A long time ago I learned that I can't glory in the rose's blossom without also accepting the rose's thorns. The one is as essential to the wholeness of my life as the other. Here's a meditation about this truth.
THE THORN
I don't try evading it anymore the thorn's always been there always will be just when I think it's gone that's when the fierce familiar point pierces my skin I don't know why this keeps happening maybe it's the sadistic amusement of a bored adolescent god stick--moan stick--moan actually I think I extrude the thorn from somewhere inside I realize it's as much a part of me as hunger pain death
today like any other day I want to be happy I was drop-kicked out of Paradise before I knew it and I long to go back I want to joyride the only car on a six-lane superhighway to gorge down seven-layer chocolate cake all the time but never get sick to be adored by a sex goddess half my age who's forever blind to my feet of clay in other words I still don't even understand what true happiness is
so it seems I must be grateful for this inescapable thorn must grit my teeth and moan "thank you!" each time I flinch at its bitter little puncturing thank you thorn for once more pricking me awake thank you for goading me once more from my obtuseness and egotism and complacency without you thorn I'd follow my snout into the nearest gaudily camouflaged snake pit thank you thorn for the sting of your Grace
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Our days are filled with fateful encounters. We meet someone or something just about every waking minute. Yet how awake are we to the depth of potential meaning in each?
MEETING
there's only meeting meeting you or meeting the self who refuses such meeting meeting God or else the void of God's absence meeting my life as new and unpredictable each moment meeting my death in countless big and little rehearsals like this rash on my right foot that's flared and faded over and over for a dozen years I can't exist without relating to someone or something and all relationship is meeting
when I meet you it's always for the first time neither of us are who we were yesterday nor who we'll become tomorrow there's that same familiar face and voice those same unique quirks and gestures yet beneath them beyond them always lives an impenetrable mystery who are you right now this unrepeatable instant? who am I? who will we each become before the next first time we meet?
you could say everything boils down to a crucial choice I can risk all with radical openness meeting the Unknown at the core of each authentic encounter or I can pull in wall out shut down I've done both and can tell you they define the difference between heaven and hell how do I experience the essence of meeting? naked empty exposed vulnerable I turn within bow to the Sublime
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