From Second Month, 2012

An Infant in your arms

The tide of my love has risen so high,
let me flood over you.

Close your eyes for a moment and
maybe all your fears and fantasies
will end.

If that happened God would become
an infant in your arms

and then you would have to nurse
all creation.

—Hafiz, Shams-ud-din Muhammad,
A Year with Hafiz; Daily Contemplations,
rendered by Daniel Ladinsky (47)

From First Month, 2012

Privilege and crumbs

Our favorite coffeehouse placates the consciences of urbanites who see themselves as caring, eco-conscious people. We buy fair-trade, shade-grown coffee, and our bottled water funds wells in Third World countries.

Meanwhile, street people search the trash outside for leftovers. The drug-wasted girl who stops me daily as I go for coffee says she's full if I offer her a sandwich instead of money.

I go there every day.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

—from Mark 10: 17-31

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Friends,

I resisted the leading to publish the above message, because it convicts me of what I often rationalize away: my own complicity in the injustice of poverty.

Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

May this be our path, to open to God's tenderness.

Blessèd be,
Michael