God – Jane Tawel

Parables: The Stories of Small, Lost Things

Parables: The Stories of Small, Lost Things

By Jane Tawel

September 10, 2026

Parables are stories that are meant to withstand: outliving culture, time, space, and author. For this reason, parables, such as the brilliant and beautiful parables of Jesus, have been wrongly cluttered with solidifying interpretations, both those interpretative prison bars we put around so many of the Scriptures themselves, added on by the authors and not Jesus, and also those constricting structures added to ancient words today by preachers, priests, and common folk (such as I). Parables must be flexible enough to bend to new times and places and thereby relate something about our human experience no matter where or who we are. And perhaps parables, for those of us on the Eternal Search, show us something just out of reach about what God is like as well. Parables are always meant to be just out of our reach, like that pesky gnat that keeps flying around your face that you just can not swat away for the life of you. And parables are for “the life of you”. The best parables of the Wise Ones, should irritate us like the gnat. They should also, however, touch some place deep inside of us, beyond our little and much over-rated minds. I love a well-defined philosophy and I adore poetic expression, but my soul is touched by the paradoxes and deep-well water of a parable. Like all great stories, parables push me beyond belief and into experience; and to live inside of the experience of being human with the Mystery of what is not human — call it God, if you like — is too often cast aside in the quest for some idolatry, some offering of false assurance or some ever-dissatisfying temporal pleasure.

I will simply copy and paste below three parables attributed to Jesus by someone who we know today as Luke. What I am wrestling with (as one must do with parables) is how these three parables together can effect me today — how I can let them effect me. And yes, I refuse to use the modern word “affect” — there is far too much “affection” in the world as it is: I want the “Cause” of these parables to have an “Effect” in my heart, soul, mind and actions. For this is the truest Truth I know: we humans are created to “Love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength” and to love our neighbor with all our “heart, soul, mind and strength”, and to love myself with all my “heart, soul, mind and actions”. This is what I want to find in these three stories of lost things. Because I see so much loss in my world today. We have lost the belief, the driving force that one single human being is infinitely important. If you interpret as many do, that one of the characters in these parables is maybe, kinda, sorta God or Jesus, then, you would be interpreting God and Jesus as willing to completely ignore all the rest of the sheep, and all the rest of the coins to search for or celebrate the return of the one lost dumb, and the stupid sheep, the one lost insignificant, can’t buy much coin. You would also have to accept that God doesn’t punish the returning lost son, the useless, horrible, no good very bad, child, but instead throws a big party. God searching for a little, insignificant person out of the billions of humans walking the planet today is pretty unbelievable. This is frankly a very, very stupid thing to do. Compare it to one of our current billionaires ignoring his stock portfolio to go search for the quarter he dropped on the sidewalk. Compare it to a ruler ignoring all the CEOs and religious and political leaders in his party to throw a banquet for the homeless. (Jesus has a good parable about that too, but I digress). So, if you are going to want to see the “Searchers” or the “Father” in these parables as God, then you would have to admit that God doesn’t actually care what you have done or not done or where you worship or who you love: God loves each person, unconditionally, absolutely, and longingly. In his famous “Sermon on the Hilltop”, Jesus puts it like this: “The rain falls on the good and evil, on the just and the unjust”. Eeessh. Sometimes I wanna say to Jesus when I see him, “you gotta be jokin’?!” I mean, seriously, this puts into question my whole idea about fairness. Which is what so many of Jesus’ parables do, including the three lost things parables.

And here is the thing that a lot of Scripture-readers maybe don’t want to see but that I learned from the brilliant Jewish writer, Amy-Jill Levine, in her book Short Stories by Jesus. In the last of Luke’s parables about lost things, the father does NOT go searching for the lost prodigal. Yes, the prodigal returns and the father celebrates him, as any parent is so very happy to do when a child becomes safe after a dangerous choice, but the father does not go out looking for the younger, so-called prodigal son in this story. The Father DOES go search for the older son, the “good” son. This son has been so misinterpreted by our need to pin down the parable’s meaning for our own beliefs or time and place. But the story ends, like the other two, with the human being going to search for the one lost thing, even while everyone else is partying and having a good time with the returned son. The father does not realize until later that the older son, the one who has, in his own words, “done everything right”, is missing. And the father goes to find him. The shepherd with a lot of sheep, strangely goes to look for one lost lamb. The woman with a lot of coins, oddly notices that one little coin is missing, and searches high and low for it. And the father with a big household, and his spoiled (maybe favorite) younger son, returned, and all his servants serving, and his friends and extended family having a huge celebration — he goes out from all the joy and hoopla and pride and partying — to find his one lost older, son who despite all he has feels neglected, and sad, and angry, and lost. Oh, how I want to believe in a God who comes again and again to find me even when I am angry at Him and sad about the world and the responsibilities I feel towards it, and when I just feel hopeless and like no one, not even God, cares enough to do something, to care. Jesus is reminding me that no matter how I feel, and although God may seem absent and off celebrating something and someone else, I am never, never alone and even silly little ole’ me is someone worthy of God’s searching heart and absolute love. So, as Jesus might say, we must “go and do likewise”.

