credo: resisting Empire and raising up Beloved Community
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Category Archives: radical grace
poem: gathering of the ole 66’ers (a tribute to ole friends)
poem: gathering of the ole 66’ers
(a tribute to ole friends)friends since school days,
graduating together fifty six
years ago, ole in the sense
of a beloved thing long lasting,
dependable, and trustworthy
(a tribute to ole friends)friends since school days,
graduating together fifty six
years ago, ole in the sense
of a beloved thing long lasting,
dependable, and trustworthy
gathering and sharing, grateful
for the story of us all and those lost
to us or who have gone before,
and our lives all this time later,
our spirits lighten and lift
having lived long, gathering still,
in the mutuality of relationships
long standing, our friendships giving
value to our survival, thriving in
authentic communities of belonging
sweet memories of our halcyon days,
together, depending on each other
to be there for the gathering now,
beloved ole 66’ers, as we walk each
other home
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 18, 2022
photos by author
Author’s note: Fifty-six years ago in 1966,
we all graduated from high school together and
continue to gather regularly. Grateful for the
enduring grace and glory of these beloved ole
friends.
poem: a Lenten blessing for personal and relational transformation for all
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
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
Fat Tuesday gives way to Ash Wednesday
Fat Tuesday gives way to Ash Wednesday
the clown of yesterday’s revelry
finds their self alone
in their shadowy desert cell
light flooding in and a jug of water
nothing to do but to be with one’s self
giving up the distractions
and fasting from excess, reflecting deeply
our relationship with Cosmic God
confessing our human hubris, conceit,
and sentimentality, repenting those things
that separate us from God, and reconciling
with God, the Cosmos, and all God’s beloved
knowing the trials to come
dying to ourselves
resurrecting in the New Life
radical grace and love abounding
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 2, 2022
Author’s note: I originally wrote this poem
on Ash Wednesday 2018 and have republished
slight variations of it since. The version above
is its third rendition.
Art by Carl Spitzweg, ‘Ash Wednesday’
poem: soliloquy on aging
poem: soliloquy on aging
lately finding myself
taking some time off, slowing down,
being quieter, more still,
disengaging from daily routines,
in need of a hae’lan
it has been a long, harsh winter,
worldly challenges of apocalyptic malaise,
the ever present change of
aging, illness, loss, relationships,
community, belonging
not a single thing but a whole thing
needing time to face, and including
my shadow, imperfections, dis-ease,
slowing it down, fitting it all together
forming a new gestalt of Life (and death)
beloveds, yearning for restoration and
re-engagement, from this exilic journey,
to a new complementary perfection,
of authentic wholeness and holiness,
belonging together in radical grace and love
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 10, 2022
photo: writing at my desk
Reflection: On Being a Mystic in the Third Millennium
Reflection: On Being a Mystic in the Third Millennium
“Why, when God’s world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places?”-Rumi
Dorothy Soelle uses Rumi’s quote above as the introductory quote in her 2001 book ‘The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance.’ She goes on to write that two of those prisons for her were the German protestant church and the academic theology of the post-Enlightenment.
She elucidates this as follows: “….I can simply say that what I want to live, understand, and make known is the love for God.” She says that God’s love for us and our love for God must be mutual, and that mysticism best expresses this mutuality between God and humans and advances the Beloved community of radical grace and radical love.
Beloveds, let us here and now love one another in, with, and through the Universal God of All!
Note: Ms. Soelle lived in Cologne, Germany, born 1929, died 2003.
Art ‘Rosa Mystica’ by Shiloh Sophia McCloud
Reflection: On Being Present and in Conversation with Others
Reflection: On Being Present and in Conversation with Others
My (an old man approaching his 74th. birthday) most
fond wish and deepest passion is the Communion of Souls
brought to bear through our right action of mindfulness, intention,
purpose, discipline, and practice. And grounded in True Self,
Authenticity, Mutuality, and Belonging together in Communities.
Dear Beloveds, may we awaken, personally do the
work, and collectively join together in the unitive experience of
the Divine Ground, Radical Grace, and Radical Love.
– Herb Stone, poet and author @herbstonejr.com
Let us consider this plea in its perennial expression of our sisters and brothers:
“For a lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness evade us everyday.”
– Evelyn Underhill, Mystics
“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible.
To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple,
obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”
– Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul
“The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute,
ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances)
susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being.
This Absolute is the God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical
phraseology. The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground—the knowledge that can come only to those who areprepared to “Die to self” and so make room, as it were, for God.”
― Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy
“We expect a theophany of which we know nothing but the place, and the place is called
community.” -Martin Buber, Between Man and Man
quote: resisting the destruction of ego-self and worldly chaos
quote: resisting the destruction of ego-self and worldly chaos
A Prayer for the Unsettling Realization of Authentic Transformation
quote: “….offering our presence and attention to another, can be the most holy and beautiful thing.”
