For friends in
Spirituality of Service
& Social Justice classes
I want us to be freer
I don’t want us to be in thrall to guilt
I want us to let our light shine
Why play hide and seek with our soul?
Tomorrow is as far away as Hiroshima
Right now is our permanent mailing address
When you hear the knock
Fling open the door
I want us to give ourselves as much love
As we give our best friend when she’s broken
When you look into the eyes of the stranger and you see yourself
Are you seeing God or is God seeing you?
When you are a nanosecond away from totally giving up
Realize a nanosecond is all you need
Satori—compassion—accompaniment—brilliance (You are the light of the world)
Are one nanosecond one thought away
We usually make it so hard
Playacting at Sisyphus for a day or week
But, you say, there are finals and papers and applications and deadlines
And teachers who just don’t understand!
And I say: But there’s famine
And then there’s friendship
There’s the 30,000 headed to the quicksand in Afghanistan
And then there’s Linsey singing with her Nepali friends
There’s the gluttony of Goldman Sachs
And there’s the generosity of the SLU Monologists
Pessimism of the intelligence
Optimism of the will
Buddha smiled and George Harrison sang, All things must pass
Marx observed and Che embodied, The philosophers have heretofore interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it
You’ll blink, too
And you’ll be 27 nursing your first child
Or you’ll be a resident at a huge hospital in Manhattan
And sleep will be your god
The point isn’t your GPA
The point isn’t how many schools you’ll get into
The point isn’t applause and awards
And future job security
“Oh, really?
What is the point?”
The point is to practice
The point is to turn to your neighbor
The point is to insert yourself where you don’t belong, until you do belong
And then insert yourself all over again
The point is to fall more deeply in love with reading
The point is to be your own unique gospel
The point is to be the light of the world
Your light in your world
The point is to be at home in the world and in your own skin
Your skin is the world
The point is to hear the bell in the cry of the children
The point is to cultivate your multitudes
The point is to know you can write anyplace
The point is to know you can love anyone
The point is that you are Chân Không
You are Katie Cushwa
You are Buddha
You are Jesus
And we are also an unstable, ever-morphing collection of fears and fuck-ups
And doubt is torture
Nevertheless
Hold it all
Open the heart
Close the SOA
Take a deep breath
Free Palestine
See the neighbor
Pass the bread, pass the nan, pass the cinnamon roll
The good news is
Here you are
The good news is
You are now
— Laclede Coffee, 8:30 a.m.
Thursday 3 December 2009
