Life Lessons – Jane Tawel

The Truth Is in the Spaces

The Truth Is in the Spaces

By Jane Tawel

July 24, 2026

Words are signposts only,

along the Narrow Way.

If you rush from point to point,

word to word,

you will never reach

the destination,

the place that you call “The Truth”.

Words will keep you traveling, traveling, traveling;

Anxious to find the right signs, or

Arguing with your copilots

Certain in your certainty,

that only you know best,

that your way is the Only!! route,

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

And never knowing deeply, truly,

that there are many trued and true paths

leading Home.

Words, especially those on ancient maps,

can also keep you stuck,

content to stay within your deepening rut.

Eventually you can dig yourself

so far down and down and down

you barely have a finger to raise above your ditch,

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

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

Or perhaps you raise an angry, upright digit

raised in indignation, raised against

the perceived enemies out there,

a digit wiggling out and up,

a solitary soldier in the slumbering stand you take

against awakening

and climbing up and out into

the fresh air of the Open Road.

For a long time, inviting others

to join you in your rut

can make you feel safe.

Until the floods come.

Your muscles that once could have found The Way,

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

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

You have languished long, far from the Road,

feeling secure in the tight confines of your pit,

Unable to pull yourself out of the rut of

your necessary belief that somehow, stuck down there,

you will eventually rise to Something, Somewhere Else.

But a pit leads no-where, my friend.

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

you never see the many ropes

that others have thrown down

to let you pull yourself out from

the ditch that you have dug around yourself.

So many lovely, lovely things,

have through the eons

of this lovely, lovely World’s circuitous

spiraling, mysteriously moving expedition,

thrown out life-lines,

shown, not spoken,

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

to Trust that only Love can lead The Way.

Nature has the truest Trueline.

Her roots have been threaded by Eternity,

threaded into thick, strong cords,

leading in and out, and down and up,

The Way of Our Salvation.

The World is full of Glory

to save us from drowning

in idolatry of texts,

from continually bashing ourselves

upon the rocky walls we make

out of our own silly and inflated egos.

Nature has never built a wall.

When the Flood comes,

and finds you in your high-walled ditch,

Words won’t help you float.

You need something with air in it for that,

Something that breathes,

Something buoyant like a raft.

Cast aside your useless euphemisms,

your cries and yells and sermons,

your documents and equations

none of these can save you.

You can only release yourself to The Flow.

Let go

and float

and let The River lift you up and out,

out from in your trenches,

out from your revenges and your fears,

and let The Water take you,

clean you and restore you,

back from chosen Death to freely given Life.

Trust the Flow.

All Rivers flow to The Source.

Truth is not a map

that anybody owns.

The Way is the play between,

the give and take

and push and shove

and gentle flow of

of letting go;

the looking up and out

and gazing long

at what is not there to be seen

but that which opens us.

And when we do not know

then we know

it is not our seeing that matters,

because we sense

we, at last, are Seen.

Don’t throw away your maps,

but rest assured,

while Compasses are often useful things,

True Truth is only in the gaps.

Truth is in the spaces –

The small bits and gentle pauses

The breaths between the hub-bub

and the clean-rooms that scour out

the hubris of our “feeling”

that we are right and they are wrong.

Peace is only found in the spaces

between the small stones in your shoes,

only in the vast open-places

glimpsed only

out of the corner of your eyes,

perhaps magnified into

kaleidoscopic wonder

by tears of sorrow or

tears of aching Awe.

I wish they had used better punctuation

in the things that Jesus said.

There needs to be a lot of Space —

— Between —

between the Truths that only Love can know.

I add a lot of dashes —

Between the words of Christ.

I AM —

The Way —

The Truth —

The Life —

Seek —

and you will find.

Love —

Love.

Yes — let me live and move and

Find my being

in the Dashes —

I Am-ness —

And Your IAm.

my seeking —

and Your finding.

my longing —

and the only thing that fills that longing —

Love.

The Spirit People do not hand us maps —

We make those up ourselves.

And while a map can be a useful thing,

we shouldn’t mistake it for The Way.

Look for the crevices and cracks –

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the Light gets in.*

Look up from your maps,

And follow The Light.

There is a Light in The Window,

and The Light of The World

will lead us Home.

*by Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

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.

Mires and Wires

Mires and Wires

By Jane Tawel

February 17, 2026

Some of us dig in.

We dig, dig, dig down

into the sands

of our times,

into the tidepools

of our minds,

into the sucking mire.

