Month: April 2021

When I Killed God

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/photos/iSDr-pNsINk

When I Killed God

By Jane Tawel

April 24, 2021

While it’s true that as a child,

there were incidents, bad things that happened against my will,

(because of course, a child is born with a soul, but not a will);

and while my exposure to events I accidently lived,

were pale in comparison to those children over there,

that child that lives in a different yard than I did;

it was still a thing that happened to me early on,

that some adults who thought they loved me,

killed God.

In fact, like you maybe,

I still have nightmares about that one person,

who abused the God in me.

And even the ones who thought they loved me best

by force-feeding me the formula of God-in-a-baby-bottle,

even those dear ones gave me some allergies,

and I have yet to heal from them.

*

But I can’t complain if I compare.

I lucked out that the pendulum swung,

mostly towards grown-ups who loved a God Who Was.

And that was enough,

For many years,

Until I found that a God-Who-Was,

didn’t make up for a God-Who-Isn’t.

*

At first it was simply a matter of making God too small.

I found Him and kept finding Him

for long years, hidden well among the wood pulp.

He had been manufactured and

stuck between the pages.

God looked good in black and white,

and we feasted on some words,

until our stomachs ached, and our minds grew dark

with the drink of self-righteousness.

Oh, yes, the words we chose were quite select;

while other Words were thrown out like

unrecyclable trash.

Our elders picked and chose

the parts of God to eat and then — 

to use as fodder.

*

Oh, I was one of the lucky ones,

to have such a glut of God-food

to grow older, fatter and more secure.

But have you found, as I have,

that the more secure you are in what is on your outside,

the less secure you become about what might Be — 

 — inside of you?

Haven’t you found, that the more God you hoard,

the less God you have?

Maybe as I did, you stopped imbibing God,

and started instructing Him instead?

*

When I became smart, I became so afraid.

That’s when prayer became my tyranny of a God

that I could use for my benefit and mine own,

mine own, my own true loves,

(which by the way, God didn’t number among;

Well, maybe He did in word, but not in deed).

*

Yes, words in a book are easily idolized.

Words are so still and compliant.

Words can be raped and their unholy union made to be born.

*

Words can be quieted.

Like the children of famous men,

words are meant to be seen and not heard;

meant to be worshipped,

but not brought to life again in someone else.

*

The idea of actually living the words

is akin to plagiarism.

See, but don’t touch.

Read, but don’t do.

Admire and profit by, but don’t suffer and live.

*

Oh, please don’t get me wrong,

I love words and The Word.

Words can be made to look so pretty,

like lipstick on a pig,

like make-up on a corpse.

Unlike A LIVING GOD SPEAKS!, — 

and we quickly shush Him;

a book can be so comforting,

so easily managed;

its little broken-up word-limbs lying there on pages,

scattered but contained in their little covered box;

or cremated and remembered as dust,

not “This is my Body, given for you. Take. Become.”

*

And God’s Word, what a life it once had!

Our eulogies are endless

as we look at God-Words that Were.

We stand around bereaved, but anxious to get back to work.

Our attention for mourning a Dead Word can only last so long,

maybe a few hours a week, tops.

Oh, thank goodness the Word of God

Passed away peacefully in Its sleep.

We sit in our pews and then file by its handsome carcass,

a relic so safely buried, at peace, not bringing a sword now, thank God!

In its final resting place. Amen.

God-Word doesn’t look much like a human,

lying there, with its heart no longer beating,

a God-heart that once belonged to someone else,

who left it there for all to find,

words once living in a person, now entombed.

God-soul up there, far away in what I like to think of as Heaven.

Doesn’t need a heart, or hands or body, right?

Let’s just remember Her in Spirit, not in Truth, okay?

It’s so much less painful, that way.

*

Stories about God are enough,

and God-heart, hearts-like-God, are allegories,

as useful as a history-lesson.

Unless, of course, we relearn, re-hope, re-shape our own stories,

and take the heart of words as mere clouded mirrors,

Dim reflections of a Cosmos-Heart-of God,

Alive and well in all,

Alive in every molecule of Planet Earth.

