Category Archives: the Christ

poem: refrain to the Light in Advent at Winter Solstice

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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

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

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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
click on image for better view

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

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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

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,
control, and violence
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!

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

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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.  

quote: an Advent prayer

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

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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.)

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

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image unattributed

poem: prepare to be interrupted by God today

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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

art image unattirbuted

quote: the universal cosmic divine will

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