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Monthly Archives: December 2021
Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, is a revolutionary
Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, is a revolutionary
please visit my web page for more of my poetry, reflections, and quotes @herbstonejr.com
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Christmas Morn Reflections: The Cosmic Christ comes into the world in the way of weakness, vulnerability, and need and a mission of radical grace and love for healing the world of power, oppression, and violence and lifting up the oppressed
Christmas Morn Reflections: The Cosmic Christ comes into the world in the way of weakness, vulnerability, and need and a mission of radical grace and love for healing the world of power, oppression, and violence and lifting up the oppressed
“God entered into our world not with the crushing impact of unbearable glory, but in the way of weakness, vulnerability and need. On a wintry night in an obscure cave, the infant Jesus was a humble, naked, helpless God who allowed us to get close to him….The Bethlehem mystery will ever be a scandal to aspiring disciples who seek a triumphant Savior and a prosperity Gospel.” – Brennan Manning, Shipwrecked at the Stable
“The whole point of the kingdom of God is Jesus has come to bear witness to the true truth, which is nonviolent. When God wants to take charge of the world, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the poor and the meek.” – N.T. Wright
art by Gari Melcher ‘The Nativity’
poem: and now it is Christmas ‘time’
poem: and now it is Christmas ‘time’
time slows
and deepens
at Christmas
from 40 days
of waiting
expectantly
to the coming of the
Universal Cosmic Christ child
God with us Emmanuel time now comes to
its eternal
fullness filled with awe
and reverence in
this ever-present moment standing in the silent
snow covered field
in bleak mid-Winter stripped of adornment
travelers weary
in the cold and mud only the
angels, shepherds, and magi
will witness this New Day that Heaven and its Love
reign down on me and us all
then, now, and evermore Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 24&25, 2021 photo by author in
‘A Snowy Winter Eve’
Universal Cosmic Christ child
God with us Emmanuel time now comes to
its eternal
fullness filled with awe
and reverence in
this ever-present moment standing in the silent
snow covered field
in bleak mid-Winter stripped of adornment
travelers weary
in the cold and mud only the
angels, shepherds, and magi
will witness this New Day that Heaven and its Love
reign down on me and us all
then, now, and evermore Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 24&25, 2021 photo by author in
‘A Snowy Winter Eve’
Blue Advent reflections: The lowly, the imperfect, and the wounded shall be lifted up in dignity and rejoice
Blue Advent reflections: The lowly, the imperfect, and the wounded shall be lifted up in dignity and rejoice
God, by whatever name you know, chooses the lowly, the imperfect, the wounded to do God’s work in this world!
This season of our different faiths and spiritual traditions can be a challenging time for many of us this time of year.
However, my dear brothers, sisters, siblings, we must always remember that none of us is too ‘lowly’ to do the work of God, too imperfect do be loved by God and the Godly, too wounded to not be healed in this Divine radical acceptance and love! Just consider the birth of the Universal Cosmic Christ in that dirty stable and on the run from the Roman empire! And consider the words below of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor, saint, and martyr, as he preached in his Christmas sermon in his homeland of Germany during the reign of the Nazis.
However, my dear brothers, sisters, siblings, we must always remember that none of us is too ‘lowly’ to do the work of God, too imperfect do be loved by God and the Godly, too wounded to not be healed in this Divine radical acceptance and love! Just consider the birth of the Universal Cosmic Christ in that dirty stable and on the run from the Roman empire! And consider the words below of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor, saint, and martyr, as he preached in his Christmas sermon in his homeland of Germany during the reign of the Nazis.
And yes, we live again in the time fascist tyrants, dominant empires, pandemics, and violence and many are heartbroken, wounded, marginalized , oppressed, and neglected.
Let us remember, we are all children of a Universal God, a Cosmic Christ, and a pervasive Spirit, who belong together in diverse, authentic, neighborly communities of grace, love, mercy, justice, and hope
For God’s love for us, we love one another now and always!
Let us love one another during seasons of the Spirit, the Holy Days, the not so Holy Days, and all year around eternally as we are called to do by the Cosmic Universal Christ consciousness at its dawning!
“Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Jesus, the Cosmic Christ, to the disciples, as reported by Matthew in his Good News
Authors note: My use of the ‘Universal Cosmic Christ’ designates an incarnate principal of consciousness grounded in radical grace and radical love for one another which extends beyond a single religion or spiritual tradition and therefore is universally available to all beings here and now always.
poem: refrain to the Light in Advent at Winter Solstice
poem: refrain to the Light
in Advent at Winter Solstice
O Winter Solstice
O Star of the East
O Oriens
O Holy Night
O Radiant Dawn
O Nativity
O Eternal Light
O Star of the East
O Oriens
O Holy Night
O Radiant Dawn
O Nativity
O Eternal Light
come
shine down
on those
who dwell in darkness
under
the shadow
of death
that they
may be transformed
with eyes to see
the beauty
and ears to hear
the good news
of Heaven and Earth as One
Amen
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 21, 2021
Author’s note: Today marks the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It is also the 24th. day of Advent. It is the day the antiphon O Oriens is sung. The Nativity of the Universal, Cosmic Christ is later this week followed by the Epiphany. Light upon Light! Many religions and spiritual traditions celebrate the Light at this time of bleak mid-Winter. O Orien lyrics appear in stanza two.
