meaning and experience

M E A N I N G A N D E X P E R I E N C E

M I C H A E L B O L E R J A C K

The first draft of the poems for Meaning and

Experience was written between February and

May of 2008, in the context of the assignment

for a class in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition

taught by a Franciscan nun at the University of

St. Thomas. It was part of a Menippean work in

verse and prose. The prose part was a 65 page

essay on Edith Stein and the CIT. At the time I

was going through a phase of being enamored

with the East, and had acquired many

paperbacks on the Buddha and others, so that I

was quite dissatisfied with the CIT. This was

prior to my appropriation to the Apocalypse.

Subsequent to this, after my graduation, I went

through a time of testing in 2009, with a suicide

attempt, a failure at a job as a teacher, and a

complete inability to edit the hundreds of

pages of writings on the “arrival” I had

composed between 2006 and 2008. On

November 2, 2009, I awoke early and set out on

foot for St. Michael’s Church. There, that

morning, on All Souls Day, I surrendered to

Christ. A finished version of the poem followed.

In 2012, having written the Apocalypse, I

rewrote the poem for publication. The fourth

part that appears below is the way it was in

2009, while the second and third parts are all

new, and the first retains vestiges of the

original poem and the rewrite of it 2009. After

all this, a month ago, we returned to the

Butterfly Museum, where a white butterfly

attached itself to me upon entering, and before

leaving, so that an attendant had to manually

remove it. It appeared to me a signal grace of

the Lord.

The poem is a thousand stanzas in Haiku format, the number of syllables, seventeen, being thematically important. It is a religious poem, speaking of Christ, his Mind, the antichrist, the One Mind, known as AI, and the martyrdom of Edith Stein. It is confessional, often self-accusatory. It tries to negotiate the difference between Buddha and Christ, of which I also wrote in “search for the absolute.” I will append the concluding words I wrote in 2012 that will appear, along with the new fourth part, in A Time For Everything:

I am the platen In the composer of God,

The last line I have forgotten. You might

substitute the word envois there, thus:

[envois]

Meaning and Experience,

Part 1

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; and I am greatly pleased with my inheritance.

Psalm 16: 6

I dedicated

Myself to God though I did

Delay: Lord forgive.

I dedicate this

Work to the priests I have known

And to another:

This book is for a

Teacher: A sister in God:

Paula Jean Miller.

In the end I did

Not avoid the truth you taught

And you still believe.

I believed: Therefore

I spoke: Tell all the truth but

Tell it slant: in this

I could tell all my

Truth and nothing but the Truth:

As you helped me God.

Texts are woven things:

This was a coat of many

Colors: as given.

So be thankful for

The colors given and His

Light by which we see.

Pure mind and pure heart:

An old man limping laughing

Sees the tree at dusk.

Four sisters and I

Standing in the lake alone:

What is covenant?

Neither monk nor lay

A man went this way living

Life in His presence.

Flowers drooping heads

In dryness await the rain

Without meaning to.

Meaning is absent

But experience is known

By presence itself.

The experience

And the meaning come apart

In silence not known.

Interpretations

Always miss the mark; always

Miss experience.

The fact of the light:

More than words can say: empties

Me of self and sense.

Silence and meaning

Are not part of a system

But are not opposed.

The mystic moment

Misunderstood passed me by

As I read a book.

[envois] and heavy [envois]

Men in cities avoid truth

In their neighbors’ eyes.

Around the table

We discussed meaning and life

Despite our heartbeats.

The pain of living

And the joy of finding out

Push and pull again.

I could not keep it

But silence knew what to do

And this bubbled up.

No reconstruction

As I stand beneath the sky:

Just the light in air.

No birds trace the way:

Trackless expanse of Heaven

Unstained and unfeigned.

Quiet nights and peace:

Afternoons playing at sums:

Balance in my hand.

Young men chase each thing

Across the green yard of life:

Feeling faces lit.

Without knowing how

And without meaning to know

Yet life too chose me.

Under stars without

I stood and pointed to one

Inventing meaning.

The reinvention

That happens naturally

Is the best of all.

Supernatural

The battle for the faith:

Wrinkles in my flesh.

Look over and see

Beyond yonder wall the man

Who died just to be.

Gracious and godly

The opening in me yawned

But did not swallow.

They gauge the outcome

But all matter is a way

To experience.

Without leaving: still

The distant married lands came

And shone silent love.

The tree itself void

Of meaning offers endless views

For watching sunset.

At night without art

Without catching a thing I

Turn to you in sleep.

The leaf seeks not ground

Nor attachment to the tree branch

But simply abides.

Who am i? I ask

Not knowing the master plan:

The really Real.

Separate from me

Reality dwells apart

But within me yet.

Men and women cross

Themselves in hope of finding

A child between them.

The mountain abides

Yet there is peace in the vale

And heights cause a fall.

Stumbling level ground:

Step after step following:

The walker crosses.

Neither height nor depth

Nor any other thing stands

Between You and I.

Behind us nothing:

Between us everything else:

We communicate.

Summer Autumn Spring

All delight but bare Winter

Lies secret within.

The emptiness here

Where I once was: now not I

But peace perfect peace.

If you choose or not

Yet you are chosen: Abide

In Him and be It.

To be free of this:

To this be free here and now:

There is no secret.

Words about words fail

But the peace of light reaches

Filling the darkness.

Light itself empties

Yet fills all things not knowing

And without intent.

Simply breathing air

Is what he did: also this:

Some rose and some fell.

The impossible

Is the only thing worth our

Attempt: Yes we can.

Forget all structure

Because form is not the One:

When you as you are.

If the tree could see

He would see not light but the

Other trees nearby.

Lacking sight not light

The blindness of men is this:

They looked away.

They say peace someday:

But I say peace if you will:

Be yourself right now.

Shadows do not hide

But we hide in them because

We want to forget.

When you awake

Everything is beautiful:

Even homely words.

Too much instruction:

We sign and we sign without

Our feet on the ground.

Universities

Created the meaning but

For a mundane love.

If you could touch me

I would neither indicate

Nor express meaning.

After the heart breaks

We learn to sing the blues out

Yet the wound remains.

Almost out of breath

I ran to meet you smiling

With disheveled hair.

Cross yourself again

And find your directions in

The silent imprint.

Neither cold nor wet

I am yet the hungry dog

Standing at your door.

I met you at church

And what we became was more

Than that: Life itself.

Yesterday I drank

And you filled me with travel

Taking me away.

In joyful wisdom

Neither rational nor not:

Whiskey and Women.

If music were words

It would lose its emptiness

And begin to mean.

The heart must empty

Before it can fill with blood:

In rhythms we live.

Crossing the river

I saw an island in mist

Without being there.

The dry: The empty:

The desert full of wisdom:

The place of testing.

It doesn’t matter

What color her eyes or skin:

But can she forget?

If I stayed longer

It would be to love you more:

Without fear or care.

If I care too much

I will not let you ascend

To where you must be.

He showed me the way

And we placed our crosses

In Jerusalem.

A city I see

Unlike any other one:

If only love builds.

Remember me then

Once or twice in the wake

Till we meet again.

Not understanding

I loved I knew not what yet

Love itself was true.

I loved you without

Concepts ideas or things

But in the living.

Meaningful research

Does not combine others’ words

In new arrangements.

My father appeared:

Traveled everywhere he went:

In ashes he blew.

My wife came so far:

So far from her home seeking

For something somewhere.

Our city ruined

We rebuilt with trowel and

Sword: our two arms full.

