Category Archives: faith

poem: a missive from a hard winter and a possible return

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poem: a missive from
a hard winter and a
possible return

from deep within
the dark lair 

wounds are salved
and broken things mended

a buffeting wet, cold
winter wind chills the bone

quality of life
frail and weak

free floating soul
battered in the storm

consciousness clouded
the way uncertain

circling in this thin place
in liminal time

letting go of survival instinct
for more understanding

perhaps a bit more repose
into the bardos of uncertainty

faith in one’s good nature,
clarity, and hope of return

opening to what lies beyond,
transformation, re-engagement

the intuitive wisdom of knowing
beyond the mind

emergence of True Self joined
mutually in beloved community

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
January 13, 2023

photo by author
‘Old Coyote in Winter’

poem: visions of hope, transformation, and manifestation

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poem: visions of hope, transformation,
and manifestation

hooking one’s hopes on the egos
of humans and worldly events
crushes our souls

peace is denied at the tyrant’s whim,
human rights are ruled unconstitutional,
life, liberty, and happiness end at the point of a gun

we, in the world, not of the world,
Earth students, Spirit beings,
our hopes are set in shared visions

the diminution of ego of True Self,
the diminution of control of Authentic Being,
the diminution of personal power of universal Cosmic Consciousness

our visions of yes/and unity, wounded healing,
mutuality, beloved community, wholeness,
the way of the Cosmos

one’s authentic hope lies
in deep intuitive knowing, envisioning,
and faith in manifesting transformation

beloveds, be the change
shanti, shanti, shanti
thou art that

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry

May 15, 2022

poem: a Lenten blessing for personal and relational transformation for all

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poem: a Lenten blessing for personal
and relational transformation for all

in some shadowy Lenten corner of our
desert hearts, may we face all of our
small self-serving definitions of Creator God,
and the idols we erect and worship
of our hubris, conceit, and sentimentality

liberating our self from this wilderness,
following the Way of the Cross, as did Jesus,
the Universal Cosmic Christ, and resurrecting
into a more authentic becoming
with the Spirit

Creator God’s grace and love universally and
unconditionally given cannot sustain New Life
in an arid heart and wilderness mind,
the vine dies and fails to produce the
communal Fruit of Life

may the Divine Creator be the lotus flower
upon the throne of our heart chakra,
om manni padme hum, manifesting love,
grace, kindness, and compassion
to every corner of the Cosmos

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 9, 2022

images
Lotus heart chakra – unattributed
Open your heart, Paschima Namaskarasana,
Reverse Prayer Hands – unattributed

Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, is a revolutionary

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Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, is a revolutionary
please visit my web page for more of my poetry, reflections, and quotes @herbstonejr.com
Thank you for your support and happy reading
click image to see it in full 

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

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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

“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’

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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’

Blue Advent reflections: The lowly, the imperfect, and the wounded shall be lifted up in dignity and rejoice

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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.
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.

haiku: moon light on the road to Bethlehem

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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

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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
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