We are seldom able to fly,

but like birds on a wire,

we are called to balance —

precariously, it is true —

but trusting

that not one of us can fall

without the Weeping of the World.

Here, where some of us have landed,

poised with wings tucked tight,

there is no room to gather

that which cannot be eaten today.

But those who choose to dig holes

like moles and augers in the land,

store up their treasures

leaving their names on the inverted pyramids

sinking into famed obscurity

and drowning in the solidity

of their false hopes.

Poor creatures —

so richly mistaken

and shaken to the core

by the fears of their impermanence.

I have dug myself plenty of holes.

But now I place my own small hope

on small movements of mine

fluttering, hopping at times from foot to foot,

attempting to share in the tight-rope act

of small beings barely balanced

in this singular time and place.

And like a small brown wren

I wonder how or when

in what future unknown space

will we, little birds —

(being now so often trapped and caught,

and bought — a dozen for a penny) —

will we at last be gathered

like chicks to Our Mother’s breast?

Here on this unsteady string of life,

we long for The Nest

and for the rest we once knew,

and yearn to know again

covered by The Father’s Mighty Wings of Refuge.

It will not be by digging in

like a burrowing beast,

mistaking flowers for tares,

that I will find peace.

Nor will we know the love we seek

by running like lemmings or hares,

after any crown or prize

that we may chase.

We fledglings live encased

and see only through the cracks

of our embracing shells.

But incubating here

we wait to rise in glory.

It is still the same old story:

Only by falling and falling

and failing and flailing

into grace after Grace

will we learn to fly.

And someday, we will see The Face

of the One Who has kept us

hanging here in the balance

between life and death

where the faith of small birds

finds hope.

By dust we were created

and to dust we shall return.

But The Wind blows where it will,

and some will spread their wings to catch it

and will rise in flocked flight.

Farewell to my Belief-Prison

Farewell to my Belief-Prison

By Jane Tawel

December 26, 2025

I woke up — gradually

And in pieces

And slowly, slowly

It dawned —

That my comfortable belief-system

had become a prison.

All the other people –

Friends and family that I love

Beckoned me

through the prison-bars of their beliefs

to: “Come back. Come back.

You are wrong to leave the safety of confined captivity”.

Holding out their hands

They did not

could not

would not

See.

(It is rather frightening, after all,

to escape from a prison in which you are only

being held by your collective fears).

Oh, how I looked with love and longing,

Back to those I had toiled with in the fields,

singing our jailhouse songs of Grace,

and doing penance in our mixed-up views that Faith,

would one day set us free, and we would be home —

Never realizing we were already free.

And we were already Home.

Here. Now.

Oh, how I knew and understood

My dearly beloved fellow inmates.

For while their prisons kept their outsides clean

Their innermost God-cups

were overflowing in dogma poop.

In our belief-prisons,

Our fat-fingers, smeared with holy and unholy oils,

Pointed through our imagined prison-bars,

Neglecting to see the beams

We had used to build our barriers;

Thinking that the shacks made out of splinters

that our neighbors lived in

were what had put them into debtors’ prisons,

(prisons not nearly so nice as ours).

And yet we continued to chant —

Forgive us our debts,

(but God-forbid! —

don’t make us forgive

those we have made our debtors).

And so, One Day,

When I could no longer recite

the same old lies that buried the Truth

in our entombing stories,

of resurrection for Someone else,

but never resurrection for our dead souls;

I stepped outside the prison’s Open Door

(and knocked over a small table in the process).

And while the fresh air was bracing

And my heart was absolutely racing

I kept inching forward

Step by step,

Led only by the millenniums

of a thousand pinpoints of Light.

Balancing precariously

on the Universe’s Bright Enlightened Beam,

and tiptoeing carefully

on the Cross-road had never been many roads

but only, always One;

I stumbled upwards and onwards,

Here and Now,

along the Narrow Way.

I do admit, I miss at times

the custody I mistook for communion,

and the finely decorated walls

I mistook for Creativity.

Oh, how I raised my hands in praise

and feeble offerings to those I once thought

were blinded by The Light,

(but in fact, were only blinded by The Might.)

I preached from within my prison

to those (I thought) outside the fold

of the security of my imprisoned-beliefs,

And in those comforting black and white walls

of the old prison I had long embraced as home,

I did get glimpses of clear Sky.

And I am still so very grateful

for the many dearly loved prison guards –

who had, after all, only tried to keep me safe

and who had, as even blind guides can,

opened my eyes to what had been born

and Who was eternally being Born

in the Heart’s longing for salvation.

