Love – Page 2 – Jane Tawel

Karma is a ‘Beaut

Homeless Jesus, on unsplash by Randall Greene

Karma is a ‘Beaut

By Jane Tawel

September 12, 2025

Back where I am from there is a saying “She’s a ‘Beaut, Isn’t She?” (Pronounced “Byoot”) Translated out of Midwestern or Southern dialect, one might say, “That is very Beautiful” or “She is a Beauty”. Calling something a “beaut”. is often used when referring to a new purchase like a car, or a baby crib, or a cow. There is another saying that may have come to some minds when they read my title, another “B” word that we often link to Karma. It is a word which, as a woman, I dislike intensely and try never to utter. But then also, I have come to connect Karma not with the idea that many Westerners do, which is a type of justice or just deserts (pronounced as in “desserts” with two s’s although spelled with one “s”). Karma is the idea that every action — good, bad, and neutral — have logical and unerringly correct consequences. It goes along with the other spiritual teachings and all true historical worldviews, and along the lines of “Do good and good will come to you”; “You reap what you sow”; poetic justice and just deserts; and so forth. “True Truth, Karma is”, (said in the voice of that wise one called Yoda). Then there is the karmic connection that one can not help but come to mind when I have seen the latest news and social media hype about a person who died last week, and that karmic saying really often does feel like it deserves the other “B” word: “you live by the sword, and you will die by the sword”. Or in America, translated as, “You preached that everyone should be allowed to own and use a gun whenever and however and now you have been killed by a gun that someone had the freedom to use because of people like you.” Karma is often, indeed, if not the “B-word”, oh, so situationally ironic.

I know there are people who are sad about the death of this man who was killed by a gun. In this country, as perhaps in many Western countries, there are several problems surrounding this. The first is that we deny the fact of death and the very real reality that everyone is going to die. So we are just super-duper shocked when someone actually dies. And what with the uber hype of social media and the talking heads that claim they are giving us “news” (Definition of “news” according to the dictionary: newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.) Hence, I try these days to skim headlines, just to make sure I don’t have to pack my car for the next SoCal fire or to inform myself on what I might expect to find (or not find) at my local grocery, and I move on to more important things — like reruns of “Columbo” on Netflix. Otherwise I can lose whole decades and globs of hair I tear out obsessing about the latest machinations and tweets of crazy people.

The second thing that social media does to skew our view is to make us feel we “know” people that we don’t actually know. I am very glad I never knew anything about — not even the name — of this man that was killed by a gun this past week. He is possibly rolling in his grave to hear that, but there it is. I try my darnedest to spend my valuable and rapidly running out days left on this earth reading about people past and present who matter and who share or increase my understanding of what I, as a little human being, have been called to do (or not do) while I exist as matter on this earth so that in some way, I might matter — not because I am great or famous but because I love. And I believe one thing when I can’t seem to believe anything else, and that is that Love never dies. Love is in some way, some how — Eternal. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that every one, whether they know it or not, lives according to a WORLD- VIEW. I believe my greatest task left to me is to walk that so-called, “narrow path”, The Trustful, Truthful Way, the Tao — and to try my best to stop doing harm, to spread light and love, and to find the peace that passes my current understanding, with trust that God is Good, and that no matter how many times the Earth is destroyed or we destroy it, that Life, and True Life will keep regenerating from our ashes.

Thirdly, there are so many people in this country, and maybe the world, who have no idea what sorrow is and how to grieve. In fact, we deny being sad (we are depressed); we deny grieving (“mama is in heaven now so be happy”); and we deny the fact that we have allowed violence and injustice to thrive in this nation in the name of some idiotic idea that it means we have freedom. In fact, in America, we have taken the word and idea of “freedom”, and made it into a prison of selfish individualism in a nation that cares nothing for its citizens but only for the illusory chimera of wealth for the few and the “bread and circus” promises of winning the lottery for the majority.

Now I am, after having read more headlines about this man who was killed this past week, actually very, very glad I had no idea who he was until recently and that I have no history with ever hearing any thing that came out of his mouth. And please, can we be clear? This man was not “assassinated” like people who were actually killed for speaking up about justice or racial inequity, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This man was not a martyr for his ideals, like Ghandi. This man was murdered by someone who was simply exercising his Second Amendment rights — according to the man who was killed. Do I rejoice in his death? Absolutely not. But not because of him, but because, as that beautiful Christian poet, John Donne, who suffered and sorrowed much, especially over the death of his young son, I believe that “every death diminishes me”. However, do I think this man’s death warrants the hoopla surrounding it. Nope. So, stop reading here if this offends somehow your sensibilities or if you feel that not faking sorrow for a man who did not live in goodness or love for others is a bad thing.

