God – Page 2 – Jane Tawel

The Apes of AI Know, but I Do Not

by Jane Tawel

The Apes of AI Know, But I Do Not

By Jane Tawel

November 21, 2025

Take a deep breath;

No let me hear it.

Now relax all your muscles

and repeat after me:

“I do not know”.

That felt hard, didn’t it?

Maybe for some of you it felt impossible.

If you choked on one of the words,

Just try again —

Do.

Not.

Know.

Now give yourself a little pat on the back.

You just did something ancient and wise

and almost completely forgotten, abhorred, and denied

in our world today.

We have a problem.

We have long thought we have to know.

We have long thought we DO know.

And because we are, well, who we are,

Human-doings (and no longer human “beings”),

we convince ourselves that with small effort

we (or our kid, or our doctor, or our teacher, or our leaders)

can know everything; should know every thing.

And those who don’t know what I know

are —

Just.

Plain.

Wrong. (“Wrong” is a nice word

for what most of actually think and say about those “others”.)

And now we have some mechanical monkeys,

invented to know

but not to understand;

Invented to keep humans

from being uncertain,

from exploring,

from resting in unknowing and unknowingness,

or from Wonder, or Anticipation, or Trust

or Awe —

from not knowing, even for a moment

(which is often the life-span of what we know —

a moment –then — forgotten.)

We have lots of “stuff”

that we can see or hear or say —

at the tip of our fingertips –

or even better our two thumbs —

just like the monkeys —

even our digits have devolved.

We can find information

but not Wisdom,

on where to buy the best car,

or how to conjugate a verb,

or when to get married,

or who wore what,

or why –

and yet, when it comes to that most important

investigative, meaningful question of all — Why? —

we still feel empty and alone and afraid –

because we no longer ask:

Why am I here? Why Am I?

“Know” and “No” — so much spiritual insight,

so much philosophy,

so much paradoxical Truth,

so much Literary device excellence that

only a Word-Nerd could love –

so much in those two words, contained

in two little homophones. (Look it up.)

So, we keep watching obsessively,

asking stuff (These are synonyms for “stuff”

which I thought of myself without having to look online:

stuffing, filler, padding, wadding).

We keep on and on and on,

not “training up our minds”*,

but treadmilling them;

asking our trained monkeys,

affectionately called by different names,

(Well, actually, they don’t have real names, do they?

Just acronyms, as if somehow an acronym

could lend mystery to their naked-ape emptiness.

You can ask one of the monkeys what I am ALLUDING

to with that “naked ape” line. It will save you having to read books.

You may also, though, need to look up what the literary device,

“Alluding” is. Hang in there.

Just don’t admit you didn’t know and you will be okay.)

AI, is the newest, the biggest, the baddest ape in town.

There is some lazy monkey, beloved of students,

called “ChatGPT”(I refuse to even go near that one;

I am terrified enough for our current generation.)

Grammarly — my favorite nemesis and bugaboo

(Look those words up, people.

Look them up!) —

that little monkey Grammarly

especially cracks-up this old English teacher,

so often inserting in her bananas to create a dangling modifier,

(Example of funny dangling modifier —

although I know you all know —

“Coming out of the grocery, the bananas fell on the sidewalk.”)

or where subjects should be, not objects

(Example of where subject should be

where Grammarly often puts in

a stupid-sounding object — .

“It was I that you found to be a pain in the neck for

giving you an old-fashioned grammar lecture.” I mean,

I know I was mean to say “stupid-sounding”,

but do you really want to regress back to saying:

“Me is a pain in the neck”? Think about it — or don’t.

Oh, and “pain in the neck” is considered an idiom.

Look it up.)

Even Siri, that most willing of helpful little chimps

can “unwittingly” (literally — no wits) can send us

down the wrong path.

Ready for another allusion and paraphrased play on words?

(You can do this! I have faith in your uninformed curiosity!)

“I stood looking

only for the brief moment of attention-span I have left,

at two paths suggested by Siri,

diverging between my laptop and my cell phone;

And I, I took the one that had the most battery life left,

and it hasn’t made a bit of difference in my life,

except for getting me faster to somewhere I didn’t really want to go,

and except for briefly taking my mind off

of having to think about anything meaningful

like poetry.**

Oh, I say I laugh,

I seem to mock,

and yet I see myself

like the old, grey lemming I have become

so often in fear or plain laziness,

rushing to “know”;

(and I just realized I am perhaps teaching

some of you to subconsciously understand

how to use a semi-colon);

creeping with anxious tapping fingers,

and breath-less, untrusting, certainty

at the back of the propelled, plodding pack.

There am I (practice makes perfect

when I comes to grammar lessons, folks),

Searching with the rest of my simian-species,

And blinding myself (literally and figuratively)

with eyes wide-open

blurry with the ever-lit, lambent LEDs

feeling connected to my computerized-community —

(until someone says something I disagree with or that I know is a lie

and then I unfriend those dummies) —

As together,

We veer toward the cliff of knowing so very much –

and Understanding

Nothing.

Take a deep breath.

Stand at the two paths offered you,

and repeat after me:

We do not know.

Maybe we do not need to know.

And most shockingly peace-that-passes-understanding

Amazing of all is that when I do not know,

I experience.

And only experience can truly lead to

Knowing myself,

Knowing The Mystery,

Knowing Wisdom

(Dare I say it? — Knowing God.)

And not knowing how I know what I do not know,

or the knowingness of that which is beyond words,

and yet longs to find words that will for an instant

make a bridge between the subjective and the Absolute

(because none of that is brain-knowledge) —

This searching-reaching-resting-Unknowing-sightless Vision Quest

is a joyful, peaceful, freeing gift.

Because Truth and Understanding

are not, and have never been, head-knowledge

but Heart-Wisdom.

Even after all these centuries,

and all these smart people,

and all these so-called smart machines

it is cosmically comical

what any of us has ever,

does ever,

can ever,

Truly know.

In light of the depths of the Ocean,

in light of the expansiveness of the Heavens,

in light of the marvelous vastness in variety

of animals, and sea creatures,

and plants, and bugs, and minerals,

and yes, the delightful diversity of apes! —

In light of The Universe,

in light of God,

in light of Light! — and,

in light of what we do not know even about ourselves —

Unknowing is not, as the poet said, unbearable;

instead it is weight-bearing.

Not knowing, is the weight-bearing raft

that floats our weary souls

on the Great River of Acceptance, Faith and Hope.

And we paddle our little life-boats, our River-rafts, with the oars of

of curiosity and creativity and contentment with what is,

and all we need to know is that Something — SomeOne

Who lives and breathes and has Being

in all the Life-Streams

that lead to and are the Ocean and the Oneness

— that which Is, which is I AM,

and contains the Truest of Truths,

which we can only faintly glimpse in a glimmer of Glory,

and “holds these truths to be self-evident”,

that Faith, Hope and Love are real and Eternal,

and if we can let go of knowledge,

we can find Heaven on Earth;

we can find Eternity,

which our brains can not know,

but only the Soul can find.

Ignorance can be bliss;

ignorance can be Stillness;

ignorance can be freedom from

the monkey-mind of thinking that we need to know.

Because truthfully,

one thing we do know

is that even those smart apes

can never tell us

the most important thing of all —

What Love is.

How to Love.

Why we Love.

Only the Heart can tell us that.

Only the Heart can know that.

I do not know.

Oh, how wonderful and wonderous-

to know nothing except

how to take the next small step

on the Narrow Path;

how to breathe the next small breath,

in this amazing, mysterious body;

how to look at the next small person,

with humble and kind eyes;

how to touch the very present and only moment,

with hands ungraspingly, un-fisted, unholding,

and a heart as wide-open as the Spaciousness

of Love-Oneness.

(And maybe if we rename “God”

or re-name whomever we make our gods, “Love-Oneness”,

then there will be no more religious or national wars,

because how can you truthfully worship “Love-Oneness”

and do the same old violent, hateful monkey doo-doo

that we humans keep doing in the name of our gods?