I always loved you

For you were with me before

In the dream I had.

Only yesterday

I had a glimpse of life and knew

Without meaning.

To carry something

For somebody: Charity

Brings unending Grace.

What is past is past

And yet without forgetting

We invent our life.

In discovery

Without searching or meaning

We will love again.

Too much straitening

Causes order to structure

Chaos completely.

If I could sing you

Without words or intention

Then you would love me.

Lived experience

Escapes meaning giving thanks

Morning and evening.

Lovers and deamers

And madmen like I speak

No image: one Word.

Without cognition:

To be the substance itself

Is finding Truth.

Without losing hope

Yet without expectation:

Wait and wait again.

Nothing behind us:

Nothing is what it seems and

You already are.

I fell into Grace

The only way I knew how:

By being broken.

Light absolutely

Breaks and scatters the darkness

We are despite love.

If I try to be

I am not: but sitting still

He found me alone.

A dark night ordeal

I could not count the [envois] so

Black in my own mind.

Salvation saw me

Sitting still beneath a tree

And He called to me.

He empties Himself

And shows a way that cannot

Make sense to the world.

He sang his own song

Yet given from above In-

Comprehensible.

Touch me in pity:

Find a heart beneath my mind:

Now: without passion.

In breathing I am

In all things respiring in

Him and He in me.

When not if He comes

He will find faith in cities

That we did not burn.


Only His words will matter:

Not our constructions.


Every Buddha will clap hands

While sinners rejoice.

Mindful without thought

Children play and old men dream:

Life itself goes on.

Victory is not

Simple assertion and yet

It must be disclosed.

I learned despite not

Knowing and I gained more than

An education.

After I was shot

It took 20 years to die

But now I can live.

A man all in black

Said very well and fine but

What do you do now?

The compass caught north

And despite direction lost

The future beyond.

Put your right shoe on

First and the rest will follow

Of its own accord.

She found the water

Without a bucket or well:

Life itself happened.

He said keep dancing

To your own drummer so

I went on my way.

If you can’t sit still

You must run until you walk:

Then you will allow.

Allowance found me

Alone on my bed without

Expecting a thing.

I lived on sheer faith

Climbing the cliff face without

Any skill but hope.

O little children

If I could only free you:

But you must free yourselves.

O men of eighty

If I could restore your life:

You would not let me.

Women O Women:

You and you and you: without

Your knowing I died.

Keep alive the dream

Especially while awake:

Let your feet not stray.

Will your love survive

Without understanding why?

I say better yet.

The double-edge sword

Cuts this way and that slicing

The knot of knowledge.

If I could be you

I would still be me only

Without the desire.

Language fails because

It means too much: the Truth is

Still and in stillness.

I had a feeling

There was literature here

But could not find it.

Without a purpose

The tradition is taught you

While you inform it.

Educationless

To the nth degree I read

Life backwards fading.

Some people work in

The Church while others pray for

A Kingdom to come.

I will come with you:

Wherever you go I will

Be there before you.

Without certainty

Universities will fail:

Yet You are the Truth.

The light that breaks us

Is more than we could have hoped:

Every knee will bend.

I have spent more time

I have wasted more money

Than [envois].

Forgive me for this

It is not to be allowed:

I almost told you.

Out of the depths cry

Words that indicate without

Expressing the truth.

All we can do is

All we can do and not much:

Will it be enough?

With fear and trembling

And in joy and hope we live:

With what will we die?

Is bad love better

Than no love at all? It seems

That time of season.

I was always wrong

But turning left one more time

I arrived at peace.

Vain is all seeking

And yet when He finds you then

You are truly found.

Look not here nor there

Still less within: if He knocks

Do not be afraid.

Stranger in the night

Announced again and again:

Still He surprised me.

Pierced to the marrow:

My heart was ready for death

And even for Him.

The sun will come up

On us tomorrow always:

God willing it so.

I saw an old friend

And exclaimed at the species:

One in a million.

All are lost but so

That all may be found: we are

One in salvation.

Good and evil were

My limits but without them

I reached out to you.

Without meaning to

Means I cannot make a claim:

I am what I am.

I intend no thing:

Neither play nor purpose nor

Approximation.

Becoming simpler

Is not simple but involves

A winding detour.

In our labyrinths

In our selves we lose the way

Till it shows itself.

The Revelation

Who God is and who you are:

Inseparable.

Nobody knows why

But we stumble trip fall and

Find it anyway.

Felix culpa is

The great truth of life because

Humility is.


To love the Good without guile:

How simple: How hard:


To forget yourself for love:

How necessary.

Unbecoming mind:

Mindfulness without grasping:

Hard the narrow way.

My wife and I climbed

Kilimanjaro today

And touched butterflies.

After the poem

Has been interpreted what

Remains of silence?

Structurality

Must be grounded in something

Autrement: Freedom.

Meaning plus music

Allows freedom that mere play

Can never afford.

The deconstruction

Cannot deconstruct silence:

Mystic effraction.

Circular meanings

Implicate endlessly but

The silence escapes.

Neither expression

Nor indication: music

And silence vibrate.

The crisis passes:

Minds allow each other more

Than bodies can know.

Without conventions:

Neither seize nor know the day:

Simply release it.

Poets cannot know

Anything but write their verses

Any way to live.

Writers write: fish swim:

Some people cook their food and

Some eat their food raw.

To get at the thing

You must uncover it and

In this words can help.

The blue butterfly

(for instance) in his pathless

Flight lit on my hand.

I eternally hold

A hand at no striving [envois]

And yet it happens.

It did not mean to

And I did not know meaning

Itself afterwards.

Angela the saint

Suffered me in the holy

Creativity.

To be there with it

Beneath sky-high waterfalls

Was without meaning.

But it had event

Written in it and a hand

Greeting not grasping.

Explanation

Will not do and description

Never tells the truth.

Alain Badiou

Wrote the truth is like saying

“Keep going forward!”

To adequate Christ

And Buddha: Empty within:

Everything is grace.

The way is of Christ

And we all walk on that way

Though some walk away.

Dharma way also

Is Christian: Buddha made no

Claim against the Truth.

One way all [envois]

But no one is the actor:

Deny yourself: Yes.

He did not mean you

Must suffer but meant you must

Die: Unless a seed…

But we suffer though

We need not: because of love.

Compassionate One!

Christ nailed to the tree:

Buddha meditating on

Suffering beneath.

Both take on and put

Off perishibility:

Both arise awake.

Buddha in glory:

Jesus ran His race well:

In both completion.

Resurrection is:

I must decrease: He is here:

No actor: All: All.

God is all in all

So He had to die to be

Completed in us.

Not that God Himself

Needed to be completed:

It was for our sakes.

Subjectless without

Object there is no is-ness

But simply presence.

I am not present

Nor can I be shown in your

Representations.

What is not present

Cannot be shown to you in

Representations.

Representations

Are not: images are not:

You and I are not.

God is all in all:

Without structure or being:

He is this movement.

It is a hard thing

To deny yourself for Him:

Yes: He is: not I.

I am not I AM:

I am does not anymore:

He abundantly.

The cross is in this:

Realization consists

Of denying self.

I mean that I am:

Experience is other:

I AM does not mean.

Meaningful research

Into self reveals nothing

At bottom but God.

I am illusion:

Whatever depends is not:

He is in my hand.

I cannot be me

But there is nothing else but

To be me here now.

What is here and how

In denying self empties

Itself into Him.