But I am no longer sorry, even though still sad,

That when I stuck one small-Soul foot,

Outside my belief-prison’s walls,

the other prisoners shoved me

the rest of the way out;

for they could not bear to leave behind

their imaginary Maximum-Security Prison

and they could not bear to think

that I might find a Home outside their walls.

I do bear the stigmata of their hands

shoving hard against my back,

pushing me out and forward

like a blowing Wind

that one day, God may use beneath me

to help my wings grow strong.

And I have found that Now —

and wildly, freely, only Here and Now —

(and yet also, There and Then)

I have stumbling found

that we were born for freedom,

and that Salvation is only ever, True-ly grasped

by letting go

as Love leads us

further out, and out, and out

and further in and In.

I thank You,

Creator-Word,

For sparking a burning flame

In this small human being.

And for standing at the door

Of my imprisoned self

And knocking hard and long

(and also softly and in Stillness).

I thank you, All

My freedom-fighting and freedom-finding

many and yet One, brothers and sisters,

Who trembled and still tremulously shine

from different points of view and

different points of the One Light,

to tell the World

about a better Way.

And I join my small self’s soul

With All of Yours

as One, we journey on,

out of all

the crippling, darkening belief-prisons,

and onto the Soul’s Free Path,

the One I-Am of Truth, and Love, and Light:

leading, yet not leaving;

moving, and being moved-in;

out of this world’s incarceration

and In-to Eternity’s

Incarnation.

Here. Now.

Born in each moment,

And eternally in and among us.

May it Be. Amen.

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.”

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.

Fall and Flow

by Jane Tawel

Fall and Flow

By Jane Tawel

January 22, 2025

Beginning —

A bud appears on a dung heap

Beauty despite, beauty despite….

Somehow from garbage,

New birth.

New shoots reach up

from old roots,

Searching

Dreaming

Creating Hope.

Stay small,

as small as you can be.

In this Un-brave New World,

find your courage in

laughter,

meekness,

small acts of kindness.

Become curious.

Be curious only about —

What you can see

What you can smell

What you can taste

What you can hear

What you can touch.

Keep your focus on

What you can experience in this moment

and perhaps, what you can change.

Nothing but what is real for you

needs to intrude on your reality.

Use your fear wisely

and then fear not.

This is not the beginning of the end.

This is the end of yet another beginning.

Many have come and gone before

And for you, there is only —

This time

This place

This now

This task.

Find those to whom

you alone can help,

find those to whom you

would do unto

as you would have them do

unto you.

Herein, lies peace.

Trust that you can fight for right,

and stand up for Goodness

but only where you are planted.

Be a beautiful small flower.

The garbage is only here

to help you flourish and grow.

Let other people tend their own gardens

or wallow in their own dung heaps

as they will.

They are not for you.

Endings…..

A leaf falls from a tree

A wave flows out to the Ocean

And dust returns to dust

Let go

Fall

Flow

And you will find where you have come from

and return.

Child’s Play Prayer

by Jane Tawel

Unsplash: Omer Haktan Bulut, Photographer

Child’s Play Prayer

By Jane Tawel

January 18, 2025

Hi.

I don’t understand You,

and that’s okay,

but I know You are my Parent.

I knew You when I

was in Your Womb, Mommy.

I knew You from the first day

You held my weak and wandering

eyes in Your loving gaze,

caressing me with Your thoughts.

I know how strong You are, Daddy,

because time and time again,

no matter how big I have grown,

You have lifted me up

on Your strong shoulders,

and held me in your strong hands.

Forgive me for growing up

to think I had to earn your love.

Forgive me for thinking You could

ever love me less if You also

loved my brothers and sisters

just as much as You love me.

Forgive me for thinking

I could ever put Your Love aside

like a memento from the Past,

store it in a little box,

shelving with other books

I might take down and read sometimes.

Your Love is not a once upon a time thing.

Your Love is not one thing at all.

Your Love is One —

not You. not Me.

I am Yours, and You are Mine.

Mommy. Daddy. Creator. Love.

You, Parent-Creator,

are higher than my highest thoughts,

and lower than my deepest desires.

Release me from want —

from needing

from needing or pretending

to be an adult around You —

an adult full of doing and thinking,

not trusting and resting

at peace

at home

in Your Love.

Help me flunk my test today,

so I will relearn how to go out and play.

Let me be again

Be… again…

Your dearly beloved

Child.

Amen.

Pictures and a Story on The Way to Jury Duty in L.A.

