Hope – Jane Tawel

Hope’s Plucked Feathers and Bits of Light

Hope’s Plucked Feathers and Bits of Light

By Jane Tawel

Thoughts and riffing on Emily Dickinson’s poem, “hope is the thing with feathers” and meditation on the quality of our Light.

The feathers of hope seem plucked to the skin.

The chill seas have plasticized Beauty.

The soul is not perched but in free-fall it seems.

And the sweet tunes are perniciously wordy.

We are abashed with fire and ash

Hearts sore from flight from Power’s storms

Frigidity of soul-less gales

Compassion’s hands, hard to keep warm.

I am this one small speck of dust

Blown by the Wind of time and place.

But even bits of dust can shine

Reflecting Light’s Eternal Flame.

The shore seems further now than then

And like a bird in flight, I long for rest.

My heart is fluttering, fearful, tense,

and all the raging makes no sense

When all we little creatures want

The same –

safe-keeping, seeds, clean air, warm nests.

Hope flies again in fleeting moments

when the clouds clear from my mind.

And through the dark and thundering storms

I sometimes glimpse the Rainbow’s Light beyond.

I think She meant when once she said,

“Hope is the thing with feathers” —

It’s not a thing that I can know.

For who can understand a bird?

A bird still awes me — Creation’s Wonder —

And maybe just as wonderous, so is Hope.

We can not understand or cage

this marvelous grace of hopefulness.

Just as I can not make The Light,

but only clear my soul for His Reflection.

There’s nothing I can give to Hope,

“It asks no crumb from me”.

But even in extremities,

crumbs from Life’s Bounteous Tables can be sweeped

into our waiting, emptied bowls.

And as Our Mother felt Her womb-child leap,

Hope perches — fluttering, moving —

Waiting to be born to Life,

once more today within our souls.

Dichotomy vs. The Divine: There is Plenty of Amniotic Fluid for Us All

Dichotomy vs. The Divine: There is Plenty of Amniotic Fluid for Us All

By Jane Tawel

January 8, 2026

We have created a false dichotomy-ridden world — my team vs. your team, your politics vs. my politics, my god vs. your God, us vs. them. Our dichotomization of the world we live in extends to our philosophy, theology, worldview, plan for living — whatever you would like to name that which claims you and how you think and how you behave. We give these various worldviews names so we can contrast them, own them, follow them, when facts or life seem to intrude on the mysterious truth of our Meaning. We feel we must have something to fight that gives our achievements the savoring quality that metaphorically, a plain diet of bread and water does not fulfill. Competition becomes the spice of our lives whether we know it or not and creates sound-proofed walls around our religions, our national loyalties, our genders and races and economic statuses, and around our football teams. But here is the thing I have been learning, small little nibble by small nibble, in the works of people like Walter Wink, Paul Tillich, Richard Rohr, and Marcus Borg among others: our dichotomies have almost severed our relationships to other humans and to The Divine. We are hanging by a thread to the Real, which some call God or Spirit or The Divine or the Universal. There are several causes of this, and I am sure I am not at all smart enough or aware enough to know them all, but the number one cause, I think, of our estrangement from God is that we see God as the distant over-seer of a dichotomized belief-system. And what God says over and over in the Hebrew Bible, in the Christian Testaments, in the Quaran, in the Hindu Vedas, and in the glorious, achingly beautiful scriptures of the Natural World is this: God/Spirit/ Divine/ Creator wants loving, compassionate, truthful Relationship with every human being — a relationship as close as our heartbeat, as close as our breath, as close as a lover, as close as Mother’s womb.

Imagine if we thought of every immigrant, every Palestinian, every person of color, every unhoused person on our streets, every differently gender-identified person, every person from the other team as swimming in God’s Womb with us? Picture it: Here we are floating along together in Mother’s care and there is plenty of amniotic fluid for all of us. Or imagine that we begin to see God as a Father who doesn’t love any of His kids any more than His other children? And this God-Father, that allows us to call Him, “Daddy”, “Da-da”, always sees us as His little innocent baby who really can’t talk all that well because our words are limited, and really can’t think all that well because we can’t see much past our own little toes and we can’t reach much further than Da-Da’s Face as He holds us, and as Daddy places us in Mother’s arms, which are the same as His arms, we can’t really get nourishment from anything other than God-Mom’s ever-flowing- with-Life-giving-nourishment Breast. Is this not what all the teachings of Truth, True-Truth, try to show us with metaphors and parables and myths — all those human creations that struggle toward those Realities beyond the material and beyond our egoic-minds and beyond the struggling wrestlings with the limits of language that give us just an inkling of our own created creativeness in the image of the Creator?