What I had to see for myself, today, in this parable is that there is no one, no one, that I am not to care about enough to have compassion for, to try to find a connection with, to search for the humanity in, and to love without judgement, without favor, without prejudice, and without any desire to be “right”. It does not mean that all things are equal or that there isn’t right and wrong, good and bad, truth and un-truths. What is means is that the people I consider “pharisees” or “hypocrites” or self-justifying, prejudiced, whinny, self-righteous, just -playing- it -safe, stuck- in- the -rut -where -I -have -always -been people — or people someone else might consider prodigal, sinful, insignificant, illegal, are also absolutely, positively beloved by God. I know this feels like lemon juice poured on an open wound, but if that is true about the God we want to believe in and know and be a part of, then we are to search in our hearts for the God-given ability to go “find them” and find our common human connection, and find our mutual divinity, our Imago Dei, and we are to love “the least and the lost” and “the high and the mighty” and the “proud and the angry” and the Jew and the Palestinian, and the Hindu and the Jehovah Witness, and the homeless and the celebrity, and the wise and the foolish. And we are to simply without question, love them and invite them to the “celebration”.

There is an ancient and world-wide tradition that calls some humans to keep the voice of prophecy alive, and I admit that at times like these, in the culture and time I live in today, that the prophetic voice is needed and sometimes that voice doesn’t sound very loving or kind. We do not get to see the attitude of the shepherd towards the lost sheep when he finds it. I would have been reading that sheep the riot act: “don’t you go ever getting lost like that again, you naughty little lamb”. And while the woman who finds her one coin calls all her girlfriends to come celebrate, she probably starts to keep her money somewhere she won’t lose more, like in a drawer or a bank or a safe CD. And we never know what happens to the younger, prodigal son after the celebration of the father. He might as he suggested have to work now as servant, having wasted his part of the inheritance. He might take off again, not ready to be healed and whole and at home and the father may one more have to mourn the loss of the prodigal son. But we do know what happens to the older son that the father goes to find. The father tells him that “You are always with me, and all I have is yours”. So, yes, I want to experience the God-love lived through me that one single insignificant, worthless as a 2026 USA penny, coin is worth my search, and that one single stupid, blindly bleating, Kool-Aid-drinking sheep is worth my sacrificial compassion, and the child, the person who does everything I agree with, the one who is “good”, is also often lost in his own mind-traps and sorrowful yearnings and blaming of me and existential crises, and it my responsibility to go and not give a lecture, and not justify my behavior, and not badmouth the prodigals or perceived mutual enemies, but to assure the child in every person that they are loved and that in Love, there is All and More than All .