The Word of God,

once alive in the God-people, still lives.

God-people then and now,

have died to donate their words

to give the World a heart transplant.

Words still beating with Life, yearn to Be,

implanted and given new life in me,

Sutured by the Great Physician.

*

The Words we give our religions copyrights to

Desire anonymously, to Be;

Edited by The Writer of the World,

Given the Kiss of Life by The Living Word,

God-Alive.

*

But it’s safer and calmer and I am much more popular here

in my own little boxes that I store my thoughts and achievements in.

Such a lot of stuff I give a dead god credit for.

The few times I caught a glimpse of God still alive in the wild,

It scared me so much, I turned tail and ran back to what I called home.

Funny, how we humans change definitions to suit our fears.

I wonder what the word “home” really means, don’t you?

Well, I wonder what the word “God” really means, too.

I do have a rather useful library of books written to define God.

Sometimes, I get a feeling God looks at all those books on Her,

And laughs and cries, and laughs and cries,

For lack of Her True Self in the world, in us,

in me.

*

But Oh! how energizing it has been to use dead men’s words at will!

And prayer is such a convenient tool

to wedge a piece of God out.

Stagnant things are things, after all, and we can control things.

Ta da! Oh, to never be wrong, in a world of otherness!

What a kick to have a handle on how best to use a God!

But how does a human control a God?

Why, by making Her something to own and use, of course.

God makes a lovely product.

The God-salesmen cry out:

“Step right up, no matter your age or socio-economic status!

You can own your very own God, suitable for all your needs,

practical for every purpose!

And when your God of childhood wears out,

Come on back and get a grown-up God to use instead.”

*

Indeed, as I grew

I knew God was a worthy weapon for war.

And so, I locked and loaded,

and let my God-out-there

hurt the God-in-here,

the God-in-me, the God-in-you.

But really, the God-weapon can be a very nice way to feel in control;

Even though the dark insecurity of the embers of knowing-ness,

and the shrapnel that The Physician was never allowed to remove,

always hurt, and also always beckon.

To come to terms with just how out of control the world in me was,

which threatened to overtake the God-in-me,

I shriveled and grew colder;

Wait, I meant to say, grew older.

*

I keep reading up on Eagles,

but I am like a fledgling, fallen from its nest,

never knowing it wasn’t born to read up on “How To”,

but simply born to leap out of the nest

and to fly.

*

You see, when I let the God-in-me die,

I killed God.

Hanging Him on a cross,

burning Her at the stake,

electrocuting Them in a chair,

were all far too easy after that.

*

And then, today, I went to the empty tomb as usual,

looked in the mirror, and brushed my teeth;

embalmed my face as I thought

was the right rite to do.

But …….suddenly…….

the sun came-up again.

And I heard a rumor that tomorrow, we might all get rain to end the drought.

And I couldn’t help myself — 

Someone in me arose.

*

In the time it takes to say a single word — Bam!

I realized, the tomb I had put God in, was empty!

And in that moment, I wanted my tomb to be empty, too.

I wanted God to rise from the grave of self-important ego,

I had buried Him in.

I wanted God to Be not just be “in” me, but all-around me.

Everywhere-God. Everyone-God.

I wanted to be the God who wanted to Be me;

Not just with words, but with hands, and feet,

and beating, hurting, healing heart.

*

And as I stepped in terror to the precipice,

uncertain if I would fly or fall,

live or die,

I found I still had one unbroken, unbent wing,

and I could hear the eternal beating of God-Word

Pounding in my pulse.

And I leapt out into Living-Arms,

*

Even as the God-in-All,

Oh, YES! — the Living God in All of Us,

Just as He rose from the grave we stuck Him in,

I, too, may rise and fly today.

For yesterday, I learned,

as long as God’s alive in you,

as long as God’s alive in me,

He will never be as small as a book,

As small as my thoughts,

As small as a word,

Or as small as I am.

GOD-ALIVE are as big as we can imagine,

As wide and deep and true as the whole world.