Let’s be honest: relationships can be tough. I don’t know about you, but I have never had any kind of relationship: friend, spouse, child, parent, relative, co-worker, boss — you name it — that has proceeded in a lovely little straight line forward, like a smooth road with no hills, no bumps, no muddy potholes. And some of these bumps and potholes are frankly of the other person’s making and lots and lots more of them are of my own making. But if you commit long-term to being in a relationship as I have been privileged to do with my hubby, my children, and a few close companions on The Way, then you can see the trials as part of being a human being who is meant, like all in and of this lovely Creation/ Nature, meant to let go in order to hold on to something new, to get lost and seek in order to find, and to, just as the trees who lose their leaves to grow new ones do, to die daily to our old sense of self in order to be reborn to new life. And to find a more intimate loving relationship with Another that without those bumps and trials and vulnerable achings would not have been possible yesterday.

When I read what now I have come to think the Bible was supposed to provide for us — stories about real people’s struggling relationships with The Divine Real (God) — I realize that much of my life and hence, my belief system, has been about making God into my image. God is so often only close if I think of God as an “It” that can fit in my heart, kinda like Jesus, and be used as needed. But God is also so often been at the same time, a distant figure Who has dichotomized the world into haves and have-nots, thems and us-es, good and bad, my religious team against their religious team, and heaven-bound folks against the hell-bound. God has been for most of my life a powerful patriarch of my own religious views that I need to beg for what I want, that judges my every action and thought, and that I hope will forgive me enough to allow me as I am to live forever as I am, while sending to hell the people whom I deem unworthy. And then I throw Jesus into this mix as someone who was God but died and “paid up” all my debts so I don’t have to worry about my connection with God any more because Jesus had a special relationship with God on my behalf. And when you put it that way in words — it sounds as crazy and insincere and messed-up as it is. Right? Because what The Divine/ Creator / God — whatever you can still with love call Spirit in and of, but also beyond and above this material existence — what Parent-Spirit wants is not our sacrifices, not our offerings, not our achievements — but our loving hearts connecting to THE IAM Loving Heart.

As a parent of four adult children, I can confirm: when I am filled with true love (compassion, desire, care, obsession, commitment, adoration) of my four children, now adults — when I am full to the brim of That Which Loves and Only Loves — then all I want is to Be with them, in relationship, in relationship, in relationship. Why can not I trust, have faith, that God in the Purity of His Grace, wants this with me, Her child?

There is this old rock and roll song and one of the lines about the romantic relationship between the two lovers has stuck in my mind all these years. It is partly because I grew up when you had to figure out the lyrics to songs by hearing them over and over on the radio or sometimes on the LP you had bought. Ah, life before computer screen immediacy of information — how sometimes I do miss it! So, for this song that we heard on the radio, the important line was a bit hard to understand, and we had a friend one time riding in the back seat of mom’s car with us, and she was adamant that the catchy line was: “For you are Amanda and I am Steve”. And you know that works for what I am trying to say about God. God wants to be our Amanda or Steve to our Steve or Amanda, depending on which gendered name we want to identify with. The Divine wants to be as close as a lover in the act of loving the beloved — God wants to name us and be named — and this understanding of God is all over the Bible texts and many other spiritual texts as well. But the true lyric of this song, which eventually we preteens in the back of that car finally figured out, reveals something also true about what The Divine wants us to understand about Her which is also metaphoric and anthropomorphic, because of course God is incomprehensible and beyond our human understanding, despite our centuries of boxing Him up and defining Her in controllable, bite-sized bits. We still laugh today about our confusion about what the lyrics actually were to that song, which were: “For you are a magnet, and I am steel”.

Today I am on a journey by way of, not fighting, not running or even walking, but of Being — being in the kind of relationship with what I call God, that people throughout history have sought with The Divine Mystery/Reality. I am letting go of my striving in small moments as well as I can to find: “resting”, “cradling” and “hiding in”. I am asking The Divine Creator to “create in me a new heart”, to “hide me in the Rock”, to be the “Mother Bear to my cub-ness” to let me be the “chick to Her Mother Hen”, “the son returned to the Loving Father”, and the “little lamb to the Shepherd who lives among us sheep”. These are all metaphoric relationships found in my primary Scripture, the Judeo-Christian Bible, but they are true to all True-Truths throughout our known history of humankind. We just have either forgotten or neglected that Truth and chosen to set up the golden calves of our preferred individualistic idols that have led us, like the lost sheep, astray.

