Spirituality – Jane Tawel

Still Small Points of Light

by Jane Tawel

Still Small Points of Light

By Jane Tawel

January 30, 2026

We — the still small points of light.

Seething. Searing. Standing strong.

Oh, the kaleidoscope of multi-hued effervescence.

Spinning. Circling.

Spiraling in supervenient streams of consciousness.

I stand in a silence of admiration

of the phenomenon of dew-drops shining

on leaves on trees.

And a small ant crawls across

my cloudy, reflective windowpane,

And I hold it in universal fragility on one fingertip,

to release it — to crawl or not;

dropped on the grey pavement

of life hopeful once again.

Where are the prophets

of the sand that fills the seas?

Where are the angels that

creep among the weeds and shallow graves?

And if I live or die —

what sense has there been in all that has been

of me and you and those and them?

But here is ever more

and this and that.

And we may not rise

but we may indeed

flow.

The fire-flies’ candescence flickers

and skitters through our nights,

dazzling the darkness.

And in their smallness,

minutely a-glow,

they remind us

that all are gifted

with iotas of the Sun.

What Would Jesus Really Do?

What Would Jesus Really Do?

By Jane Tawel

January 24, 2026

Today I am struggling with this conundrum. I grew up in a pretty different American Christianity and very different America — in the “heart-land”, “Bible-belt” of the Midwest (for you Coastal folks, that’s still your fly-over zone). Were there problems? Yep. Was there error and misunderstandings about Christ’s life and message? Our Mea Culpa. But there was one phrase — (God bless whoever first came up with it) — that became a reminder, words of instruction and wisdom along the way, and shorthand for everything we were supposed to do to walk in The Way of the Christ. People had bumper stickers and acronyms on necklaces and t-shirts and for those of you young-ones watching the insanity today of people claiming Christianity as their belief-system or you who did not ever hear the catchy Catch-phrases of a Christianity once trying to live like Christ, this is what we thought was really the basis for, as Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “How we should then live”. What we said to ourselves and each other in moments of decision was this: “What Would Jesus Do?” WWJD?
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I was so very happy to see the priests, and pastors, and rabbis, and imams gather in MN — coming from near and far, just as the Magi did — to stand for what Jesus would have stood for and did with his life here on Earth. I am heartened to see so many people, in Minnesota, in Maine, in Los Angeles, in Oregon, and throughout Europe and Canada and the world — who may have never really heard much about Christ and also those who have a different doctrinal worldview or what we call “religion” and who are standing up for what all people of God believe in: Love above all, Sacrifice for Truth and what is Right, and treating others as you would want to be treated. And of course, for some, that includes What does God want me, as a human being who loves and serves Him, do with this one small life of mine? WWJD?
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If you have never read about what we know about Jesus and what he taught and did, it is worth a look — some even believe it is worth risking their own lives for, as Renee Good did and as many who have been abused and beaten by the long arm of an evil empire are doing today throughout the world and in our own backyard. I am trying to take a new look in my own life, at what this very intriguing and unique person, Jesus, actually did and said and thought. He had a different kind of wisdom about how to live and I think it had a lot to do with “how we humans should now live” according to what is not just God’s way, but Our true and best way. Smart guy in a strange kind of “smart” Way. Rumors have it he was even the Son of God. So it makes sense if you know about him and think he had any valid points to ask yourself: What Would Jesus Do? WWJD? Right?