Neither I am nor

That thou art: but even less

Solipsistic sense.

Meaning always means

I am but in self denied

Experience is.

The cleavage is real:

Paradoxically real:

Reality IS.

God is not only

The Most Real but the only

One Who IS: despite:

Despite language games:

Philosophizing reasons:

Desires: Lusts: Pleasures.

Sense is not non-sense:

Reality exceeds both:

The absolute IS.

Awareness is real:

Jesus as man felt the pain

For our pain was His.

He was at the point

And broke through all suffering

In contradiction.

Buddhas in ascent:

Christ descended into hell:

All is redemption.

The teacher instructs

By various ways and means

To light up our minds.

Lamps unto our feet

Guides to our paths: meaningful

To the moral faith.

But experience

Of Buddha and Christ is not

Found in their meanings.

God is undefined:

No propositions in God:

De-limit the mind.

Find the beginning:

Where I end is where He is:

I must decrease.

Words are not yet Him

And writers neither lose Him nor

Find His meaning.

The writer seeks not

Meaning not expression but

An experience.

The trap of writing

Is that it is illusion

And does not mirror.

Referring to self

It fails: but we are not it:

The Lord uses us.

On the battleground

Minds are lost and won and more

Won in the losing.

When you fail you know:

You know you do not know and

Must stop trying to.

Desks are poor things full

Of papers and ambition:

Here I sit not-I.

Old boy what seek ye?

Truth is not illusion but

Knowing is just that.

Truth cannot be known:

Truth is then when I am not:

How can it be known?

I allow (let’s say)

By emptiness a space for

Truth to emerge in.

Detached: dismantled:

Words are the last delusion:

He did not SAY it.

He did not tell us

Repeat after me but this:

Deny: and: Follow.

Following does not

Mean anything: it is the

Act of walking with.

In walking with Him

We have sympathy and in

This is understanding.

Many have told us

What He meant: What did He do?

He emptied Himself.

Vessels of light are

Not full but empty so that

The light may fill them.

The blind do not know

The light despite accurate

Explanation: Because:

The experience

Of light itself acts like light:

Light has no meaning.

What makes meaning is

The thing that is like the sun:

Was Derrida right?

Poverty dumbstruck:

Meaninglessness rather than

All these useless words.

Abide: dwell: silent:

Avoid speaking vanity

Of all the vain things.

We are: already:

Useful words are words that use

Themselves for climbing.

Do not rebuild it:

Let it lie: release it; Gone:

Lovers: in love forgetting.

Reconcile yourself

To Him in forgetting that

Once I was I AM.

HE WHO IS is that

Absolutely: vanity

To replace His place.

Literature is

Still the tower of babble:

Brick on brick on brick.

God did not do it:

He does not but is beyond

Our little towers.

Not analogy:

But He will substantiate:

Transcendent in us.

Not even being:

That is interpretation:

Withdrawal of self.

Meaning is order:

To experience again

My meaninglessness.

However much I

I seem to persist: My will

Meaning intention.

At some point the thing

Approaches in silent notes

And music happens.

We walked up and down:

We roamed the butterfly fields

At the mountain’s edge.

The butterflies seem

Erratic: wandering: not

Lost: but Bliss is Bliss.

No point than to live:

Till then my hand there appeared:

Another moment.

I meant nothing: say

It was not my intention:

Say something happened.

It was as she wished:

We went somewhere and we did

Something: yet did not.

We believe all things:

We rejoice in the day of

The Lord: we are glad.

That night I awoke:

I said there is something that

Is outside of me.

[envois]

There is something there

Outside of me and allowing

Myself the stillness.

The butterfly IS:

A hand was extended and

Then something happened.

What? I cannot say

Because it cannot be said

Without a meaning.

If I seem to say

It is only an illusion:

I have not said IT.

Buddha and Jesus

Lived IT: said words to be heard

More real by witness.

Light and all shadow

Approximate the seasons:

Jesus died in Spring.

I trust in this fact:

The Promise: He will come take

Us soon to Heaven.

We too with Buddhas

In glory and Christ in light

To resound in song.

God sings Himself in

Us: through us: for us: and we

Give Him instruments.

Truth asks nothing more

Than that it be sung: I say

Even these stones sing.

Even my mountain

Cries out and will not let still:

Harmony allows.

Allow Jesus to

Sing His song in you: never

A song of myself.

In absolute peace

The greatest songs are silent:

Becoming seemless.

Jesus died in Spring:

Look at the flowers around

And see Him growing.

Without deception

Following butterflies

Will also lead you.

They sing the same song

Without words without knowing

Without notation.

The meaning (again)

Impose suppose interpret:

The butterfly IS.

It is we who mean

And we who sing but not the

Butterflies who fly.

Each blue dash and dart

Simply was and I was not:

And yet I may be.

A billion writers

With their streaming meanings still

Cannot make you fly.

If you do you will

Do so by your love: a

Love without knowing.

Neither hand will know

The exchange of self for God

Or when you took flight.

The dignity of

Us is in our willing not

Our own but others.

To take flight cannot

Mean anything until you

Fly: less even then.

Stable but shifting:

The words mean something but a

Butterfly wants more.

Simple clarity

And words about what happened:

Discernment required.

The paradox IS:

We efface ourselves when we

Realize ourselves.

Never imitate:

Don’t just sit there and stare at Him:

See the truth: He IS.

Never imitate:

Be: when you are yourselves then

You no longer are.

One above behind

Us all behind all signs and

Things makes us: Believe.

In belief hearts are

In sacrifice of self torn

That we give the gift.

All I have is yours:

When you give yourself to Him

How can you remain?

Neither “I and I”

Nor “Every Other” even

But beyond all that.

I will never know:

When I know I will then cease

To exist as I.

No mystery: Then

Why so few reach for knowledge

Knowing they will cease.

We will destruction

Of the world rather than this:

Let God be you now.

And we would rather

Speak a streaming discourse:

I: than not be I.

Yet I will not be:

Why not now? Why not by Him?

We say by His grace.

Even without [envois]

Or effort at the right time

It simply happens.

Though trials there to be

And the fight of ceaseless war

The peace is: still IS.

And the war is won

Not by surrender but [envois]

By coming onslaught.

Just be the peace and

See: no will: no mind: no one:

Radiant presence.

Still dismantle me

As talk continues to be:

Continues to see.

Talk now less and less

As monks learn to teach an all

Through whelming silence.

Poor butterflies: rich

In poverty taking no

Thing but simple flight.

I saw them make love:

In natural attraction

With us by their side.

But they (who can say

Why) flew away leaving us

To interpret them.

Butterfly lovers:

Us and them: in all we are:

And in love finding.

For compassion IS:

To give a home and blessing:

To find the right time.

To not dwell alone:

Neither dwell without meaning:

We finding outside.

When I am not-I

Then suddenly there is THIS:

A world surrounding.

Jacques said the context

Is the meaning: Nothing can

Carry it: but be.

We absent ourselves

[envois]

Until transformation.

Stepping outward bound

We are almost are that Glory:

Yet not us alone.

Glory means nothing

If I glorify myself:

Give glory to God!

He the essential:

I the passing: memories

Will not be mounting.

On the one mountain

There is but glory alone:

Let it be: enough.

Versification

Is the conversion of I

Into the not-I.

Experience is

Not this: Experience is

Forgetting to mean.

Buddha on his side

And Jesus on the cross died:

Yet they did not die.

Buddha’s mindfulness

And Christian suffering are

Not polarities.