The next time I feel the old dichotomies of us vs. them rise-up in me, I will try to remember that in Christ there is no us and them. The next time I want to cling to the black and whites that seem to build a foundation for me I will remind myself they are foundations built on sand, and like the sands of Time, they melt away in the Flow of Eternal Truths — beyond space and time and where black and white are forever, only Light. The next time I feel what I call God is distant, needy, controlling — a monarch to be feared and to whom I must beg — I will lightly touch my breath and pray, “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me and breathe into me Your Life”. The next time I feel angry or alone, I will let God know how I feel, just as I would my most intimate lover and I will trust that my relationship will grow through honest vulnerability to He Who Loves me. The next time I despair at all I think or fear all that I feel, I will thank my Mother-God, that She holds me safe in Her Womb, safe in Her arms, and safe in Her Love. In fact, she “holds the whole world — tree, rock, lizard, bee and my enemy — in her loving hands.

And I will ask Love to let me begin to see the Universal Christ not as a small, locked security-deposit-safe, but as a free-flowing Ocean of compassion for all — not just enough, but so much that it breaks our nets of prejudice, and spills out of our baskets of miserly grasping, and runs to our prodigals with forgiveness and joy and connection — just as our Father runs to embrace and welcome us.

Relationship. Scary, isn’t it? Yes, one hesitates in any relationship to be vulnerable. But I have found that a life of putting on the armor of constant battle is exhausting, confusing, and leads to a life of negativity. I am trying bit by bit, to unshackle myself from old ideas, and to free myself from the battlements I have let my thoughts create. I ask The Divine, to create in me Her Spirit, and to be unarmored except with the “the breastplate of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation”. I appeal with no small amount of trepidation but also quite a bit of excitement at what I might discover about the Lover of My Soul and That which longs to live not just with me but within me. And I can call this “Other that is All and is My Truest Self” God — or I can call it Mother, Father, Divine Spirit, Creator — or I can call it Amanda or Steve. True Lovers have lots of names for each other. But no matter what names we use, I want to learn, day by day, hour by hour, breath by breath, to be the longing heart of Steel to the Magnet of Universal Compassionate Truth that draws all the world, all of us, to The Pulsing Heart of the Eternal Lover.

May it be so. Amen.

All metaphors, allusions, imagery and symbols can be found in the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures.

Deep Shadows and Pulsing Waves of Light

https://unsplash.com/@photographer_esmihel

Deep Shadows and Pulsing Waves of Light

By Jane Tawel

February 1, 2026

There doesn’t seem much more to say…

But is it because words fail,

or because there is so much to say

that thoughts cascade like raging waters,

tumbling over the rocks of disbelief?

My stony heart creates the stubborn patterns

of fears that justice will never roll down

like waters again.

The riverbeds look so dry,

and how can the tears of the trampled

restore them?

On the long, long journey

back to Home,

We have ambushed ourselves

with the trappings of our ingratitude

and our floods of unchecked greed

are no longer dammed

but damning.

The rivers dry up

with the mud and muck of multitudes

of unheard cries and barren hopes.

The plains are icy —

keeping the healing in check.

Our baptized souls have been

swept clean of the colors of the rainbow

and the Earth is hardening

over the frozen souls.

There is still the Still Small Voice

in the vibrant luminosity

of all who have suffered

at the hands of those so certain

that their worship

of the black and white cartoon characters

have nothing to do

with everyone’s instilled radiance.

We strive to shine

like shimmery dewdrops,

called to reflect

Great Majesty

in all small things.

Only after the storms come

can the Sun create a rainbow.

And so, we continue to dance —

multihued and dappled

deep shadows in the shallows,

and waterfalling, pulsing waves of light.

The Universe conspires

to flood our barren land with Hope,

and flood our waiting hearts

with Love.

A Message for Earthlings and a Psalm of Distress And a Cry for Help and Prayer to a Mute God

A Message for Earthlings and a Psalm of Distress

And a Cry for Help and Prayer to a Mute God

By Jane Tawel

January 15, 2026

Dear Earthlings:

Why do you need me to be a brand?

(Isn’t branding used for cattle.)

If I don’t know who I really am,

Do you imagine you can tell me?

I suppose, like all dumb animals,

you want to brand me to make me feel

special in my dire commonality;

wanting me to believe

that I belong to a group, separate from others.