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And so I ask some of you who I think you think you still “believe” in this idea of Christianity and of Jesus as The Christ — beyond what you believe — what do you think you should DO? Are you saying you are no longer of the opinion that when you see someone murdered for standing up for what Jesus called “the least and the lost” that Jesus would condone that and support it? Are you saying when you hear the words of hatred, racism, violence, and verifiable and endless lies and you repeat them and give them credence that you can say that is what Jesus Would Say? When you see children, the children that Jesus said “let them come unto me” and whom Jesus said that “unless we become like little children we cannot enter the kingdom of God” — are you saying that Jesus would say that’s okay because he didn’t mean that color of chlld, or a child of those kinds of parents, or…. ? Please forgive me but I am just so confused about what you say you believe. WWJD?
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You can see, my mind is truly boggled. Because I sat in your pews, and I ate at your tables, I taught and thought and bought it all — and I talked the talked with the best of them. But I just didn’t realize that we were not Jesus’ disciples, but the “blind guides” and dead cemetery stones, just like the Pharisees and Sadduccees of the days of Jesus’ own history here on Planet Earth. Mea Maxima Culpa. But I thank God, that I left “Christianity” in time to hopefully find Christ. I hope you can too, my friends. I really do.
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Maybe it is too hard for some of you to admit you were wrong. We used to have another belief in the Christianity of my youth: “If you will confess your wrong -headedness (sins) and turn from your evil (broken, mistaken, selfish) ways, you will be forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness (misguidedness, greedy, self-centered, egotistical or just plain foolish choices)”. I know it to be true, because as a great “sinner” myself (broken, wrong-headed, miss-stepping, tripping over myself, ego-driven, and weak-spirited, and very, simply struggling, learning often the hard way, Human Doing), she who has “sinned much” has been forgiven much.

It took only a handful of people to spread the Good News of the human being we call Jesus (for you young ones, that was before internet, cellphones, and Tik-Tok. Yes, I know, it’s going to be okay — have your parent get you a cold glass of water and lie down for a while. You’ll get over the shock.) I hope and pray that today’s “handful” of people who are trying to turn this Titanic around will succeed — I believe it has been done before and so I have to believe it can be done again. The Davids of this world have defeated the Goliaths before. It happened during the civil rights movement. It happened when the Berlin wall fell. It happened in a stable in Bethlehem. But for the rest of us — maybe for some of you reading this far — I just have to ask…

What Would Jesus Do?
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Can we try to recalibrate our beliefs and hop back on the Narrow Way? Can we start making popular again in our pews and synagogues and mosques the idea that we should be asking not what we should believe but how we should now live? And can some of us, who at least maybe when we were children, used to ask ourselves What Would Jesus Do? Can we ask it — and mean it — and start to step out in faith doing it?

I am not proselytizing, so please hear these words differently than you may have heard them before from people who want to “save” us but don’t want to suffer with us as Jesus told us to do; as Jesus did. He suffered with us. But he also partied with us. He experienced everything we did in life and still came out believing in a God of Love and that all we had to do to live the right way was to Love. So I ask this with humbleness of those who don’t know Jesus and those who say they do: Who is your Jesus? Who is your “Savior”? Maybe it isn’t the man we know as Jesus that some call The Christ. Maybe it is but by a different name in a different culture in a different part of the world. Maybe it isn’t any one you can name or think of or even believe in. But if you are feeling that today, in your world, in your life, you need someone to show you a different, better, more sustainable, wise, caring, peace-giving and love-promoting way; if you are feeling that today, you need some kind of radical and very different kind of Hero, than the wanna-be saviors and heroes today masquerading as emperors with no clothes or rich people with no souls; then I have a humble suggestion. I am finding it enlightening and wonder-full (full of mysterious Wonder) in an anxious, fearful, sorrowful world to read about the life of one man who was called Jesus and to ask myself moment by precious moment:

Jane: What Would Jesus Do?
WWJD.
© Jane Tawel, 2026

Guessing, Confessing, and Blessing

Guessing, Confessing, and Blessing

By Jane Tawel

This will be some doggerel,

from a broken heart and aching brain.

You’ll read guessing and my confessing,

then claims for us all for

a hopeful blessing:

What can I do with a broken heart?

Tear it into smaller and smaller pieces.

Give it piece by piece

to the hungry, hurting world —

“My life’s heart, broken for you;

Take and eat.”

What can I do with a boggled mind —

a mind so ensnared and wounded by fear?

Heal it with laughter

and with many tears —

“May this mind be in you

of the world’s servant-heroes,

who knowing nothing,

knew the fullness of God.”

What can I do with weak hands and sore feet?

Step forwards and backwards

and step side to side.

When you can not keep walking,

start dancing instead.

When your hands lose their grip,

Letting go’s the best option.