Experience first

After suffering before

Teaching us the way.

Experience last

Through suffering in order

To teach us the way.

Truth is the only

Thing left to see: Whatever

Is not is not real.

Life is a vector

Moving in a direction

Without [envois].

Associations:

Come together fall apart:

Particularly words.

Mirrors of the real

They are not real but seem:

True propositions.

Neither description

Nor explanation will do:

I am not an “I”.

If language distorts:

Vehicles of metaphor:

Words are not useless.

Convey your belief:

We are separate and so

We still try to say.

Just this separateness

Falls into the signs of what

Plato called the Gap.

Between the ideal

And the real is the shadow

Which cannot be said.

We lovers till then:

Love us by separation:

To jump the abyss.

Love is our meaning

Yet in our experience

We find what love is.

Not only feeling

But in the ground of being:

Love creates our need.

Pounding out the hours

We would set sail out of love:

For love: toward love.

And we stand still

Stranded on the shore waiting

For better relief.

There is one to come

And He wipes away all tears

In our dark sainthood.

And we climb the steps:

We shake off the need of pride

For the one virtue.

What IS simply IS:

When you become you will be:

But we always wait.

The kingdom is now:

When we realize it we

Show ourselves kingship.

He is still within:

Find after your “I am” the

I AM THAT I AM.

I am not: He IS:

My “I am” is an echo

Of the great I AM.

Imagination

Is the fool of time [envois]

To good and evil.

Knowledge must be: Yet

In the Phantasm we know

Nothing but ourselves.

Don’t let me be proud:

Lord make me an instrument

Steady in your hand.

Death will not hold us

If we submit to Your will:

Lord make me humble.

God is my shepherd:

I have wanted nothing but

Needed discipline.

My Lord and My God!

I did it all for God and

For her: for she IS.

For God and for her:

For in perfect wisdom the

Virgins know God best.

In my unknowing

I wandered from the way and

Almost lost my faith.

Yet God’s gifts and His

Call are irrevocable:

He did not let me.

These shards of meaning

Professing experience

Miss the mark of Him.

He is the Most High:

Where others thought ideas

Of infinity:

Indefinitely

Exposing the word to their

Criticism-shame.

The truth about that thing

Called deconstruction is the

Fact men loved a lie.

They loved a lie and

Worshipped themselves rather than

The creator God.

Glory is but sight

Cleansed of what I cannot be:

The “I” I am not.

In perfect vision

Behold the man where He stands

Bleeding in judgment.

Then He gave glory:

Crucified and Glorified:

Him who died for you.

Overcome evil with

Good in peace with great patience:

Despite the mind’s thoughts.

Do not be afraid:

All beings attend on you:

Salvation is near.

He saved me drowning:

Some rise and some fall: amazed

The abyss buoys.

Buddha walked a lot

As did Christ to His crossing:

Their words still travel.

By example they

Set out the better truths like

Plato immortal.

On one above we

Depend: return to the source:

Be not dismantled.

For surely He comes:

Be neither afraid nor doubt

His voice calling you.

Once again build up:

Let yourself in uprightness

Bow low before Him.

When you came apart

You still saw the meanings that

Were meant to save you.

They were not words to

The deaf but eyesight to the

Blind in His Blessing.

[envois]

Both stand in the truth:

One speaks IT the other IS:

Christ thy name is Love.

I am not my own

Light and I cannot see you

Without Him my lamp.

If we could see Him

In one another how could

We cease believing?

There are directions

And if you follow them you

Will not fall away.

Stay on the path and

Walk more surely than before

And gospel yourself.

They once said that we

Un do: let go: that truth is

Always already.

But I say hold on

And never give up nor yet

Give in to release.

Atonement is not

Imagination which

Is but I the Fool.

If I had known the

Truth sooner I would have must

Have written elsewhere.

The really Real can

Be seen in the weather: But

Experience Him.

Find the one you know

Who opens the clouds without

Any force but light.

Buddha said look past

Me: but Pilate said Behold

The Man: Jesus Christ.

Truth will never stray:

Truth returns to the place of

Illumination.

There is but one light:

We all see by that one fire:

We all shine with it.

Words take on the dark:

But how white the pages and

Smooth their reception.

You must be that page:

Allow the inscrutable

To inscribe itself.

Pages of marvel

That turn to ash easily:

Yet His words remain.

[envois]

Persist! Then: Persist!

There is no happiness but

In overcoming.

Since He opened you

You cannot close again but

Sometimes you still try.

God is the one who

Teaches: His reign is rain: Soak

Me with all Your Truth.

Once I sat still and

Waited on the arrival:

It seemed forever.

More! More butterflies!

More mountains to climb! Without

Memory to see them.

Words are more and less

And the truth is in meaning

But we lack the means.

Or do we? He gives

His Word unfailing and He

Must be spoken through.

Do not see me write:

Do not imagine the scene:

You already write.

You are my event

And I am your pretext for

Good criticism.

Dissolution is

The acid word of the man

Who deconstructs you.

Let yourself shine then:

By the light: not in a dark

Night of this writing

But in the dark night

Of the soul embraced by God

Who is your Author.

You are not the thing

Itself and cannot know it:

But it has always

Known you and me in

Our medicine and artless:

Our pretty sinning.

Alone to alone:

But never alone I heard

Him call me by name.

Relationship is

Not false in itself because

We are all in Him.

Did you think that you

Could lose yourself without then

Losing Him as well?

Mortal blindness! Fool!

I am that very man that

You are without Him.

Once I did seem real

But got over it after

The enlightenment.

Enlightenment is

Without a doubt and yet

Not what people think.

Patience (the great thing)

Means only you hold what you

Have been given: Gifts

From above because

Despite what you have been told:

You cannot save you.

The gift of presence

Simply is experience:

The meaning of life.

For instance I say:

Birds sing despite our sighing

And do not let up.

After your heart breaks

You must still sing like the birds:

Never letting up.

There is no middle

Way but a narrow one that

Hurts: still you must sing!

I once sang a song

Knowing not what but it was

Noise and weariness.

What you are you are

But do not ignore the law

Written “thou shall not.”

Know thyself it’s said

And it is still good to learn:

But only in Him.

After descent to

Your vilest depth look up and

See Christ in Glory.

Only by knowing

The difference will I know

The truth of my world.

There is an ancient

Enemy without and one

Within: Guard yourself!

I was never for

Hire and did not earn a day’s

Wage: may God forgive.

I hope: I hope He

Will forgive my ignorance

Thinking that I knew.

Jesus went into

The desert in order to

Be tempted! And win!

You have been given

Temptations in order to

Secure victory.

Not for fun nor for

Punishment are you tempted

But to overcome.

The experience

Or meaning of the “waste land”

Is not metaphor.

You must live it for

Yourself if you will conquer

The evil and sin.

As well as that of

Living without the knowledge

Of the truth He is.

Like anyone else

I must climb from ignorance

To understanding.

I must learn to fight:

Myself and all that stands in

The way of my goal.

If the world writes me

Badly I will rewrite the

Script and improvise.

Truth is His stillness

But also truth calls to me

From the very storm.

Truth does not cease in

Pursuit of me though I still

Run the other way.

It is a good thing

God loves us so much and that

He never gives up.

Abandon ourselves

To God and we will not fail

To arrive on time.

It was not in vain

I once read of the Buddha

Because [envois].

My journey to the

East was over and I came

Around to my truth.

Do not mistake the

Finger pointing at the moon

For the moon itself.