If we interpret the people in Jesus’ parables as the searchers who represent the character of the Hebrew / Jesus God, then we also have to interpret them as what God calls humans to be like, because that is what all the prophets, and stories, and analogies, and parables in Scriptures do. If you then interpret the people doing the searching and restoring as human beings, which they are in fact in each story, you would then have to conclude that we are to act like the God we want to see in the entirety of the Hebrew and Christian Bible (one big book, often tragically thought to be two). And I believe, that even if you toss out said Bible, any one — atheist, agnostic, Sufi, or Muslim — in their deepest heart of hearts, every one wants to believe in Love, the power of love, and the gift of undeserved Love. We want to believe that someone, somehow, like a good Mother, loves each and every, single, solitary, silly little me. And if we want that, then do we not believe every human wants that, and thus, we are, to riff on Ghandi, to be the person we want to see in everyone else in the world? And that means loving the one single human being who is right in front of us; the one who is in trouble, in need, hidden, misplaced, mistaken, irritating, or downright useless — loving them simply because they are right in front of us and need us, loving that human, that person, that nobody, that silly, little lamb because that is what makes a human being a human Being, “a little lower than angels”. And that kind of weird, crazy behavior that comes out of the kind of love that is quite frankly, bizarre when you think about it, is what makes the God of Jesus, Something, Someone worth at least sort of kinda’ thinking about as a real and loving Presence. No matter how things may seem at the moment, in our lives or in our time and place, every one of us is both lost and searching. We are at the same time the ones trapped in the rubble and the search party of rescuers. Our capacity as human beings for courage, for compassion and empathy, for paradoxical and profound thought, and for the beauty, and wonder, and mystery that lies inside each soul, is what makes us a unique and wonderful species as we live on this beautiful, beautiful Earth. The three parables of lost things are about seeing ourselves and each other, looking at and for each other, searching for and being found by each other with “heart, soul, mind, and actions”. There is something “lost” in each of us, something that has gone astray, something that is longing to be found. And there is something courageous and determined in each of us, something that is longing to keep up the search until the last bit of light has faded. Jesus left us to do the searching for the lost. God has inscribed on our hearts the desire to search and to search with love. And we are promised in the poetry of the Psalmists, “those who seek, will find”. But we each do need to ask ourselves, “what am I truly seeking, and what do I hope to find”? I can’t be certain of course, but the mysteries and parables told by Jesus keep me hopeful that the story ends and we all find the Love we have sought.

Here are some parables of Jesus about the God / Human Search:

Three Parables of Jesus as Remembered in Luke 15

(from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible)

1. The Lost Sheep

So he told them this parable: 4 “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

2. The Parable of the Lost Coin

8 “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

3.The Parable of the Two Lost Brothers (my re-titling, not Luke’s)

11 Then Jesus[a] said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled his stomach[b] with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[c] 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one — and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father[d] said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

The Truth Is in the Spaces

The Truth Is in the Spaces

By Jane Tawel

July 24, 2026

Words are signposts only,

along the Narrow Way.

If you rush from point to point,

word to word,

you will never reach

the destination,

the place that you call “The Truth”.

Words will keep you traveling, traveling, traveling;

Anxious to find the right signs, or

Arguing with your copilots

Certain in your certainty,

that only you know best,

that your way is the Only!! route,

the single road to Happiness, to Heaven, or to Holiness;

And never knowing deeply, truly,

that there are many trued and true paths

leading Home.

Words, especially those on ancient maps,

can also keep you stuck,

content to stay within your deepening rut.

Eventually you can dig yourself

so far down and down and down

you barely have a finger to raise above your ditch,

a small and useless pointer at the stars which you can’t see,

down there in the dark and dank, determined ditch you’ve dug.

Or perhaps you raise an angry, upright digit

raised in indignation, raised against

the perceived enemies out there,

a digit wiggling out and up,

a solitary soldier in the slumbering stand you take

against awakening

and climbing up and out into

the fresh air of the Open Road.

For a long time, inviting others

to join you in your rut

can make you feel safe.

Until the floods come.

Your muscles that once could have found The Way,

Out into the Open Air, free in the Wide and Open Spaces,

are too weak by now, atrophied by the fears of your Unknowing.

You have languished long, far from the Road,

feeling secure in the tight confines of your pit,

Unable to pull yourself out of the rut of

your necessary belief that somehow, stuck down there,

you will eventually rise to Something, Somewhere Else.

But a pit leads no-where, my friend.

And in the hidey- hole that you’ve dug,

you never see the many ropes

that others have thrown down

to let you pull yourself out from

the ditch that you have dug around yourself.

So many lovely, lovely things,

have through the eons

of this lovely, lovely World’s circuitous

spiraling, mysteriously moving expedition,

thrown out life-lines,

shown, not spoken,

and pointed to all the Truth we ever need to know,

to Trust that only Love can lead The Way.

Nature has the truest Trueline.

Her roots have been threaded by Eternity,

threaded into thick, strong cords,

leading in and out, and down and up,

The Way of Our Salvation.

The World is full of Glory

to save us from drowning

in idolatry of texts,

from continually bashing ourselves

upon the rocky walls we make

out of our own silly and inflated egos.

Nature has never built a wall.

When the Flood comes,

and finds you in your high-walled ditch,

Words won’t help you float.

You need something with air in it for that,

Something that breathes,

Something buoyant like a raft.

Cast aside your useless euphemisms,

your cries and yells and sermons,

your documents and equations

none of these can save you.

You can only release yourself to The Flow.

