Monday, October 16, 2017

SHARDS OF GLASS


                                                                


I close my eyes, to shut out the images,

the noise, of the culture of darkness and

death and once deep inside my soul

allow my heart to travel the world,

neither time, distance, nor heat of day, or cold of night,

inhibits the heart from traveling.

Eyes wide open, ears attentive, seeking, seeing,

listening, I arrive in a huge city, filled with

minarets,

while hot desert winds blasts sand against my face, as though

a legion of furies is afoot.

I looked towards those towers, hear the call to prayer,

sounding like a howl, a howl of millennia voices,

seeking God, yet aware of loss of Christ.

Walking through crowded bazars, down alleys,

hearing explosions as various sects slaughter-bomb each other,

the cries of mothers overpowering all other sounds,

the ocean of their tears turning sand to earth,

as their tears become within my heart as

shards of glass.

My prayer O Jesus that You

reveal Yourself to them, comfort them for they are

huddled before You like the women who cried out

to You at Your eighth station on the via dolorosa.



Whirl of prayer wheels, clinking of thumb cymbals,

sound of bells, air heavy with incense and dampness

permeates my body, high amongst mountain clouds,

my unshod feet sense the cold of stone hallways as

towards me on the air comes the relentless guttural

chant of robed monks, seated amongst huge statues of

Buddha and dragons.

My cheeks wet with tears, my soul trembles, as in this

place of angry, dark spirits I feel the pain of unrequited

yearning, see You bent over, weeping with Your longing to shatter the darkness,

to illumine these hearts.

I embrace another onslaught of shards of glass,

for unknowing yet knowing,

they seek Your pierced open heart, gateway to love and mercy.

How I yearn my own heart, for all who cry, who seek,

be opened as passageway to You.



There is no tiredness, no hunger, no thirst, save a participation

in Your sitio, when heart-traveling.

No sense of passage of time,

rather wonderment and, be there any burden, it is the bearing of

burdens weighing upon those we see, hear, meet,



Suddenly, it is heat and humidity of amazon jungle depths,

amongst a people so isolated there is no awareness of You or

of others, persons like themselves,

but there is a hunger, deep-relentless-hunger, for within

each man, woman, child, longing for the True Bread, seeking for

a guiding star, such that each time a newborn is gazed upon

tears of longing flow, for some how they know that this is not yet

the expected Child – and these tear-shards are luminous and enter

my heart as gift.



There are places hidden from public view and media scrutiny,

peopled with millions of our brothers and sisters, men, women,

children.

They have names soaked in blood, hatred and despair: gulag,

death camps, labour camps, concentration camps, refugee

camps, prisons: max, super-max, minimum, or the seemingly

less harsh: jails.

Other such places of suffering have names supposedly to

assure ourselves the suffering are not forgotten: homeless shelters,

soup kitchens, emergency shelters for the battered and abused,

hospices, hospitals of all varieties, nursing homes – yet,

yet, in all these places, move dark shadow-spirits of fear, loneliness,

and death.

There are too dark alleys and steam grates, tents among the thick

trees of city parks,

I must walk within all these places, must smell the smells, hear the screams,

gather the tears – for human tears, like Christ’s, are the most

precious droplets of water upon the earth – for tears flow as sadness, as

cry that someone might hear me, see me, and tears sometimes flow as

joy for a human being has been born, a love offered, a dawn unfolds,

snow caresses the cheeks of laughing humans skiing, snowboarding,

watching a child gamble about – but the places I am in now are places of

pain’s tears while echoes within these places, as from the depths

of a spatial black hole, a voice hateful and harsh, angry

because the darkness spews forth with each word – for

satan is the bearer of despair and cannot choose blindness for the

brightness of Christ dwelling within all who suffer, are wounded,

alone, shreds all darkness,

yet the voice is that of a Dostoyevskyian Grand Inquisitor,

demanding Christ leave, abandon the very ones He so loves,

loves so every tear is His, every pain is His, and must be for me.



I touch the shards of glass that have so filled my heart it

is as if my heart is made of glass – become a prism -

of His light that ever more,

as I go where human beings are,

wherever human beings are,

His Light will shatter the darkness,

restore life, wipe away all tears.

For now, a rest from the journey that

at His altar lifting the paten there be a

place within the bread for everyone who has

no place, lifting the chalice that all blood shed,

every tear wept, be comingled therein with

the wine,

and once I have spoke His words and Bread,

Wine become Him and I am nourished,

my heart has room for more shards and

the journey begins anew.

Alleluia!