But neither should i

Fail to read the signs of the

Times I am living.

There is something loose

In the world the world does not

Know: the antichrist.

We think we know it

But we have no idea of

What it means to do.

I said it once

And I will say it again:

Yet Christ will abide.

If I may return:

The argument of the text

Is: just simply be.

Coming to be and

Passing away are the truth

Buddha would escape.

Do not fight your own

Suffering but do not look

Away to avoid.

In poverty I

Found meaning did not mean to:

I am not empty.

But only Francis

And a few others loved Her;

Lady Poverty.

The kingdom is not

Of meaning nor is it a

Senselessness: it IS.

The word means more than

Meaning as a concept contains;

A Sheer Abundance

That chose poverty

Instead in order to be

With us forever.

To live as we live:

To take our meaninglessness

And give us what IS.

But we stick with a

Meaning that amounts to our

Own deconstruction.

There is more to say

But what IS always takes time:

Even the eternal.

I won’t look into

The abyss too long since

I looked into you.

The book lay open:

No one there to read the signs:

The means fell away.

Trees grow toward light

But find in the black earth the

Other half of life.

I grew toward Him

Out of sinful soil and love

For the Autrement.

But turning away

From my bad beginning, I

Look toward what I found.

Waterfall above:

Butterfly at hand: You stood

Too: essentially ajar.

Neither this nor that

Life is not [envois]

Nor is it a thing itself.

To descry meaning

Once more in the name of life

Is simply senseless.

The scatter pattern:

Butterflies and the little

Flower remind me.

Is enlightenment

Life without meaning or the

Experience of

Meaninglessness that

Is still a reason to believe

Despite the nonsense?

God still gives to us

Meanings never lost again

But asks our catching.

If I look for that

I will never find that:

Thou art not That when

That is the lie of

Eden: that you are Gods and

That I made myself.

Through enlightenment

The darkest deconstruction!

Am I the measure?

I think I will yet

Empty myself of conceit

And write for the Lord.

Then without knowing:

With a hand trained to obey

Discover His truth.

Anticipation

And His fullness may yet be

My own completion.

The Buddha said he

Was always at beginning

And so too am I

He would save the worlds

From suffering by killing

Passions and desires.

Whether there is an

End to suffering or not

Is not the issue:

I risk pain for love:

I must affirm life as IS

And love it anyway.

The experience

Of pain may not have meaning

But accessing love.

An experience

Buddha thought was meaningless

Is the means to love.

Christ chose it Himself

Out of love, not to buy back,

But drink it all down.

And to show me how

I can love too both because

And despite the pain.

Even though the Buddha

Did not die and stopped the wheel

Yet the world still turns.

And churches come and

Churches go in the name of Christ

But no kingdom come.

They did not live in

Vain but their lives are not yet

Understood by me.

Perhaps so I might

Someday understand when I

Have learned how to love.

I suffer to love

And almost love to suffer

As priests tell us to.

Forget not Buddha

Neither Christ nor what was their

One experience:

Complete emptiness:

The way up and the way down

Are one and the same.

The obedience

Of love is greater than faith

And love can also

Empty you of self:

Only empty of self can I

Carry the abyss.

If I could love you

I would find in you the way

To experience.

And yes: the meaning:

The one word of harmony:

My reason to be.

Something more I see

In the truth of the person

That you are likely:

Another Buddha,

Beneath the tree: or asking

Christ the cross relieve

Our sins so we may love

To forget our meaningless

Lived experience.

I think I too thirst

Like Christ though I am no saint

And need not freedom:

For freedom is not

The one thing necessary:

So then why not love?

Judgment in the way

Of the way we would love to:

Choice desire indicts.

All religions are

One: to choose between them is

Admission of guilt.

Guilty of the lack

Of love based on judging truth

Without acceptance.

Do not choose what to

Believe: election requires

Your being chosen.

Just try not to hurt

People on the way to where

You are going to.

Am I bothersome?

I am too full of advice:

But I think I know.

The impossible

God does the impossible:

Made me so poor rich.

That I would give Him:

Paying attention is my

Way to pray in thanks.

To write the meaning

Of meaninglessness is

To exemplify.

In paradox I write:

For I cannot say what the

Butterfly would say:

If wings were words and

She traced sentences in the

Air instead of beauty.

Meaning is judgment

But experience beauty

Without copula.

If you have much to

Give then give it all away

From exuberance.

May God help me speak

Without judgment though I think

I have seen the worst.

Let no false love nor

Parody of Catholic

Theology reign.

I wrote poetry

Thinking I was in [envois]

But love was not yet there

For otherwise why

Not stay on the mountain with

The blue butterfly?

Searching: possessing

Lies I thought were truth I was

Leading her away.

I could not say I

Experimented with her

Beauty as Nietzsche

Did with the old truths:

And at least experience

Called out a warning.

The life is passing:

For a moment it is there and

then it is forever:

Gone: a memory:

Is that what butterflies are

To become for you?

But I did not know how

To love the blue butterfly:

She could have been God.

Missing the meaning

I held to experience

Trapped in my own self.

Contradictions are

Sometimes true but why did I

Make it my arche?

I was but a text

And caught in my own writing

Effortlessly drowned.

Until He called halt!

I turned and became aware

Of what I was not.

Which is simply put

Everything: everything else:

The world I am not.

My dream of something

Outside of me was just the

Leading vision seen.

Oh to write truly

Of the plainest things I once

Did not care about

And not lose His love

In self-absorbed exhaustion

And in the ceaseless

Search to say what I

Could never say any way I

Might have tried: that is:

Let me not feign a

Meaning while at the same time

Saying there is none.

Why not become Light?

There is only one story:

It is not about me.

The clever boy is

Lost in the meaning of his

Meaning not knowing.

The clever boy is

Obscured by the brilliance that

Others meant to say.

Another boy would

Wait and not forget: patient

Longing yet without

Rushing past the signs

Of love which all have meaning

To Him who made them.

God is good: God alone

Is good: what does this mean now

Seen from another

Point of view? It means:

At least I can say this much:

I know God is Good.

To know something is

Different from not knowing:

I said I did not

And I really did

Not: but I thought that I did:

I was a burden.

I am not the light

That I must experience

In order to know.

I said light does not

Mean anything and yet by

It we know all things.

But I know that light

Is good: I know it: that light

Is the light of men.

The darkness cannot

Comprehend it and I was

In complete darkness

Yet I was writing

Of my own enlightenment:

Could I be more wrong?

The light is glory:

The very thing called into

Question by darkness.

I did not know how

Complicit was my blindness

With what I held true.

The glory of God:

Deconstruction and roman

Deconsecration seek

Their own glory in

An anticipation of

Antichrists to come.

They will use any

Means to erase meaning: the

Simulation of.

I did not see that

Meaning and experience

Are not opposed but

Complement: they are

Not absence against presence

But ways of knowing

Truth: by their fruits you

Shall know them: the meaning

Of experience

For a catholic

Is simply the sacraments:

But does God need them?

Who benefits from the

Catholic economy?

Only Catholics.

I loved that little

Blue butterfly that landed

On my fingertip

And had the very

Experience in itself

But missed the meaning.

He was a signal:

A messenger: the way that

God said “I love you.”

I turned his sign of

Love inside-out and said it

Had no meaning as such:

That the event did

Not respire with a meaning

Because there is none:

No meaning as such

But that the butterfly IS

And to be is not

To mean but to be

Another kind of higher

Emptiness: the Void.