Let go

and float

and let The River lift you up and out,

out from in your trenches,

out from your revenges and your fears,

and let The Water take you,

clean you and restore you,

back from chosen Death to freely given Life.

Trust the Flow.

All Rivers flow to The Source.

Truth is not a map

that anybody owns.

The Way is the play between,

the give and take

and push and shove

and gentle flow of

of letting go;

the looking up and out

and gazing long

at what is not there to be seen

but that which opens us.

And when we do not know

then we know

it is not our seeing that matters,

because we sense

we, at last, are Seen.

Don’t throw away your maps,

but rest assured,

while Compasses are often useful things,

True Truth is only in the gaps.

Truth is in the spaces –

The small bits and gentle pauses

The breaths between the hub-bub

and the clean-rooms that scour out

the hubris of our “feeling”

that we are right and they are wrong.

Peace is only found in the spaces

between the small stones in your shoes,

only in the vast open-places

glimpsed only

out of the corner of your eyes,

perhaps magnified into

kaleidoscopic wonder

by tears of sorrow or

tears of aching Awe.

I wish they had used better punctuation

in the things that Jesus said.

There needs to be a lot of Space —

— Between —

between the Truths that only Love can know.

I add a lot of dashes —

Between the words of Christ.

I AM —

The Way —

The Truth —

The Life —

Seek —

and you will find.

Love —

Love.

Yes — let me live and move and

Find my being

in the Dashes —

I Am-ness —

And Your IAm.

my seeking —

and Your finding.

my longing —

and the only thing that fills that longing —

Love.

The Spirit People do not hand us maps —

We make those up ourselves.

And while a map can be a useful thing,

we shouldn’t mistake it for The Way.

Look for the crevices and cracks –

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the Light gets in.*

Look up from your maps,

And follow The Light.

There is a Light in The Window,

and The Light of The World

will lead us Home.

*by Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

YOU

YOU

By Jane Tawel

June 10, 2026

Open our eyes,

and let us see.

YOU are Way,

not wall.

YOU are the Open Door

not the closed borders.

YOU are process,

not product.

YOU are not container,

but Cosmos.

YOU are OTHER,

and yet, not other.

Like a MOTHER,

YOU womb me,

Birth me,

Nurse me,

And with opened eyes,

I see only YOU,

And YOU and I are One.

May the Light of Your Love,

Blind us into healed eyes

and new sight.

May the Grace of Your Goodness,

cause us to stumble from our marches

so that we may hold out hands of help

to the bruised and to the fallen.

May the Wonder of Your World,

make us weep with longing

and humble us, and gladden us

to care for this Our Home,

with the same parental care

that YOU, oh, Father care for Your World.

May we fall in love once again,

with this our Home, and these,

our Brothers and our Sisters;

And may we treat all Life — as YOU do —

with the same kindness and nurture

that a Gardener and Farmer gives

the blessed, life-giving Land.

May the Freedom of Your Mercy

Heal our hatreds.

May the selflessness of Your Justice,

replace our false desire for punishment.

And in the Court of Your judgement,

May the oppressed be restored,

the prisoner set free,

the lame walk and the leper dance.

And May Your rivers of righteousness roll down,

rolling and roiling,

as the first become last,

and the last are the first,

and all tumble and meld

into the Oneness that is

Your Kingdom come.

Parent, Creator, Foundation, Friend:

May the Love that is

Of YOU,

And that is beyond comprehension,

May the Mystery of Love that You are

and that You can only be, and can be no other —

May that same Love

that is beyond all human understanding,

and that is also the miracle of Love

available to all humble hearts,

Keep our feet inching forward on The Way,

Keep our minds open to Your Truth,

Keep our wills muscular with the joy of Your Spirit,

And may our hearts beat as One

with You and with All that You Love.

May the Lure of Your Love,

make me, as You were and are,

a fisher of lives —

to patiently cast out the lure of your love

to catch them and release them

back into the OCEAN of YOU,

Just as YOU have caught and released

this small guppy of a girl.

May it Be.

Truth and Love

By now, I am assuming people who want to know the truth are reading people like Heather Cox Richardson or It’s a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese or Robert Reich. I have posted their sage words many times and could again and again, for they report on what is happening in this nation with truth and integrity and big hearts for the people of America.