I will tell you about a few of the people that I do not know that I actually do mourn. I mourn the twenty INNOCENT children and six teachers who were murdered at Sandy Hook. (Those children didn’t know that a crazy man was just exercising his Second Amendment rights.) I mourn the deaths of the fourteen students and three staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. (I once lost a job at a Christian school, in part because I allowed my class to participate in the six minutes and twenty seconds of silence for the first “March for Our Lives” national movement day. Long after the scars have healed over, the irony still catches my breath.) I mourn the wives and mothers killed by gun violence in their own homes because their spouse or partner is allowed to keep a weapon despite the fact he is a known domestic abuser. I mourn Trayvon Martin and George Floyd; I mourn Matthew Shephard and Harvey Milk; and already and still — despite the fact it is not the current hot news du jour, I mourn the twenty-nine deaths and sixty serious injuries from school (SCHOOL!!!!) shootings in America in 2025 so far. (When did we stop being shocked by school shootings? That must be the day the soul of America truly died.) And if you get me started on some parts of the rest of the world where children are left to starve and innocent civilians are killed, I will probably implode with disbelief and sorrow to the point I will never stop mourning. “Every death diminishes me”, but the death of innocent children and the death of the innocent reduces me to a pool of sorrow.

Eckhart Tolle has helped me see the current state of many countries in the world, and especially my own nation of the, now seemingly ironically named, “United” States of America. Remember the Corona Virus (for those of you who still believe in science)? Well, we currently have, as Tolle brilliantly sees, a serious mental virus. I would, along with Jesus, be so bold as to call it a spiritual virus as well. That is the only way to explain the absolute insanity of what our government (and others); and some non-government leaders (like those in churches or synagogues or schools); and some random, known and unknown, citizens are believing and “preaching” and doing. It is — no other word for it — INSANE INSANITY. And just as Germany woke up after years of murdering innocent people and labeling people as less than human during the fascist regime of the past (not the current ones). And just as the nation I have loved and long lived in, woke up after we burned women for being witches at the stake because they were strong and outspoken and healers; and woke up after we stole human beings from their land to use as slaves, deeming them less “human” than we were because of their color; and just as we woke up after realizing that women were smart enough to vote and have their own money and property — we might still wake up in time. We might wake up from this horrible nightmare of our own creation in time to save our nation. We might even wake up in time to save other parts of our world, as America has often rallied and risen-up to do. We may even have the guts and righteous reasoning to save our planet.

But we may not.

And with each passing, fearful day, I begin to think perhaps this Insanity Virus, that so many in my country seem to have been infected with, will not be recognized in time and that we will not have the strength or the truthfulness to diagnosis the real problem we have and to turn to the Healers and the Helpers.

And it is, I regret to point out, in great part because we keep breathing in the toxic fumes of people like the man who was murdered this past week. And of course, we keep sucking in the nuclear waste of the supposed leaders who react and mourn this guy who died but not the actual recent assassination of Minnesota Representative Melissa Hotrman.

And we keep denying we have become sick to the point of spiritual death by caring more for what we have (or think we once had) than what we are called to BE. And we think somehow there is not enough to go around, when there is plenty if we are willing to share. And we believe in some future “good” when what we need to do is believe the Truthful Ones, like Jesus, who said, “The Reality of Heaven is NOW, not Then and not Someday. Live Light now, for you are the Light of Awareness and Truth and Love”. And if we lived that way, then we really wouldn’t have to fear death. We could mourn the loss of those who die without losing the sense that as individuals we are impermanent but when we live together in Oneness as part of The One, then death is simply transformation.

When I was in high school, I memorized some scriptures whose meaning has morphed as I have aged and has definitely morphed since I began to see my nation, my world, and myself in different ways. The shock of 2015 for me was that any one who claimed to know or want to know Jesus, the Christ, could ever catch the insanity virus. I thought the “Jesus-Worldview” would make any one immune to worshiping hatred and greed and lies. But as I saw people worship not the Golden Calf of the ancient Hebrews but the Golden Pig(s) of this Uber-Capitalistic Oligarchy, masquerading as supporters of “democracy” and as I witnessed people who would never say a swear word, blaspheming the name of God with their misrepresentation of what we have been told about The Way, and corrupting the ideas of the Judeo-Christian belief system — I realized — people really can go crazy without realizing it. People really have gone insane and I can not imagine they realize they have caught a deadly mental disease. “What does it profit a person if they gain the world (or the Congress or the White House) and lose their soul?”