And maybe we will finally know something important,

about all that we have never known,

but have used and abused instead.

Just sayin’. But what do I know?)

By knowing nothing,

I may just have a wee, small hope

that I may one day

join the wisest of the Wise Ones***

and walk in Love as the Greatest of The Loving Ones,

and I just might evolve back and forward into being

a human Being.

But I can’t be sure;

because I do not know.

*Romans 12:2

** “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (Look it up.)

***Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.” “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

My Small Lizard-Self

A Mish-Mashed Essay on Meaning

My Small Lizard-Self — A Mish-mashed Essay on Meaning

By Jane Tawel

I am but a small, small person, living in an age of gigantic egos, no matter the reality of who they are, and no matter the justification. And the biggest ego of all — the biggest problem of all — the biggest complaints and worries and angerings of all that make my life miserable and fraught and painful is my own out-of-bounds, out-of-control, out-of-all-proportion Ego. People, who know me, may think they are being kind and truthful when they poo-poo this statement about me. And all the world’s psychologies and philosophies and spiritualities will try to help me or dissuade me from this albatross of my understanding of what the world’s problems are. Oh, I see the world’s problems and wrestle daily with the knowledge that if only every single person — my family members, my friends, the government, the religious leaders, and the silly squirrels and rather stupid lizards and one-minded ants would JUST LISTEN TO ME — well then truth, justice, and correct behavior would be universal if everyone would just listen to this darn smartness I have about how to fix everyone and everything. And you know I am right, because that is exactly what you think about yourself, right? (This is where if this were a text I would put a laughing hysterically emoji. So, I will just say –ha! ha!).

See what I mean, though, about my ego? And after the last years of studying the Greats — those who realized that their ego was a burden to let go of and that only by “laying down their lives” could they truly have Abundant Life and be their True Self — I have imbibed a lot of good hints about Who I Am meant to be and How to get there and What the real purpose of all our lives is and Where I should be using my desire to give and be of good use, and above all Why — Why I should gladly “die to my small self, the ego” and Live to the Spacious Self, the Deep I, the unattached Buddha, and the Love of Enemy Christ. (And yes, those capitalized words are the penultimate, Ultimate and well-documented for effective truth-gathering “Investigative Questions”.) And I love learning all that important stuff about The Soul of myself and The Soul of the World, and God, and my True Nature — and then I go out and just snuggle back down into the bed of my narcissistic, ego-driven, comfy little lumpy small self.

My ego’s biggest fears right now can be reduced perhaps to two: First, I see that we humans are literally intent on destroying the world, people and planet and all; and this makes me fearful and very sad and very angry because humans can be incredible and none of us (don’t lie to yourself) none of knows what really happens to humans when they or all this world are gone forever (Great humans = Mozart, Dickinson, Usain Bolt, Ghandi, Teresa of Avila…). And also the planet is the most beautiful, awesome thing I have personally every experienced (Trees! Aforementioned squirrels, lizards, and ants. The Ocean. Little streams that make their way around rocks and fallen branches. Rain and also, sunlight falling on an open page. My children’s hands and our knees — aren’t knees amazing!? And flowers — I mean, Why God? Why useless, lovely things like flowers? Oh, this glorious world!) And none of us really knows (don’t kid yourself) if there is some other place somewhere that is anything as glorious and delightful and awe-inspiring as this dear, dear place we call Earth with these unique creatures from bees to rhinoceroses to people. I mean Jesus said it — The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t out there, it is here on Earth, among you, within you — earth and humans = Perfect World. But of course, it isn’t. Cuz — well, our egos. We don’t want the perfection that is or at least could be, because then we would all have to give up our egos and just share it all with each other and love each other and be joyful and peaceful and how boring would that be? (See Book of Genesis for allegorical proof of this should you need proof.)

Secondly, my biggest fear can be reduced to one word: Time. Running out of it (from being late to not getting a project finished on time to dying — the ultimate running out of Time). There is also the constant monkey-mind fear of not being present in this moment of time and constantly trying to anticipate or actually anticipating what it might or might not bring me tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow as it “creeps in this petty pace from day to day” (Yep. Shakespeare — Another great human to mourn the possible eradication of from the memory of the Universe if we kill the planet and ourselves.) (Does the Universe even have memory? Does it need memory? I don’t know. Stop asking me these hard questions. I’m tired.)

And the ego has long accepted platitudes and mockeries of faith to shore up its sandy shores upon which I have built the house I call my home — my ego, my small self. And it is only in small ways that I have started to piece together a new shelter, a shelter cobbled together from bits and pieces and wrecked ships on past shores of desire and dreams and beliefs, and my soul or True Self has begun to seek that which creates in me a small sanctuary, created from moments of mystery, the calm of curiosity, the unfailing truth of Unknowing, and in lighting the small wick of Love in my small self for all people, all things, and all that is “not me” and perhaps is God. And for a few little seconds at a time I can dwell in the difficult but loving reality I happen to achieve in nano-seconds of letting go, of opening up, and of quieting and lovingly rejecting all that races as a false reality in my ego-driven mind, and I stop momentarily the babble of my brain and with my heart I listen for the Still Small Voice of “peace that passes understanding”.

***

Last week I was in and out of my back door hanging up laundry. My husband and I like to hang up laundry when we can because not using our dryer is pretty easy in California all year long, (it rarely rains, alas) and it is a small thing we can do for the environment. It has also become a rather “Zen” activity for me and gives me a sense of connection to eons of women doing small tasks with our hands in the open-air, praising the sun and breeze as gifts for our good and our pleasure. Our back French doors are a bit wiggledy-woggledy, and if you aren’t focused and careful, there is a slight crack left open when you sort of swing it shut which you have to kinda’ do, to be honest, with a basket full of laundry in your hands. I hung the clothes and came back in to find a small mama-lizard (I know it was a mama by the size — in SoCal you get to know the lizards in your yard — the baby ones are soooooo cute!). Mama-lizard had rapidly, sneakily, foolishly, crawled inside to warm herself on the warm sunny grey kitchen floor. Now, that would be fine, but eventually, the lizard would realize that once inside she didn’t really have escaping capabilities (or brains –I am not being judgmental here, cuz well, lizards, well… evolution, people. Lizards — not meant to be all that high up on the smarts chart.)

I hate for anything to be in danger of harm or especially danger of death. On walks, if I see a silly squirrel start to dash across the street with a nut in his mouth, unconscious of oncoming cars, I call out: “Don’t do that, Silly. Be careful.” I often caution the deer who come down from the foothills to be safe out there and try to head back up as soon as they can. And my dear bees who throng busily around my lavender are such marvels, but they do buzzily worry so when I come in the evening to water the plants. I always let them know to stay up high (“When I go low, you go high!” To paraphrase Michelle Obama, another great human). “I won’t spray you, dear girls. I love you. (Bees busily buzzing in their beautiful business around our plants are girls — I used to call them “guys” but if you think about it, of course those lovely busy honey-giving, plant-pollinating nurturers are Female! I mean, it makes me feel sorry for Queens to think about the queen bees having to stay inside doing nothing but making more baby bees with AI drone bees. Makes me happy to be born one of the female worker bees out here.)

So, the mama-lizard gets into the house, and I realize I have to get her out. If you have ever tried to catch a lizard — well, you will have a clear picture of just how fast I failed. So, if lizards are stupid, what does that make me? I was actually very smart. I quickly got a colander (air holes) and a thick piece of cardboard (sturdy). I cornered the scampering (well, sort of quickly slithering, to be honest) lizard but then — I choked. I knew the lizard could grow a tail again if I accidently bashed the colander down on it but I am really rather mechanically challenged and I feared I would clang the pot down on its head and I didn’t think lizards could regrow their heads, even though they do have very small, barely functioning brains. And when I choked, mama-lizard dashed under the washing machine. End of lizard. End of story.

