Jane Tawel

Gasping at Glimmers

by Jane Tawel

Gasping at Glimmers

By Jane Tawel

March 24, 2021

God-intentioned,

The world breathes, in and out

in and out; and good things come to rest.

When any little thing expires,

another respires in its place.

We settle for moving forward, and not the best

found in realities outside the bounds

of acceptable behavior.

The world is pale with shadows,

and Sudden! Awesome Moment Is —

overcome by the ennui of bully time.

I am left gasping at glimmers.

Oh, to see The Face,

of Whom my meaning mirrors!

There is a holiness in all;

With backs turned

to mankind’s wall,

All faces turn towards God.**

I am poor intentioned,

but meager scattered salt;

surviving the winter roads

and adding value by grace alone —

perhaps others may slip less than I.

Summer is more treacherous

than any icy wind-torn day.

We lie face-down,

and burn our backs once, twice.

The sun blinds to Sun’s Truth

and gorging on purloined picnics

and lulled by warmth, or bit by rabid heat,

we stop extending a hand

to lift another to glory.

Our minds and hearts

bury our souls,

in the sands of time;

or build castles without royalty,

soon swept out on the waves of insignificance.

There is a holiness that hovers,

just beyond my holy fingertip.

The subjects of the Ineffable,

like mockingbirds, soar, swoop and dive.

Fleeting, hidden, but not foolish —

Imago Dei in All of Life!

Our minds may mock

and fear tick-tock,

and yet… and yet… and yet…

There is a trued Eternity,

Perfection —

just beyond us glistening…

And for each soul that’s carefully listening,

the sound of sanctity will rise,

Creation will unlock blind eyes;

And All Things Good and Beautiful,

of heart and endless soul,

will reach behind the veil,

will see beyond the pale,

and holiness will be our home.

** The idea of holiness explored in this poem I owe to my reading of Man is Not Alone by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Life-Lines — a poem

by Jane Tawel

Life-lines — a poem

By Jane Tawel

March 19, 2021

When I was young,

my mind and heart

were intertwined

like scribbled lines.

When one is young,

separating scrambled lines

is the monumental task

of growing-up.

I failed at much of it

but some lines straightened,

into the miracle of

Due North.

The dots and dashes,

the broken, mended bits of line

Still encompass and still

compass me forth.

When I became

Two, and then more;

and “my” became “our”

heart, mind and soul;

We formed a new me.

And I took the bow of us in hand, and

formed a straight arrow;

a line, shooting, aimed,

undeviating in communion,

unswerving in love;

propelling my life.

A streak of light —

like the tail of a comet.

My love for you

became the trued lines of fortune

in the palms of my hands.

My love for you was

a life-line branching out,

like the shoots of roots

from an unbowed, unbending tree.

Like a line with no end,

I became

my love for you.

Now I grow old

and the lines of my life

form circles.

Circling, and circling, and circling;

back and around, back and around…

and sometimes I grow dizzy,

and sometimes I become whole.

The center holds

in the spiral of my life.

Sky and Earth in Rain- 4 Poems

by Jane Tawel

Sky and Earth in Rain

Four Poems

By Jane Tawel

March 13, 2021

Poem One

Sky’s brow sweats with labor;

the earth is replenished

with heaven’s pleasing perspiration.

Earth, in her turn, turns.

Round and round and round

flinging ocean, sea, and pond

back into Sky’s opened-mouth face.

Sky as Heaven, Earth as Gaia,

powerful in servitude to each other;

delighting in shared toiling.

Earth dances, opening herself up

to Sky’s rain and —

both, so in love!

Heaven and Gaia merge,

symbiotic in creation.

Poem Two

The blues of sky are borne-away

and seeming dead in grey hues,

mourning clouds as black as burial clothes,

the world looks up at the bereavement.

Only the old folks will watch the sky

and know —

Surprising endings make the best stories.

Ah, the sky’s eyes are tearing-up!

Only the parents know

the welcome oxymoron of the heavens’ happy tears.

Light, though hidden, eyes though clouded,

Love’s light, like the sun, never leaves the heart.

Rain is heavens’ tears shed in joy.

The skies know that nothing ever really dies.

The casket opens around the keening clouds.