Apartness in a herd –

the New World’s ultimate paradoxical joke.

And so, we rage and rave against our lonely planet,

Forgetting we were not created to be special

but to be One.

I have spent a lifetime (or two or three)

tripping over your purity laws,

sometimes landing in a soft bed of nails

and sometimes landing in the muck and mire

of a miasma of my own super-ego.

My finger aches from pointing;

My mouth grows canker sores

from all the preaching of my personal piety,

while my heart grows faint with praise in prayers

that seem to reach no further

than the next un-needed package arriving on my stupe —

(how Stupe-id are my longings!)

My thoughts and appeals to the Silence

have no more strength to save the World

than the trembling tips of my eyelashes would have

to lift and hold a crying infant.

And my despair can not be quelled

By the swells that rise.

The Ocean has not been calm for many moons.

I take my pencil and scrap of paper,

And write this sincere letter to You, O, God:

Dear God (or Whatever-Whoever-Whyever- I AM):

“Why must You allow the humans

that You Created with such Love,

to endure the Karma of our own choices?

Will You not save us from ourselves?

Will You not come out from Your hiding place

And rescue us — if not because we deserve it —

but because You do?

This beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Planet

This tiny cosmic miracle of atoms run amok

This abiogenesis of animated Life

This — Your very Origin —

from our simplest aboriginality to our highest ascendance —

This and All This —

Why must something lesser be destroyed for something Greater?

Why must something die, for something else to Live?

Why must a leaf turn black and fall to the ground

To give life to the seedling?

Are You really mute, or have we muted You?

You, Grandfather, created us in Wonder, to wander

and to see the stars but not to plant our flags on them.

You, Grandmother, have created us with longing in our hearts

to seek Love, but not to contain it;

for Your Love is boundless

and it is the only Eternity we can know.

You, Oh Father, have created us

with the urge to conquer space,

But to also know that

our deepest fear is that we will one day

Be but dust to dust returned,

buried in the space we never conquered.

You, Oh Mother, have created us

to fly or fall from the Nest,

But to forever yearn to return to

the safety of Your Womb.

Why have You created me

with deep longing, if not to satisfy

the hungering of my heart

to return to Your Breast and be forever fed?

I am left alone, yet maybe not alone, with only this —

That I can not see

but only walk blindly forward;

And that I can not know, but only trust

that in You, O Creator and Upholder of the Universe —

there is:

Hope — in Something beyond us

that craves our Love.

Grace — that there exists

a Reason beyond the greatest achievements

of the human mind.

Purpose — that all our suffering

is the crucifixion we need

to find our resurrection.

And above all that every act

of unconditional Love

is Your active presence in the World.

I wish Oh, God, You hadn’t chosen

to live and act through us.

We — I — seem to fail at every turning

of the world upon its axis.

But, “okey-dokey, Smokey” —

I’ll choose to try again today

To change the world,

And save the planet,

And love the truly unlovable

And well….

I have to assume You will give me

a little bit of help.

I hope I can look forward

to meeting You, Someday.

Until then, You, O God,

will just have to accept

my shallow, fearful, selfish, foolish

Prayer — which is all I can summon up

to say how much I love this world

and how much I think I love, You.

Maybe?

A Paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer for Today:

Our ProGenitor,

Who lives in Entirety,

no one owns You or Your Name.

Please re-create us on this Earth,

as You continue to do in the Cosmos.

Help our unbelief that You know best,

and help us believe

that there is enough stuff

and enough food

and enough Love for all of us.

Create in everyone

the ability to let go

and may the spirit of Mercy have

more strength than any of our desires

for revenge or ownership.

Help us stop our mutual temptation to

destroy ourselves.

Deliver us from our own Egos

and the monkey-minds of our greedy, anxious thoughts.

For someday, we will wake up

to realize this has been Your World all along

And that You have always been in charge of it;

But only through Your Love

Are You able to act —

and Your Love is the most powerful force in the universe.

May it be so in my life today.

Amen.

A Letter in the Season of Anticipation

by Jane Tawel

December 2025

Dear Friends,

I like traditions — well, many of them I do, (not a real fan of having a colonoscopy every 5–10 years, but I do it). This is one of the most tradition-full seasons of the year, at least in America. And yet, America and other kingdoms on earth are now undergoing, as never before perhaps, a time when traditions are being bucked to a rather outrageous and dangerous degree because truth and love are being bucked to a dangerous and insane degree. But one of my long-held traditions, as many of you have, has been writing a letter to friends and family that wish you felicitations for the season we call Christ-mas or Holy-days and to encourage you to have a good year in the next reincarnation of our calendars. And so it is this year, that I write again.