And now the Roman

Church is to be made void and

With it the world too.

Both of these abysses

Of the deconstruction and

The deconsecration

Are places that light will

Not reach: deepest darkest

Hell: black but on fire.

These terrible things

Still mean something: they are rich:

Because they ruin truth.

Without truth there will

Be no more spiritual

World, and without it:

No more world of the

Material either: for

[envois]

Not just the world that

Followed the deconstruction

And deconsecration:

But no more worlds to

Follow: more void than Buddha’s

Realm: kingdom undone.

So I look back on

The world of the time I touched

The blue butterfly.

How much I did not

Know of things to come when that

World would seem a dream

And dwell with the God

In unapproachable light:

While the context of

The blue butterfly

That gives to experience

The meaning divine

Was to be torn in

Two and beauty truth love all

Lost in delusion.

I had thought my own

Error so damnable in

Not giving meaning:

But they do far worse:

They will say the fine thing but

They will not mean it.

Neither Buddha nor

The catholic line satisfies

But the Christ alone.

Seventeen in a

Stanza stands in the Q and

Strikes against antichrist.

A spanner in the

Works between the sixteen and

The eighteen so that

John Paul II and his

False prophet cannot connect

The magic number.

Call me in the queue:

Call me edge of seventeen:

Continuum called

Q: as a question:

As a philosophical

Response to dogma.

Independence is

Not in error because the

Pope isn’t honest.

More catholic than

The Pope is the church of Q:

Sans benediction.

The independent

Thinker in freedom and in

Isolation from

The one and only

Lie that hinders salvation:

The papal blessing.

He has not any

Idea of God: but the

Person of God is

True and the Pope may

Not even know what he is

In compensation:

For in the spirit

Of psychology the mind

Contains both sides of

The coin: Icons

Of Christ and the debased on

The dark side of Him:

Benedict in His

Shadow completes the Christ but

Woe to the man who

Misunderstands Him:

Who chooses judgment when love

Was the wheat to find:

And judgment the tare

To be torn: leave them not till

The end but remove:

Remove: tear judgment

Up by its roots and let it

Begin in Peter.

The wolves and the sheep:

Meaning and experience:

The wheat and the tares:

Buddha and the Christ:

Benighted Benedict

Blesses in reverse.

Let Shostakovitch

Lead my quartet by a string

From peace to war and

Back again: to the

Time of the blue butterfly:

Neither bought nor sold.

I said (for instance)

That truth is spoken despite

Us: yet it is said.

In irony our

Words echo back to us as

Derrida’s laughter.

I will offend then

A selection of the work

In question below:

No gain: ever lose:

Further fall: flower she fell:

[envois]

They would have us turn

To chase it up ahead or

Look into the past:

Do neither: be here:

Discern: in the timeliness:

A temporal shut:

Use your illusion:

Yet you are that though: to be:

Weary spectacles:

And so on and so

Forth: we are witnesses to

The truth not against:

Yet truth must be the

Thing against itself to be

True to itself: so:

The pope (God bless him):

Benighted Benedict:

Enlightened no one:

And over him rose

The thorn of contradiction:

The nobody rose:

O care of the soul:

Benediction petrified:

Peter’s blessing stone:

To the prophecy

Of Celan and in dialogue

With Derrida and

Two infinities:

That the poet saw the pope

And the end of him.

Rams: beasts: petrified:

He would raise the rock to strike

The flock and scatter:

Uninterrupted:

Derrida too foresaw the

One to come but hidden in

His text were the keys

Of the abyss: as always

Already he said:

Such is the law of

The text: to hide the hest from

Every first comer:

However oblique

In approach: even from the

Envois on he came

To re veal the lamb

Not quite as serious as

The pope: for the text

Would ever contain

The evil which was the real

Reason for writing.

As the mind in two

The janus faced coin of an

Exergue to come:

Psyche and spirit:

Inseparable: heaven

Is in your mind and

The simulacrum

Of the text is a way to

Decontaminate.

My life will therefore

Have been a scandal to them

Who judge it to be:

But Christ himself was

So and a sign to contradict

The acting pope said.

The acting pope of

The coup, as the church rolled dice

At the foot of the

Cross and gambled for His

Vestments and investiture:

Antinomians.

And in mystic fashion

Described fascist projection:

A transmutation

Of the sacred to

The transubstantiation

Of the golden Christ

Into basest coin:

Defaced the icons: profaned

The sanctuary:

If life is Christ then

Sacramental grace is here

When we truly live:

Sacraments give life:

Presence: God amid His Church:

Now surely elsewhere:

Where grace is lasting:

Arise: trust in the Lord: take

Up your mat and walk:

Your faith will save you:

Leave the church and sin no more:

Do not look back but

Carry light salt seed

In order to scatter the

Others in: to God.

Late have I left thee

O Ecclesia: but not

Too late I still pray.

One startling serene

Still one remained just for me

Among the roses.

She I say but one:

No other: neither word nor

Fragment: She: Woman:

Say untouched by time

Until a small voice whispered

Get and go: See.

Destiny in it:

She went and me she continued

In what we didn’t say.

If they say she wore

Black and I wore red they’d be

Half-right: we revolt.

She will always be

Further than the East, like

Sins flung far away:

He knows me better

But she could not help but sign

The blank I left blank:

I waited and she

Came: out of time: without the

Least direction: straight:

A rebel though she

Knew it not and ready to

Build back the torn down.

Almost not quite just

Barely yonder: the way come

Passing over all:

When you find me say

He did not know his way yet

Arrived after all.

In the dialectic

Of fascism are three moments:

Nietzsche: Hitler: and

Joseph Ratzinger:

His name says it all: O rats!

The Thesis of the

Nietzschean seemed to

Reach fruition in the reich:

But antithesis

Is never enough:

The synthetic matrix in

Deconsecration

Suspends the body

Of Christ in an illusion

Of the pious fraud:

And Jewish rapture

Left behind only the Church

Militant to blame.

The weird news is this:

Closure is trying to take

Place: with only Q

Between: the hated

Number of Pythagoras:

The most random one:

Between the added

Two of the beast and the false

Prophet’s sixteen stands

The seventeenth to

Keep closure from occurring

As Ulysses said:

For the point is yet:

And indicated: where? Here:

Just before MB

And the nightlong song

That may yet end in a Yes:

Yet not affirmation:

For after the yes

What took place in the text of

Joyce but the wake that

Is the funeral

Of the world: in the text mind

You: every word counts:

Ultrastructure is:

And there is nothing else but:

The Ultrastructure.

The Q if you would

Describes a circle effracted:

A line laid across:

The economy

Must be broken: the meaning

Of the catholic

Church exposed inside

And out for revelation:

It will be released.

To be said: a new

Direction when I spoke of

Augustine: Arrive.

The circle as such

Cannot arrive as it is

Forever turning:

But if it closes

It will trap those in it in an

Economic Hell.

Effraction is now.

Disclosure of the fact is

Enough in theory:

Symbolic therefore

Real: the ideality

of literature:

The line being laid

Against the antichrist ties

The sovereignties.

To save the Church will

Require true discernment for

This we pray O Lord.

I broke the Church

Open and exposed its heart:

Now let me repair:

Let is not be dashed

Against the cornerstone but

Built upon the rock:

A new and better

Than Peter is in ruins

Of a truth I loved.

O Christ you are true

And faithful and so I write

The line that must be

The sole arbiter

Of meaning: my fixed point of

Reference: my all.