Except it wasn’t. Because speaking of small-brained dingbats, the next day I left a crack in the French doors and Another Lizard Came In! Wash. Hang clothes. Repeat human stupidity. I came closer this time with the colander/cardboard trick, but this lizard got back behind a cabinet. End of story. End of my saving lives. End of my Mother-Teresa-ing it, and doing great things with love by a small person.

I spent the rest of that lizard-losing-and probably-dying day mourning mama and papa lizard and all lizards and all lives and feeling like a failure and thinking all kinds of Nietzsche-esque thoughts about the meaningless of life and in particular the meaningless of my small self- life. I mean who can’t manage to wield a colander and piece of cardboard to save someone’s life? Ugh! Useless me.

But the next day, a miracle occurred. Because miracles are really just those moments when you have given up your small self and ego enough to just not know anything and so all the walls and doors and boundaries and ideas that close you off to something happening can happen– despite yourself, despite your beliefs, despite your accomplishments and also, well, — just “despite” — and when you give-up, then a small little crack in the unreality you have created about yourself and the world and Nature and God — opens to the Reality and through that little crack, the miracle of one, small act of Grace can sneak in.

Here is proof of miracles. The next morning, one of the lizards came out from hiding and sat patiently waiting for me in the small shaft of sunlight coming through the crack in the door and I said to the lizard, “Please don’t run away. May I just open the door for you?” And my small little nobody of a self, quietly, calmly, without overthinking, opened the door, skooched behind mama-lizard and with one small, old, very-human foot gently guided forward and through the door-crack one small lizard — back into her lovely, lizardy world and home to her waiting, anxious family.

***

I don’t know the meaning — neither the small little meaning of why I was allowed to be born and live this long, wonderful life I have lived, nor the meaning of why I was graced with saving one life of one lizard, or why I was given the gift of my family, and friends, and my particular Space and Time on this planet; and I don’t know what or if I will have any meaning after this body and brain die; and I definitely do not know the Meaning of “It” “All”. And the biggest tragedy of my life is nothing any one has done to me but rather what I have done to myself in thinking I have to know too much of anything at all and not just live as much Love as I can, embracing all the wonder, all the beauty, all the gifts, and all the joy — in just the miracle of being alive, in just this moment.

Maybe the sole reason I have lived was to witness the salvation of one small lizard and to know that in the end, there is nothing I can do but accept the miracle of grace by opening to the small cracks that let in the Sun. In my smallness is the greatness of grace. And therein, I may find the truly miraculous meaning of it all and a stillness and peace with a mind like a small lizard that needs to know very little, except how to open my heart to everyone and everything and with Love, follow the Light.

What Small Part of Oneness Am I?

by Jane Tawel

What Small Part of Oneness Am I?

By Jane Tawel

The ray of light is from the Sun,

it is of the Sun,

but it is not the Sun.

The cloud is in the Sky,

it is of the Sky,

but it is not the Sky.

I am in Space,

I am of the Space,

but I am not Space.

I am in Life’s Ocean,

I am not the Ocean,

but I am a small wave.

I am in God,

I am of God,

but I am not God.

If I accept the wonderous mystery

of being blind to what lies beyond,

I will be the Light.

If I let go of my anxious need

to control the weather of my life,

I will be content with being now —

Floating, not digging in and dissipating.

If I release all my desires

To contain and to enlarge myself,

My Heart will open the cage of my mind

and I will be as One;

Spacious with All.

If I, with thanks, set learning aside,

And experience God

In the Unknowingness and Love

Of the God of All Creation and All

I will no longer play God —

I will be Christ.

“Each day, I am looking at my small self as dead

And yet I AM — more alive than ever.

The anxious, painful, over-thinking self is slowly decaying.

I realize the tiny me is no longer only who I AM.

But instead, Suffering becomes Love and Joy

in the small self that is not myself

But a resurrected Savior of Goodness and Peace”**

Choose the name you wish to be crucified with –

Be it Krishna, Buddha, or as was chosen for me —

The Christ.

Die to all that is in you that does not save.

Die to all that is within you that does not heal.

Die to all that is in you that does not forgive.

Die to all that is in you that is not at peace.

Live to all that is Love.

Live to only that which is Love.

Let the clouds disperse

and release into the vast mystery

of The Sky.

Let the ray of Light dissipate

as it touches the Earth

warming others

and new things will grow.

Let the wave resolve back into the Ocean

and come and go

We know not from where or where to

But always at one with the Ocean,

Alive forever in the One.

Live, and move and have your being

in God.

And be your True Spacious Self

Be the Light of “just as I AM”*

What small part am I

in the ever-moving parts

of this planet’s short life?

In Light of Eternity,

What is Yesterday? Tomorrow? Today?

I am, at heart,

as God — beyond understanding.

But God is even beyond words.

Let me not try to understand

myself or others;

Just as I can never theologize about God.

Let my peace pass my understanding, O God.

You know all my innermost parts.

Create in me a new heart, O God.***

Hold me in the palm of Your Fatherly Hand.

Cradle me in the Womb of Your Motherly Love.

Let me Be no longer a small part,

But Be at One with All Beings;

Be at One with all Beingness;

and Be at One with You.

**My paraphrase of Galatians 2:20

***Psalm 51:10

*”Just As I Am, without One Plea” by Charlotte Elliot

Just Yesterday, If Only Tomorrow

Just Yesterday, If Only Tomorrow

By Jane Tawel

October 26, 2025

Just yesterday, the skin on my calf was smooth.

My palms could plant firmly on the floor

as I bent to touch my bare toes,

on feet — never cold — and high arched.

And my arms could reach without creaking,

higher, and higher, and higher,

seeking heaven,

opening wide like cathedral doors.

Just yesterday I was young.

The hair on my head outnumbered

the hairs on my chin.

And my eyes, not yet surrounded

by moats of wrinkles,

were not able to contain

All the watery tears

of a youth spent in longing

and all the loss of love not returned.

Now the deep wells behind these blinds

I still call my eyes;

daily, and monthly, and moment by moment,

threaten to break open and break me apart.

These tears that spring up

from eyes that have seen the World

and have pooled deep within the

recesses of my heart

shored only by The Love

and All the Love

and so much Love — given and returned.

These tears will not flow

and I will not let them flow,

though the children see them

and think only I am an old, silly woman

But my wells of tears — my oceans of tears —

are what hold me together like glue

are what make me a wave, cresting towards Shore.

And my lovejoygrief stays me in the Stillness of Remembrance.

And I laugh out loud in inappropriate moments.

And shake my head at silly, foolish things I do

but that somehow please me.

And I am often forgetful but also

realize that so much of what is forgotten

has never really mattered.

And my days tend to meld together

Congealing into sameness

Unmoving, unimportant, without progress-

Stuck —

like trying to move forward in a rocking chair.

When I was a child, I wept as a child.

But now that I am but a shell,

I shed my tears in silent nights

and holy nights

of Fearful Wonder.

And all my acquired knowledge comes and goes

like many monkey rings on Life’s carousel.

But big things no longer matter.

And small things please so greatly

that I could sit and look at the birds in my yard

for hours (if I didn’t need to get up and pee.)

Oh, not knowing much is now a lovely thing.

And I laugh at myself with no one around to hear.

Because none of us really knows what comes next.

And yet we grieve how much we have lost

and will lose, and never see again.

I sit, grey and craggy as a small rock,

on a vast mountain

and the great dark thunder clouds

and small little wisps of clouds — both alike —

pass before my eyes

and come and go with the Winds of Change.

And my senses open to all that Flows

above and below and around me

without knowing — without needing to know —

what lies Beyond.

And, Ah! — this is the glory of a Life,

that we can mourn for its passing away

and being gone to us

but we do not know what Mystery

we will leave behind

or that we go towards.

My dearest dears:

Only the very old,

the very privileged ones of us who live

to be aged, sometimes like fine wine,

sometimes like vinegar;

we who start to speculate or gamble

that what we might be or become

when our bodies leave us,

with no yeast, nothing any longer leavening

the hopes and fears of youth,

when our hands, and feet, and eyes

are swept from the Table,

like so much unneeded flour-dust,

no longer needed in a recipe;

like crumbs left after the Meal

we once did share with you at dinner time;

then please,

Dear Ones,

When we are gone or too ga-ga to form thoughts,

remember to cry and rejoice in equal measures.