SHE is as able and embracing as a loving Mother,

Cradling the entire fledgling universe in her sheltering Arms.

HE is as mighty as the Wheel of Fire,

that rolls toward Justice, making in its wake,

in His mercy,

a path in The Way for ALL who seek and suffer to rise.

THEY are as playful and vulnerable

and loving as Children, who never grow old

and never grow weary in their delight,

in Each Other, and in us, Their Creations.

*

Resurrection means that

I can not really kill God

I can only kill the God Who wants to live in me.

And so, today,

I will throw-out another of my self-made weapons

into the hell of no longer useful or needed.

And I will find some more words

to childishly shape into The Living Word,

Spoken in the here and now through me.

And I will chip away at the tomb of fear that leads me to control.

And I shall ascend.

Ascend!

in the Glorious Now of God-Alive.

*

© Jane Tawel 2021

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Focused Thoughts on the Trial in Minneapolis, America Today

I will not take my privilege today to co-op someone else’s pain or another community’s long struggle. I will, however, “be with” those focused on another attempt in our struggle for justice and righteousness in this nation. I am “holding my breath” today awaiting with heavy heart, justice for the ones who “cannot breathe”. I am saddened and afraid and trying to truly feel, truly empathize with those who know what it is like to wait on yet another verdict for those whose breath, dignity, and very lives have been taken from them. I will feel the guilt of my own grievous errors and purposeful sins and grieve for those who have made horrible choices because they have allowed their “hearts to become too small”. I will pray, yes, but pray without rational words for the families of people throughout this nation who continue to lead lives of fear, anger, sorrow, and mourning simply because of the way we have okayed the treatment of them because of the color of their skin or the fickleness of luck. I will cling onto a hope until the very last minute, until my own very last breath, that “the arc of the moral universe, long as it may be, will bend, must bend, God, please bend it soon, toward justice”.

I Don’t Know Who I Could Be

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/photos/Jqhwp4mcuUM

I Don’t Know Who I Could Be

A Poem

By Jane Tawel

April 19, 2021

I don’t know who I’d be, if I stopped unforgiving.

I don’t know who I’d be, if I spent less time worrying.

And who would I be if I didn’t care to keep up my grades,

but instead, judged not, either self or you?

If winning was an illusion I left behind like a broken toy,

might I know the terrible, fearsome freedom of joy?

*

I rarely know who I am, except as a passing glance,

a whirl of motion, unsteadied by a center aflame.

And I have always hated my name.

Longing for meaning in the temporal labeling

of a self-made shelter from identity thieves

I become “that person”, not myself.

My pronouns are “it” and “that”.

*

I hold myself at arm’s length,

and keep my arms too full;

so, by thinking I carry the weight of the world,

I carry a chimera, not a Hope.

Too afraid to empty my hands of grasping-ness,

too impatient or easily irritated to extend out,

either to help or hug.

I corner my soul like a trapped animal.

*

I don’t know who I could be,

so rather than running towards,

I take a step backwards.

Never throwing caution to the wind,

I am winded by a stagnancy of fearful insecurities,

an anger of ant-sized proportions.

My senseless, defenseless fists,

of my deformed ego, beat against

the beating of my expensive, essence-ed heart.

I sell my soul for the fast-food of believing that I was right.

I hide true treasure where I won’t find it.

*

Not knowing who I was once,

I still sense who I could become.

There is a self a-waiting just ahead,

No not a head, — a heart and will and

sensuality of Spirit-world.

The senses know

what the soul can only dream of.

*

My soul whispers,

soft as an Infant’s caressing forefinger,

strong as a memory of another World:

“You can become. You are becoming.

Let yourself meet yourself,

and be Created.

Come.”

Original Goodness from Richard Rohr

The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe - By: Richard Rohr

I am finally “growing up” maybe? I didn’t know it but I began learning this at Wheaton College under both the spiritual and theater /acting guidance of Dr. James Young — Jimma, as he was called. I shared this today with the folks who were part of that world-changing time of mine today in a group called “Workout”, and thought someone in my other “worlds” might need to hear this today.

