I have often had the sense as a writer that I am either writing to clarify life in all its complexity, beauty and mystery for my own poor mind or simply composing a long and hopefully helpful letter to someone I love or loved and with whom I have fallen long out of contact. Broken hearts abound. The whole business of publishing – at which I have been alternately quite successful and stubbornly private – mystifies me and often feels altogether beside the point. I write because otherwise I’d be even more foolish than I already am or (and?) because I sense – however dimly – that somebody out there needs me. In either case it should be clear that I deserve little credit for whatever happens to work. I’m figuring it all out as I go, too.
So I am only being a little coy when I say that you shouldn’t read anything you find here. Life is short and waking up – coming to coherence, say – matters. Pick your teachers and influences carefully! On the other hand, so long as you don’t take it too seriously, what’s the harm? Read it, don’t read it, and then move on. You’ll figure it out, too.
Anyway, I’m keeping things as simple as possible here, without actually returning any of the gifts it appears I may have been asked to keep. Along the way, perhaps we can keep each other company, or lend a hand when hands might be useful. Helpfulness is nice. I’m glad you’re here. I hope you are too.
Longing for Atonement
I wrote this in about twenty minutes – I’m kidding, kind of – in August 2012. I wanted to get clear on how I ended up studying A Course in Miracles and what, exactly, I understood the Course to be. It seemed a good idea, a sort of pin in the spiritual map so to speak. Here’s where I am, there’s where the dragons be, and the Gates of Heaven are thataway. About ten minutes after I finished I remembered Krishnamurti’s sage advice that the Truth is a pathless land. So much for maps. And pins.
This happens to be free verse, by the way – pages and pages of it. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