Falling down, face-plant forward,

Outstretched hands in the mud.

With scraped knees, scarred with blood,

You’ll be ready for prayer.

Prone and humble — off-duty —

Crawl, run, walk, fly in Beauty.

“The path is narrow

but The Way is True Life

Fear not! Lift your hands!

Be upheld. Stand upright.

Give your hand to a stranger,

in your weakness is might.”

What can I do when my eyes grow dim?

Know that hope needs no more

than one pin-prick of Light.

Your webbed-systems are dust —

past your fears, you’ll find trust

that while all else may fail us,

Love never will.

And though now we glimpse darkly,

Joy is God’s mystery.

Someday, we shall see.

“I AM in the Creator,

and the Creator is in me.

We are called to be Light —

The Light of the World.

Take good news to the nations,

Our redemption is nigh;

Our redemption is here.

As close as our heart,

As close as our breath,

As close as God in us,

Holy Spirit — Be.”

May the Peace of God’s grace,

Heal your sore, troubled mind.

May your mind in Christ Jesus,

Heal your blind, aching heart.

May your feet walk the straight paths

Even when sight has failed you.

May the palms of your hands

Be engraved with True Truth.

And each time you fail,

(as all humans must do)

May the oil of forgiveness

Multiply in your soul,

And be Light in all darkness.

And in Love’s deep embrace,

May you be free and Whole.

All italicized parts are paraphrases taken from the Scriptures, words of Jesus, and the Psalms.

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

A Message for Earthlings and a Psalm of Distress

And a Cry for Help and Prayer to a Mute God

By Jane Tawel

January 15, 2026

Dear Earthlings:

Why do you need me to be a brand?

(Isn’t branding used for cattle.)

If I don’t know who I really am,

Do you imagine you can tell me?

I suppose, like all dumb animals,

you want to brand me to make me feel

special in my dire commonality;

wanting me to believe

that I belong to a group, separate from others.

Apartness in a herd –

the New World’s ultimate paradoxical joke.

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

Forgetting we were not created to be special

but to be One.

I have spent a lifetime (or two or three)

tripping over your purity laws,

sometimes landing in a soft bed of nails

and sometimes landing in the muck and mire

of a miasma of my own super-ego.

My finger aches from pointing;

My mouth grows canker sores

from all the preaching of my personal piety,

while my heart grows faint with praise in prayers

that seem to reach no further

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

(how Stupe-id are my longings!)

My thoughts and appeals to the Silence

have no more strength to save the World

than the trembling tips of my eyelashes would have

to lift and hold a crying infant.

And my despair can not be quelled

By the swells that rise.

The Ocean has not been calm for many moons.

I take my pencil and scrap of paper,

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

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

“Why must You allow the humans

that You Created with such Love,

to endure the Karma of our own choices?

Will You not save us from ourselves?

Will You not come out from Your hiding place

And rescue us — if not because we deserve it —

but because You do?

This beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Planet

This tiny cosmic miracle of atoms run amok

This abiogenesis of animated Life

This — Your very Origin —

from our simplest aboriginality to our highest ascendance —

This and All This —

Why must something lesser be destroyed for something Greater?

Why must something die, for something else to Live?

Why must a leaf turn black and fall to the ground

To give life to the seedling?

Are You really mute, or have we muted You?

You, Grandfather, created us in Wonder, to wander

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

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

to seek Love, but not to contain it;

for Your Love is boundless

and it is the only Eternity we can know.

You, Oh Father, have created us

with the urge to conquer space,

But to also know that

our deepest fear is that we will one day

Be but dust to dust returned,

buried in the space we never conquered.

You, Oh Mother, have created us

to fly or fall from the Nest,

But to forever yearn to return to

the safety of Your Womb.

Why have You created me

with deep longing, if not to satisfy

the hungering of my heart

to return to Your Breast and be forever fed?

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

That I can not see

but only walk blindly forward;

And that I can not know, but only trust

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

there is:

Hope — in Something beyond us

that craves our Love.

Grace — that there exists

a Reason beyond the greatest achievements

of the human mind.