You are so very loved

that it brings tears seeping

from my old eyes.

We old folks are all

just One Creative Mother,

Loving you, and each of you and All.

Perhaps that is what rain is — proof that

Mother-Universe weeps with feeling

Showing us Her Love.

If only we, who now see in our Mirrors Darkly,

if only we privileged ones who grow old,

if we, who had somehow miraculously found

small openings now and then,

in this circuitous labyrinth of Life;

if only we who now wear the bifocals

of glimpsed Beatitudes

and inch more closely to the Grounds of Beings,

if only while we old ones,

who tarry and dawdle on

could hold our mirrored glasses to your young eyes,

and looking far into

a future of Unknowing —

if only, if only

we could find the words

to tell you of the Wordless.

Then we might too

Believe it ourselves.

Oh, if only we could tell you

Our Dearest Children —

That tears of grief are gold

And you are really made and truly made only of

Pure Joy.

And Life and Love are worth crying for.

And Life and Love are worth laughing at.

And Life and Love can not be held onto,

Except as a beloved, treasured, crying Child.

Cry out and grab-on

to this glorious, wonderous Life!

And ride Earth’s carousel

until your head spins.

Walk gently and kindly on

this Planet with no desires and no fears

that cannot be met with hope and trust

that Goodness always survives.

Believe that Kindness is your Super-Power

and weep for every moment of unkindness

in their lives and your own.

Forgive all and find Freedom.

And know that you are loved,

So very, very, very loved.

And when you have Love,

You are never poor.

And you are not your body,

But Something, Some-One

so much more.

Next moment, you’ll forget

as I have forgotten. (What did I come Here for?)

But maybe if you try to hold on

and remember these things,

when you are old,

and I am gone to God-knows-where —

you will have many tears as I do,

tears, like pearls.

And you will laugh at silly things

and smile at all the foolish, lovely joys.

True treasures are yours for the receiving

And then to give away,

not stored up

in banks or works

but in a Life of Love.

Just yesterday, I was young…

Ah, If…

Only….

Tomorrow?

No.

Yes.

Today….

Chirps

by Jane Tawel

Chirps

by Jane Tawel

October 14, 2025

My Dear Child,

My baby,

My heart and life —

The second you left my womb, we were separated.

No longer the chirps of your small heart would be embraced

so close to mine that our hearts were as one.

And just so, I was separated from You, Oh, God,

the moment I left Your Womb.

And now my heart searches for the Beat of Your Heart,

to be so close as to be One Beating Heart.

The bird outside my still-dark window

Chirps on the beat.

On the beat of the second hand — he chirps.

On the beat of my heart — he chirps.

On the drumbeat of my ever-pounding heart and mind — he chirps.

On the tick-tock of my since-birth-impending-death — he chirps.

And dawn begins her shallow light —

a poor substitute for the Son’s power.

Now my little bird is silent –

Where has he gone?

And I am present in this moment.

And I am present in my life.

And I am present in the Now.

Until the rights of the Risen Sun call me to action.

But in this last moment between night and day,

In Perfect Stillness,

I seek presence in You, O, God.

The sun, I believe, is in full-blare mode,

but I don’t know for sure, as I plan away my day.

The chirps of many birds make me aware

of all the business of finding our daily bread.

And I am lost in Time again.

Lists of things to do and do.

Lost in things to plan or shun.

Lost in things ended or not yet begun.

Chirp-chirp. Tick-Tock.

Time to dig in the dirt for worms.

The cacophony of the many chirps has begun.

I cannot give them all my attention.

Can I for just a moment,

Listen closely to what is already within myself,

and the small, silent gifts of my own spaciousness?

Can I find The Womb in me?

And cradle the little baby trusting in me to grow?

Between each call of bird-song,

there is the Still Small Self —

The Self that calms the many siren calls

of this illusory world.

And I for just one precious, peaceful moment —

even in the blinding, deafening darkness of the Day,

Float in the Heavens prepared for me

in Love’s Embracing, bracing freedom,

set for me before the beginning of the World.

But Time and Space so cruelly clip our wings.

And yet, I have once or twice seen that it is True,

that the Whole Cosmos beckons

in the still small voice heard only in darkness.

The voice of God comes only before the Dawn.

Just as my grasping, pecking beak

hunts for another worm to save for tomorrow,

The world begins to close Her curtain on the Sun.

And I have a choice –

Continue to hunt for treasures I can not eat now

nor save for tomorrow?

Or return to The Nest and rest?

The Ground of All Being whispers:

“Return to the Womb. Return to the Womb”.

And all my yearning sleeps

as I Awaken.

I float in the embryonic wonder of this present moment.

And Our Hearts chirp to the beat of Love and Life.

Separate, no more.

Again, One with You.

The Clearing of Rain

The Clearing of Rain

By Jane Tawel

Rain clears me

The sight and sound and smell of water

Coming like manna from the sky

It moves me to poetry.

It stuns me into true meditation.

It opens me to prayer.

Here in the desert-land

of my large, busy city,

we have so little rain

It comes in drips and drabbles.

We have so much of everything here.

And yes, so little.

So many stars on the sidewalks,

so few stars in the sky.

So many buildings soaring

so few shelters for the poor.

So much money spent

so little shared.

So much sun and heat and fire,

and oh, my soul! — so little rain.

I think perhaps we cursed ourselves,

here in this land of grabbers,

when we stopped The People

from their rain dances on The Land.

The Sky-Child has cried all His tears

and has no more.

And The Land has gathered Sky’s tears

into Her deepest womb

where, perhaps we gobblers can not devour them

as we have devoured all Nature’s other gifts.

To strain to hear the tiny drops of rain

reminds me of how hard it is to hear God

with so many plastic gods competing for attention.

The god of AmEx and of Capital One.

The god of the Amazon that rains our money

only on one man as the rainfall in the amazon dries up

to fill my coffee cup.

The great gods masquerading as freedom

concealing the real terror behind their force;

hiding the fact, that they are storm clouds of desire

gathering, ever and ever gathering,

but never coming down among us,

never healing the gardens we plant,

never baptizing us

to give us Life.

Create in me, a new heart, O God,

One that makes a desert of my desires,

compared to my thirst to find

a Kingdom of Quenching others’ thirst,

on Earth,

as it is in the Heavens.

To smell the water

sent from heaven

knowing what it is up against

as it bravely tries to turn to green

our dead desert yards

reminds me even when Hope

is a faint scent of bare possibility,

we must remember —

this land has died before

and it will die again.

And then — perhaps only then —

The rains will return.

May the children, once more,

Dance in puddles left by many rains.

And in this arid, barren fullness,

may we, who have wrinkled

our skins with our endless searches,

our flying to find the sun;

we who have deadened our hides

as we have deadened our hearts;

we who have wasted the water

as we have wasted our precious hours —

may we be cleansed in floods of Love,

Love for our Mother Earth and Father Sky,

Love for our children and our enemies alike.

Baptized with the fire of Our Holy Spirits,

may we dance rain dances once more,

and running out into the deluge,

may we wait with hope for the rain,

with mouths empty and open.

The Problem Starts with “Me”

The Problem Starts With “Me”

By Jane Tawel

July 15, 2025

The problem comes when I say, “me”.

The problem comes when I say, “mine”.

Then it’s so easy to disagree,

with those who are so oft inclined,

to disagree with Me.

There were some folks who seemed to know,

The Causes and the Outcomes.

They taught that where our treasures are

are where our meaning comes from.

And while this life is fleeting fast

and Space is just a construct

and though Death always seems abrupt,

The Wise Ones know, this too shall pass

and yet, Love’s Spirit always lasts.

So, I am whittling bit by bit

away at what is “mine”.

The Know-it-All that I once was,

is now the Seeker and I find,

that in each person’s form on Earth,

a treasure deeply hides.