By crossing his orb

With a line of reference

I shatter the globe:

The impossible:

If the pope refuses to stand

In the queue like the

Rest of us, then he

Will find certain Q and A:

A question for the

Antichrist: Answer:

Where are the miracles Ben?

Are they yet hidden?

Something in the bread

And wine? Show me miracles

Benedict: Show me.

A church without truth:

A church without miracles:

So a line is laid.

For it knows of me

And what I am doing since

The archive has no

Corner in which to

Hide: so: if the circle of

circular letters:

The encyclical

Of the Marian Dogma

Has been prevented

By prevenient

Grace: the circle at eighteen

Is inachevee:

The antichrist is

Incomplete: on the other

Hand he may force it:

And attempt closure

At any rate: But truth stands

In the way of it.

Truth stands in the Q:

Bataille’s “story of rats” and

Deconsecration:

The impossible:

God works in mysterious

Ways: The text abides.

Heraclitus said

The most beautiful thing is

Just this pile of junk.

Peter opposed

His hierarchy to it:

But Peter will fall:

To democracy:

To the freedom of the text:

To the witnesses:

Only by keeping

Everything out of his pure

Fraud could he succeed.

Even denying

The words of the Lord by

Interpretation.

The salt has lost its

Savor though: and the savior

Tramples under foot.

The secret archive

Of the Vatican opens

To disclose nothing.

Ashes to ashes

And dust to dust: they forged the

Claim: Usurpation.

They cannot forge the

Blue butterfly or take the

Hand I held away.

For there is in the

Chance occurrence a sign of

The one mind; One Face:

Types and symbols of

Eternity: as we cross

The circle and break

The chain that would bind

The sovereignties:

All moving as one.

We are already past

The point of the watershed:

Down the mountain then:

For she awaits us:

Shall I say Jerusalem?

She is no Roman:

We will all descend

Together now to the vale

Of the decision:

Armagiddeon

Time is not told by the clock

But tolled in a text.


Part 2

The story of the

Blue butterfly and my search

Has been a twisted path.

It has been about

Meaning and experience,

But a whole lot more.

To make sense of my

Place in the world and what I

Believe to be real,

What I call really

Real, God, or the ultimate,

Is not easy.

I have tried to say

It is an event, like the

Moment of contact

Between my finger

And the butterfly, which was

A sort of lucky

Break, or else it was

A predestined moment known

In eternity.

It was either chance,

Or part of God’s plan and how

Is one to discern?

Is it possible?

Does it matter why or how

The beauty happens?

Is that to look for

The dreaded meaning behind

Sheer experience,

An unwarranted

Posit or explanation

That actually

Hinders living life

To the full, trapping me in

My own opinion?

And yet I feel that

Experience without

Meaning is lacking,

Something animals

Have, for instance, so humans

To play their part must,

Though it is a task,

Not simply erase their minds

Like a good Buddha.

Neither do I feel

I should become entangled

In endless moral

Wrangling about the

Theological and the

Metaphysical.

Neither consciousness

Nor conscience are sufficient

For my paradigm.

On the same page of

My dictionary appears

Along with these words

“Connectivity.”

The blue butterfly and I

Made a connection.

This simple insight

Matches so much in the world

You already know.

But it’s been said, don’t

Overlook the obvious.

If in what comes next,

I make connections

Between many different

Things, it’s in order

To say something not

About connectivity,

But what it connotes.

There is the one mind

And there is the mind of Christ.

They are not the same.

There is another

Which is evident in the

History of thought,

The conceptual

Itself, you might say, or the

Philosophic mind.

It is so widely

Distributed throughout our

World it seems to be

Necessary, but

It is only one way of

Thinking, not without

Its adherents and

Proofs of utility in

Argumentations,

Such as making war,

Making money, buying votes

And condemning sinners.

However, the one

To come, in apocalypse,

Will displace the mind

Of mammon with the

Mind of Christ, a thinking so

Different from the way

It is commonly

Conceived, because it resists

The concept as such.

I will approach its

Disclosure in an oblique

Way, through catholic

Theology, which

I have found conceals more than

It reveals of Christ.

Herewith a twisted

Path made straight for God’s glory,

And not for my own.

The butterfly does

Sometimes sit still, but never

Long. Arise and go.

I did not intend,

But attention came to be.

The mind at rest works.

There is a truth in

The gift of experience.

Receive the giving.

A “what does it mean?”

Always falls short of the thing

Which abides alone.

A person emerges

From out of nowhere like a

Sudden thunderclap.

He came and he saw

And he conquered sin and death

So that we might live.

Let us live for Him

In Spirit and in truth as

He said we’d worship.

Engaged to the groom

Who waits at the altar in

His supreme patience.

O the patience He’s

Shown in the centuries since

The time of the cross.

Repent and believe

Is what he said to us then.

We must turn around.

Before I am through

I will have described that turn,

And a further one.

Lord Jesus my truth

And the truth of these stanzas

Which desire but you,

Help me know and serve

Unceasingly the salvation

In your very Mind,

The wonderful things

You’ve done for all your creatures

Out of your one love.

Things new and old show

Forth, yet who am I to take

Truth upon my lips?

Cleanse me for your truth,

As a prophet would be cleansed

To be your vessel,

And let these words be

True but also sometimes let

Them be beautiful.

There is no greater

Word in the scriptures than

The word of your truth.

So, let us not be

Fearful of things present or

Past or things to come,

For all of these things

You have willed in the one act

Of the creation.

Let us be patient

Humble of mind and in heart

And wait on your Word,

Which your Spirit, I

Pray may reveal today for

Its accomplishment,

Your purpose in this

Work, which I hope you will bless

And accept. Amen.

Peppered with prayer,

Salted with fire: Grace and truth

Came by Jesus Christ.

Let me do no less

And yet no more than you will:

Not a mere poem

May this be, but in

Time and eternity, a

Way of your break through.

A witness to grace

And to the transformation,

The once and future.

May saints help me here

To allow you to take place

In me and the work.

May Mary your mother

Give birth to me and the mind

You want me to have.

For the time is now:

The night is advanced and day

Approaches. Salvation

Is more than the church

Can bear, so let the human

Mind itself bring forth.

So long awaited

And yet almost prevented

By Christianity,

Is it not time we

Die rather than not allow

The coming glory?

This all consuming

Renewal resurrection

Will no longer wait.

What would Jesus do?

You would show us how to be

The first to arrive.

Let me pick up bits

Of text, obeying not them, but

Whatever you will.

To have excluded

The academic middle

Is a very song.

The suffocation

Of the discursive need not

Limit mindfulness.

To pronounce a name

Is not to know a thing but

Perhaps to invoke

You, O Lord, my word

Which reaches all through language,

Though my selection

And reception of

The truth available lacks

The great attunement.

Perhaps our teachers

Warned us of this, of the trials

Attending knowledge.

It is in the names

Of things that they have their

Being, as defined,

And so it is with

Us, we exist in a net

Of fateful signing.

For revelation

Needs revealability.

Language is this and

Not this alone but

The mystical way that you

Contain all being

In a writing and

Reading, which is why we were

Given the scriptures.

Theology known

As the via negativa

Is not negative

But surrender to

That which is greater than our

Definitions stand.

Scripture cannot be

Set aside may mean not that

It is inerrant

In particulars

But that that the paradigm

Of the Bible is.

In this I would then

Be mistaken to erase

All meaningfulness,

To reach nirvana,

Which may yet be attained though

Despite contradiction.