So here are some things that continue to help me and why I don’t mourn some individual man who spread the Gospel of Hate and whose name will be forgotten in a few years, if not a few weeks. Here are my musings and my meditations on Galatians 2: 20,21)

“I am crucified with Christ”, (that is I die to ego and selfishness and greed and prejudice — and all those things that make me a prisoner of hate and fear) and I am crucified in the way Jesus accepted the reality of suffering and even death and I accept all suffering as crucibles and ultimately the way to Rebirth and Resurrection. “Nevertheless, I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me”, (I seek to know my true “Beingness”, my Soul, my Deep Self that Jesus knew and that God gives all who embrace the “holy spirit”; I seek to live in the Spirit which overcomes not only evil, but also overcomes death. So, when I die to ego and hate and greed and fear, I truly find Eternal Life.) “And the Life which I now live in the flesh, (while I still have a body and still have “stuff”), “I live through the faith of the Son of God” (I trust that I am, as Jesus was and is in a new form, a beloved Child of God), (and so are you, and you, and you, and you and yes, so is even that man who died by a gun and those men and women who are frantically and selfishly intent on destroying our world — we are all beloved children of God) (And so, there has only been and will always be only one Real Reality — and that is Love). (Jane’s current paraphrase of Galatians 2: 20–21)

I will share with you this paraphrased prayer, because I just don’t know what else to say to give you hope, except: May the peace which passes understanding, give you strength to keep fighting and to keep sorrowing and to keep loving to the End of Time and then Beyond Time.

So yes…. Karma is indeed a ‘beaut. Because just as the followers of Jesus wrote, quoted above (albeit in Jane “strange-speak” language), the amazing, wonderous, awesome thing about being a human BEING is that we can, if we choose to, elect to change our overall karmic arc. There are just so many examples of those who have changed their karma — the trajectory of their lives — through one intentionally good action at a time — So many little and great human beings have changed the moral/ karmic arc of their own lives and of history, that the pages in The Good Book can not hold all their names. “We can not all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love”, as that Good Karma Saint, Teresa taught us. And maybe, just maybe, if each one of us allows the Light of Love and Truth and Trust and Hope, to shine through our dense selves, then we will Light a path for those who choose darkness over light, those “blind guides” who choose to lead with hate and fear rather than love and faith. As the children’s song says, “This little light of mine. I’m gonna’ let it shine. Won’t let Satan blow it out — No! I’m gonna’ let it shine”. God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I will.

I went to a funny little concert a few weeks ago, outside in a big park here in SoCal (SoCal — epicenter of the war waged from afar on justice and kindness). And at the last song of the concert, everyone got out their cell phones and turned on their flashlights and waved them around. Back in the day, we all had lighters to do that, even if we didn’t smoke, and the symbol of a little blaze of fire waving around in one’s teenaged hand was a more complete metaphor back then because of, well, fire. But still, at my recent concert, as you looked around and back and in front and on the overhead screens, you saw a vast ocean of waving lights. All it took, was for this one person to bring the light, and then that one person to bring the light, and then that one, and that one, and that one…. Fear not, my friend and stay strong. And Bring the Light.

You are the “Light of the World”. Let your Light so shine before all human beings, and someday, when you are “going towards the Light”, in those final moments, well, we don’t know what happens next, not really, but if we “do not walk in darkness, we will (for certain) have in hope and in fact, the Light of Eternal Life”. The Great Teachers have pinky promised us that; and I am going to trust them on that promise. One precious moment at a time.

I Am Sad for Those Who Choose To Be So Small

I Am Sad for Those Who Choose To Be So Small

By Jane Tawel

August 15, 2025

I pity those who choose to be so small.

