Attention here and now
Compassion emerges when sadness merges with joy
Only those who have transcended the world can make a better world
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 03/05/08
If we only knew
Indestructible compassion
Underlies all life.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/11/11
Unpretentious
Loving kindness is revealed
In our forgiveness
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/15/11
Throughout our shared lives
As humans we rely on
Improbable hope.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/16/11
You in me in you
In order to understand
Me in you in me.
[pp 322 Field Notes on a Compassionate Life]
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/18/11
You in me in you
A common stream of virtue
We in us flowing.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/18/11

Human compassion
Resonating our concern
For all other things.
[pp 322]
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/18/11
First and foremost a
Loving presence is vital
Found through a prayer
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 05/08/11
Accepting kindness
The reality of life
Is revealed each day
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/28/11
The secret of life
If that success comes to you
By helping others
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/07/11
She is consumed by
Keen intransigent kindness
En route to heaven
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/21/11
All our days living
Are not spent, rather borrowed,
Time only used once
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 01/26/12
Be as a brush held
In the hand of the Creator
To create art in the world.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 01/27/12
Kindness of a child
An offering of goodness
A simple package
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 01/27/12
Seeking the light
Will lead to becoming
A person of no shadow
Because the light
Shines through you
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 03/17/12
The God in you is
The God you alone let through.
To shine on the world
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 04/16/12
“Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

“Through compassion our humanity grows into its fullness.”

Nouwen-McNeill-Morrison in Compassion
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 04/21/12
Every person
Unlimited positive
Regard for each one
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 06/04/12
It’s always a choice
Action now or apathy
Life is up to you
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/07/13
It was a conceit of mine
To think that of all the poor seekers for help
There are none
who have it worse than me

There is a depth to a well
Which grows deeper and richer
As woe is poured in
And compassion is pulled out

The woman of Samaria stood at the well
And drew water for Jesus
He recognized the kindness being given
By one who had suffered in order to stand by that well.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 03/07/13
Enter resonance
All relationships are now
Empathic presence

or

Present empathy
Intertwined us together
As a sacred gift
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 04/08/13
Empathy requires
Unconditional regard
For the one person
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 04/08/13
Giving and getting
The stuff of life’s renewal
Offered by kind hands
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 05/16/13
How do we sustain
The good of each person seen?
Respect and kindness
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 05/16/13
The flame of compassion
Is started by generosity
Borne in our own experience of need
Kept alight by
The wind of desire
To be better than we are

A fire shared among people
Who, together, become
A towering blaze
Of life giving warmth in the world

(inspired by Piero Ferrucci, “The Power of Kindness”)
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 06/01/13
By way of a chance
Hidden quality is born
Showing reality
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 06/10/13
I have a daily dose
Of pain and heartache
Shared and passed on

Life is not pain and sorrow
Life has pain and sorrow
Life is not goodness and happiness
Life has goodness and happiness

Pain and goodness
Sorrow and happiness
Are caused by attachments
Hanging memories on our being

I have a daily dose
Of compassion and wonderment
Shared and passed on

Random acts of kindness
Senseless bouts of cruelty
Daily struggles
And nightly dreams
Such are the things of life
Hanging memories on our being
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 06/14/13
All around us now
Opportunities abound
For kindness and grace
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 08/14/13
Agitation is
Specific compassionate
Confrontation, yes?
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 04/17/14

Love is a spite.
Its devotion knows no bounds;
Neither high nor low.
Love is an integration of souls.
Love is an interminable commitment of fidelity.
Love pushes all our buttons and expects us to reset them
So they can be pushed again.

Love is a spite with a certainty
that no matter how much
of your hurt and sadness and frustration is expressed as anger,
no matter what,
it holds on to me and you, and you and me.
Nobody told us it would be exactly like this,
but they sure told us it would be a journey.
We heard “for better or for worse” our whole lives.
And lo and behold they both happened again and again.

Love has the spite to prove to you that
I’ll hold on to you no matter what.
Love is just stubborn that way.
Love is never violent. It never hurts for hurting sake.
Love never destroys itself nor the other person.

Love can be unkind at times
Because love trusts in its reciprocity
That hurt and sadness can be overcome in its very being.
My love is my love in spite of myself after all this time.
The love I receive in return is the same,
Full, complete, complex and in spite of it all.

I love you in spite of myself.
I love you in spite of yourself.
There is a connection deep and unexplainable
Which brings our souls together.
In each of our minds we are committed to the other.
As time goes by the connection is stronger.

The meaning of fidelity is manifest in spite of all that happens.
Our minds and our souls and our lives experiences
Are so intertwined that the two cannot be less than together.
Even if we are apart the connection remains strong and mysterious.
This is what we have made by choice and chance and spite.
If we love in spite of ourselves, and if we take away the spite,
All that is left is the connection of our love.
><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 05/19/13

Love is a choice
It is also a mysterious voice
Inside our heads, within our hearts

Inner emotion evolves
Until it finally resolves
To bring together all of our parts

The part of me that sees
How separate I can be;
Such an unenduring plight

Nothing else can fill the part of me
That needs to have some company
So search ensues to cure this blight

It’s not some random thing
Like a bird upon the wing
Startled to take flight

Love makes choices every day
What to do and what to say
Affection the branch found to alight

But like the branch that moves and sways
Loves must balance in its days
How to act and feel while making something right