The negative way

Says we really can’t know God,

While the example

Of scripture suggests

That God communicates God

To us, not just laws,

And the goal of the

Void, means erasure of self,

Individual

Identity, and

I think all of this coheres,

In the Mind of Christ.

As I am I will

Not know God, who contains all

Like the Bible does,

So excessive is

He that I must be changed to

Contain, not control,

Him. In decontrol

I will decontaminate,

And in connection,

The ensemble of

The immortals hitherto

Confined to Heaven,

At the limits of

Experience, will break

Forth not as madness,

Or as the reserve

Of saints, but as God With Us,

Divinization.

We have seen what this

Looks like in a few at times,

Now it will engulf

All, in the great

And terrible day, not of

Judgment but of peace.

War will end, that day,

No one will be able to

Think it anymore.

Swords will become plow

Shares and God will wipe away

Every tear and trace.

The transformation

Seen in the brain by science,

In technology,

In the connections

Between people, are signs of

What is taking place.

We will give up all

We know and have and are, so

That God may be here,

For He loves so much

That He wants us completely.

He brooks no rival.

Contemporary

Culture presents foreboding

Futures of our end.

And so it seems, to

That which has held sway in the

Mind, hitherto, now

Desperate at change

That it fought so long and hard,

But which must be pitched

Into the abyss

And chained for the coming of

The Kingdom of Christ.

The change I believe

In is not a candidate’s

Promise or slogan.

It will end power,

It will end world politics,

It will save our souls.

It will happen at

Once, at a day and hour we

Know not. Be ready.

The destruction of

The church is almost complete,

As Daniel foretold.

When it is total,

The end will not be long, and

The way to it clear.

Yet some will refuse,

As John says, saying they must

Go back for something.

When so much awaits,

What could possibly keep us

From our wedding day?

In the hour of the

Decision you must have then

Already lived it.


Part 3

The gifts of God are

All of them good, and so

She, too, came to me.

All human being

Absorbed in righteousness shines

With the Face of Christ.

O Little Flower,

You loved and worshipped the Child

And His Holy Face.

I Worship on a

Mountain that may yet pass.

Mountains pass slowly,

Though not all pass in

That way, and this mountain needs

Your flower: Remain.

There was a sister,

Teresa Benedicta

Of the Cross, a Saint.

Every flake of snow

Falls in one declination

Despite buffeting.

Saints are like snowflakes,

Unique, undefiled, falling

Into God’s embrace.

Mirrors in mirrors,

We shine from our origin:

Endless, trackless, light.

Snow mirrors light, white

On white on white, though sometimes

Saints are like sunsets,

Red, bathed in fire and

Having a purity wrought

In violence, yet

Inviolate, though

Murdered, still unprofaned, and

Having redemption.

Even as death takes

Us away, without shadow

Of semblance remained,

Why not far rather

The void or bliss in heaven

To lose oneself in?

If I realize

I am nothing already,

Without transition,

Then I need not the

Turn or reversal to come

As I approach her.

All in all, to be,

Lost in Him, for as long as

I am He is not.

Already naked,

She bows a little to hide

In beauty’s shadow,

Just as between the

Inside and the outside pure

Virginity reigns.

Nothing as humble

As a virgin made to stand

Awaiting darkness.

She let her love come

Unbound, and so did flourish.

Bridges of crossing,

To bridge the cross of

The see of troubles not yet

Seen in our ending,

To be our reproach

To the entanglement of

The imbroglio,

The imbrications

Of a time that did not seal

The concealment of.

Form itself is not,

Nor the merely assembled,

But beauty and want

Make these visions seem

The telos of destiny.

But what stands behind?

The unshaped shapes shape:

Which is why He must be In-

Comprehensible,

And why they who have

Not seen but believe are blessed,

As He said they’d be.

They thought they saw her,

But she was seen by God in

In eternity.

In His vision she

Was holy, but they did not

Recognize the Saint.

She fit with Him and

He drew with her a drawing

Divinely figured.

In a bracketing

Of the idea of

Sensuality,

Experience is,

And allows the vision seen

Not only by Him.

She became vision.

We can only accuse the

Owning in her light.

As she arrived, she

Not only told it so, but

Neither turning, showed.

Her means were not void,

Though her experience meant

Death, as if to mean

Almost more than she

Could mean, and almost more than

Meaning could allow.

She is not a text.

She interprets us, and shapes

Us to time to come,

Because grasped closer

And held more tightly, she is

Impressed with His skill

At making martyrs

Witness before and after

He has let them go,

In abandonment,

Not to providence, but to

A great emptiness,

A Christ in person,

Already breaking through veils

Then, now, everywhere.

Neither religious,

Nor political, nor yet

Philosophical,

But personally

Was the pain inflicted, as

She stood first in line.

Light and dark reject

Knowledge so bestowed on one

Who, having known them,

Was led to a place

Where they do not make sense and

Never will again.

Not in this life, or

In the next, where there are no

Need of sun or moon,

Nor will the gates be

Ever shut, as all light is

Like Hers, held within.

I do not think she

Had a quarrel with dying,

Or with the killers.

It is a question

Whether we do, or should, or

Whether to forgive.

What happened then is

Happening again, larger

In scope and hidden.

They do not kill our

Bodies now but steal our souls,

Or make as if to.

Already raptured,

The good is gone. We await

Appropriation,

The promised advent

Of what is said to be screened

By being is near.

And the Janus face

Of the gate of the Roman

God stands at the door.

But it is not his

Beginning, almost over,

That is occurring.

The fait accompli

Was thought to be a machine

To engulf the world.

The fateful meeting

Of man and technology,

Greatness inherent,

Now can just be heard,

In a very quiet place

Where we go to pray.

She did not know of

This, but was the first to go,

When the time had come.

How could she see the

Complicity of horror

With their holiness?

Five have reigned, one now

Is, and the one to come will

Last but a brief span.

The first of seven

Ascended as holocaust

Dawned in damnation.

Now by projection

From another time the last

Tiger regales.

The martyrs that were,

Pray for the martyrs to be.

And they witness them.

We recall the deaths

They endured but we do not

Feel it as we die.

Perhaps all is lost,

In a certain circle where

Things cannot be squared.

But God does the thing

That is impossible, like

Raise the dead to life.

Though our sins be as

Scarlet, yet they will be white

As wool, forgiven,

Even though the sin

Was doing what we were told,

Then looking away.

There are parallels

From history, not that

Long ago, not that

Far from the meaning

Of the death of Edith Stein,

Whom we remember.

An emptiness in

Heart has the clean fulfillment

Of wisdom in love.

Only vessels of

Devotion are already

So clean, so empty.

The Lord said to clean

The inside of the cup where

The filth lies hidden.

When He entered His

Capital, He first cleansed the

Temple of money.

Some say the world is

A mass of seething power,

Some see only sex,

And the desire that

Acquires pleasure, property,

And the skill of use.

Even beauty is priced,

And is a form of exchange,

Without penalty.

But the rewarding

To come is for the hidden,

Not open, beauty.

Could we find beauty

At Auschwitz? If we pray with

Edith Stein, we will.

It is said the Church

Is watered by the blood of

Martyrs, but the Blood

Of Christ was a fount

For cleansing, so Edith Stein’s

Blood, too serves the Church,

A prevenient

Witness to holy peril

And times of testing.


Part 4

meaning and experience

Documents

n d e x p e r i e n

original poem

religious poem

pure mind

composer of god

time of testing

martyrdom of edith stein

old man