No longer do I need to see

just their opposing side,

for they are just the same as I,

and all their fears can be dissolved,

if I choose to be kind.

In every person, large and small,

no matter place or race,

beats the same longing, hoping heart,

behind each temporal face.

And when my life is over,

as every life will be,

then if I didn’t know before,

I’ll know then, that there never was

just “mine”, “myself”, and “me”.

For we are all connected

and One with The Great Source.

I am a ray of Sun Light.

You are a wave of Ocean.

The Dawn will break the dark of Night,

and every argument and notion

will fade before Truth’s purging might.

We are a link in Life’s Great Chain,

and when we die, we’ll wake to find,

that only Love Remains.

A silly word, this word called “love”,

A word that can not hold,

the depth, and breadth and width and height

if all Love’s stories were all told.

Oh, what, instead of fears and fights,

one Person’s Love could do!

So I’ll begin, just little me,

and I’ll start by loving you.

And whether you’re beloved child,

or friend, or stranger or foe,

I’ll look straight at my own dark fears,

and freely let them go.

And I will trust the greatest might

is not in war or what we own

but in each human’s small, bright light

the Light of Love that leads at last

to Peace on Earth and here we’ll find,

on Planet Earth as in God’s Spaciousness,

our Love’s Eternal Home.

Ah, Me! Good riddance!

Good-bye! Adieu!

Only my Love remains.

Only True Love remains.

Only God’s Love remains.

Only, All, We, Love.

If I Were Queen of The World with One Super Power

If I Were Queen of the World with One Super Power

By Jane Tawel

May 18, 2025

I used to play this game with my students. Over the years I taught elementary, middle school, high school, and college. I have to say, my favorite might have been the ones other teachers seemed to struggle with and that was the middle-schoolers. Sure, they were squirrely, but they knew they didn’t know everything and most of them still thought learning was the purpose of school, not whether they would get into a good college or get a high-paying job some day. And they still saw the value of playing and using their imaginations. But regardless, no matter the age of the students, I would ask them to think of what they believed to be the worst problem in the world, the thing that if they were king or queen for a day, they would require all world citizens to do or not do. And if this role of being the world’s ruler was combined with one Super Power, a magic, god-like power, how would they use that power to ensure that this Great Big Worldwide No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Problem was solved, eradicated? (And yes, I had to define the word “eradicated” for even the college kids.) Eventually, this became one of my classes’ favorite writing assignments.

So, “Kids” of the World:

1. Take out a piece of paper. In the first paragraph, either bullet point or draw a picture, or write a paragraph (or two), or do a mind-map of what you believe to be the world’s greatest problem. Is it not enough food and hunger? Diminishing resources like water? Violence and too many weapons? Nuclear bombs? Not enough places to live? Political unrest? War? Write that down in detail.

2. Now in the next section, write down what you think the human motivation is that causes this world-wide problem. Is it greed? Prejudice? Religious intolerance? Racism? Stupidity? Anger? Hatred? Fear?

3. Now… Remember you are the Ruler of the World. You have an ultimate Super Power to change every thing that causes this one, biggest human ill. What do you do? What is your Super Power? How do you fix the world’s biggest problem?

I still mentally play this game sometimes. As my mind gets mired down in the many problems of the world, which seem to exponentially grow daily, if not minute by minute, I think to myself, “If only…..” And I am not talking only about the problems “out there” — the greedy, evil rulers and titans of capital that so many countries and people seem to inexplicably worship today, believing that somehow bad people can enact good for others. (Side note: Not a single leader of any religion or spiritual program has ever taught that the ends justify the means. Not one. And if you claim to be a Jesus follower, then he taught exactly the opposite. The means are all that matter. The end is not in your hands just as they were not in Christ’s hands. They are in God’s Hands. Just sayin’.) Okay, so back to the main topic of problems and Super Powers. I am not just talking about the big world problems, I am talking about the “where we live on a day-to-day basis problems”. I am talking about the people who drive their cars as if they are the only people in the world, ignoring rules because they never get caught. You know the ones — you are crossing in a crosswalk and they don’t stop, speeding through, looking straight ahead since if they don’t look at you, you can pretend with them that they don’t see you and didn’t almost just hit you. When I say the problems of this world, I am talking about the people who drop trash on the sidewalks in the town where you live — it’s not their yard after all. I am talking about the people who just seem to go through life spoiling for a fight, lurking in the grocery line for someone to snap at, eating at the restaurant and hoping something isn’t right so they can complain to the waiter, or slamming down the phone on the receptionist on the other end. (If it’s a real person that is — it is totally understandable if you slam the phone on some AI robotic phone voice. In fact, I would almost say it is required if we are going to defeat the Trojan horses of these AI robots.). I am talking about the real-life angerings or irritating problems of the bosses who think only of their paycheck and not yours; the coworkers that gossip at the watercooler, the neighbors who blow their leaves into your yard or just never say “hello”. So day after day, or minute after minute, my mind swirls with the negative energy that seems to, like horror-movie zombies, feed on the human brain these days, wasting away the precious “Only-Nowness” of Life. And I come back more often to the game: If I were Queen of the World, if I had a Super Power…

I used to think that if I had a super power, I would focus on ending all violence. As queen, I would destroy all weapons. Gun rights, my patootie. No more bombs, no more guns, no more weapons of any kind. My college kids would rather smugly point out, “Well, Mrs. Tawel, what about kitchen knives? How will people cut their food without knives? Knives are used as weapons.” I wanted to flunk those kids, but as queen of the world, I was much wiser than I normally am, so I conceded their point. Hmmm…. What about knives? It’s tough being Queen of the world, even with super powers.

So, my next super power and act as ruler of the whole world, was to magically build homes for everyone in the world and to end homelessness. But this didn’t solve the hunger problem, or the job problem, or the water problem. I thought maybe the best way to use my ultimate power would be to clean up the environment — no more fossil fuels, no more trash, no more dirty rivers or plastic in oceans. But how to solve the ice berg issue or the endangered species problem — I was Queen, but I wasn’t God, for God’s sake!

And on and on my imagination went and at each wonderful idea about how to make the world a better place, I ended up in a dead end of problems multiplying and piling up like giant roadblocks to my great and amazing ideas of how to rule the world and use my super power to fix The Biggest Problem. And all that was left to say was… ugh.

In the early dawns, I run through my small-ish town nestled in the burbs of my gigantic, big sprawling city and not a morning goes by that some driver almost hits me. Now let me explain, I really, really, really do not want to be hit by a car (or truck, or electric bike). So, I not only wear a neon yellow or neon orange shirt, I have seven — 7!! — blinking white, red and blue lights (nod to the American flag is completely coincidental) and these lights are arrayed across my body, front and back. I look so dweeby and hilarious, but I WANT TO BE SEEN AND NOT HIT BY A CAR. (Besides at my age, no one looks at you any more let alone cares how you look.) However, blinking lights and neon clothing aside, you would be amazed, but almost every single morning a driver just doesn’t LOOK! They do not, as required by law, look left and right or even sometimes straight ahead but charge through the intersection. Or they see me, I know they see me, but the driver PRETENDS NOT TO SEE ME. I am a lit-up Christmas tree all year long, so I know you see me, madam, dude, pal. In case my ALL CAPS are not clue enough, this drives me insane. And yes — I can tell you, what the feelings are behind my reaction — anger and fear. I don’t want to die at the hands of reckless driver. I am angry at their selfishness. I am fearful that someday I won’t stop in time and they will crush my little human body with their big machine. I am a slow runner, lit up like a Carnival cruise line ship in the dark night ocean, and there is nothing else I can do really, to say, like the little Who’s in Whoville, “I am here. I am here. I am here.” Yet, still, they seem to think because they are in a machine, that they have no mind — they are just a machine. Do I think they are stupid? Yep. Do I think they are mean? Yep. Do I think to myself, “oh, if there were some way I could get revenge or teach them a lesson”? Yep. But then I think, maybe I need more lights……

The other early morning, out for my jog, I turned off my earbuds and music when I got to the big wide city park trail I run to, and as is my habit lately, I communed with the trees, and early birds catching the worms, and also my fellow travelers. The same folks are usually out on the trail at 5:00 a.m. We are the very early morning people. Over the years, some of us have briefly exchanged names or news. Many of us know each other by sight only — “there’s pretty quiet girl with the shy smile”; “there’s the Japanese woman with her little white dog who had her arm in a cast that one month”; “there’s the professor-looking dude”; “there’s the couple who always walk with their coffee”; there’s the gaggle of women friends who walk and always have something cheery to call out at me”. I know Paige, and Jose, and Rich and Pastor George, Melba, and Patrick and his dog, Sammi. And I? I am the lady with the lights who says, “Hey, hey”. I am “Hey-hey Woman” With the Many Lights. In my mind, it is sort of my Native Name — I am “Hey-Hey Many Light Woman”.