In that theatre group, after warming up with yoga exercises ( back before any one in America knew anything about yoga but weird theatre people!), we would often do an exercise called “Yes/ No”. One would go off into a “private” place in the currently empty, cavernous room, the space in waiting for the future set and theatre creation, and we would each stand in a moment of contemplation. Then one would take both hands and “gather” from the bottom of the torso, the “self”, and raise hands all the way to the mouth where one would let either a “No” or a “Yes” be flung out, vocally and with the hands. Gather. Rise hands to face. Fling forward one’s hands into Space. And let go a loud “Yes!” or “No!”. This “throwing out” or “giving to” from one’s very inner core, was a way of accepting both the negativity or positivity that was in one’s being at that moment. It was also a way to let go of holding on to negativity or of sharing with the Universe, the “mindless”/ Mindful positivity. I realized today after reading Richard Rohr, I need to start practicing this exercise again in my own search for freedom to let go of negative thoughts as quickly as possible and to dig deep and create a more lasting “rut” in my soul of positive love and energy.

I am realizing how both ahead of his time, our dear Jim Young was and also how very connected to the historically Ecumenical, true spiritual essence and truth of the God-given world since the beginning. Jim is now practicing “No/Yes” theater exercises in eternity with his Savior. I wish I had not wasted so much time in doubt and negativity, but today I can do better. And that is a glorious “Good News”. This today, in my mediation, from Richard Rohr in “The Universal Christ”:

“We are ruled by automatic responses most of the time toward the “negative”. The only way, then to increase authentic spirituality is to deliberately practice actually enjoying a positive response and a grateful heart. And the benefits are very real. By following through on conscious choices, we can rewire our responses toward love, trust, and patience. Neuroscience calls this “neuroplasticity”. This is how we increase our bandwidth of freedom, and it is surely the heartbeat of any authentic spirituality.”

“Most of us know that we can’t afford to walk around fearing, hating, dismissing, and denying all possible threats and all otherness. But few of us were given practical teaching in how to avoid this. It is interesting that Jesus emphasized the absolute centrality of inner motivation and intention more than outer behavior, spending almost half of the Sermon on the Mount on this subject. We must — yes, MUST– make a daily and even hourly choice to focus on the good, the true, and the beautiful. A wonderful description of this act of the will is found in Philippians 4:4-9, where Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS”. If you are tempted to write this off as idyllic “positive thinking”, remember that Paul wrote this while literally in chains. How did he “pull it off”? You might call it “mind control”, but many of us call it “contemplation”.

So how do we first see and then practice this “Original Goodness”?” We find Original Goodness when we can discover and own the three “attitudes, the “things that remain”– faith, hope and love, or love, trust and patience. (paraphrased from Rohr) “For the planet and for all living beings to move forward, we can rely on nothing less than an inherent original goodness and a universally shared dignity. Only then can we build, because the foundation is strong, and is itself good. Surely this is what Jesus meant when he told us to “dig and dig deep, and build your house on rock”. When you start with “Yes” (or positive vision), you more likely proceed with generosity and hope, and you have a much greater chance of ending with an even bigger “YES!”. To try to build on “no” is, in the imagery of Jesus, to “build on sand”.

If our postmodern world seems highly subject to cynicism, skepticism, and what it does NOT believe in, if we now live in a post-truth America, then we “believers” must take at least partial responsibility for aiming our culture in this sad direction. The best criticism of the bad is still the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same. All problem solving must first be guided by a positive and overarching vision. We must reclaim the Christian project, building from the true starting point of Original Goodness. We must reclaim Jesus as an inclusive Savior instead of an exclusionary Judge, as a Christ who holds history together as the cosmic Alpha and Omega. Then, both history and the individual can live inside of a collective safety and an assured success. Some would call this the very shape of salvation”. (from “The Universal Christ”, by Richard Rohr)

I don’t know who might need this today, but I sure do. Yes! I claim, “Yes!”. Thank you Jim Young, Richard Rohr, all of you my brothers and sisters in Workout and in “faith, hope and love”. They do remain. Yes. No to fear, impatience, dis-trustfulness, prejudice, and exclusivity. YES! to trust, hope, and inclusive, Original Goodness Love!