Pictures and a Story on The Way to Jury Duty in L.A.

by Jane Tawel

June 8, 2022

I walked this route from Union Station, Downtown Los Angeles each morning to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. One morning I saw a thin, rather frantic young woman who had parked her shopping cart of belongings against the railings that are the only things protecting walkers from falling into the mass of cars on the freeway. She had a small bucket of red paint and she was painting something on the sidewalk. The next morning I found she had painted a love letter to some one named Amgtriky. I wondered what she had written but then covered over with a big red square. “I Love you Amgtriky you are my world.” I hope Amgtriky got the message and hope the frantic young woman gets the love she craves enough to risk arrest for defacing public property. Aren’t we all, in one way or another, trying to get our message out to the ones we call “our world”? Aren’t we all just living with our big red letters sloppily painted wherever we go in our hope that someone will answer back that we too are someone’s world?

Taking the metro about an hour each morning and evening was an experience in itself. Union Station is a truly beautiful architectural gem, both inside and out.

One morning I was going to stop at the restroom in Union Station before making my fifteen minute walk to the courthouse. The restroom was unavailable and there were about five or six cops and a couple station security guards swarming around the entrance to the women’s room. I never knew why but I found the paradox of what is shown in this picture quite a succinct comment on modern life. Outside the restroom is a “Lactation Pod” next to someone’s entire earthly belongings, carried around on a makeshift cart because they have no home. I wondered since the lactation pod didn’t seem to be all that practical or often used, if maybe we could give all the lactation pods to all the people who don’t have a home? We could call them “Humanity Matters Pods”.

Lactation Pod and Belongings, Union Station, L.A.

At lunch I would, for a brief hour, escape the horrible weight of being a judge of someone else’s life and a carrier of a lot of people’s pain, and I would eat my little cheese sandwich and apple in this park that sits in the middle of all the justice halls that a big city like Los Angeles needs. This playground was unavailable and yellow-taped off. I don’t know why but there weren’t many children around at that time of day anyway. I found myself singing to myself Cat Steven’s metaphoric and prescient tune, “Where Do the Children Play”.

During my lunch hour, the thing that always restored my joy was a group of men who played a pick-up soccer game in the park. They were also enjoying freedom from whatever jobs or lack of jobs they might have had to go back to. I imagined some of them may have been the police or public defenders or D.A.s who had a bit of anonymity and a bit of fun in otherwise hard, stressful days. I had a lot of respect for not just the people who make our American legal system still what has to be one of the best things about America and our wanna-be democracy, but for all the people I met in Los Angeles. I got lost my first day and I was a bit over-the-top freaked out about it and yet so many people would stop on the street and help me reorient or calm down or figure out where I needed to go (I got lost quite a few times). Strangers can be so very kind, even in a big city like L.A. and it made me hopeful to know that as Anne Frank said, “people are really good at heart” — or they want to be, if we maybe just let ourselves ask for help. It gave me such hope for the human race, that even though I didn’t get to see children playing in the park because the playground was shut down, I got to see grown men playing in the park each day, and as long as grown adults can still play, maybe we can all somehow stop all this ridiculous violence and sorrow.

City Hall Park with Soccer Game in distance, L.A.

Every evening, on the way to the metro at Union Station, I walked past homeless encampments. Every unhoused person I talked to was very nice, although there were a couple of them now and then who had just “lost it” and I guess I would be crazy loco if no one loved me enough, here in the richest nation on earth, to at least give me a roof over my head and maybe some meds I might need and some daily bread, I mean, food. I often saw the saints of the world out on the streets, like the mobile shower people who park their vans near the encampments so the homeless can take a shower and feel at least a little more human. Each day the metro took me past the Homeboys Industry Home and I saw a lot of care given to homeless folks by strangers and city cops and security guards. I think it’s time we took all the guns and bombs and weapons in the world (or at least in our nation) and turned them into homes.

L.A. Homeless Encampment overlooking the freeway

Going downtown by myself every day and serving on a jury, felt like a very brave thing for little old, stuck in the mud me to do because I am pretty well sunk-in to my careful little, often anxious but small risk suburban life. I ended up feeling both much older and quite a bit younger and also hopeful that my life wasn’t really all that set yet, and I could still live a more helpful, kind, — adventurous — and useful,caring life. I realized it is now time to find a practical way to give more to people who need another pair of hands to help them out. I have been volunteering from a distance, literally during the Covid pandemic years, but always a bit distanced metaphorically in how I choose to care for the stranger, the orphan, the homeless, the prisoner,or the hurting. But during my two weeks of Jury Duty I had been forced to be “present”. Each morning when the court clerk would call my number and I answered “present”, was like a vision of a future where the Great Judge of All calls the roll call. I want to start waking up each day, and be able to say, “I’m present. I’m ready. What is it that The Universal Good would have me, little old me, do for someone else today?” Because you know what — most of the good that gets done in this world is being done by “little old me’s”. And seeing all the “little old me’s” of Los Angeles made me realize that if anyone is looking for Christ, or looking for Jesus to return, I can tell them where to find him — he is in the City of Los Angeles, in the homeless camps and prisons and court houses and parks and sidewalks. All we have to do is look for Christ and we will find that Christ is here because Christ is waiting to be us.