Hopes to share an inner vision
Connections made in each decision
It’s not some random wondrous flight

Affection grows through choices made
As our hopes and dreams get weighed
Through the evenings on into the night

In sleep and dreams the choice still spinning
Is this joining worth the winning?
Joy of love found at first light

Happiness found in its potential
For each humans being, love essential
Fulfilling hopes and dreams so bright

Love is a choice
A lovely yet mysterious voice
Inside our heads, within our hearts
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/14/14

The essence of love
Is borne of the availability
Of the heart and emotions
A person chooses to love
As love chooses to evolve.
Attraction, then infatuation
brings a choice of commitment
to explore the possibilities.
The commitment to the other person
Sometimes comes first,
But often our love is borne
In the mysterious inner self.
Did one inner self touch the other inner self?
The point of contact may be obscure,
then in joy, relief, and trepidation
one discovers the connection to the other – the love.
The connection, once made, is sustained by fidelity.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 04/16/08

As my grandfather’s son lay dying this is the story I whispered in his ear.
<><><>

My father was my grandfather’s son.
The grandfather said to his son,
“I need to see that son of yours.”
My father’s son went with his father
to see his grandfather as he lay dying.
The grandfather said to the boy
as his father stood by his side,
“I see greatness in you. You can do something great.
I want you to know that.”

Emotionally and physically and in many ways of being in this world
My father’s son saw in his father the goodness and the foibles as only a son can see.
My father’s son learned hard work and respect and decorum.
My father’s son stepped back and stepped aside as time and distance and detachment proved more powerful than blood and expectations.

The years moved on and the greatness may have emerged.
My father’s son also lived the heritage of a people who did not express emotion easily.
Precision and accuracy, and even humility, were manifest.
However, emotional honesty was masked by words, or, no words.

My father’s son knew of the father’s good deeds.
And time showed the power of prayer.
Yet personal access drifted away and connectedness was lost.
My father’s son saw his father try too hard to reconnect.
The father could not admit to judgment or misdeeds.

My father’s son lost his connectedness to his father;
not his love or appreciation of his father’s goodness,
but a connection was lost,
perhaps given up by both these men.

My father’s son mourns his father’s loss and honors him.
My father’s son regrets his father missed some unspoken thing,
because he could not say it, or did not know how.
My father’s son would be genuine in saying, “I will still strive for that greatness.”

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 06/16/12

Somewhere in California
A night bird sings in the middle of the day
Like a prayer on the wind
The song flies up to heaven

Somewhere in California
A butterfly struggles
To pass through time
To a distant land

Somewhere a love
Which is long and deep
Breathes a sigh
As the loved one sleeps

Somewhere there are the last steps of a long journey
To reach where the power of prayer
Is not obscured
By the limits of the body and mind

A soul’s journey
To lift and give and strive
To join the goodness
Which is the birthright
Of all men and women

Somewhere my father dies
Somewhere my mother cries
And prays
Somewhere my sisters and brothers stand by

Somewhere I sit
Somewhere I cry
Somewhere in California

Somewhere in California
The mountains rise
And the mountains break down

Somewhere on the western shore
The rivers flow down to the sea
The people move and live
And struggle

Somewhere in California
A man moves on
To join the world of spirit
Somewhere in California
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 06/27/12

In the end all the dreams just scatter
Like a kaleidoscope that lost its symmetry
Across time and space no matter what humans think
In the end potential flows every which way

What might have been and what had to be
Blend in memory like history
The truth or the perception matters not to me
Now has passed into the past
That neither grief nor sorrow nor wishes nor prayers can renew

In the end all the dreams just scatter
So vivid in our sleep, or the days of youth,
As time and distance mix together
To form imagined dreams and foggy memory

The past has flown down past the shore
Though no one is standing there
All are in the river of scattered light
Moving on like a kaleidoscope
That was never meant to have symmetry

Time swirls in eddies mixing hopes and dreams
The light of deep pools of thoughts gathered once
Evaporate as some relationships do.
Upstream gathered together
Then downstream mists of thought

Down to the sea of being flow our dreams
Some complete; some unfulfilled
As water distorts the light
so time or thought erodes our dreams together
In the end all the dreams have scattered

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/17/12

The grace of the Creator finds the souls
The father who did the best he could
May his soul rest in peace
The young woman who struggled and strived and fell to evil
May her soul rest in peace
The child who lost her life from the death brought by war
May her soul rest in peace
The son, the daughter, the child, the adult
The joy and the sorrow that will not be known
Because their souls rest in peace
May their souls rest in peace
May their life’s lessons be made clear to the souls yet to find peace

[All Souls’ mass at St. Rose]

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 11/04/12

Wind through the trees
Blows leaves that flutter
In their last attachment to life

The buds of Spring
And green Summer
Give way to orange
And brown
Of life moving on

Leaves are like illusions
Or lives blown by truth;
They last through time
Until contradictions
Or wisdom
Blow them away

The flutter is caused by
The stem clinging to its source
In a gale force

The sputter and flutter and denial
Both stated and internal
Of any person resisting
Acknowledging the truth
Is like those stems
Destined to separate

In the depths of winter
There may be a few leaves
Still dangling
Old beliefs die hard
And illusions linger
After long and bitter truth
Blows down upon the disillusioned

The blue sky of reality
Cold and stark
Is laid bare
By the winds of truth

Until a new Spring
<><><><><><><><><><><> 12/09/12