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Category Archives: outsider
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’
quote: contrariness as a path to manifesting larger truths
Reflection: Self Liberation and Walking Each Other Home in Togetherness
Reflection: Self Liberation and Walking Each Other Home in Togetherness
As the author Toko-pa Turner wrote in her seminal work Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home there has always been this “terror of otherness so malignant in this world” driving us to tribalism, racism (and other oppression of peoples), xenophobia, nationalism, and violence which keeps us divided, separated, and siloed. For many, it appears at this particular time in history, this toxic ‘malignant otherness’ is as extreme as it has ever been in our lifetime.
Certainly within relationships there is a natural flow of being present and being absent. Grounded in the soul’s needs and development of Self, there is need for both periods of exile in the wilderness and feast of togetherness in community. Even outsiders operating at the margins of society long to belong authentically with others in community. As humans, we share this need to live our most true Truth together and to have a Home community we can always return to where we may truly belong in authenticity.
And thus the arduous journey facing us all as individuals in the pathless wilderness exile begins here and now. Resisting the selfish, dominant cultural lies of othering being spread by those operating at the self level of human development, those so called authorities, i.e., politicians, clergy, teachers, CEOs, social media influencers, power brokers, etc., those of the social systems of domination, we go inward, conducting a scorching self inventory of the lies we tell ourselves and others, and die unto that self. Then resisting the lies of the external authorities and annihilating the lies of our inner self, having unlearned all we have mistakenly been taught and believed, we are free to sift through the remains, for the Universal Truth beyond the self, allowing it to rise into the Light and to guide us for evermore.
Now Self liberated in Universal Truth, we join together each walking the other Home in Authentic Communities of True belonging eternally!
Herb Stone
image is the epilogue scene from the movie ‘Cloud Atlas’
poem: aging together here and now
poem: aging together here and now
here in the church
of God’s Creation worshipping
in the woods, dales, and lakes
doing the work of bringing light unto the self
practicing Self realization, resisting the Empire
and all that separates us from Creation
residing in authentic communities
of healing and belonging with others
who value sharing the work and doing the practice
walking in nature, creating,
writing down the bones
taking care of one another and those we may
here and now in our aging together
releasing worldly desires, falling upward,
in the cloud of unknowing
flowing with Cosmic energy
connecting root to crown
filling hearts with grace, love, hope, faith
beloveds, we are fine
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
June 16, 2021
photo: the author and his wife at Bird Heave
Hill in the Southern Hills of Nashville
Author’s note: Just a little love note from Cathey
and I to all our beloveds that we are fine here on
Bird Heaven Hill doing the quiet, slow practice and
work of Self, mutuality, belonging together, and oneing,
and we invite you all to join together in authentic
communities of intentionality, purpose, and meaning.
Let us love one another!
poem: giving way, letting go, surrender, redemption
poem: giving way, letting go,
surrender, redemption
surrender, redemption
have you surrendered
your success and privilege
of the ego’s personal greed
and swelling pride
and the imperialistic empire’s
power, control, and violence
for the life giving way
of empowerment, liberation, and peace
the noisy mind
in its cloying
sentiment and deceit
does not give way easily
all our self indulgence,
hubris, demanding,
pleading, and panic
finally must be relinquished
thus sitting silently
contemplating the void
of dependence arising
listening for the next right thing
the spirit seeks the balance
that the mind and body
cannot bear alone
in this world
now arising in our
organic, holistic, unified
heart of knowing
preparing us for right action
oh divine cosmic one
awaken in me
this practice that
ultimately redeems us
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
June 9, 2021
art by RSRLive Arts
‘Mind Body and Soul Kundalini’
haiku poem: warm dreams in late May’s golden light
haiku poem: warm dreams
in late May’s golden light Stella D’Oro
golden nuggets of bright light
sun’s warmth opening Love Pat Hosta blooms
in the flickering shadows
under the treescape
in late May’s golden light Stella D’Oro
golden nuggets of bright light
sun’s warmth opening Love Pat Hosta blooms
in the flickering shadows
under the treescape
warmth of late May
the hermit of Bird Heaven’s
Summer Solstice dreams
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
May 31, 2021
images by Herb Stone
Author’s note: I arranged the structure
of this poem into three stanzas, each of
which is a haiku unto itself.
quote: be the crack in the wall
poem: a story of our saving grace
poem: a story of our saving grace
fleeing the city and civilization,
traumatized, seeking solace,
she who lost her husband and young son
in the gun violence of a mass shooting,
takes up residence in a remote wilderness cabin,
cut off from the world, off the beaten path,
depending solely upon her self-reliance
her first winter here, the nature of the wild slowly
wearing her down, she cries out in the dark void
“it’s not working,” weakened and dying, she lays,
until the stranger stumbles upon her helpless,
near death, nursing her back to health, standing by her,
no questions asked, accepting her self isolation,
teaching her how to live alone in the wild
after the stranger does not return for a long while,
she hikes into the small town nearby for the first time,
finding him dying of cancer at home on his death bed,
he confesses his own trauma of killing his wife and
young daughter while driving drunk many years ago,
she now understanding she is not alone in her grief,
that wounds and healing shared, grace upon grace we are saved
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
May 18, 2021
Author’s note: This poem is inspired by my seeing
the movie ‘Land,’ a film by Robin Wright about
severe trauma, survival, human kindness, grace,
and healing
poem: prepare to be interrupted by God today
poem: prepare to be interrupted
by God today take a break
from the 10,000,000 things
that distract us see the Universal Cosmic Christ
by whatever name
in the stranger, other, oppressed especially those
making us the most uncomfortable
in our privilege allow the truth, beauty, and goodness
that surround us to act in
mercy, radical grace, and radical love turn so that hearts are opened
minds transformed
and spirits lifted up and so this shall be the new way
that God is always with us all
in the mutuality of giving and receiving Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
April 20, 2021
by God today take a break
from the 10,000,000 things
that distract us see the Universal Cosmic Christ
by whatever name
in the stranger, other, oppressed especially those
making us the most uncomfortable
in our privilege allow the truth, beauty, and goodness
that surround us to act in
mercy, radical grace, and radical love turn so that hearts are opened
minds transformed
and spirits lifted up and so this shall be the new way
that God is always with us all
in the mutuality of giving and receiving Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
April 20, 2021
art image unattirbuted