Listen With Your Heart — a poem

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/photos/7LsuYqkvIUM

Listen With Your Heart — a poem

By Jane Tawel

April 12, 2021

*

I don’t know why the birds keep singing, but they do.

When every thing is horrible. It’s true.

My mind is on the negative, transfixed.

The world is broken and our minds up-mixed.

*

I wake up every day and burn the wick down,

Before my feet have even touched the hard ground.

But little bird is on a branch a-sway,

With ne’er a worry of the coming day.

*

If God is in the Heavens, He’s in birds, too.

And that would mean, that God’s in me and you.

*

Oh, listen to what can be heard, unseen.

And lessons from the birds and creatures, glean.

There is a cosmic beauty, love, and grace,

In every feather, furry paw, and face.

*

We soldier on, when we should really dance.

And let the glory of the world entrance.

Today I will from mindful prison part,

And listen to the whole world, with my heart.

©Jane Tawel 2021

To My Friends Reading Here, Feast on This

by Jane Tawel

assorted title book lot
https://unsplash.com/photos/eeSdJfLfx1A

A friend posted an article today entitled, “The Case Against Shakespeare” and the article, (not my friend) both angered and saddened me. The bottom line of this article was that we shouldn’t “force” any one to read the classics like Shakespeare because this keeps someone from learning to love to read. Now if I only take that one argument, all I need is a subscription to Netflix and a video game to prove the author wrong on why people don’t read anymore. However, one thing made my head want to explode, and of course I had to write about it. Of course I wanted to share my meager but impassioned thoughts with my trusted WordPress friends, my community of writers who keep the love of art and life alive in the little corner of the world in which I choose to dialogue with others and the platform upon which I have the occasional soliloquy published on.

I am grateful for the community of like and sometimes unlike souls that I have found amongst you. Keep writing, keep teaching, keep yelling into the howl, or lighting candles on the dark way, or dancing in the rain, or just sharing where you are at and who you are today. And I am grateful to each of you for including me in the “company of fools and players” that we create together here and sincerely and humbly thankful for you, whether you like Shakespeare or not.

Cheers — Jane

My Convoluted Case FOR Shakespeare

The author of this article, “The Case Against Shakespeare”, may have a point about Shakespeare but his analysis of literature and what it’s purpose is and why it should be read and how it should be taught breaks my heart and makes my poor Literature / Writing teacher’s mind go ballistic. I have spent a life time trying to help students and sundry others try to overcome this philosophy. So, as I teach my students to write boldly, I shall simply say, the author could not be more wrong.  I hope to encourage him and others to rethink the purpose of reading, much in the way we should all constantly rethink the purpose of our lives.

One point of his only I will take up, and that is the author’s comment that “literature doesn’t exist for its symbols and imagery, nor are they the reason authors write”(Stratton). Woe! (Sound of hair being torn out!) The person who is not taught the importance of symbol and metaphor, imagery and the allusive allure of alliteration is not being fed by the best in our literary history; but instead, in the cause of “getting ahead”. That deprived person is being starved by an education focused on a future practical use of that person’s brain or brawn, not focused on their well-being, their being well, and the fact that every human being has always wanted to be much more than a cog in a well-oiled machine or a pamphlet that is glanced at then tossed in the trash. We long to be poetry, to have poetic justice, to be understood in all of our mystery and meaningfulness, and to think that we can be taught to read without being taught how to learn any of that about the human condition or the world or the universe or the mysteries beyond is a tragedy long in the making.

To be taught and coaxed, goaded and coddled in not books, but literature, not reading, but exploring and expanding the mind, heart, and soul — this is the charge of those of us in the past and present to pass on to our future and our children and our children’s children. We all must keep desiring the wherewithal of how to spend a lifetime in the exploration of the changes in the meaning behind the meaning, the sublimity of poetry, the divine essence beyond mere rational debate of the written word, comparable to that of the played symphony or the painted masterpiece. The person who is not taught and encouraged in this philosophy, is not merely uneducated in the type of classical, heady stuff that endures the passage of time, but unschooled in what it means to be the best human being a person can be. That is what Shakespeare can teach us today, yes, after all these years.