Some days I can barely stand to read what is being allowed to happen on our watch — our poor, poor children — what a mess we are handing them, that is, handing them if and should we continue to exist. For those people who either can not give up their false idols or who prefer an alternative reality that more suits their ego, or who just want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend things are not as they are or that there is nothing they can do, or that “they just want to enjoy their lives” — I pity you, I truly do. And while I still feel so very angry that so many are allowing this nation, and the religion of Christianity, and the planet to be destroyed by their own ignorance, greed, fear of the other, power-hunger, or frankly for some, absolutely their evil intent, I also feel such sorrow for them; they have “given up their souls for profit” as the Good Man says, and given up their humanity and human dictate to care for the world in exchange for power and the illusion of happiness with more and more and more money. Some of their idols are obviously and literally insane — stark raving demented and insane. And still they never see the truth or that “money can’t buy you love” and that you cannot “worship God and material greed”.

I feel such sorrow that on this our 250th birthday, we have slid down the slippery slope of uber-capitalism and empire so very far. I feel such a sense of shame by association and wonder how some people can feel no shame.

I am grateful for those still speaking truth. I am grateful for those who still believe in the idea of America and that we can be what we set out to be, 250 years ago. I am grateful to my depths for the brave people who have claimed the same religion I have for so long and who are sharing what that religion actually teaches, and who are speaking up for Jesus the Christ and for our sense of who a loving God is — “a God and a Christ who loves all humans — no matter what their background or identification”. as St. Paul taught us God and Christ love. And how I pity those people tied to a religious instutition that pays them to continue to tell people what they do here doesn’t matter — that all that matters is whether you go to heaven — something Jesus never, ever said. “The Kingdom of God is within you — here. Now”. …… Or it’s not.

Okay — ranting, I know. Sorry. I honestly day after day, just can’t get my head around it.

But here is my hope — — today, on my jog, as usual, I pick up other people’s trash. This is my Father’s World and my Mother’s Breast. One day a couple thanked me and said, we teach our grandkids to do this and we make a game of it. There is my hope and encouragement. Today I will try my best to teach my students to write and read and think critically and ethically and spiritually — they are all in high school but very few schools seem to encourage this any more. But there are some who do and many parents who do, and these young people — they can take over from us any time in my opinion. There is my hope and anticipation that we — they — can turn this ship around. And today, I will tell my family and friends and the early morning workers at the end of my street who gather to find work to feed their families that I love them, and be safe out there, and I am grateful for your lives. And I will tell the bees in my lavender, and the lizards on my sidewalk, and the tree in my front yard, and the blue, blue sky — “I love you. Be safe out there. I am grateful for you.” I will hold all these lovely things and these other human souls in my heart and will send them thoughts of joy: “You make my heart glad and hopeful. Thank you for being wonderful, amazing you”. And even if sometimes I wonder where God is, or why He doesn’t “do something”, I will pray the only prayer I know: “I love you. Make me a being of Love. Please help us”.

And there is my hope. Because I know there are lots and lots of people out there who are truly loving. And some are Christians, and some are Hindus, and some are Muslims, and some live in Iran and some live in Ukraine and some live in Palestine, and some live right here on my little street in SoCal. And Love is the most powerful force in the universe. “Now these three things will remain, “Trust in The Good, Hope despite the circumstances, and Love for all — but the greatest of these is Love”. (St. Paul).

My hope is that little bits of Light and Love will overcome the darkness and hatred of this dire hour. I end this not with anger or hopelessness, but with determination to do my part — to be the light and be the love. And I have hope because I know enough people who are doing that same thing. And to quote another great saint, MLK, the “arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice” and we little Whos in Whoville will be heard by the One Who Loves and Who hears us, and “we shall overcome”.
May it be so.

Pulling the Flesh Apart

Pulling the Flesh Apart

By Jane Tawel

May 26, 2026

Let us pull it apart — bit by bit.

Lay the body of our transitory knowledge

on The Surgeon’s board.

True, the words became flesh;

but this stuff — this meat —

must be bound on the rack,

pulled out like taffy,

’til our bones bend and crack.

Words should be tortured,

eviscerating the bowels we call facts.

Our gut tells us something

is Realer than real —

Deeper than definitions,

Truer than the skeletons of

Only what we can see and taste and touch –

Oh! We are meant to touch the very Being —

We are meant to be stretched into smallness

Split into Wholeness,

and cured unto death.

Only oxymorons, symbols, metaphors and myths —

Only songs and pictures —

Only stories of salve — ations,

Only tales of trudging the long road toward home,

Only legends of those who die for Love,

Only these are meant to live forever.

Oh, we must lay our small selves on the Cross.

We must die to the language of our answers

And float in the ocean of our questions.