Purpose — that all our suffering

is the crucifixion we need

to find our resurrection.

And above all that every act

of unconditional Love

is Your active presence in the World.

I wish Oh, God, You hadn’t chosen

to live and act through us.

We — I — seem to fail at every turning

of the world upon its axis.

But, “okey-dokey, Smokey” —

I’ll choose to try again today

To change the world,

And save the planet,

And love the truly unlovable

And well….

I have to assume You will give me

a little bit of help.

I hope I can look forward

to meeting You, Someday.

Until then, You, O God,

will just have to accept

my shallow, fearful, selfish, foolish

Prayer — which is all I can summon up

to say how much I love this world

and how much I think I love, You.

Maybe?

A Paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer for Today:

Our ProGenitor,

Who lives in Entirety,

no one owns You or Your Name.

Please re-create us on this Earth,

as You continue to do in the Cosmos.

Help our unbelief that You know best,

and help us believe

that there is enough stuff

and enough food

and enough Love for all of us.

Create in everyone

the ability to let go

and may the spirit of Mercy have

more strength than any of our desires

for revenge or ownership.

Help us stop our mutual temptation to

destroy ourselves.

Deliver us from our own Egos

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

For someday, we will wake up

to realize this has been Your World all along

And that You have always been in charge of it;

But only through Your Love

Are You able to act —

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

May it be so in my life today.

Amen.

We Walk the Trail Together

We Walk the Trail Together

By Jane Tawel

January 7, 2026

Each day before Dawn

I walk the trail with you.

But you keep your eyes averted,

pretending you don’t see me.

Sometimes you talk with someone

who is not there;

but I am passing so close to you,

that I could touch you,

while we are walking the trail together.

Each morning we are there,

individuals in a group of early risers,

early seekers of breaking dawns;

still, you pretend I do not exist.

I used to find it annoying –

I used to think you meant to slight me,

that I was not worthy of your smile

or your cheery hello, like some of us share

in the brisk and pre-sunned morning air.

Now I wonder –

Am I really invisible to you

like angels often are to me?

Do you come on purpose

in the darkling light so

none can see your guilt?

Or has your mind so imprisoned you

that you can not free yourself

to see that which surrounds you

in this precious present Here and Now?

What is it that has frightened you so?

Who hurt you in a way you can’t forget?

How do you return to your own home

still so alone, so alone,

without weeping on the way?

I used to save my smiles for those

who gladly greet me each morning

with the happy knowledge

that we are so very, very privileged

to have another — one more — day;

that Life is very good

when we can — when just because — we all return

to walk the trail together.

But now I smile at you

as big as my small self can smile,

with no expectation that you will smile back

or that you will even raise your eyes

from this hallowed ground

on which you carefully place your next step.

The smile is not only for you,

Oh yes — I smile also for me —

for in The Ground of Being

there is every chance,

an angel you may prove to be.

We are but passing through,

yet someday, all trails

will lead to One Home.

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.

Heroes, Not Monarchs

Heroes, not Monarchs

By Jane Tawel

December 22, 2025

This is my poor attempt today to wrestle with some of the brilliant, enlightening thoughts of Joseph Campbell and Richard Rohr and of course, some of the great myths and stories of questers and seekers and heroes.

We foolish mortals who think the prize

is in being a queen or a king

so we miss the boat

and we blind our own eyes

and mistake the Soul’s Odessey

for ego-trips and small I’s.

We search and we search for that one special thing

that will make us feel better than,

mightier than,

holier than

all those who make us feel weak.

And there’s no happy ending

cuz we always want more;

so, we blithefully live with our bane of the poor

cuz we’re merchants and monarchs

in our ivory towers;

and we dirty the water and trample the flowers

and give up the whole earth

for our fantasy kingdoms

Never counting the cost…

Never counting the cost….

Never counting the cost

of not finding the pearl of great price

that we lost.

We are called to be heroes

all on the same quest

where the least and the lost

are the first and the best.

We are not dragon-slayers

if true heroes we be,

but we’re slain by the Dragon

and our windmills are tilted

and our offerings are jilted

at the altar until

in our search for the grail

we just fail, fail, fail, fail

because only by losing, we win.