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing, especially when this season’s exceptional story of God’s Love seems so far from the religions and nations that claim it to be true; but I do appreciate all the traditions that try to keep this story alive — the nativity sets, the fragrant Ever-greens, the car rides to see neighborhoods decorated like electricity was free this time of year in honor of The Light of the World; the candy and cookies and sleigh bells ringing, the carols about Peace on Earth; and songs about St. Nick, giver of gifts to rich and poor alike — all the symbols that speak of joy and community; and of freedom, and kindness and generosity and care; of sacrifices for future generations and humble righteousness defeating power and greed for the benefit of humanity and the human good; and of love that has no barriers, no agenda, no judgement — because it is the love told and symbolized in the story of a helpless baby and his struggling mother and father. It is a Love that endures this life’s suffering and pain because of anticipated joy. I was incredibly blessed to go through the pain of child-birth four times, and let me tell you, there is nothing, no pain as agonizing as letting a new little human being struggle her or his way out of your body into the world — but the anticipation of going through that pain to the absolute joy you experience when it is over is worth every excruciating moment. I love that this season centers around that pain leading to joy because of love: the universal, very human story. As a long-time Literature-Geek, perhaps most of all, I love the symbols and metaphors and True Truths of stories and story-tellers that have those themes and unseen, but not unrealized, truths that transcend the place, time, and culture in which they were written and become ever-living testaments to what all humans seek and all wise ones find. And this season has some of the best stories ever written which can point us to True Truth — if we know how to listen with our hearts.

For me, though, the best part of this season has always been the anticipatory aspects of it; I love Advent. Traditionally, this year, my hubby and I gave all our adult kids Trader Joe Advent calendars. I have squirreled away stocking stuffer gifts from “Santa” and look forward to the family opening their stockings on Christmas morning (sometimes more like noon now by the time they can gather from their homes), and some of “Santa’s” gifts will be met with the surprise of “Oh, I love this!” and some will immediately mentally go into their “To be regifted later” pile. I don’t care; it’s the journey to the opening that counts. The house is decorated with all the traditional things in “hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be here” — the tree has ornaments the kids made in Sunday School, although some of the stars are missing a point, and the glitter ratio on most is diminished; I have the little ceramic table-top Christmas tree that lights up that a neighbor gave me years ago which reminds me of the one my Grandma Gladys used to have; and the nativity that my Mom gave me my first Christmas as a mom myself; and a ratty old four-foot stuffed Santa I have had since I was a one-year-old whose stuffed body has seen better days (as has mine, which is maybe why I like it so much). But my favorite tradition that I keep year after year, despite the fearful rumblings in the world, despite the personal trials or tribulations, despite my age, or despite the suffering of people I know and of those I don’t know — the tradition I keep despite any of that, despite my very own self — is the tradition of Anticipation. At odd times, like when I am doing the dishes, or lying in bed wondering if today will be the day the world’s insanity stops and we will all choose to turn it around in time, or when I am convincing myself that “yes, I do really want to head out at dawn again for my run”; or when I am snuggled up next to Raoul thinking about not a whole lot except how glad I am to have him with me all these many years and also just in this very present moment — sometimes — out of the blue — my heart will start pounding like a little drummer boy, (and at my age, you do worry when that happens); but then I remember — that is how one’s heart feels when there is a sense — not a thought — not a belief — not a doctrine — not a law — not a government instituted program — but a Sense — that something Good is coming. When the heart flutters like a butterfly taking flight, it is a sign that wherever and whenever human beings still anticipate that good things are just up ahead, that no matter how dark things may seem, that the Light of Truth will “Dawn” and that a Star will always dispel the darkest night, and that the truest symbol of all our truths can be found in the story of a mother giving birth to a New Life. When we can trust that the Heart of Love never lies then we can anticipate that tomorrow will shine forth with what a little baby-in-a-manger story teaches us — that Love wins. Love always wins.

Happy Advent: the season of the heart. May the stories of this season, and the examples of all those who came before us bringing truth, goodness, peace, and love, fill you in unexpected times and inexplicably joyful ways, with hope and peace — enough for you to give birth to your own renewed, and eternally-blessed Love.

