what we all progress towards. Inkless we are born, and inkless we shall be in our final moment, but what stories there are to be told, what whims and maybes to be written inbetween! So let me begin.