True heroes are questing

and searching for more

of the wisdom that comes from

not reaching the shore, but from

Battling the waves, and from floating Inside

All the Mind’s raging tides and

The Heart’s endless strife

as we paddle and drift on the currents of Life.

True heroes are longing

and never at rest

but at peace beyond knowledge or lore.

And they know that in less, they are more;

for true Heroes must journey

in darkness and doubt,

trusting Mystery will lead them Ashore.

The heroes in history have found on The Way

that the gate is too narrow for war.

And the heroes we treasure

knew the gift and the joy

of the greatness in suffering

and the love of the voyage

that will end not in conquering

or in showered in crowns,

but in Kingdom revealed

that looked once upside-down

based on monarchs, and money and might;

but when Heaven’s doors open,

Life is now shown to be

only Truth, Beauty, Love and God’s Light.

Our great myths are communal.

Our story is One.

And since Time has begun

Heroes’ fingers have pointed

to the True Truths Eternal

of all under The Sun —

that our treasure’s internal,

Grace-given, not won.

And the Son is the servant

The hero — Our Soul —

and we toil and we toil and we toil and we toil

not to win, but to die to the self.

Not to rule or defend,

but to die for a friend

and to love ’til the story

has come to The End.

Only heroes can know

that there’s no place to go

where the true joy in living

is given for free.

For the quest is the same,

both for you and for me:

The Quest is the sorrowful yearning of love,

but the end’s a Divine Comedy.

To be home in this place —

Just to taste, hear, and see —

All the Goodness of this one precious life.

There is nothing to harm us or cling to or flee.

Yes, a transformed-by-Love hero

is what God calls us

to Be.

A Ditty for “In”-Dignity-Out

by Jane Tawel

A Ditty for “In”-Dignity- Out

By Jane Tawel

December 10, 2025

“You’re getting too big for your britches”,

I said to my ego today.

“You folly and flail;

You argue and rail

against pinpricks that get in your way.”

An ego’s a wondrous invention.

It’s evolved us from primordial stink.

But it’s out of control,

both for me and for all;

bringing nations, religions and folks to the brink

of believing we are what we think.

We’re killing the world with our egos.

We’re gobbling and gobbling it up.

Addicted to power and ever more stuff,

Numbing our conscience with shopping and shows —

for the kind Gods to save us is going to be tough.

We often think ego’s validity

are the stories we use to protect

all the walls that we build

to enclose a false entity,

and the fears and the hopes we project.

But by armoring our outsides against our own hearts,

We unbalance our yang with no yin,

And we grieve our own Spirit of love, peace, and joy,

(which is really the ultimate sin).

Today as I went to the altar

where I worship the Me-ness of me,

I found myself groveling before all my thoughts

that swarmed like great howling banshees.

I felt all the shame of my past Mea Culpas

and the pain of vague future fears seared my skull so,

so confused by the conflab of my claptrap and woes

that I left my poor Gift at the altar and went

on a walk ‘mongst the trees and the sunlight.

I found my thoughts stilling and I finally sent

up a prayer to be free from the hold: strong and tight,

of an ego that battled True Truth and Clear Sight.

And with each little breath, Love’s peace silenced the din.

And I found, without pride, there was dignity-in,

not in-dignity-out of a life lived for me,

not in-dignity-out of my hypocrisy;

but the wisdom that comes not needing to “know”,

and from sensing inside I could be more than ego.

I can find Divine Self, if I only let go

and allow seeds of Love to flourish and grow.

So, tomorrow I may prove not to know how,

But today, to my ego, I say, “bye-bye for now”.

And I’ll walk in the Present and in Presence and Grace

and let go of the neediness in my cluttered mind-space.

I will walk step-by-step, doing all that I must

to embrace peace and kindness, and Heaven-bound Trust.

Mindfulness ruling ego, I feel myself freed.

Loving Self, loving Others, I am free here indeed.