Especially those perhaps, who,

elevated to heights of grandeur,

living as this world’s supposedly elites

given prestige, power, and wealth,

who stand upon the mountain tops —

and yet, choose to crawl in the dirt

where they see only the specks of dirt in others’ eyes,

where they throw dirt at others attempting to dehumanize them;

where they debase themselves with petty actions,

meant to hurt others in their quest for more —

more power — there is never enough;

more things — there are never enough;

more wealth — there is never enough;

more attention — there is never enough;

more fame, and praise, and adulation — there are never enough.

More and more and more……

Because there is never enough.

Because they — are never enough.

I can only pity them.

How little they know.

How little they are.

I feel sad for those who choose to be so small.

They make the world hold up a fun-house mirror

allowing them to appear to themselves as big and grand,

as huge as their egos fight to make them feel.

I feel sad but it is hard for me to feel empathy

because I am still angry at the harm they do to others.

Why do small people become bullies?

If we all see in a cloudy mirror, darkly,

how sad it must be for those the world makes appear

so much bigger than the rest of us,

to sometimes get a glimpse of their true selves,

of the small needy child reflected back.

I wish Someone would tell them:

“It is the humble who inherit true life”.

I wish Someone would hold them

like the little angry, fearful children that they are.

And A Good Parent would say, “Fear not, for I-AM with you”.

And then they would no longer be angry that they too will die someday.

And then they would no longer be afraid to share their toys.

Because they would know that The Good Parent has enough

for all of us.

And that The Good Parent believes that each of us IS enough.

Because we are all Her children.

Even the naughty ones.

Even the ones who try to appear so big.

Even the small ones.

Even you and me.

And all of us small children,

could Be — One. Big. Happy Family.

I feel sad for those who choose to be so small.

I too, have chosen to be small, to stay small,

to let my ego convince me that it must grow and grow and grow…

By being right,

By being in charge and in control,

By being this or that or “someone”.

I, too, have made myself small

by making myself feel bigger

compared to someone else –

a friend, a boss, a spouse, a child, a stranger.

I, too, have chosen smallness of spirit,

Not realizing that smallness is never Spirit.

For how can something small contain

The Spirit?

How can any small container hold

that which is enormous, spacious, eternal?

I have used the same methods the large people use

to make myself small –

I have used anger and fear and judgment

And I have used them against you –

And I have used them against me —

And I have thought that those things reduced you compared to me.

And I have thought those fears and angers and judgements against myself

were things I could hold on to as important —

But they aren’t important unless I use them to grow;

Unless I use them to grow something Good.

My anger, fear, and judgement are the dirt —

And yes, I recognize that dirt can make things grow,

But what I choose to do with the dirt matters;

what I choose to plant in that dirt is what matters.

I can plant weeds or flowers; I can plant food or golden towers.

My emotions are not me, any more than my thoughts are me.

My emotions and thoughts can be the trash that fill me up

like an overflowing dump, like a landfill.

Or I can let my emotions and thoughts be the mud,

the decaying compost

that lets the lotus grow

that nourishes Abundant Life.

I am sad for those who choose to stay so small.

Next to the little ripple that I make,

they appear as huge waves — as tsunamis, some of them —

it sometimes still makes me angry at their destructive paths,

it sometimes still makes me afraid,

afraid for the children who must one day

try to clean-up the mess on the shores

we leave behind in our time.

And yet, those who make big waves do not realize

that we are all just small, temporary appearances

on Life’s surface.

We are none of us any more than

small ripples on One Big Endless Ocean.

How sad to look for large-ness in one’s small self,

when if one only looked around, and looked inside,

one would see the Vastness of The Ocean she is

One With.

Oh!

What peace I find!

What joy I embrace!

Passing understanding, peace settles in,

when in this single, only moment that I have

I AM –

I am that one, small ripple at One with your one, small ripple.

In that Being,

my spirit enlarges

and together we grow and grow and grow

to Be

One Huge Ocean.

The Wise One said,

“This too shall pass — as every time does,

as every moment does”.

All names go down in someone’s history,

and then that history passes out of all remembrance.

The Wisdom of the One Spirit

can not be contained in old wine skins:

Always new and renewing, it bursts forth from the old,

renewing and renewing into Eternal I-AM-ness.

And seeing the finger pointing at the moon,

is the signpost not the Truth.

And empathy is only an open door,

to learn to love my enemy as I love myself.

For my enemy IS my Self.

And peeking through the door of empathy,

I see the Light of Love.

And only Love remains.

Meditating: Is it My Life, Life or Death?

Meditating: Is it My Life, Life or Death?