The heavens resurrect themselves

pouring the gift of life

into earth’s open-armed delight.

Poem Three

The canopy of sky folds,

and through the gaps of cover,

all heaven breaks loose;

the earth is bathed from head to toe.

And dirty roots and filthy feet and pining pinnacles,

are washed with grace of falling rain.

Poem Four

The sky husbands the earth,

his seed pours forth,

and earth open’s up to sky’s embrace.

Love, given and received;

the over-whelming mystery of earth and sky,

true soul- mates, wed forever,

bearing all.

The earth opens to

all sky’s love -spent pourings.

And at earth’s breast

all children are fed.

New life from married bliss.

Dr. Seuss Becomes the Protagonist

Because I just had to on this one, let me just say: About the hullabaloo on the six Seuss books, none of which are my favorites and probably aren’t anybody’s favorites anyway. It is the Dr. Seuss Enterprise itself removing a few of the books because of stereotypes in the drawings that were once accepted and now are hurtful and seen as prejudice-causing. This makes Dr. Seuss the protagonist in this story. Now about the antagonists.

Whatever the heck do people think they mean by “cancel culture” of which term is just another labeling devise I have no desire to understand. Children should be protected by parents as they see fit, no matter the genre anyway. And we should all want to help children be better equipped for the future of living and loving and growing together than their parents were. That’s called “love culture” and “progressive culture”.

When children grow up, they will hopefully have been educated to make their own better and best decisions, apart from whatever “culture” is prevalent in their home or their neighborhood. Children will still enjoy all the classic Seuss books for many years to come, I have no doubt, and learn the important lessons many of those books teach besides how to read. I hope children also learn from the Dr. Seuss Enterprise’s decision to do the right thing at the right time. I don’t really understand this whole labeling of things — if something in any one’s, nation’s, religion’s history is now no longer, as Phil. 4:8 says, “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy” then we should as moral, ethical caring- for -other -human beings let it go into the past and be honorably or dishonorably buried there. That’s not censuring, that’s not banning, that is not taking down important monuments. That is simply doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.

I think some people need to stop letting their hearts be three sizes too small as if Seuss’ Grinch were autobiographical and imitate the protagonist in my own favorite Seuss book, “Horton Hears a Who”. Because folks, “a person’s a person no matter how small” and sacrificing as Horton does for the smallest, weakest, and most vulnerable in our midst is what makes true heroes and heroines, no matter who is writing the stories.

©Jane Tawel 2021

We Hold These Truths

from Jane Tawel

If only they had listened to Jefferson: “The idea of amending constitutions at regular intervals dates back to Thomas Jefferson. In a famous letter, he wrote that we should “provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods.” “Each generation” should have the “solemn opportunity” to update the constitution “every nineteen or twenty years,” thus allowing it to “be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time.”(The New Republic)

Lately I have realized how little I know about how things “should” work in my own nation and how they “do or don’t” work comparatively. I completely agree it is time every citizen was more educated in civics and through that education that the people are heard in terms of changes that need to be made yesterday. We must ask ourselves — when does a document like a government charter (which is what our Constitution is) become an idol to worship and not a tool to use for the good of the people? There are a couple other idolized documents I can think of that we should be better educated in and asking these questions about as well, but that’s a whole other can of manna.

As Jesus, the brilliant student of Torah law and the expert in the government charters of Israel said, we are meant to fulfill and live out these truths as guides, not worship or desecrate our written guides by our inability to change and be changed by “these truths that God and humans hold self-evident”…. We will be thinking about the story of that great statesman Pilate soon and his sad, sarcastic, narcissistic and oh so telling question that he asked of Jesus: “What is Truth?” We should not put up with our officials today asking the same thing — we should be the answer — We are the Truth of which you are merely the temporary guardians of.

To riff on an oldie — instead of “following the money”, we must start to “Follow the Truth”. And the questions are always the same for individual, community, and nation: Who do we want to be? What are we called to do? What changes do we need to make to be and do that which is our highest calling?