How mysterious is the human hand!

How awe-inspiring the body’s eye!

And what beyond what I am called to name,

Can I sense beyond my wonderous senses —

Moves and lives in the being I call “myself”?

There is Some-thing, Some-One, Some-Life/Self —

Who is beyond all language —

beyond all materials and all body,

beyond the mind’s best truest truths.

There is a Word the mind knows not.

A Name. A Life. A Presence.

The Word that sweetly sings to us

to be let in the cages of our heads and hearts,

and once, when homing there,

flutters like a small bird,

Singing songs of wordless Love and Life,

in flight and free within the Heart —

Though not a “thing”, a word must do —

Beyond, above, deeper, wider, purer, timeless —

Some thing — visceral —

Some thing — that moves and breathes and has its being

Some thing — despite all longing, we can not name —

from a heart that no longer beats

but Swells –

Cresting until it bursts through

the walls of this poor substance

that I call, “myself”.

The Soul — burst asunder into

pieces of The Whole.

No longer words on paper

But The Word made flesh in us,

a Picture worth an Eternity of words.

No longer flesh and blood,

But Bread and Wine.

Given, so all may have Life,

And Life Abundant.

Life granted, beyond syllables.

Life, lived beyond flesh.

Life, here and now

in the Stillness

here beyond death.

Even When We Are Numb, Let’s Stand and Deliver for Love

By now, I almost want to stay numb and depressed, but I am still just stubborn enough, I guess, to not want to give evil , insane, war-mongering, greedy, immoral, or just plain foolish people what they want. And every day I am reminded that there are good people in the world, and that the planet is ours to save, and that America really, honestly, needed to change anyway, so if it has to change by a trial by fire, so be it, I will keep working with the fire brigade as best I can.

So you know that awful feeling when your leg and foot fall asleep — the numb, painful tingles? and how it is excruciating to stand? Well, I remind myself that even though both legs, arms, and my mind are numbed and in pain, tingling with disbelief, anger and sorrow, I remind myself that the house is on fire, so I gotta keep getting up and keep moving toward The Way, toward Goodness and Light. Folks, the fire is raging, but despite our desire to give in to the numbness — we gotta vote for democracy and a return to reason, vote with our dollars, yell, move, and stand and deliver, ya’all.

And those of us who have tried, failingly to be sure, but have tried, to walk The Way with the idea that the God of the Bible and Jesus have the most loving, gracious, justice-freedom toting message of all — meaning Love above all and for ALL — we need to speak out and more importantly LIVE OUT, what God is really like and what Jesus really taught and lived. Because what those greedy warmongers, foolish fear-mongers, judgmental non-thinkers, and sleight-of-hand shysters in the halls of power, both under the guise of American and Religious powers, are trying to sell you are selling you fire policies for houses underwater, not Life Policies for Houses built on The Rock of True Life.

May your numbness be not more than you can bear to carry today. May you let your anger make you determined, your sorrow make you compassionate, and your numbness let you know that we need each other and we are not alone. Then, unlike the person mentioned in this article — Think about others and as The Good Book advices, when you can, “think on these things: whatever is true, right, pure, honorable, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praisworthy.” (Philippians 4:8)

We are numb, we are afraid, we are angry and sad, but lastly remember — no matter what the end point is — Hope is free and Love is forever.

This is from a long, hard read about just the latest insanity in America, but it sums it all up with facts. It is from a great newsletter you can find on Facebook and Substack called: Oregon’s Bay Area, by a mother/ daughter team, the Geddry’s.

Here is a quote near the punchline of this article: “That is the connective tissue between Trump’s redistricting brag, his openness to sending National Guard or ICE to voting locations, his terror of a Democratic House with subpoena power, and the GOP’s willingness to keep funding the whole circus. They are not waiting for Trump to become normal. They are trying to preserve power long enough to make normal voters irrelevant.

HCR also ties the economic story together: the Iran war, Trump’s ballroom, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, the rising debt, and the larger question of what Republicans are doing with public money. That question may define the summer. Americans are being asked to pay for the war, pay for higher gas prices, pay for the debt from tax cuts for the rich, brace for cuts to programs they rely on, and somehow also pay for Trump’s vanity projects and personal legal escape hatches.

Trump said he does not think about Americans. Today’s news is the receipt.