By Jane Tawel

They are other life-times I have had —

Whether incarnations or memories —

Whatever you need to call them,

What matter does that make?
Yes — What “matter”?

For each moment past

is no longer my matter,

nor should it matter any more

and hence,

Nothing — No-thing — that matter-ed then

can effect me now.

Will I live forever?

Of course not.

How could I live forever if I never exist beyond

just this one precious moment?

Or is this moment full of

an Eternity I choose to ignore?

But what does it matter if what

I call myself

Does not live past this —

“tick!”

“tock!”

“tick!”

“ti — ”

“t — ”

Hmmm?

Do I truly desire that who I think I am right now

continues…….?

Continues in endless suffering…..?

Endless confusion?

Endless unknowing?

Endless unloving?

As the Wise One said:

“Why do you worry about tomorrow?

Doesn’t this moment provide exactly the correct number of problems for you to solve?”

And what exactly are the problems –

Right Now?

Those problems that you think you have,

are all in your head.

Be thoughtless,

and you will become thoughtful.

Do not let anything “matter” to you

more than experiencing this –

One precious moment,

One precious Life.

The Wise Ones knew

that “what we shall be then,

we cannot know, but one day —

We will all awaken”.

And, Oh!

Then only Love will remain.

That is the accepted bliss of acceptance

that in this moment, I do not need to know.

Unknowing is the path to the joy of complete surrender.

And walking that path is the only way to Love.

One step.

One moment.

One Life.

We do not know what we will become,

But one way or the other,

We will be transformed.

We are but ripples and waves

but we are also The Ocean.

One day, we will be like Them.

And we will be One.

There can be no more questions of yesterday

and what might have been.

There can be no more fearful desire or denials for tomorrow.

There is only the peace that passes understanding.

Accepting what IS.

There is joy in being alive as what IAM today.

There is only this —

Now, and ever more shall be.

The Problem Starts with “Me”

The Problem Starts With “Me”

By Jane Tawel

July 15, 2025

The problem comes when I say, “me”.

The problem comes when I say, “mine”.

Then it’s so easy to disagree,

with those who are so oft inclined,

to disagree with Me.

There were some folks who seemed to know,

The Causes and the Outcomes.

They taught that where our treasures are

are where our meaning comes from.

And while this life is fleeting fast

and Space is just a construct

and though Death always seems abrupt,

The Wise Ones know, this too shall pass

and yet, Love’s Spirit always lasts.

So, I am whittling bit by bit

away at what is “mine”.

The Know-it-All that I once was,

is now the Seeker and I find,

that in each person’s form on Earth,

a treasure deeply hides.

No longer do I need to see

just their opposing side,

for they are just the same as I,

and all their fears can be dissolved,

if I choose to be kind.

In every person, large and small,

no matter place or race,

beats the same longing, hoping heart,

behind each temporal face.

And when my life is over,

as every life will be,

then if I didn’t know before,

I’ll know then, that there never was

just “mine”, “myself”, and “me”.

For we are all connected

and One with The Great Source.

I am a ray of Sun Light.

You are a wave of Ocean.

The Dawn will break the dark of Night,

and every argument and notion

will fade before Truth’s purging might.

We are a link in Life’s Great Chain,

and when we die, we’ll wake to find,

that only Love Remains.

A silly word, this word called “love”,

A word that can not hold,

the depth, and breadth and width and height

if all Love’s stories were all told.

Oh, what, instead of fears and fights,

one Person’s Love could do!

So I’ll begin, just little me,

and I’ll start by loving you.

And whether you’re beloved child,

or friend, or stranger or foe,

I’ll look straight at my own dark fears,

and freely let them go.

And I will trust the greatest might

is not in war or what we own

but in each human’s small, bright light

the Light of Love that leads at last

to Peace on Earth and here we’ll find,

on Planet Earth as in God’s Spaciousness,

our Love’s Eternal Home.

Ah, Me! Good riddance!

Good-bye! Adieu!

Only my Love remains.

Only True Love remains.

Only God’s Love remains.

Only, All, We, Love.

Who Are We?

Who Are We?

By Jane Tawel

June 20, 2025

We did not appear as a fluke.

Nor do we wander aimlessly.

I am not the sum of what I produce.

If I would allow it,

my thoughts would rest painlessly

Our words remind us constantly,

of just how little we know.

Today I invite All in —

embracing your suffering as mine.