And of course, this poor human who is taught merely to read, and not to delve into the unfathomable treasures hidden in the deeps of the written word, that one will never have those moments of divine revelation, the sublimity of being awed by the essence of “The Why”, nor the hope that we really are more than black and white words on a page; much more than simplistic, useful, practical, or merely entertaining and entertained commodities.

Why one can not even understand what it means to be nothing more than “dust in the wind” or to have “everything to a season”, or to, as the poet read at the recent inauguration of a U.S. President, what it means to “brave the belly of the beast” and be as brave as we must be on ‘The Hill We Climb”(Gorman). No, one can not simply be taught to read, but must be taught how to read and above all Why to read. One can not be left to wade in the shallow end forever, to never know what it is to dive and swim. We must not be afraid of not knowing and not understanding, but we should be terrified of never immersing ourselves in the deep waters of great literature and poetry, never climbing to the apex of the mountain ranges of great artists, past and present, and still always to aim to climb higher and higher, and always finding more mystery there, even on the pinnacles of greatness.

The person who is not stretched early to expand the mind through literature and plays, poetry and Psalms, has a bleak, spirit-less life ahead of him or her. How to read Holy Scripture without being taught how to read poetry? How to listen to Amanda Gorman without first trying to stretch the brain on the poetry of Shakespeare or Frost, Whitman or Hughes or Angelou or the Psalms of David or prophetic metaphors of Isaiah? How to hope and dream for a better world without understanding the complicated but profound works of Dickens or Gabriel Marquez, Dumas, or Dostoevsky? How to understand America without being taught how to read Twain, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck? How to understand China without attempting to understand Wang Wei or Cao Xueqin? How to understand Latin or South America if one hasn’t been taught the poem “They Have Threatened Us with Resurrection”, by Julia Esquivel? How to march for Black Lives Matter without reading the essays of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or the poetry of Langston Hughes? How to know what it is to be from somewhere that you aren’t, to be someone you aren’t, and then how to realize that once you walk in someone else’s moccasins in the poetry of Native American poet Laureate, Jo Harjo or immerse yourself in some other place or time’s literature, and to find that one can turn a corner or turn a page and be stunned by the realization that we are all so much more alike than we could have ever guessed, and we are all much more unique and special than we could ever hope for! 

Spending a lifetime trying to read anything without a basic understanding and at least grudging admiration of symbol and metaphor and imagery, is like spending a lifetime trying to dine on steak and potatoes or baguettes and cheese or sushi and cupcakes by trying to suck on them out of a baby bottle. Not being taught the joys of chewing on poetry and imbibing great literature is like having your teeth ripped out and not being allowed to taste when you masticate.

Let alone personal enjoyment, we haven’t even begun to wonder how one would find expression of one’s own deepest emotions and thoughts, in any relationship of love, whether of a God or of a mate or of a friend or of a tree or of cat or dog or garden or sunset — of anything or anyone that awes us. How would we enthuse over all of that which exists beyond the mundane, that which surpasses and endures the test of time?

And why can’t one be entertained by C.S. Lewis, or Lewis Carroll, or Stevenson, or Barrie, or Nikki Grimes or Rowling and still learn about symbolism, metaphor, allusion, and irony (God knows, we need to learn something about irony in America!)

By all means if someone can find writers today who do poetry as well as Shakespeare or Dickinson or Frost or Neruda or the Psalms or even Silverstein, by all means, teach it and read it. Feel free to add to Dostoevsky and Steinbeck and Dickens and Forster and Angelou, some novels by Atwood or Ishiguro for deep thinking. Include with the reading of Wordsworth and Cummings, modern poets like Claudia Rankine or Amanda Gorman, and with Shakespeare and Chekhov, plays by Miller or Shephard, along with the Shakespearean-worthy plays by Tony Kushner or Lin-Manuel Miranda (although on my salary I doubt I will ever actually see “Hamilton”). Teach everything but Shakespeare if you don’t have the heart for it, but for pity’s sake, don’t throw the baby out with the bath-water, nor the metaphors out with the dated conversations or jokes.