May we live in the hopeful expectation that just around the proverbial corner, one day we shall have Peace on Earth and Good-will for All. May your hearts flutter at unexpected times with a sense beyond words, beyond explanation even, that God is Good and that we small, little specks in the Cosmos, we here and now and on-call-today human beings have what it takes to bring heaven to Earth, because somewhere deep inside, just like the story of heaven incarnated on earth in the manger scene, we each have the divinely-given desire and capability to Love. And Love always wins.

With Love and Hope,

Jane

The Lunacy of Them and the Big If

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/@yassermokhtarzadeh

The Lunacy of Them and the Big If

By Jane Tawel

December 4, 2025

The lunacy of the world escapes me

as power deranges the minds of the powerful.

I want to throw myself at their feet and cry,

“Why do you want to destroy our beautiful world?

The insanity of science alarms me

as knowledge plays with fire,

and smart men fly too close to the sun.

I want to shake them until their many brain cells rattle,

“Why do you want to eradicate human beings?”

The ignorance of religion deeply saddens me

as belief and dogma turn inwards

like ingrown toenails;

and snakey tendrils

eat away at the heart of faith.

They have set up their money-changers

at the temples’ gates,

and their egos masquerade as God’s truth.

They cling to victimhood,

ignoring the lives of their saviors and prophets.

I want to weep for them

as a lost chick for her mother hen:

“Why do you not keep seeking, seeking, seeking

when you know deep within you have not truly found?

Why do you not embrace wisdom and love

as you claim your Gods do?”

“Why do you seek ever more of

the temporal kingdoms of earth,

of nations that will dissolve into the sea as all nations do;

why do you settle for these

when you are offered the Kingdom of Heaven —

shining cities on the Hill —

and promised that all nations

would be blessed by you?”

The greed of the wealthy enrages me

as I walk past today’s lepers in the streets

and think of children — Children! —

going hungry while the rich fly to Paris and back

for a cup of coffee or a McDonald’s from Spain.

I want to rob them blind and distribute their money

equitably throughout the world.

I want to take great handfuls of cash

and throw them at homeless encampments

and Trash Cities and foster homes.

I want to set the captives free

to raise families wherever they choose to feel safe.

And I want to find a cure for blindness.

And a cure for our lame excuses.

And make nests safe and trees healthy.

And heal the sickened land.

Today I saw myself in

that moment’s mirror,

and I was Narcissus looking back at myself.

Today I opened my scriptures and spiritual books,

and there was the mirror once more.

The Book of The Living and The Dead

opened its page to the story of Me

where my judgements of the world,

Revealed themselves,

and as in a mirror darkly,

my judgements of others

uncovered my true Face.

I saw in myself,

the many headed monster —

It was I who was the hydra —

Greedy,

Power-hungry,

Egotistical in self-righteousness,

Selfish,

Cruel,

Abusive of knowledge

Afraid of wisdom;

and prone to the insanity

of Me-ness.

And I thought,

I can not kill the triumvirate of Anti’s

or slay the evil in the world,

but I can crucify them in myself.

I long to see all the peoples of the world

joining their resources with the delight

in knowing that there is enough and always enough;

as together, no matter our color or creed,

we laugh at fear in the knowledge

that nothing Good is ever truly lost —

not even in death.

May that longing, create in me a new heart, Oh, God.

I long to close-up my need to know

Like closing a trap-door that

Only opens to imprison me.

I long for all to open The Door

to The Way that is given to us to

multiply bread and fishes forever and

bring the Kingdom to Life.

May that longing for openness be mine today.

Create in me a new mind, Oh, God.

I long for that promised joy

that will come each morning.

And we will dance in the streets.

And the birds of the air,

and the lilies in the fields,

and the forests, and mountains, and seas,

will rejoice:

“Hallelujah!”

“Namaste!”

“We are Risen!”

“Amen!”

And all the earth and Her peoples,

Become the Holy Temple.

And all is One,

and we sing with joy.

Create in me, a new Spirit, Oh God,

that I may rejoice in Your Goodness and Love.

And as the prophet sang,

“You may say that I’m a dreamer,

but I’m not the only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us.

And the earth will live as One.”

Oh, Great Creator-Spirit,

Whatever and Whoever You Are,

Mother and Father of Earth and Peoples

and of my small, weak, often-hopeless small self;

Holy Beingness above the me, the I AM ,

Timeless, Spaceless, Nameless One –

I pray once more the only prayer I know:

“Help me. Help me. Help me. Help us.”

“Save me from myself. Save us from ourselves.”