And the other early morning, I thought a couple of things and one was negative and very sad, and one was positive and very joyful.

On the trail there are a few places where there are roads that intersect the trail and where cars come out of neighborhoods to catch the streets or freeways to their work. Now, there is no way in the world, these people do not know that people are on the trail. There are big yellow “Pedestrian Crossing” plastic thingys and bright crosswalk markings but nonetheless, the car drivers very often pretend they are the only living thing in the world, and that you do not exist. I guess they are so used to NOT hitting and killing someone that they just assume it will never happen. And the negative thing I thought the last time I was almost hit was, “these people are not human”. (My husband blames it on our current U.S. administration that is surely not human, but I always say, no, it’s the other way around, non-human’s elect their non-human counterparts to lead them. It’s an ongoing discussion in the works.) But on this particular morning, I took a deep breath and then I saw a couple little yellow-breasted birds sitting together on a branch, and up ahead I saw a couple coyotes loping across the grey-morning horizon and I just felt their love for each other as the coyotes protected each other, and the birds breakfasted together. I thought, why can’t we humans be more like the animals? I angrily and sadly thought to myself that it isn’t just that people have lost their humanity, they are not even animals anymore. Even animals take care of their kind. Sometimes, I look at the humans running this world, or the humans running their cars, and I think, we humans have devolved to something less than the animals. How sad is that?

Then I saw shy pretty girl, and she smiled and said, “have a great day”. And I saw the man with the little ratty looking dog and the Dodgers sweatshirt, and he called out laughingly as he always does to Hey-hey Woman: “Hey, hey, hey, have a great day!” (I always mean to ask him if he knows he is alluding to Fat Albert or not.). And I thought to myself — these people SEE ME. I am seen by them, even if they don’t know me. And I See them. We early morning trail folks do worry if someone doesn’t show up on a day when we expect them to. We say jokingly to each other, “hey, you are late today”. The gaggle of walking friends who have a ringleader that usually speaks for them, smile at me and say, “Happy Hump Day. Almost there!” or “Happy Friday, time for the weekend”. Sometimes even the bearded grey man who walks far away in the dirt part of trail and carries a big walking stick, the one who never talks to any one, the one I call “Gandalf”, sometimes I will give him a little wave and he will secretly wave back and today he did. I think he knows I will never reveal his true identity. On the trail, with “my people”, I know if I fell down, someone would come by and give me help. I saw Paige after the last election, and I just gave her a big hug while she cried a little bit as I held her hand. Some of us trail folks seem to know things about each other, things that are never said, but when you walk the trail morning after morning with people you connect in ways that go beyond words somehow. George, an older Black man, and I connected one morning with worry about whether any one we knew had been effected by the recent Eaton Fires. I told him about my friends who had lost their historical Black church in the fire. That is when I found out he was a pastor. I worry about his wife Melba when she isn’t with her husband Pastor George. I was happy for Patrick when he got a new mutt after so many years of missing his old golden retriever. Ali was a fighter pilot for Iran before coming to America, and he is prickly about the world but also a great hugger. I have to plan extra time on Saturdays, when I know that Ali will want to talk. And the professor — well, Jose was a gardener for twenty years for the L.A. School district. I used to wonder why in the world he still wore a face mask every morning on his runs. But then one day we talked, and I found out his wife has asthma, so he runs every morning with a mask on so as not to bring any germs home to her. If you are a runner you will especially realize what a sacrifice of love this is of Jose for his wife. (I now call Jose, “Professor Gardener”. Jose is quick as a hare and I also teasingly call him the Energizer Bunny).

I used to be part of what I thought was a community — it was called a church. And then one day, through a series of unfortunate events, called American elections, I woke up to realize that the word “community” was just a name to these people, and not an action. I realized that at least for this particular group of people, a church “community” was just another word for “walled in fortress” — an “us versus them” idea. And when I became a “them”, I was suspect, not really “one of them”. I have come to believe that we early morning trail joggers and walkers are a little microcosm of what the word “community” means to me. And I guess this is what is lacking in the world today. People think their church or their country club or their town will provide community, but they don’t realize that a group defined by beliefs, or status, or culture is temporal and oh, so very fragile. And if we could all just look at everyone we meet as someone in our community — the community of humans — If we could just SEE that other human being as someone who is just like we are — like the birds see birds, and the coyotes see coyotes, and the ants see ants — If we could see that that person is a human being just like I am a human being — If we would really SEE — the woman with the screaming child at the grocery, the homeless man in the shadows of the church door, the Black Lives Matter people protesting the police, the police burying their fallen friends, the woman in a hijab studying at the university, the woman who fled her war-torn country, now waiting for a bus to go clean someone’s house because that is how she can feed her children in what she hopes is a safe nation to live in; if we saw the old lady who fumbles for her change in the store; the teenager who tries to impress his pals by riding too fast on his skateboard; yes, if we could even see the driver who refused to slow down as someone who has been dehumanized by his vehicle and yes, if we could see the people who leave their trash on our sidewalks as people who think no one cares about them so why should they care — If. We. Could. See. . . then couldn’t we possibly, just maybe, change Everything?

If I would see every human being in the whole world as part of my community, well, that would at least change everything for me. I can’t change the world, but I can change myself.

So, every day, now I try to make a little pact with myself: I will not go home from my run without picking up at least one piece of someone else’s trash. I pick up the trash because I want to feel empathy with the animals, and fish, and the water in the Ocean, and with our dear Mother Earth. I love all those things like birds and squirrels and waves, and I empathize that they can not pick up someone else’s trash, but I can. I can help. I also try to turn my irritation and anger into empathy for the person who maybe didn’t realize the piece of paper fell out of their pocket, or who rushed off and left their plastic cup on the sidewalk because they got a distressing call, or the homeless person who left his beer can in the street, who day after day realizes no one cares about him and he is just trying to survive on the streets. God knows, how much I would want to drink if I had no home. Empathy.

When I am almost hit by a car, after cursing and muttering imprecations and throwing my arms in the air at the driver with lights and eyes a-blazing, I say, “ Anger is the right response, but now, please, God forgive my unchecked anger, and help me pity them.”. Pity is not so great a response with friends and family but it is a very helpful tool when strangers hurt you or almost hurt you or cause you anger or fear. Pity.

So — pity and empathy help me see every one as a human being, just as I am, and therefore, they are part of my community. I don’t have to like everyone in my community or agree with them and I may at times have a responsibility to call someone out for bad behavior — even if it means getting a dirty look from someone who has forgotten they are a human being and that I am a human being too. I can’t make someone change. But I can model good human-being-ness. And when I don’t — when I mess up, or am mean to someone, or impatient, or hurt the environment, or act out of anger or fear — then I am simply in a place to recognize — we are all human, and I can try to find mercy and grace within me, as I ask for mercy and grace from others. Grace.

And now I think I know what I wish my Super Power would be if I could be the Ruler of the World. I think, actually, that my Super Power would solve all the problems in the world — the violence, the bombs, the hunger, the greed, the tragedy of what we are doing to our Planet Home. If I could have one Super Power it would be to make every single human being — -

Care.

