Category Archives: faith

poem:  this Advent season of waiting, watching, witnessing, awakening 

Posted on by
Reply

poem:  this Advent season of waiting,
watching, witnessing, awakening

all Creation groans:
humanity expectant,
pregnant with the anticipation
of waiting and preparing

Earth and Heaven are changed:
the star in the East,
the road made straight in the desert,
the low places made level

the world of  human society changed:
the great leveling, scattering the proud,
bringing the high, low, and filling the hungry,
sending the rich away empty

the incarnation of
Universal Cosmic Christ consciousness:
came down to us, comes now,
and will come again

vigilant, waiting, watching,
this knowing deep in our bones,
in every cell, in every breathe,
our Advent witnessing and awakening

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 9, 2021

photo by author

Author’s note: The poem draws on
Matthew’s story of the Magi, Luke’s
Canticle of Mary, and Isiah’s prophecy
of John the Baptist from the Bible. It is
written from the perspective of spiritual
experience universal to all creation and
humanity whatever your religion, faith,
beliefs, or traditions.  

poem: Thanksgiving passes, Winter Solstice nears, Advent begins (via negativa)

Posted on by
Reply
The Season of Advent Begins
Pregnant with Anticipation

poem: Thanksgiving passes,
Winter Solstice nears,
Advent begins (via negativa)

and now the family Thanksgiving
bountiful feast has been eaten
and the days revelry abated
( the dominant culture’s lies
about its oppression of the Native
American’s laid bare)

entering the liminal space
of late Autumn’s cold, short days,
the Winter Solstice nears
(the dominant culture’s
Black Friday and pre-Christmas
buying frenzy muted)

preparing ourselves through
deep reflection and contemplation
in our stillness and quietude
(the dominant culture’s frenetic
holiday festivities and prideful hail fellow
well met transmuted)

coming into the Advent season of the
coming of the Universal Cosmic Christ
and its call to “the high price of full
consciousness” (the dominant culture’s
distortions of Santa Claus and the churches’
sentimental baby Jesus plays notwithstanding)

Christ consciousness incarnate
Jesus is Lord, Come Lord Jesus
(not the dominant culture’s current day
Caesar of power, control, and violence,
but Christ with us in the neighborly
community of the Kin-dom)

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
November 28, 2021

Image by Matthias Stromer
‘Annunciazone’

Author’s note: My poem is meant to
convey the story of Universal Cosmic Christ
consciousness breaking into the worldy
human empires of the many Caesar’s and
their power, control, violence, and oppression.
As a universal cosmic, spiritual story, it extends
beyond the institutional Christian church and is
available to everyone regardless of personal
religious beliefs. It becomes part of the human
story of spiritual growth towards True Self and
belonging in Authentic Community together.
The quote in stanza four is from Richard Rohr.)

poem: the elderly couple at the mall

Posted on by
Reply

poem: the elderly couple at the mall

the beaming elderly couple
urgently shuffle directly towards us
as we make our way through
the crowded mall

holding my wife’s hand,
she with her cane,
people jostling us
this way and that

me thinking:
do we know this couple,
what huge smiles they have,
hope they stay on their feet

the elderly man holding his wife’s tiny hand
looks at me with prophetic eyes
and declares “Never stop holding her hand”
to which I empathically reply, “Never!”

now, his words disconnected,
saying “Youngsters,” referring to us
and “Sixty-nine years” referring
to how long they have been married

and I reply “Fifty”
as we have just celebrated
our Golden Anniversary
a few days before

now two old couples beaming,
holding hands, knowing long life love filled,
shuffle off our separate ways
disappearing into the day’s babel

love is patient, love is kind,
it is not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude,
it rejoices in the truth; bears, believes, hopes,
and endures all things; love never ends

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
November 19, 2021

photo by jem vistaprint
“still in love”

Author’s note: The last stanza paraphrases
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, The Gift of Love.


poem: a paean for senescence

Posted on by
Reply

poem: a paean for senescence

our growing older
is not a linearity starting here, ending there,
not a timeline from beginning to end,
not a simple chronological
counting of the years

to be sure there
are circles, loops, and spirals,
bardos, gaps, and liminal spaces,
and ones functional/dysfunctional
life experiences

and of course
in our aging
one is vulnerable
to life’s foibles and frailties
which we must suffer

thus in our senescence
we prepare,
countering bitterness with beauty,
hopelessness with creative imagination,
infirmity with wholeness

embodying a faith that sustains us
for those unseen things yet to come
in our Cosmic journey home
in the truth of the Universal Oneing
of consciousness human and divine

being gentle with those things
unsettled in our heart and soul
knowing our cries, laments, and joys
are heard, and there is place of radical grace
and love that perennially longs for us

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
November 11, 2021

‘Spiral of Life’ art image by Susan Bruck

poem: seasons of nature and life

Posted on by
Reply
poem: seasons of nature and life

and now Autumn comes in abundance
light, leaves, wildflowers, crops
a feast for our earthly senses

slowing, days shorten
falling, leaves covering the ground
baring, meadows and fields stripped

with it’s fierce appetite
we find ourselves at last
with only what we have stored up

soon enough stoking the fire
huddling in it’s warmth and light
season changing; stillness, silence, solitude come

these seasons of nature and life
a time to sow and a time to reap
a time to be born and a time to die

now in the winter of life
observing nature’s autumn glories
memories of past springs and summers

then, at last, ashes to ashes
and dust to dust, that the Spirit
may quicken and unify all in All