“Free our hearts and minds to trust

that Love will always win and

Love will always Be.”

“May we Be. One.”

And may this be my desire today:

That I may step by step

moment by moment

seek that within myself

that I wish to see in others.

May I use all I am given,

both in material things and talents

in thought, word, and deed,

not for my will, but Thine Alone

and Thine in Love of All.

May it be

that I shall not run towards judgement

but that I shall walk and not be weary

in The Paths of Righteousness and

in the faith of that which can not be seen

but can be trusted.

And as I wait upon the Change

that will only come in the world

as I seek to Be that Change;

may I have the hope

that through my own small vision-seeking self,

our Salvation is right beside us;

our salvation is nigh,

our salvation is here and always here;

our salvation, like a great treasure buried in a field,

is within our very own hearts.

In this world, may I

partake in suffering after suffering,

share in sacrifice after sacrifice,

Releasing of all holding,

Accepting of all happenings,

Faithful through all doubts,

Seeking without knowing,

Loving without acception.

And above all,

May I love the very enemies

of this beloved place and time

as I work to love them as myself —

because they Are myself.

May I forgive myself today

as I forgive others.

And may I be like a babe in the womb,

knowing nothing, trusting completely,

safe in my Mother’s Love.

And one day I shall be reborn

to what I do not know

but I shall then, with joy unimaginable,

see My MotherFather as They Are

and we will be One once more.

Is it not true, after all,

as all the Wise Ones say,

that I create the world I see?

Do not all of my perceptions

come to fruition because I want them to

and therein lies the Lie?

If I seek that “kingdom not of this world”

that is this perfect world in Love;

If I keep my lamp filled

with the oil of anticipation

that the Earth’s Bridegroom will come

and marry our imperfect longing

to perfection forever;

And if as the Light that comes from God,

manages to shine through my mud-encrusted lamp–

and I know that I Am–

the light of the world –

Then “If” — -

Well, then…

What might Be?

What If?

I think maybe I’ll try it and see.

It certainly can’t hurt any more than it already does —

Right?

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….

Traveling Towards Flight, I Hope

Traveling Towards Flight, I Hope

By Jane Tawel

September 19, 2025

I try not to ask myself too many questions.

After a while — and all this time —

It is exhausting to interrogate myself so much —

it only leads to judgment.

The comfort zone is best enjoyed

when only judging others.

I judge them with my anger

so that I may spend freely.

I judge them with my fears

to cover-up my fear of death.

But mostly to cover-over my fear of Life.

Or perhaps it is most often that I judge

to color-over my own lies —

to color outside my own lines.

I am good at coloring outside the lines

of topical belief-systems.

To take the next step, it must be small.

And I must be small.

Like Alice, I must drink the draught

that comes only from a creative heart,

and shrink my self into a Space

large enough to hold my Self.

True Truth is a butterfly —

Out there, flitting freely, no one knows where it may appear….

floating on the wind, like The Wind,

as the Holy Spirit says it does.

We may glimpse it but cannot grasp it.

But we must keep our eyes trained

on the horizons of our heart

and in Hope, the cocoon relaxes its bindings,

the fetters of our fears

and bonds of our desires

loosen, like the hand of an imprisoned adult,

we let go the grasping

and let the inner child go free.

Only a caterpillar can dream of crawling.

And so, I will today, embrace the moment

of crawling inch by inch,

dragging my insatiable, tiny belly

along this lovely, precious land.

Crawling inch by inch,

toward Flight.

“And what we shall be then,

We do not know,

But we know we will be

Changed.”

Traveling towards flight,

I inch painfully

towards Hope.