Jane Tawel, 2025

The Lunacy of Them and the Big If

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/@yassermokhtarzadeh

The Lunacy of Them and the Big If

By Jane Tawel

December 4, 2025

The lunacy of the world escapes me

as power deranges the minds of the powerful.

I want to throw myself at their feet and cry,

“Why do you want to destroy our beautiful world?

The insanity of science alarms me

as knowledge plays with fire,

and smart men fly too close to the sun.

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

“Why do you want to eradicate human beings?”

The ignorance of religion deeply saddens me

as belief and dogma turn inwards

like ingrown toenails;

and snakey tendrils

eat away at the heart of faith.

They have set up their money-changers

at the temples’ gates,

and their egos masquerade as God’s truth.

They cling to victimhood,

ignoring the lives of their saviors and prophets.

I want to weep for them

as a lost chick for her mother hen:

“Why do you not keep seeking, seeking, seeking

when you know deep within you have not truly found?

Why do you not embrace wisdom and love

as you claim your Gods do?”

“Why do you seek ever more of

the temporal kingdoms of earth,

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

why do you settle for these

when you are offered the Kingdom of Heaven —

shining cities on the Hill —

and promised that all nations

would be blessed by you?”

The greed of the wealthy enrages me

as I walk past today’s lepers in the streets

and think of children — Children! —

going hungry while the rich fly to Paris and back

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

I want to rob them blind and distribute their money

equitably throughout the world.

I want to take great handfuls of cash

and throw them at homeless encampments

and Trash Cities and foster homes.

I want to set the captives free

to raise families wherever they choose to feel safe.

And I want to find a cure for blindness.

And a cure for our lame excuses.

And make nests safe and trees healthy.

And heal the sickened land.

Today I saw myself in

that moment’s mirror,

and I was Narcissus looking back at myself.

Today I opened my scriptures and spiritual books,

and there was the mirror once more.

The Book of The Living and The Dead

opened its page to the story of Me

where my judgements of the world,

Revealed themselves,

and as in a mirror darkly,

my judgements of others

uncovered my true Face.

I saw in myself,

the many headed monster —

It was I who was the hydra —

Greedy,

Power-hungry,

Egotistical in self-righteousness,

Selfish,

Cruel,

Abusive of knowledge

Afraid of wisdom;

and prone to the insanity

of Me-ness.

And I thought,

I can not kill the triumvirate of Anti’s

or slay the evil in the world,

but I can crucify them in myself.

I long to see all the peoples of the world

joining their resources with the delight

in knowing that there is enough and always enough;

as together, no matter our color or creed,

we laugh at fear in the knowledge

that nothing Good is ever truly lost —

not even in death.

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

I long to close-up my need to know

Like closing a trap-door that

Only opens to imprison me.

I long for all to open The Door

to The Way that is given to us to

multiply bread and fishes forever and

bring the Kingdom to Life.

May that longing for openness be mine today.

Create in me a new mind, Oh, God.

I long for that promised joy

that will come each morning.

And we will dance in the streets.

And the birds of the air,

and the lilies in the fields,

and the forests, and mountains, and seas,

will rejoice:

“Hallelujah!”

“Namaste!”

“We are Risen!”

“Amen!”

And all the earth and Her peoples,

Become the Holy Temple.

And all is One,

and we sing with joy.

Create in me, a new Spirit, Oh God,

that I may rejoice in Your Goodness and Love.

And as the prophet sang,

“You may say that I’m a dreamer,

but I’m not the only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us.

And the earth will live as One.”

Oh, Great Creator-Spirit,

Whatever and Whoever You Are,

Mother and Father of Earth and Peoples

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

Holy Beingness above the me, the I AM ,

Timeless, Spaceless, Nameless One –

I pray once more the only prayer I know:

“Help me. Help me. Help me. Help us.”

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

“Free our hearts and minds to trust

that Love will always win and

Love will always Be.”

“May we Be. One.”

And may this be my desire today:

That I may step by step

moment by moment

seek that within myself

that I wish to see in others.

May I use all I am given,

both in material things and talents

in thought, word, and deed,

not for my will, but Thine Alone

and Thine in Love of All.