Fuel prices are up and the war bill is climbing, but Americans are not on his mind. The Pentagon dodges questions about munitions and costs, but Americans are not on his mind. Iran retains most of its missiles and the Strait stays closed, but Americans are not on his mind. He boards Air Force One with billionaires and flies to Beijing to open markets for corporate America, but Americans are not on his mind. His Justice Department quietly explores a settlement that could immunize him from financial scrutiny, but Americans are not on his mind. His party rigs maps, dodges oversight, and works methodically to make democratic accountability harder to enforce, but Americans are not on his mind.”

And so — instead of THAT kind of mind — “Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. (Paul) “Let your love extend to all beings” (Buddha) “Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of creation”. (Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita) “Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will live in the LORD’s house as long as I live.” (Psalm 23 from Hebrew Scriptures)

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Jesus as recorded in Matthew 22).

Hope in the World, Just Not Yet at Home

by Jane Tawel

In the past couple days there is evidence of several amazing world events and leaders that give me hope — they just aren’t in America sadly. (Let’s hope that there is a “yet” to that first sentence.) Hungary — Wow! Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney — Wow. Wow. Pope Leo — WOW! WOW! WOW! These three examples alone of moral integrity and truth spoken with love are lights in a dark time. This is unlike the haters and foolish, dark-minded people currently in our nation’s administration, congress, and in the ranks of their supporters, (either openly or behind the scenes), who are running our nation into the ground. They instead are gleefully filling their coffers or excusing those who are using them for their own enrichment while offending everyone, creating fallacious conflicts that kill innocent people, and ruining not just America’s and the world’s economy, but creating decades of dire problems for our children and our planet. This is overwhelming enough but add to that the continuous drip, drip, drip of blaspheming or changing beyond all recognition what some of these people say they believe as a world view, Christianity, and that they even say they want to be our national “religion” (something our nation considered a dangerous oxymoron) but a belief system if when looked at honestly, stands against everything that we see coming to horrible fruition today; a Faith which is truly and in actuality the moral imperative good people of all religions or just all good humans are called to follow. We have slid down the slippery slope the oligarchs and capitalism have long been slipping on.

But despite what we are hearing: Exceptionalism isn’t individualism, it is holding oneself to an exceptional standard; leading without morality isn’t leadership, its narcissm; and empathy is not a weakness but the best way to understand the onus of the greatest power the universe knows — Love. I know there are enough people in America who remember what we are called to be at our best — caring, sharing, accepting, just, truthful, and free. There is always light, no matter how dark it may seem, if we look hard enough. Keep looking ahead; keep looking around you; keep looking for the helpers. And keep hoping. Be the Light you are called to today.

On Behalf of my Nation, I am So Sorry Ukraine

Reading Heather Cox Richardson on America’s ignoble new philosophy on international “diplomacy” — not! Read her every day, but please read this today to understand my comments below.

Growing up during the Cold War, watching Congress and the Courts do their jobs, even when it meant accepting we could not tolerate the crimes of President Nixon, weeping when I saw the Berlin Wall fall, weeping again when I saw the first Black President, Barack Obama, take his sacred oath of office, knowing America to be at least in her best moments, a defender of others against tyranny and international criminals, a believer in justice for ALL and truth and freedom for ALL — I never in a million years would have believed what has happened and is happening in my country today, nor that any American, let alone so-called “Christian-Nationalist” American, would tolerate this for a minute after realizing what it is. We are literally letting an international law-breaking half-wit lead us. Seriously? Why? Because the elite oligarchy of business and political uber-greedy are happy with the complete lack of truth and justice and law and order and the chaos based on stupidity and false “doctrine”, and they are gaining more money — more money than any one would ever use in a million years. America has been inching toward this, yes, but this is an avalanche. Have we been perfect — even always good? No, of course not. But this? No. We have never been this. To live in a nation that sends its mockery of an army against its own civilians but will not send its well-funded and exceptional military resources to aid another democracy — we are no longer being run by Americans in our federal government; we are being run by the shysters, the Mob, and the Anti-Christs of this world. We are sending our greedy incompetents or our literally pardoned felons of international crimes to represent us in the world. Shame and sorrow. We can no longer claim to be that “shining city on a hill” when our government has decided to throw it all on the garbage heap to enhance their own warped greed and power-hungry narcissism. May Ukraine and Europe find the strength and will to fight evil. May small Americans use their voices and actions to stand up for what the dream of America is meant to be at its best. May we who believe Jesus had something to say about this be the compassionate political activist that He was. And shame on America. Perhaps through shame, we may still find our way forward to be that “one Nation under God” and that “shining city on a hill”. Meanwhile — My heart weeps for us all.