If we just cared about every single person we meet and then care about the people we will never meet then we would all be kind, we would share, we certainly wouldn’t kill or harm people we care about. If I cared about every one, all the people who think differently than I do, all the irritating people, all the angry people, all the lonely strangers, in the same way I care about my dearly loved family and friends, then wouldn’t all my problems seem smaller, and more easy to handle, and wouldn’t I be happier sooner? If I cared, wouldn’t my anger at injustice pass in a moment and I would try to help people who, after all, just don’t understand the consequences of their actions — wouldn’t I try to help them change course? And wouldn’t fear would be replaced by acceptance and grace, and prejudice would be replaced by curiosity, and greed would be replaced by trust that there is always Enough — if I cared. If we cared, we would share our sorrows and mourn together because we know this life is short, but eternity is long. If we cared, we would realize that today is a good day to do something to try to make sure that all needs are met by helpfulness and sharing rather than separation and dismissal.

People lately have been saying that you put your family first, your friends, your community and if there is any left over then you can care about others. This is exactly the complete opposite of what the greatest spiritual teachers who ever lived believed. The True Truth is the Buddhist idea of Oneness with others. The True Truth is the Judeo-Christian idea that you put the least of us first, and you go after the one that is lost, not hang out behind walls, with those who have “found it”. Because none of us have “found” all of it. We are all seekers for meaning in a world that can seem so meaningless at times. So a little bit of humility in the face of what someone else might be going through, a little less driving with eyes averted and a little more walking in someone else’s trainers, just might be the ticket to that freedom from anger and fear that we really all deep down desire.

Can you imagine if we all believed that we are not separate from the bad driver, or from the screaming grocery-cart child or her mother, but One with them? But I always think that Jesus said it best, “Love others as you love yourself. And also — Love your enemy.” This wasn’t pie in the sky theology. This was practical sensible wisdom (as all True Truth is). Loving every one as if they were myself; Loving everything in the world as if it were created by God (it was); Loving every single, broken, messed up, trash-talking, trash-throwing, insane-driving, hungry, fearful human as if they were your only child; loving even the person who has forgotten that at the end of this life, there is only one thing that will have mattered — how much did you care? How much love did you grow in yourself and plant in the world to grow in others? To riff on early Judeo-Christian thought — “Now only three things have any real meaning, and will remain as your legacy, and will remain to exist in Eternity — faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is Love”.

Where will your trail take you today? And on that journey, if you had one Super Power, what would it be and how would you use it?

Today I hope to walk a little further on the Way, on the narrow path that leads to Life and not mindlessly jog the wide trail that leads to the destruction of my soul’s peace, joy, and love. I hope to find a little more grace for others and for myself. I hope to find a few pieces of trash to turn around for and pick up to throw away. I hope I will turn my anger into pity, my fear into hope, my hate into empathy, and my doubt about the continuing existence of humanity, into faith. And each step that I have left — whether for just another decade or just another day — I will try to draw on my own, God-given Super Power — a power we all can have if we want it– and I will Rise Up in The Ultimate Power of — Caring. The Super Power of Love. And maybe just maybe, people will see my Super Power and they will say — “hey, I want some of that power. I want to have that.”

Maybe.

And maybe our children, and our children’s children will thank us for ruling the world with Love, and keeping it and them safe to continue to rule it with Love, forever, and ever. Amen.

Like the Bugs

Like the Bugs

By Jane Tawel

April 25, 2025

The mind flits and flirts

like a droning dragonfly.

Like the dinky dragonfly

my thoughts have no fire —

just a big mythical name.

— Nothing to be scared of

— barely should take notice of.

Let dragonfly thoughts land lightly —

then let them fly away.

The space is where

the mind should be.

Desires are like spiders

crawling around

and creeping up.

But do not squash them as that will only make you feel worse.

Poor desires, they just want to live too.

Gently encourage your desires to spin their webs

without catching you in them.

Webs are dream-catchers, you know?

Let them fill the corners,

but not the main room of your soul.

Then gently encourage the spider-desires

to crawl away and leave your space.

Open the door and set them free

to roam and play as they will.

The proverb says,

consider the way of the ant and be wise.

The ant has no ruler but God,

yet she prepares ahead

and gathers food in harvest,

working as One in community,

working together with the One.*

The heart is like a bee —

buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.

The emotions of the heart can sting — but they also create honey.

No sting — no honey.

Yes, we are all together made of the stuff of small things.

We are but tiny creatures,

in a big vast Universe.

To God we look like bugs.

Like the ants of the field,

and the dragonflies of the sky,

the spiders in the corners,

and the bees of the gardens –

We toil and flit and flurry.

We think and want and feel.

We creep and scurry –

But Oh! — what lies within

even the smallest creatures

that live upon Mother Earth!

The body will one day rest

like all small things must one day do.

We will lie down with the worms

in the dust of the earth.

But Oh, my Soul!

Sing with the bees and Bach!

Spin with the spiders and Scheherazade!

Dream with the web-makers and poets.

Fly with the things of the air and the astronauts!

Oh, my Soul! You live,

and live forever in all Created things.

Creator loves his creations —

each tiny marvel of life.

With a small amount of love —

with a Soul on fire —

All beings live and love

forever

as One.

Proverbs 6

Why Easter is Not My Favorite Christian Holiday — No Guilt

Unsplash- Jacquline Day https://unsplash.com/@jacday_alabaster

Why Easter is Not My Favorite Christian Holiday — No Guilt

By Jane Tawel

April 21, 2025

Next to Christmas, Easter seems to be everyone’s favorite holiday, at least in the Christian-Western world. It is no longer one of my favorites and it isn’t so much the fact that, like Christmas, these holidays have morphed into a non-religious Santa and the Easter Bunny party-time, not at all really Holy-days, no matter how you dress up your theology or that you may call it “Christ-Mass” or “Resurrection Sunday” etc. No, I am not all that keen anymore because both Christmas and Easter are focused on “get-me-mores” on the one hand and on the “religious hand” more focused on the “feel-good-about-me’s because of something Someone else did” hand; and both are what I see as a tragic reality of people’s desire to skip to the top of the mountain-top experience, without first experiencing the long, grueling climb. The thing is, the world has become so full of the desire to feel pleasant and superior, without any need to suffer and without knowing that in order to actually be happy or “saved”, we are not told to pin our hopes on the idea that Jesus did all, but to take up our own cross (His words, not mine). (For a great thesis on the truth about being happy, see the Dalai Lama in his book, “The Art of Happiness” — a great lesson on the difference between seeking pleasure versus seeking happiness).

Anyone who truly knows me, knows that I have what some would call a “guilt-complex”. And sometimes I feel apologetic about this as it can lead to a disabling, fearful sense of shame and also a harsh judgement mentality of others as well as myself. But lately, as I see a world riddled with ego-driven and narcissistic superegos, and people who treat others not just as inferior but as less than human, I am here making a case for feeling guilty. And I don’t mean these non-guilty superego folks are just the usual suspects in narcissism and power-mongering and greed, I mean us little folks have become that way too. Now, there is a difference between feeling guilty and feeling shame, and there is a difference between feeling guilty for something you have done wrong and making someone else feel guilty or ashamed — that is the judgement that Jesus warns us against — both for our own selves and for others. But we have come to a place where many of us — most of us — can not even admit we are wrong, let alone sinful before God and toward others. (For the very best help with recognizing the advantages of accepting when one is wrong, at least the best after the teachings of Jesus, see Kathryn Schulz in her exceptional book, “Being Wrong”.)

In the past several years, mostly as I have seen the religion that I have espoused for most my life, change beyond all recognition into something so sad it hurts me, I have learned more about what I believe Jesus taught and about how it fits into the True Truth that is available to all and in all True Truth teachings. I remarked to a friend of mine that I am so glad I got out of America’s Christianity in time to hopefully begin to find Christ. And in light of this new, intentional, serious, and yet joyfully awe-inspiring journey, I have come to recognize that my favorite Holy-days are Ash Wednesday leading into Lent and Palm Sunday. Now I got you on that last one, didn’t I? Because you thought I would say Good Friday. But in defense and support of feeling Guilty, here are my reasons.