YouTube music video: Queens’ College Choir, Cambridge, Queens’ Chapel Players, Silas Wollston, Album And Comes The Day: Carols and Antiphons for Advent
haiku: moon light on the road to Bethlehem
haiku: moon light on
the road to Bethlehem
oh moon of winter
hovers in misty treetops
lighting up the way
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 20, 2021
photo by author
taken this morning
Author’s note: The moon was
lovely in the misty barren tree
limbs this morning outside my
abode. Being Advent I was
reminded that Mary and Joseph
would have been traveling on
the way to Bethlehem for the tax
census demanded by the Roman
occupation at that time. Mary fully
pregnant, on a grueling, dangerous
trip from Nazareth with only
moonlight to light the way at night.
Another example of the Empire’s
dominance and oppression over the
Citizens of Judea and their prayers
for the fulfillment of a Messiah to
liberate them.
Advent Reflections: The Most Revolutionary Advent Hymn Ever Sung
Advent reflections: When Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, meet during their pregnancies, they rejoice in the ending of Empire and its oppression of the lowly under which they live at that time with the Roman occupation of Judea
Mary sings a revolutionary song to Elizabeth, known as the Magnificat:
The Magnificat: Luke 1:46-55 NRSV lyrics:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Mary’s song “the most passionate, the wildest, one might say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.” Bonhoeffer, who would be hung 12 years later for resisting Nazism, added: “This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary … This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of … Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world … ”
Sister Elizabeth Johnson says “The Magnificat is a revolutionary song of salvation whose political, economic, and social dimensions cannot be blunted. People in need in every society hear a blessing in this canticle. The battered woman, the single parent without resources, those without food on the table or without even a table, the homeless family, the young abandoned to their own devices, the old who are discarded: all are encompassed in the hope Mary proclaims.”
image by Ben Wildflower
click on image for better view
poem: the intensity of now (where am I and how did I get here)
poem: the intensity of now
(where am I and how did I get here)
(where am I and how did I get here)
yesterday a shadowy memory
tomorrow unimaginable
there is only the intensity of now
stuck in the present moment
past experience unretrievable
and unavailable in creating one’s future
thus stuck in the eternal present
necessarily filled with questions
answers: you are at home
where we live husband and wife
together for fifty years
now elders to a younger generation
we humans carrying on our Earth journey
closer to its end than its beginning
Cosmic Love reigns Supreme: we remain
grateful, in awe of the mystery, hopeful
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 18, 2021
Author’s note: The poem reflects my experience caring for my beloved wife with
Alzheimers. As memories become murky and unreliable and the future
unimaginable, the present is filled with questions and takes on a new intensity of
being stuck in the present. What remains is love, gratitude, awe, and hope on the
journey.
photo by author
‘Gulfview Heights Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, 2017’
Advent reflection: embracing the Life giving mystery of Life together vis-a-vis the personal hubris of self in a world to be calculated and exploited
Advent reflection: embracing the Life giving mystery of Life together vis-a-vis the
personal hubris of self in a world to be calculated and exploited
personal hubris of self in a world to be calculated and exploited
it is in our inability
to sit with and receive
the mystery of human’s
greatest gift of Cosmic Christ,
come down to us
filling our hearts with Love
to be shared mutually
with others, which is our
greatest human downfall
instead substituting our
selfish hubris too often
learned on our knees
at the Empire’s fortress
where we are led astray
in its’ lessons of power,
selfish hubris too often
learned on our knees
at the Empire’s fortress
where we are led astray
in its’ lessons of power,
control, and violence
which hardens into
private, selfish hubris
thus losing our respect
for the mystery of Life
and Love and our Eternal Being,
which hardens into
private, selfish hubris
thus losing our respect
for the mystery of Life
and Love and our Eternal Being,
failing to see and denying their
crucial transformative processes,
clinging to the old ways
of seeing the world as something
to be calculated and exploited
for our personal, selfish gain
dear one’s awaken,
prepare,
participate
art: ‘Dalit Madonna’ by Jyoti Saha
Author’s note: My reflection is
inspired by the writings of the
German Lutheran Pastor,
theologian, and martyr Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, who was hung by the
Nazi’s for his resistance and religious
beliefs after spending two years in Nazi
prisons and concentration camps. I offer
these reflections from the perspective
of spiritual experience universal to all
creation and humanity whatever one’s
religion, faith, beliefs, or traditions.
Herein lies our hope for the Oneing
of heaven and earth in true belonging
in authentic communities of radical grace
and radical love. Advent blessings!