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
October 6, 2021

photo by Tschiponnique Skupin

Author’s note: Stanza five references
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and the last stanza is based
upon the liturgy ‘The Order for the Burial of
the Dead’ from the ‘Book of Common Prayer.’
Christianity aside, many spiritual traditions and
religions have this concept of a spiritual
consciousness which extends beyond nature’s
bodily death.

poem: in the flow embracing the sweet spot in aging

Posted on by
Reply
poem: in the flow embracing
the sweet spot in aging 

in the reprieve
following the onslaught
of our mortality

detecting their is
a sweet spot in the tartness
of our aging

things s l o w  d   o   w   n
having more intimate time
for one another

our rambles shrink
to a home and a field
comfortable in its familiarity

there is a touch
of surrealism
expanding our consciousness

a touch of lament,
prophetic vision, and hope
in things to come

and a renewed creativity
witnessing the wisdom
one has hard earned

so now in this in-between place
coming into one’s Self fully
and walking one another Home

faith sustains us preparing
for unseen things to come
in our Cosmic Journey

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
August 7, 2021

photos by Herb Stone

Author’s note: I wrote this poem
just after my wife’s stroke from which
she is now recovering nicely despite
its challenges. Our 50th. year
anniversary approaching in November.

quote: “…..Beloveds of the Lover as Love itself!”

Posted on by
Reply

poem: liberation for the people

Posted on by
Reply
poem: liberation for the people

in a world too much with us
so rapidly changing and chaotic
filled with misinformation and lies
the people’s souls are troubled and restless

this world where
politics is so partisan
that lying tyrants
are supported over truth and justice

this world where
we are so deeply divided among ourselves
and as far from the divine as possible
leaves us adrift trying find a hold

this world where
the bodies of the dead float in the Ganges
lie in the hot streets
and burn on funeral pyres in parking lots

this world where
industries refuse to pay living wages
then label workers as lazy and malcontents
for refusing to accept deadend jobs

this world where
local news is a litany of gun violence and deaths
and the weather, even on pleasant days,
is always a threat thanks to reporting of ‘Storm Central’

this world where
consumer products are unaffordable
and /or in short supply
due to fragile infrastructure and personal hoarding

this world as we know it on the ground
with affliction and dis-ease
a pox upon our body, mind, and spirit
beloveds, wherein does our hope lie

a wise sage once said
“we cannot become gods though we may become divine”
through healing our afflictions and suffering
with discriminating intelligence and unity consciousness

liberation for the people
both worldly and divine
immanent and transcendent
True Selves belonging in authentic communities

bipartisan governance for the people
dignified, quality healthcare for the people
living wage work for the people
ethical journalism for the people
sustainable economies for the people
authentic communities for the people
visible hope for the people
wholistic healing from within for the people
liberation from oppression for the people

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
May 14, 2021

quote by BKS Iyengar, father of modern yoga, author, teacher

image ‘We the People’ poster art from Amplifier

Reflection: 50th. Year Anniversary of ‘Be Here Now’

Posted on by
Reply

Reflection: The inside out and upside down ministry of Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ (by whatever name) and my prayer to be with those on the margins as God calls me

Posted on by
Reply
Reflection: The inside out and upside down ministry of Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ (by whatever name) and my prayer to be with those on the margins as God calls me

( I originally wrote the reflection below several years ago as I underwent a particularly challenging realization with the institutional church of which I was a congregant eventually resulting in my departing the church for what for me is a much more meaningful spiritual life centered in celebrating the gifts of all spiritual traditions and being grounded in the evolution of True Self (discipleship) and belonging together in authentic communities (the kingdom or kin-dom). My relationship with the Divine Cosmic Will (God by whatever name) has never been stronger.)

My increasing awareness, especially now in my life, is that Jesus is always with the outsider and outcast who suffers and hurts for the world and shares the pain of others.

Jesus leaves the institutional worship place, sometimes in anger, as we see in the Temple story of the ‘den of robbers,’ to be with those who are on the outside and who just can’t cut it in those places anymore. I think of this as the spirituality of imperfection. Certainly we all are united in our imperfections.

In Jesus going out to these outsiders, he, of course, takes leave of those who are arrogant and prideful and all knowing and thusly, the insiders of the worship place’s, with their dominant cultural traditions and hierarchical hegemony. These insiders are, of course, generally those leaders in power and control, officially or otherwise.

Other good and innocent souls linger there as well perhaps holding onto the law and its rules of right and wrong not having yet experienced the truth, beauty, and goodness of our shared suffering and wounds and imperfections.

God send me into the messiness of this world with the imperfect souls such as myself so that we might commune together in the dark shadows and light spirits as your Beloved children through grace, love, mercy, justice, peace, and hope!

Amen and Amen