There Are No Diplomas

I’ve got a Bone to Pick
with the Dogma Trainers
Who Insist

The Creator
Set This Place Up
as a Boarding School,

With Classes in
Worship and Obedience
to Commandments
Cast In Stone,

and Instructors
in Disciplines
Written in Ancient Tongues
and Printed in
Leatherbound Libraries,

With Grades to Divide
The Sheep from The Goats,
Recorded in Books of
Life and Death,
to Make Judgments
That Last to
Eternity and Beyond.

What If
This Cosmos
Was Meant to Be
a Playground of
Choose Your Adventure,
for Light Beings
Who Shimmered
Into a Trillion Sunbeams,

from a Blazing Love
Whose Only Desire Is to
Experience Adoration of
All That Is?

But Light Loves to
Play in The Dark,
Risking Fear of
What Can’t Be Seen,

For the Joy of The Mystery,
the Ecstasy of Creativity.

But You Need Not Fear.

There are Classes in
Every Art of Illumination,
Every Language of Laughter,
Every Sport of Love
Wrestling Fear Into an Embrace of
Overcoming and Sanguine Submission.

You Cannot Fail.

Your Divinity
Will Not Be Graded.
There Are No Diplomas.

Only The Next Adventure.

 

Metaphor Maintenance

It May Be Time
to Tuneup Your
Metaphors,

Or even Toss
a Few of Them.

Let’s Start with
The Top Shelf,
Metaphorically Speaking:

If You’re a Believer
in Such Things,
What Is
The Kingdom of Heaven
Like?

(It Is Reported that
Jesus was a Fan of
Such Inquiries.)

First, Is It Truly
Like a Kingdom,
with Royalty and
Kneeling and Bowing?

Or Maybe It’s Like
a Theocracy,
with Laws and Obedience and
Consequences for Disobedience.

Or Like a Religion,
(from the Latin, “religare,”
meaning “to bind,”)

Or an Eternal Hierarchy,
with Ascended Masters.

But What If …

That Love Light that Is
Diffracted Into a Trillion Fractals,
a Rainbow of Light Beings,

Is More Like
a Family of Footloose Afficiandos
of the Affectionate Love Arts,
Who Love to Cover Fear
with Murals of Kindness and
Its Kinfolk of Joy?

Goofy Uncles and Antic Aunties,
Who Grin and
Poke Each Other In the Ribs
When You Test Fly
One of Your Wild Wonderings,
Who Rush to Embrace You
When You Stage
One of Your Messy Meltdowns.

What If the Hereafter,
When It Infiltrates
the Here and Now,
Is More Like Your Family
On Its Best Day
Dream?

 

Sultans of Separation

Why have We Let
the Experts at
Damned Dichotomy –
Heaven or Hell,
Saved or Lost –
Draw the Maps and
Write the Instruction Manuals,
Compose the Curricula and
Cut the Paychecks?

Their Lexicon is Endless:

Good or Evil,
God or Satan,
Win or Lose,
Right or Wrong.

The Sultans of Separation.

Imagining in Nightmares
of Being

Something Other than
Divine.

As If
That Could Ever
Be.

They’ve Dressed Fear
In a Bogeyman’s Mask.

Perhaps It’s Time to
Set a Trap of
Undiluted Love,

Bait It with Joy,

from Which Fear
Cannot Escape.

Adopt Separation
Into the Family and
Change Its Name to
Laughter.

(Photo by Brooke Cagle; UnSplash)

 

Kids

It’s been Written
that Jesus Said

“Let Those Kids Loose
so They can Come Here and
Be With Me.
After All,
They’re What Heaven
Is All About.”

It’s more Formal
when the King James Posse
Translated It,
But Kids are Kids.

His Apostolic Sidekicks
had been Keeping
The Little Ones
at a Distance,
Imagining They
Would Bother Him.

Instead He Said,
“Pay Attention, Guys,
These are Your
Role Models.”

Consider That.
Contemplate It.
Meditate On It.

We’ve Imagined
Temples and
Priesthoods and
Nunneries and
Leatherbound Libraries,

When The Man,
Himself,
Asks Us to
Turn Loose
The Child
In Us.

To Play,
To Laugh and
Expect To See Magic and
Believe We’ll Be
Cared For.

Was It Just a Metaphor
that I’ve Stretched?

When He Said
To Become
As a Child

Is a Must?

(Photo by Robert Collins; UnSplash)

 

Done

I Am so Done
with Paying Attention
to The High Priests
of Preaching
The Gospel of
the Practice of
Practice,

Until You
Get It Right
and Your Record Book
Reflects Your Rigor,
But doesn’t
Reveal Your Dismay
When You Inevitably
Fall Short

In Your Righteous
Quest To Be
Better than
You Are.

To Be
Like Jesus?

If The Maker
had That in Mind,
Why Not Roll Out
Eight Billion
Perfect Models
from a Mold?