A Wonderous Thing Appears

by Jane Tawel

April 4, 2025

L.A. Phil at Disney Hall with Gustav Dudamel and John Williams and Yo Yo Ma

And I read and I read and I mourn and mourn and I worry and angst and I get angry and make my small little fights with small little metaphoric fists raised and keep trying to provide my small little acts of kindness and cheers for those who fill bigger shoes than I and are trying to do something. And probably like many today, I fight against the tide of absolute depression and hopelessness. And THEN…. a Wonderous Thing does appear. Last Night, Raoul Tawel and I were privileged (and I do mean unbelievably that I was a person of undeserved privilege) to hear a concert at the exquisitely designed LA Disney Hall, where even we peons in the rafters have the most incredible experience of a perfectly designed architectural masterpiece and have a place in the crowd where the sound of music is gloriously imbibed. Gustav Dudamel conducting is always a treat but last night was a special treat we gave ourselves. In one glorious night of music — American music! — by the prolific genius John Williams, who was THERE! all 93 years and probably 93 pounds of him. We were there, big bucks spent for us, even beyond the big bucks we spend for season tickets to the LA Phil, to hear an artist we have long loved and been in awe of — yes! — Yo Yo Ma! Yowza! That guy can play a cello! 😊 So you see, at this point words are failing me and I can not describe an experience that is one of those times that the Wonder, the Ineffable, the Divine merges with the Human Spirit and the Creativity of great Artists merges with the Creator within them and all around us. And again, it came to me as it often does in times like last night, that these are the people and the experiences that truly make me believe that there is a God and that a God Who can create human beings like Yo Yo Ma, and John Williams, and Frank Gehry, and every single one of those horn blowers, and drum bangers, and string players who make up the spiritual community (yes spiritual whether they know it or not) of the L.A. Phil orchestra — it came to me again that A God who can create those almost unearthly and yet human creators must want to be with those people forever somewhere, somehow in what we might imagine to be that New Heaven and New Earth kinda “place” and “time” where the joy and life of Creation and Creativity go on and on and on. Raoul said, “Yeah, but in your worldview here, what does that mean about people like you and me?” I said, “Well, all I can hope is that whatever True Love we little folks put into this world will carry over into the next. I can only hope that Love Remains and so I will just love, and love more.”

Ah, last night was a taste of heaven — no a taste of True Earth, as it was meant to Be, as it can Be. Can you imagine a world where each day, rather than wake up to read the news, we wake up to see Van Gogh paint and Frank Gehry design: where the air is filled not with hate or fear or bombs or cries, but the music of John Williams or the music of Bruce Springsteen; and where instead of producing guns and pollution, we are producing cellos and piccolos and geraniums and rice. We can not turn our eyes away from the fight we must fight today, but we can turn our ears towards the music of the spheres, and our hearts toward that which is full of wonder in the human spirit. I am not saying this well — read some good poetry or a good book today to read people who say this better than I — but I hope you will find your way forward today with some small experience of Wonder, and some Care for Your Soul (Thomas Moore) and some little bit of Hope and a whole, whole lot of Love. Walk in Beauty. Baby steps maybe, scraped knees and bent head maybe, gimpy leg and aching heart maybe, but Walk in Beauty. If you want to find God anywhere, you can be sure if it’s anywhere on this planet, She also will be walking there.

One Step, One Brick

by Jane Tawel

In 2018, I posted a quote by that great “worker in the fields”, Dorothy Day:

The sense of futility is one of the greatest evils of the day.…People say, “What can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we can only lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment.

Reading this post of mine from a previous time of great and deep weltanschuaang (2018) and my quoting Dorothy Day back then, I remind myself that the feeling of futility or hopelessness is static and keeps one feeling incompetent to do the smallest things. And I am reminded that Mother Teresa said that not all of us can do great things but that even I can do small things with great love. And I believe that ultimately as Judeo-Christian wisdom teaches, “only three things will remain”: trust in Something bigger than ourselves; hope that, as that great Black Preacher, Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the universe bends toward justice; and Divine Love, available to all humans, Love that ignores ego and self-interest for that which lasts. And the greatest thing that shall remain, beyond nation, beyond “stuff”, and even beyond the self, and indeed, the only thing we can ever know of God, is Love. But even our deepest held belief is a fragile thing and it wavers with each storm, my friends. It can be very hard to see the light in the face of darkness, so each moment I will try to forget all the things I think I believe and I will simply walk forward, one step taken at a time, by the sheer will of a freeing Love. By going through suffering, not trying to get around it, we do find peace. One step. One moment. One small act of love. One hand reaching out. One at a time.

“Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step.

“My peace I offer you too. Not the peace this world offers, but a peace that will pass your wildest imaginings, a peace that passes your beliefs, a peace that passes your understanding.” — Jesus, The Christ,

I shall take my responsibility in this present moment seriously, but I shall not look at the fortress of hate and greed being built against the True Truth. I shall mourn but not hate those who tear down that which others have worked hard to build, not seeing through their foolishness and greed and hatred the Good things — things of justice, and open-mindedness, of sharing and acceptance and care and kindness. I shall lay down my one small brick at a time in my own back yard, not as a wall to keep people out, but as a wall to support the vines of love that I choose to plant and hope to grow. I shall plant one small seed at a time, and trust that the Mountain will move.

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