Forgiving my lack of care,

as I forgive yours,

I will see in us, only The Divine.

Everything comes and goes.

And Time and Space matter little

in this very, single, precious moment.

What I see, in your face, your eyes,

What I hear in your cries, your giggle,

What I touch in your hands and your heart

What I taste in the bread and the wine

of that communion that makes our separate parts —

One —

As all else changes,

As the planet spins and spins,

If you and I ask not, “What do I believe?”

Or, “What do I get?”

Or, “What do I perceive?”

Or, “How can I win?”

But instead, ask: ”Who Are We?”

Then we will find there are no strangers.

There is only one little human being

that I call “I”,

And one other little “I”,

And another,

And another.

And when all our “I’s”

are seen as One We,

we will know Who We Are.

Then only Love remains.

Leaving the House for Home

by Jane Tawel

Leaving the House for Home

By Jane Tawel

June 16, 2025

Cleaning out the cobwebs is a start,

but not enough.

Throwing out the trash can feel good,

but it’s a temporary rush;

the trash keeps building up.

To be completely clean,

to clear everything out,

one must destroy the house.

Or you could simply walk away.

No need for regrets.

The house won’t live forever anyway.

Leaving all behind.

Giving all imagined futures away.

Leave your house to the squatters.

Leave the spiders your corners,

And let the birds make nests in your eaves.

Someday the worms will rule your garden,

And you can follow the bees.

Walk away and don’t look back.

Do not ask where the path leads.

The Path leads to Now.

Look at the piece of grass at your feet —

and smell its richness.

Look at the Big Sky —

the clouds cannot hide it.

Look at your hand —

and touch its calloused softness.

Listen to the bird song —

and hear the breeze.

Breathe deeply.

You are enough,

This is enough,

because you are here now.

Leave the cobwebs and the dust

that have gathered in your past.

Choose the path that obscures from view,

whatever may lie ahead.

The next step you take in the freedom of Love,

The next breath you take in the joy of Life,

The next heartbeat you have in the grace of this Moment,

Those things are your Home.

And now you can tell yourself,

“I didn’t really need this house to live in”.

Because Eternity can not be contained.

The Little Gnat

by Jane Tawel

The Little Gnat

By Jane Tawel

June 1, 2025

I watch the smallest gnat

flit around my reading lamp.

I bugged me, so,

I tried once or twice to squash it.

But after it kept getting away,

I asked its forgiveness:

“Forgive me, please.”

Why should I murder

a little gnat?

It does me no harm.

So, I shall do it no harm

and thereby live

One perfect

Harmless

Moment.

Why do I choose

to feed on feces

when by turning around

I could find The Feast?

The mind runs willy-nilly,

desperate to escape the heart.

Why?

The walls we build are made

of solid ice — cold and hard.

But even solid ice will melt

when exposed (over enough time)

to the warmth of Love.

And like the Sun,

The Light of Truth

will make cracks in the

iciest and hardest of our walls.

Like the Sun if we look straight at it

we are kindly blinded if we seek the Truth.

Like warm water on cold hands

Love will gently open even the most mangled grip.

True Truth is only found

in Not Knowing.

Love is only found

in Letting Go of grasping the high bars

and falling gently down

into the soft folds of Forgiveness.

Who knows

who the little gnat might actually be?

He will die of his own accord,

in his own time,

as shall I.

Perhaps someday the gnat and I

will meet again

And he will say to me,
“Thank you”.

He will appear as an angel

and thank me for not killing him.

And I will thank him

for teaching me about Love.

Perhaps Someday –

Ah, my Soul —

I will thank even the little gnat,

and All who bring me to

The Place where we are One.

Call Me Back

Call Me Back

By Jane Tawel

May 3, 2025

Call me back,

call me back to you.

Softly, softly,

as morning dew,

as summer rain,

as gentle breeze,

Call me back to you.

Call me back to you,

call me back.

Sweetly, sweetly,

as morning larks,

as summer eves,

as Aspen bark,

Call me back to you.

Call me back to you,

and I shall call too.

Gently, gently

as baby’s breath,

as love’s first kiss,

as butterfly wings,

as Spring’s first buds,

as wisps of clouds,

that float and fly,

and slivers of moon

that cradle night’s sky.

I’ll call to you,

back through time and place.

And though change does come,

in form or face,

I will know You are mine,

and I am yours,

as we call to each other –

Come back.

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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