If it is tough to read or hard to understand, remind yourself there is nothing harder to understand than the human being; and nothing tougher than going through life without beauty and mystery, or empathy and wonder. Poetry and great literature will help you with all the tough parts, and if it doesn’t always exactly make life easier, it certainly will make it more worthwhile.

The dearth of education today lies in our thinking that all we have to do is teach reading and practical skills, not how to think, or how to feel and express those thoughts and feelings to others. The lack is not in not learning to love reading, but in not learning that by reading great literature, or by attempting to write down ourselves on page or screen, those ideas and ideals that require poetry and metaphor and imagery — in this lies something worth working at, something worth learning, yay, even something to be challenged by, to love and at times even to cherish. We must attempt, first the taking in, and then the expression of those human creative endeavors that try to narrate something more lasting and meaningful than an entertainment interrupted by yet another car insurance commercial. By those excellent and artistic forms of muse-inspired communications, we are enlarged, we are made to be “more”.

We have to learn, or relearn, be inspired by or remember how to find those things worth reading that teach and inspire us to live with meaning into a life that is richer, fuller, and paradoxically, metaphorically more human and more divine.

The world is full of that which we can not understand with a mere glance, nor a nod to being simply knowledgeable. We must teach and inspire within ourselves and others the hope and faith that there is more to living life than acquiring a desire to use and gain more “stuff” by our knowledge.

We will only truly gain the fullness of a life well-lived when we learn to desire to be awed. As the Bard himself says in one of the plays people don’t think we should read, “the time of life is short; to spend that shortness basely, were too long”. 

The mystery of that which defies all comprehension but that which is expressed by our artists, by the shared hopes, dreams and experiences of humankind, and by the ineffable faith and progress of our greatest ideas and ideals, the stuff of our lives set to poetry awaits our engagement to be One with the Sublime. Reading the “good stuff” can even just be a rollicking good time, and vastly more fun than the literary junk food we are led to believe we can get by on. Let’s stop teaching others to spit out the good food of great art before they even try it. We all need to know how to look for the tastiest morsels, how to “taste and see that it is good”*.

As for me, to riff on the Bard once more, “if poetry and literature be the food of love, give me excess of it; that surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die”.

Here’s to the banquet feast of the written word. Feast on!

(c) Jane Tawel 2021

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/535052-read-transcript-of-amanda-gormans-inaugural-poem

Quotes from “Henry IV” and “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare

“The Case Against Shakespeare”. Stratton, Allan. The Walrus. March 31, 2021

*Psalm 34:8

Commemoration and Belief

by Jane Tawel

body of water

https://unsplash.com/photos/oQC81OHcl4Q

Whatever one’s belief system, this is historically a good weekend to meditate on what makes a belief “true”. If I say I believe something, but don’t in fact, myself, act in accordance with it, what is the meaning and purpose of my belief? If I say I believe Someone loves me enough to suffer for me (and some believe die for me), but I accept that Someone’s love only to make myself feel better, and not in order to love those others in the world in need of a belief in A Love Without Strings Attached, what does that say about what I truly believe about the quality of a Higher Love?

As we look to what we say we believe, we often get stuck in the childish questions, like, “How has it changed me? How am I better a person? How does my future look brighter?” But the real questions to ask myself that the events commemorated in this weekend ask, the grown-up questions of The Christ are: “How does what I believe make me want to change the World? How does The Divine make me a better human being? How do I bring the future Kingdom of God to earth — now, today, here, for all — as The Christ did?”

If we aren’t suffering with others on Friday, and mourning for the whole world, the whole Earth on Saturday, we will never truly know what it is to celebrate life and resurrection on Sunday. No matter what one claims to believe, this is a good weekend to ponder as the philosopher might ask, What do we owe each other? And as the prophets or saints might ask, What would happen if some of us began to really believe in Love?

(c)Jane Tawel 2021