Am Was Will Are Be Been

from “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen

You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

© Leonard Cohen

~~~

How dare we try to control What Is with a name! She Is, We Are, I Have Been, They Are, It Will Be, He Was, They Will, She Is Becoming, It Was, They Are, She Was, They Have Been, She Will Be, He Will, He Is, We Will, We Were, I Will, I Was,

I Am

I Am

I Am who I am and because I am you are. I was, then you were. I will be, so you will be too. I am before, now, and tomorrow. I am all the beginnings and I will be  in all of the endings to come.

I Am

now later then when before after past present future tomorrow today yesterday tomorrow tomorrowtomorrowtomorrow..

so I am, too. Now and forever

amen.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

© (my name doesn’t matter at all)

הַלְּלוּיָהּ

‎

‎

What’s your real name, God?

Can You Imagine?

For example, what the trees do
not only in lightening storms
or the watery dark of a summer’s night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now – whenever
we’re not looking.  Surely you can’t imagine
they don’t dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade – surely you can’t imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can’t imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.

© Mary Oliver

Can you imagine beyond the words, into midrash? Can you imagine beyond Sabbath, into eternity? Can you imagine beyond law, into gospel? Can you imagine beyond what you think you know about God, into what you think you know about yourself?

And then, can you imagine, as Hafiz asks, begging Reason to come outside and play?

But trees can’t dance! I’m not like God! Flowers don’t bloom in winter! That’s just the way I was brought up! There’s nothing good comes out of Nazareth!

Close your eyes and discover the fields of color lying between the black and white boundaries to which you’ve confined yourself. Close your eyes and listen to the ten thousand songs being sung by your heart instead of the rules and regulations being recited and repeated by your intellect.  Stop keeping God in that rough little box that is so awkward to carry around; take the lid off and say this,

“Play with me, God. You’re it! Run with me! Beat you to that tree! Rock, Paper, Scissors- ha! I win! You wanna go to the store with me and get a Coke? Where do you live anyway? Oh, look at that dog..and those cats..and the birds up in the air! What’s your real name, God?”

Close your eyes, now. And listen for the answers..

 

© David Weber

 

 

The Great Poem

from “An Encounter”

I confessed that I am afraid to die                      

with poems left unsaid inside me,                         

and he said, “You will.                                      

You’ll die with a great poem in your heart          

that will never see paper.”

We were quiet then. A bee buzzed             

perilously close to my sweaty thigh,                     

and I heard it: I heard                                          

the danger and sweetness inside everything.

(“An Encounter” © Alison Luterman in The Sun, January, 2010)

We suffer, wanting to make our mark, leave our mark, and be remembered. We suffer, because we think we must know what we won’t know will no longer be able to know cannot know. We suffer- too often- simply because we are unable to say so.

So. And our words tumble, in unknown tongues.

So. We mumble through sighs and groans.

So. And then we are breathed upon and it becomes clear that we are that great poem, the greatest poem, and it is being written by Both of Us in  languages that can’t be counted and it will always be written and it will always be read..

© David Weber