And I realized, although I didn’t want to do it, that Jury Duty had been a sobering, emotionally and spiritually exhausting gift from God. After seeing the world that lets a young man join a gang because he doesn’t have any real family to help him grow up strong and valued and loved, or a world where someone gets shot by a gun while going to the grocery because we have become so greedy and stupid that we worship guns instead of life, or a world that walks past people without homes while other people fly into space on their chump-change, or a world that has been so very, very gracious to me, such a lucky world for me to be born and raised and survive in, while other people get the short end of the whole deal, after seeing a world where bad decisions became a life of no return, and good decisions can get you in trouble or killed, and where everyone is seeking the same things but some people just have the odds stacked against them and no one is around to help them find their way–help them find The Way; in world where every one is throwing their red paint around hoping that someone believes in them and loves them enough to say, “You are my world” — in this time and place that I happen to find myself in, I realized I need some skin in the game. Because this game? This game of life can’t be played from the sidelines.

Every day I got to come home to a home and a family that loves me and feels loved and where I have more than enough food and clothes and places to keep my stuff. I got to come home to a garden, and not just any garden, but a garden my daughter had made for me to enjoy. I got to come home to roses and I could avoid the thorns or get a band aide if I pricked my finger on a thorn. I thought about the defendant in the trial who would have many years where he would never see a garden, let alone tend one. I thought about the families of the victims who would never have their son or daughter make them something beautiful, like my daughter made my garden for me. I thought about the homeless folks who didn’t have any where but a cold or hot sidewalk to lay their heads at night. I thought about the judges and detectives and cops and prosecutors and defense attorneys and courthouse guards who every day go back into the world hoping for justice and also, I hope, praying not to get so jaded or worn down that they give up caring. And after my journey in the City of Los Angeles, I am still asking to know a better answer to the question, “How Shall I Then Live?”

Santa v. Jesus

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Santa v. Jesus.

By Jane Tawel

December 24, 2021

If Santa is happiness,

Jesus is joy.

With Christ, you get hope,

with Santa, fun toys.

Both Santa and Jesus come to our minds,

but sadly, for most of us, just at Christmas time.

If Santa is magical,

and Jesus is miracle

then it’s surely tragical,

when it’s not empirical,

to give freely to others, like Santa would do,

and to find our inner-Christ, the eternal and true.

Remember the specialness of everyone’s birth.

Try mindfully to be what brings peace to the Earth.

Laugh deep in your belly with glad ho, ho, ho’s.

Give daily your best gifts, so true love will grow.

We get stuck thinking holy-days are calendar days;

But each morning, we’re offered new steps on The Way.

No matter your culture, religion, or creed,

or if Santa or Jesus, you no longer believe;

Today is a gift! And my friend, so are you!

Today can be magical, and miracle, too!

Embrace every moment, no matter the season.

For you are the child that was born for a reason.

You are the giver of gifts and the star.

You’re loved now and forever, wherever you are.

Every day, celebrate! Give your life some applause.

Be your very best Jesus, and your best Santa Claus.

And when feelings or thoughts threaten to do you in–

Take a very deep breath, and to all, give a grin.

For tomorrow we celebrate, if we only believe!

Oh, each day is a miracle, a gift to receive.

Both Santa, the jolly, and Jesus, the mild,

have the same hopeful message: “Be today, like a child.”

Rush like a toddler, to the gifts laid before you.

Accept, like a newborn, the folks who adore you.

Anticipate happiness as a kid does a new toy.

Give big hugs and wet kisses as a child does with joy.

Be the elf or the reindeer or the shepherd or king,

For your story is the very most important thing

that you bring to the world, every day that you live.

You are the best gift any day has to give.

When we find in ourselves today’s Jesus and Claus,

We find plenty of reasons to rejoice – Just because!

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by Jane Tawel

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by Jane Tawel

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Pictures and a Story on The Way to Jury Duty in L.A.

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