~~ Let’s do this, folks. Let’s help each other. I know I could use it. ~~Jane

Homily #4: Building Character

I wrote on this very idea not long ago, but the quote below refreshed my memory. Building a virtuous character takes time, commitment, and conviction. It means that for some of us, we have glimpses at times that it means something to work at building a better soul, and that changing, yes! changing one’s character is not only possible but is an important and worthy thing to do. It is the Narrow Way, not the cheap grace way; it is the “treasure hidden in a field”, not the “house made of sand”; and it is about changing me, not changing someone else.

From James Davison Hunter:

“We say we want a renewal of character in our day but don’t really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates, and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want more community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it”.

From: “The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil”

Our Shakespearean Year

by Jane Tawel

Our Shakespearean Year

by Jane Tawel

February 27,2021

Our Shakespearean Year “of our discontent” drags on as we have “much to do about nothing” and it looks as if “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will creep on at this petty pace, to the last syllable of recorded time”; mostly “signifying nothing”. “We have seen better days”. But on the plus side, we have learned that “we know what we are, but know not what we may be”; and while “the course of true love never did run smooth”, we humans are still “what stuff as dreams are made of”. Let’s remember even if we would never choose this, “some people have greatness thrust upon them”. As we approach a spring in which we wish things were normal again, let’s “Beware the Ides of March” and remember that “nature does require her time of preservation”. “To be or not to be” is a matter of staying safe, staying sane and staying diligent. If you think this “lady doth protest too much”, I apologize for my “lack of brevity”. Yet there are “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy”. But “friends, Chosen, countrymen, lend me your ears” but once more: “let us love each other more than words can wield the matter, dearer than eyesight, space and liberty”. “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better”. So keep masking, keep tasking, but remember if you are alive you have a “treasury of ever-lasting joy”. And to each of you “here, I hope, begins our ever-lasting joy” as “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so”. “The miserable have no other medicine but hope” and now vaccines; so get yours as soon as you can. And when you despair turn outward, yes, “God shall be our hope, our stay, and our lantern to our feet”. Now I must go, ah friends, “parting is such sweet sorrow but I shall say good-bye, til it be morrow; my necessaries are embarked! Adieu!” When this is all over there are a few I must admit I am glad we will “be better strangers”, and my friends may not recognize me as I have become “as fat as butter”. But though the past year has often seemed “as tedious as a twice told tale”, remember that “love looks not with the eyes but with the mind”. So “from the records of our memories, we will wipe away all trivial records”, and keep “remembering such things as are most precious to us”. And frankly sequestering has reminded me that, “our lives, exempt from public haunt, find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything”. “Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy!” “I love long life better than my husband loves figs!” Oh folks, “the time of life is short, to spend that shortness basely were too long!” So “to thine own self be true” and just do something good for yourself today, because “nothing will come of nothing”. My “parting is such sweet sorrow” for me but but I know you are thinking, “for this relief much thanks!” But I thank you for your “flattery in friendship” since “I count myself in nothing else so happy, as in a soul remembering my good friends”! Be assured that “self-love, my friend, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting”. So grab on to your best purpose today and believe, “it is not in our stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves”. “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. And Please — if you only remember one thing that Shakespeare said, remember this: “Thy life’s a miracle”!

No More — And Yet…

By Jane Tawel

No More — And Yet…

By Jane Tawel

February 25, 2021

There are no pictures any more

and yet we long to be seen.

We live inside our own closed doors,

and silently rage against the routine.

There are no words we want to share

and work is just a grind.

And even those for whom we care

just often slip our minds.

The lives of grey inanities

are revelatory — true.

We miss our shared humanity

and hopeful, bright worldview.

The days go ever on and on

just one day like the other.

We long for plans to bank upon

and health that’s been recovered.

But I have found in all of this

both listlessness and sorrow,

that I have changed my own wish-list

for better days tomorrow.

I’ve learned to care more for my kin

and even those I don’t know.

I’ve found a greater love within

and hope that Love will grow and grow.

I’m not encouraging deceit

on just how bad it’s been.

But neither is it utter defeat;

I think there’ve been some wins.

So maybe take some time today

to focus on the “shoulds”,

of how to live in better ways,

to love and do more good.

For even while we’re stuck and scared

and feeling like we just don’t care,

as long as we have one last breath

we live in hope of fighting death.

If I lose sight of The Sublime

I die inside, before my time.