May it be

that I shall not run towards judgement

but that I shall walk and not be weary

in The Paths of Righteousness and

in the faith of that which can not be seen

but can be trusted.

And as I wait upon the Change

that will only come in the world

as I seek to Be that Change;

may I have the hope

that through my own small vision-seeking self,

our Salvation is right beside us;

our salvation is nigh,

our salvation is here and always here;

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

is within our very own hearts.

In this world, may I

partake in suffering after suffering,

share in sacrifice after sacrifice,

Releasing of all holding,

Accepting of all happenings,

Faithful through all doubts,

Seeking without knowing,

Loving without acception.

And above all,

May I love the very enemies

of this beloved place and time

as I work to love them as myself —

because they Are myself.

May I forgive myself today

as I forgive others.

And may I be like a babe in the womb,

knowing nothing, trusting completely,

safe in my Mother’s Love.

And one day I shall be reborn

to what I do not know

but I shall then, with joy unimaginable,

see My MotherFather as They Are

and we will be One once more.

Is it not true, after all,

as all the Wise Ones say,

that I create the world I see?

Do not all of my perceptions

come to fruition because I want them to

and therein lies the Lie?

If I seek that “kingdom not of this world”

that is this perfect world in Love;

If I keep my lamp filled

with the oil of anticipation

that the Earth’s Bridegroom will come

and marry our imperfect longing

to perfection forever;

And if as the Light that comes from God,

manages to shine through my mud-encrusted lamp–

and I know that I Am–

the light of the world –

Then “If” — -

Well, then…

What might Be?

What If?

I think maybe I’ll try it and see.

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

Right?

Wishful Thinking

Wishful Thinking

By Jane Tawel

November 28, 2025

Candid contemplations resounding hollowly,

for who can know the parameters of any single thought.

The heart knows, but has no words.

The heart knows, but has no thoughts.

The heart knows, but as it pounds and beats

with that which can only divine love –

with that which is — only Divine Love —

the mind steps in to silence it

with rage, or lust, or fear

that masquerade as intellect,

pretending to protect,

but only punishing the heart.

To ask the heart to take control

is to ask silence to speak,

love to look,

and caring to control all feckless fantasies.

To ask the heart to understand

is to fall back on humanity’s first thought,

that the only idea at all that is a good one,

is that only God is Good.

The mind’s machinations and convoluted fears

are based on the illusions

that the power of merely wishful thinking

can do anything but lead us down

wide, wide, wide brambled paths:

paths that lead from one dream to another.

The heart knows

that only The Narrow Path

leads us Home.

Our minds, that we created

out of forbidden fruit and falling skies,

to work or use or strain or stain —

are simply skipping, broken records of the brain,

or anxious agitations of notyetnotyetnotyet.

We take such pride, we fight so hard,

for what we think we know.

The mind is like a boxer in the ring

always and everywhere trying to prove everything

basing its illusions on its might and solidity,

only to find the terrible, unbeatable opponent

is one’s own supercilious, smugly dissatisfied self.

The heart rests, like a cat in the sun.

The heart is quiet, like the moment before dawn.

The heart is full of beauty, as Spring’s first bloom.

The heart is safe and peaceful, as a baby in the Womb.

As I have this small time,

Now, and only Everlastingly Now,

through Grace alone, gifted to me,

may my vision and my will

be Grace-bound, full of Light and Love, and freed

from my mind’s prideful prison of ego and need,

until I have become whole-ly Heart-led,

and holy in deed.

And if that is wishful thinking of the heart —

so let it Be.

Note: Some of this may come from my working through thoughts after a cool story I heard about some neuroscientists who invented one of those machines that they put on people’s heads to measure their thoughts and brain waves etc. The scientists took this head helmet contraption to a monastery to study the brain waves and thoughts of a group of Buddhist monks, but when the scientists asked the monks to put the machines on their heads, all the monks burst out laughing. When the brain-experts asked why they were laughing the monks told them they had designed the machine incorrectly and that if they wanted to measure people’s thoughts, the machines had to be designed to fit here — and they all pointed at their hearts.

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