Or Maybe
The Maker
Wanted to Start
a Colony of Artists,

Who Don’t Keep Records,
Whose Joy Is In
Making More Art,
Where the
Only Measure
Is How Much
Fear
Can Be Overwhelmed
By Original Works
of Love.

(Photo by Lin Renais; UnSplash)

 

The Traveler’s Warranty

So Many of Us
were Taught that
Life is like a
University –
Hope You got into
a Good One.

Classes and
Homework and
Exams and
Grading on a Curve.

To Hear Them
Tell It, or
Read Their
Catalogues,

Some of These
Institutions
are Quite
Unforgiving
Toward Those
Who Fail
Their Final Exam.

There could Be
Fire and Brimstone.

Hell to Pay.

But What If

Life Is
More like a
Cruise Ship.

You can even
Choose Your Cruise,
Perhaps Take
More than One!

If You’re
The Adventurous Type
You Can Challenge
Your Self
to the Extreme:

Sidetrips that will
Curl Your Hair,
if not Your Toes.

Be Sure to
Mix It Up a Little,
Some Trips to
Tropical Treasure Islands or
Mountaintops with
Voluptuous Views.

Just Know This:

There’s a Divine
Traveler’s Warranty
That You’ll
Be Brought Home,
Safe and Sound.

You’re One of
The Beloved.

(Photo by Jono Hirst; UnSplash)

 

Works of Heart

All due Respect to
Michelangelo,
but if He’s Reincarnated
as a Ceiling Painter,

I Pray His Next
Paint Job
Will Be on
The Wall of
a Dancehall,

Showing our Maker
with a Big Grin
on Her Face,
Bumping Fists
with My Main Man,
Tom Robbins,
when
The Jitterbug Perfumer
went Home
a few months back.

Enough with the
Deep Solemn Face
Fingerpoint Touching.

I Mean, Seriously . . .
No, Not Seriously . . .

This Is
The Same Maker
Who Showed Up
in This Lifetime

As Fractals of
Her Love and Light and
Laughter Self,

Lighting Up As
The Likes of
Robin Williams and
Gilda Radner and

George Carlin.

Do Your Self
a Divine Favor and
Stop
Seeing Our Maker

as Separate from
Her Divine
Works of Heart.

(Photo from IFC Center)

 

Here Comes the Sun

Imagine
You’ve Been Given
a Home,
The Giver
a Mystery
for Now.

Imagine The Home
with Dozens of
Rooms Filled With
Every Imaginable
Delight:

Dancehalls and
Theaters and
Cafès and
Galleries
Filled With
Beauty and Joy
of Every Possible
Permutation.

But the Palace Is
Dark.

You’ve Been Told,
or You Just
Know,

There’s a Room
With a Piece of
The Sun,
Waiting To
Light All
That Inconceivable
Delight,

But a Switch
Must Be
Turned On, and
You Can’t Seem To
Find It.

Meanwhile, Outside,
Is a Lineup of
Lightbearers,

Offering an Array
of Flashlights,
Each Claiming To
Be The Only Sun
You’ll Ever Need
Inside.

But What If
Their Only Usefulness

Is To Help
You Find
That Lightswitch
to The Sun.

(Photo by Huyền My; UnSplash)

 

Cosmic Con

You May Be
The Victim of
a Cosmic Con.

Were You
InDoctrineTainted
With the Instruction
That Your Adoring
Maker,
Creator of
All That Is
Love
and
Light
and
Laughter,

Made You
Because
He Needed to Be
Worshipped and
Obeyed?

Or Else

You’d Be Roasted
Over Fire and Brimstone,

a Barbecue
Hosted by
a Renegade Angel and
His Demons?

Come Away
from that Non
Sense

Into the Arms of
The One

of Which Your
Soul Is
a Gleaming Fractal,
an Inseparable Ray.

Just Be
There
and Shine,

Showing
The Way
to Escape
The Con.

(Photo by Ricky Turner; UnSplash)

 

Let’s Get Mystical

We Live
On an Earth
Where Our
Theocratic Forebears
Imagined a Garden,
a Paradise,
Where Creatures
Lived Forever.

Man and Beast,
Plant and Animal,
Dancing Together
To the Rhythm
of Dawn and Dusk.

In this Fable,
a Seducer,
a Snake,
Persuades
Man and Woman,
Male and Female,
To Abandon Simply
Being,
Unending Life,
In Favor of
Judging.

Good and Evil,
Separating
The Sheep from The Goats.

But Separation
and Judgment
Birth Fear
and Death.

Where Once Was
Only Love
and Life.

Let Me Dream,
Only for a Moment,
That We Are All
Creatures of the
Love and Light
That Planted
That Garden,

Souls That Have
Lifetimes
To Love Our Ways
Out of the
Nightmare of
Judgment and Separation.

Freed from Fear
By the Knowing
There is Only, Really,
Love.

Let’s Get
Mystical.

(Photo by Global Animal Partnership)