So though imprisonment’s annoying,

Today I’ll choose to do some “joying”.

I’ll count the “no mores” with some regret,

Then cling like crazy to the “yet”!

No more — and yet…. . . . . .

I have loved and been loved.

I have sung and danced.

I have listened and been heard.

I have won and lost and learned from both.

I am hopeful in a new day.

I choose to look for joy in small things.

I fan the flames of faith to believe there is One Who cares for us.

I breathe out and in and feel the warmth of the blood that flows through me.

My heart still beats as evidence that life is anticipatory.

There are those whom I long to be with and those whom I hope to know better.

Wisdom and knowledge are waiting for me to discover them.

Goodness lives beyond place and time and Love is forever alive in the Universe.

This tiny taste, this small sound, this faint feeling, this sweet smell —

are each and all worthy of my honored attention.

Taste and know that life is delicious.

And while I can still see anything, I can imagine everything.

Friend, hope is here for the taking. No matter how dark it may feel, take hope in your hands today and make something — even something very small — but make something beautiful to light your way.

Ash Wednesday Meditation

by Jane Tawel

February 17, 2021

After Ash Wednesday Morning Service 2020

February 17, 2021

This will be the first Ash Wednesday in years that I won’t go to a church to begin the season of Lent. Last year when this picture was taken, we still didn’t realize at this time what a year of a sort of “enforced” Lent lay before us. For those of us who try to see the spiritual as alive in the world around us, and who desire to continually learn the necessary requirements of the struggling, emerging wholesome soul, the past year of spiritual disciplines for the care of others, the care of the world that God made, and the care of the self, has been nothing compared to what we claim The Jewish Messiah, The Christ lived out and died for. I will not have ashes on my forehead today but I will contemplate what is said each year when we celebrate the beginning of the wilderness journey into Lent: “Remember that you are but dust, and to dust you will return. Repent!”

Ah — but believe also that –There is Good News (Gospel). Today I may recognize my worthlessness and fragility, my need to express sorrow and my ongoing imprisonment of pain, but it is merely meant as healing exercise in order to recognize true worth in others, true worth in all that is on the earth that God made, true worth even in my own known self. I am paradoxically but dust, but I am also a beloved child of God. And so is my neighbor beloved of God, and so is my enemy beloved of God. And in all of that comes the freedom of believing that hope and faith and love are eternally thriving and whatever we have of those three things will never return to dust, but always remain.

The time for Rejoicing will come to all those who wait and try to do Good. Today has always been one of my favorite holy-days because, strange person that I am, I love realizing how very, very human and frail and fragile and temporary our lives are and yet how the divinity of our souls strives on for glory. I love being reminded that I am broken and battered, sinful and wrong, in need of humbling; and yet, with practice and discipline, I am assured that I can be better tomorrow than I was today. I am grateful to believe in a God who reminds me that no matter what is happening in the world or in my very being, Love wins every time –even over ashes and dust.

“To grant to those who mourn in the world— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:3)

Homily #3: Inside, Outside, Upside-Down

“Garden Mist” by noisen8r is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Homily #3: Inside, Outside, Upside-Down

By Jane Tawel

February 13, 2021

Reflection.

Introspection.

How does your garden grow?

Merrily, merrily or usually contrarily;

It is rarely in what one thinks one knows.

There is an inside swirling,

with thoughts and fears and broken bits galore;

and feelings unrestrained take the helm most times

and leave reason and worth cast ashore.

The outside waits and wanders

through labyrinths of time;

But whether future, past or now,

we very often find,

that outside does not translate in

unless we introspect

on whether demon or divine

our words and deeds reflect.

If we could wear our insides, out,

and see others’ outsides for what’s within;

we’d live as we were meant to live

in Harmonious Garden once again.

Oh, the world is right-side-up most days.

Yes, that is tragically true.

But if we’d live more upside-down,

— You loving me — I loving you —

We’d see reflected not Narcissus,

but souls that bear fruit most delicious.

The Tree of Evil and of Good

would make us into what we should

think and feel and do and be.

For Love turns all things topsy-turvy.

My insides out, your outsides in;

Eternal Life then re-begins.

by Jane Tawel

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