I have celebrated Ash Wednesday for many years, even though I have never been Catholic. For me, Ash Wednesday is like the Jewish Holy-day that Jesus would have celebrated that is now called, Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi Barbara Aiello explains, “Jesus, who was born, lived and died a Jew, was well-versed in the tradition of ashes as a symbol of penitence and “teshuvah” a Hebrew word that signifies the return to a God- guided life. In fact, Jesus is said to make specific reference to ashes when he referred to the towns of Tyre and Sidon, rebuking them for their reluctance to engage in traditional practices of repentance by donning sackcloth and ashes. (Matthew 11:21) (https://rabbibarbara.com/2024/02/15/ash-wednesday-ashes-have-roots-in-jewish-tradition/). Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the New Year and it is “celebrated” with a time of repentance and penitence, as Ash Wednesday is meant to do. Rosh Hashanah culminates after ten days (the number of completion) in Yom Kippur and Lent (after forty days, the number of completion of Jesus’ suffering and trials) in Easter. Now, I was raised a good Baptist in the Midwest, so the idea of ritual (ashes on the forehead) and fasting (from food or some pleasure or addiction during Lent) was completely foreign to me. But for probably twenty some years now, I have worn the ashes on my head to signify my need to look inside and humble myself in light of what I would call “The Divine” or the “Eternal Mystery” that is pure Goodness, pure Truth, pure Joy and Peace, and pure Life compared to us little ants on this little planet. I practice Lent by giving up something I find pleasure in (one year it was the newspaper, one year Facebook, one year sugar, this year I did an economic boycott on all but the necessaries) and every year — every blasted year — I FAIL! And this is a great lesson in humility and a great lesson in forgiveness — humbleness in the face of my daily failings and forgiveness in my need of forgiveness — of others and myself. It also really, really, really makes me respect what I know about the life of Jesus.

Now a lot of people see the celebration of Palm Sunday as a wonderful religious event that shows how people loved and adored Jesus as a king. I have come to believe this is not at all how Jesus experienced Palm Sunday. The reason I have come to like Palm Sunday is because it holds a mirror to human hypocrisy — and I hold that mirror to my own hypocrisy with trembling hands. Oh, dear Jesus, how he tried to teach us what his Kingdom was really like and how we just didn’t want — still don’t want — to hear it. “My Kingdom is not any thing like these kingdoms you worship here and is not “of this world”.” “If you want to follow me, take up your OWN cross and die to the praise, the ego, the self-centeredness, the desire for power or fame or fortune”. Jesus loved to act out his teachings and parables and he chose to ride to his triumphant celebration on a little colt. As a king, he would have ridden a steed, a war horse, or in a horse- drawn carriage. As a suffering servant of God’s Truth and Light, as a messenger of a different Kingdom, a different Way, he chose to ride something small and weak — a colt is a child-horse, chosen as a fun, subversive visual for the crowds to remember along with his words, that to “enter the Kingdom, you must become like a child”. So, I like to stand in a church that gives the congregants a palm leaf (easy to come by out here in California). And I like to wave my palm with the others, but I most often now have tears streaming down my face as I wave the frond because I know that I am a hypocrite. I claim to “follow” Jesus — as long as it doesn’t cost me too much. And I remember that what Jesus said it would cost me to follow him is — Everything.

But I don’t want to leave you with guilt with no recourse because guilt with no recourse leads to either anger or despair. I have begun to find my way towards a purer, cleaner, more healing emotion about so many things, including guilt, and that is — grief. On the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he looked upon the city, the symbol of his day’s (and today’s) religious power and the epicenter of the theology of his time, and rather than anger, he felt a deep sorrow. “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19: 41–44) Matthew has these heart-wrenching words as Jesus feels the grief a mother feels for her children as they stray from the path, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37) It takes a good amount of looking clearly and humbly at oneself to recognize that one is weak and in need of help, to run to be covered by the Wings of a loving Parent-figure. It takes even more strength to look at all the things one has done and does do that are wrong and accept one’s guilt with humility but also with Love. Just as if one wants to walk the Christ Way, the Tao, one must look on others and accept their guilt with humility and great Love. This kind of guilt leads not to shame, but actually leads to “the peace that passes all understanding”. Would that I would “know on this day, the things that make for peace”.

Today we have so little recognition of our frailty or brokenness, of our transgressions or our errors. We refuse to see that we are wrong or hypocritical and yet, we point the finger at others. We mistake the symptoms for the problems. And we look to today’s earthly kingdoms and kings for salvation rather than the Son of the Man who came to show us a way — a different way, The Way to True Truth, to true Joy, and to true Life. We mistake our theology for faith, our kingdom for God’s kingdom, and our minds for the Mind of Christ. And because of our lack of self-reflection and truth about the human condition, we skip the tough or bad parts and instead hope to achieve all through Someone else’s effort, which in the current case of Christianity means forgiveness without repentance, Palm Sunday without humility, and Easter without taking up our own Cross. We head straight to the happy endings and the Disney version of what it means to be a hero — awash in the greyness of no black and white morality and no guilt.

When Jesus died on a cross, he asked His Father to “forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing”. The older I get the more I realize how true that is — I have no idea what I am doing. And I desperately need forgiveness for my ignorance just as much as for my sins, sins of commission and omission, sins known and unknown, sins done and sins left undone.

On what we now call Easter Sunday, when Jesus appeared to his followers, they didn’t recognize him. In the same way, we don’t recognize him today if he doesn’t fit into our neat little theological package, perhaps with the flag stamped across the top, tied up with the bow of our preferred denomination. Yes, I know this will not be a popular post but then I am seeking to follow The Way of people like Jesus who may have had their moments of popularity but which ended up as mercurial moments, evaporating quickly as people chose the religious or political kingdoms rather than the Kingdom of God. Tragically, today, people still prefer Golden Calves or Barbabas — they make us feel better about ourselves and better about our chances. I will take a chance on my guilt and on the forgiveness of the one human who counted the cost of death in light of the hope of the Eternal Kingdom.

So, if you are still reading, I make here an unpopular case for feeling guilty and for finding perhaps your own times and your own rituals and your own symbols that will give meaning to your own very human self. And then as you understand that all is forgiven in the same way you will need to forgive all others and forgive all in yourself, you may as I am trying to do choose to use that guilt to get off the side-roads and onto the Straight and Narrow Road that Jesus assures us leads to Life and Life Abundant!

I don’t really like Easter or as you will, “Resurrection Sunday”, because I don’t know it. No matter what others say, the only Risen Jesus I know is the one who lives in the humility of those who believe that we are created “from dust and to dust we will return” and who lives in the Love of those who believe that “greater Love has no one, than that she lay down her life for others”. But I do know a whole lot about my own brokenness and frailness and sinfulness and guilt and I know a whole lot about my own hypocrisy and posturing. So my favorite Holy Days are the days when the truth about me can be brought before my Creator. And year after year, Ash Wednesday after Ash Wednesday, Lent after Lent, and Palm Sunday after Palm Sunday, I am still trying to learn what it means to be what Jesus called himself and called us to be — A Good Human — the Son of Man. And here is the “kicker” — I am finding that as my guilt turns to my grief and sorrow over the world, my loved ones, my friends, my neighbors, and my enemies — my grief turns to healing and I am often quite surprised as my sorrow turns into a strange and wonderous and true Joy. I am finding that God’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of Christ is nothing if not ironic — it is a true Living Paradox. To find one’s life, one must give it up; to be found, one must be lost; and to be saved, one must be guilty. It isn’t easy this straddling of the line between useful guilt and destructive shame, nor is it easy to find forgiveness in the same way I try to give forgiveness. But step by step, moment by moment, incremental as a piece of dust blowing in the wind, small as a speck of ash blown from a great fire — I am trying.

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