Nature Has No Kingdoms

https://unsplash.com/photos/sun-light-passing-through-green-leafed-tree-EwKXn5CapA4

Nature Has No Kingdoms

By Jane Tawel

February 22, 2026

Nature has no kingdoms.

No names, but what we give them.

No fame, but when we use them.

No needs but those we rape from them.

The fish and trees and God-created birds and bees,

are at the mercy of man’s own ego-needs.

Creation can’t fight back at us

because a Mother’s love can not destroy her child.

She must look on with helpless care,

as her human children hack her limbs

and nuke her beating heart

into a burning cess pool —

once burning deep with Love —

now shallow, broiling,

heart still aflame

in Nature’s dying throes.

Nature loves its anonymity,

its secrets and Its secret stores

of pleasure, beauty, and divine intentions.

Nature loves a vacuum — of human willfulness.

But otherwise, It thrives and strives

and circling, circling, circling

treasuring moments,

Creation throbs

with Holy Love and Life.

Why do the people again and again —

throughout our shallow, fleeting things

that we call history and our place and time —

Cry and demand the rule and greed of kings?

What does a small man need to need a king?

We circle and circle and circle the years;

we circle and circle and circle the drain;

and ever and always again and again

we forget our faith and place our fears

in the hands of the tyrants and idolatrous gods

in this man-made valley of unnatural tears.

Oh, small and longing human,

rest your eyes on the greens of the hills,

arouse your awakening in the blues of deep waters,

feel the soft earth beneath your bare feet,

listen to birdsong and small things in the night

let all Creation restore you to your true nature.

Creation is God’s first and only trusty scripture.

You have no need of earthly kings,

for there is One Whose Kingdom comes —

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

and today —

in Father, Heir, and Spirit –

and in this Earth, our Mother and our Home.

Here and Now. Be still and know.

We live and move and have our being,

here, where meaning pulses, and souls long,

heart to heart, twinkling-stars to songful-dawn.

In small-ish things, great Mystery lives.

The Tree of Life takes root and grows

above and through and in us all.

We need no one with clay-shod feet

to give us faith in what we can not speak.

Nature needs no idols.

Like Her, we worship best

in love of Known-Unknown.

Like Her, we worship best

when all are free, and all are One.

Creation — moving, growing, groaning —

Creates and recreates a Holy Throne.

Like leaves that fall and mulch the earth,

We only rise to glory who die to find rebirth.

Mires and Wires

Mires and Wires

By Jane Tawel

February 17, 2026

Some of us dig in.

We dig, dig, dig down

into the sands

of our times,

into the tidepools

of our minds,

into the sucking mire.

We are seldom able to fly,

but like birds on a wire,

we are called to balance —

precariously, it is true —

but trusting

that not one of us can fall

without the Weeping of the World.

Here, where some of us have landed,

poised with wings tucked tight,

there is no room to gather

that which cannot be eaten today.

But those who choose to dig holes

like moles and augers in the land,

store up their treasures

leaving their names on the inverted pyramids

sinking into famed obscurity

and drowning in the solidity

of their false hopes.

Poor creatures —

so richly mistaken

and shaken to the core

by the fears of their impermanence.

I have dug myself plenty of holes.

But now I place my own small hope

on small movements of mine

fluttering, hopping at times from foot to foot,

attempting to share in the tight-rope act

of small beings barely balanced

in this singular time and place.

And like a small brown wren

I wonder how or when

in what future unknown space

will we, little birds —

(being now so often trapped and caught,

and bought — a dozen for a penny) —

will we at last be gathered

like chicks to Our Mother’s breast?

Here on this unsteady string of life,

we long for The Nest

and for the rest we once knew,

and yearn to know again

covered by The Father’s Mighty Wings of Refuge.

It will not be by digging in

like a burrowing beast,

mistaking flowers for tares,

that I will find peace.

Nor will we know the love we seek

by running like lemmings or hares,

after any crown or prize

that we may chase.

We fledglings live encased

and see only through the cracks

of our embracing shells.

But incubating here

we wait to rise in glory.

It is still the same old story:

Only by falling and falling

and failing and flailing

into grace after Grace

will we learn to fly.

And someday, we will see The Face

of the One Who has kept us

hanging here in the balance

between life and death

where the faith of small birds

finds hope.

By dust we were created

and to dust we shall return.

But The Wind blows where it will,

and some will spread their wings to catch it

and will rise in flocked flight.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: