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I am surprised at how deep it goes.
Just when I think that I can’t leave the tension, I find release in that state that comes just before sleep When I am still awake, but my mind has already begun To dip into the place of dreams. Things get clear there, And my soul finds peace and promise.
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I am amazed at the change I feel
When I quiet down enough to hear. I have begun to make it a practice To stop and take a quarter-hour or more In complete silence and relaxation Before I begin an endeavor or make a decision. And I am amazed at the clarity that comes And the peace and encouragement I feel. It makes me want to find that frame of mind more often. I went off the road today
And dipped into the state trust lands For a place to camp just outside of Tombstone, Town of infamous report turned tourist trap. But I like it - the little shops selling this and that, The dusty street where they tore up the asphalt To make it seem more real - and it worked. I can’t afford their trappings Nor their fare or lodgings. But I don’t care. I sit in my box truck, A few miles out of town And watch the sunset in perfect silence As I eat macaroni and cheese I got for free Because it was all I could afford. And tomorrow, I will sell my wares if they’ll have them, And offer to wash their windows if they’re dirty, And soak in the people passing by And be grateful to share in their vacation. Step by step it unfurls,
The simplicity of a new economy, More slow, more simple, more abundant, Allowing us to relax into the more important things of life. And it begins by looking close, not far away. It is nurtured in the fertile soil Of gratitude and faith, And best of all, It renounces The trappings of debt. I see, a few generations off, A generation of simple people Around whom springs every needful thing. And their principal work is praise. Nearly two miles high it rises
Into the sky above the desert valley. And by night, it blew a hurricane, a monsoon, A late winter rain mingled with snow, So strange. And I crouched low within my sleeping bag And plugged my ears from the thunder As Joey ducked for cover. A late winter rain mingled with snow, And the mountain shakes its shoulders In the white draped frock it dons, Showing what it can do Before the desert sun Chases it back into submission. An abandoned theatre,
One, Two, Three Cinemas, But not enough for the buzzing crowds. They have moved on to busier venues. And as they move out, I move in, Into the parking lot at least. And we sell our wares. We wash the windows left behind For the poor folk that rent in the dilapidated part of town. How I love abandoned, broken, things. How I love the fertile soil From which springs Abundance, And not the type That demands your soul, The abundance that falls into your lap for a song. Is there ever enough love to make up for all we’ve lost?
Yes. But until we die or He appears, we must imagine. I am finding that divine abundance
Seems to come at the end of what I have, And that if I’ll wait and make do with my meager provisions, And refrain from thinking I need something I don’t have, That provisions will appear in the very last moment. Those provisions aren’t always what I want, But they are always enough if I choose To see them as such. And strangely, Trying to live this way Is removing my concerns about money. The money tends to stay in my pocket longer. It tends to be there when I need it, Because I am not constantly going out Spending it on something that I think I need. I’ll give you an example: citrus. I let myself run out of food. And a man appeared Who said, I have citrus trees. Come pick yourself some. And I did. And I ate citrus. And the money I would have spent stayed in my pocket. Another example from around the same time: Again, low on food, but with fields of lettuce all around. And the pickers leave 20% in the fields unpicked. And I arranged to take a few heads before they plowed them under. Now Citrus Salad…and so on. And the money stayed in my pocket. It was there when I needed it. I think that this is what old Ben Franklin called frugality, But with the twist of faith, the twist of believing That I can trust in unseen abundance At the end of my rope. And I can’t help but think that this is a powerful principle. It’s only taken me 48 years to find it. Hahaha The home that I offer is in my heart,
For I myself live in a tent, a car, The back of a moving van, And I like it that way. But the world would have me put them up in a hotel, To take out a mortgage, to put myself in bondage, So that they can go on living like the world. And I wonder if that was what Christ was trying to say When he said that the foxes have holes And the birds have nests, But the Son of Man has not a place to lie his head. It seems that he was warning us That if we fully give way To the Spirit he possessed, That it will prompt us to forsake our hopes of home For the home we find in Him. Surely. And that’s a hard pill to swallow. Poem 3
And when it sets it shrouds my little camp With velvet black and starry glow. And I, between two cedars, Drift off to sleep In the silence Of a world apart. Poem 2
And the sun rises over the open valley down below. It crosses the sky and paints the clouds In white. Three poems, three days, one picture…
Poem 1 My tent is strung between two cedars, Old and wide. And I, alive to the gift, Give thanks. Unless you go back to the source for an interpretation,
And when unseen, seek light through revelation, You will interpret the text, the person, The past the present and even The very thing you worship Through the lens of your ideology And your particular predisposition. But if you seek the Living Truth It will reveal itself to you, And when it does, You will be shocked to realize That it is not what it was made out to be. Feeling like you have enough
Allows you to act today In such a way That provides for unseen tomorrows. The opposite is also true. Feeling like there's not enough Will rob tomorrow To pay for that Which you believe you lack today. Slow down, and trust.
It's coming just in time If you'll wait patiently. And in the meantime Bask in all that You already have And waste a little time with Jesus, Waste a little time in love, The love that overflows To the one, the one, That you might love Just now. The one That waits in silence For one who talks with Jesus, For one who lives in prayer, For one who has enough Time to share and loves. Yes, be right there Till that thing you’ve been waiting for appears. Dear Friends,
Jonathan McCormick The Trackless Path When you know that a course of action is right,
When it meets with the approval Of your best inner conscience, Don’t complain. Don’t explain. Just act. Don’t speak everything that comes into your mind.
Keep your silence. Let it work its mystery. Act and let your action speak for themselves. If you do, you’ll be a mystery And do far less harm If the secret that you keep Is in keeping with the will of the Great Unseen. Turning the other cheek,
Or in other words, Letting the enemy win the war, Take the spoil, And leave you poor, Puts you in the proper place To receive the spirit of humility. Whereas winning the war breeds pride, And those puffed up with pride grow fat and weak, And sooner or later they start losing, Not just with outward ememies, But with the inward battle For unseen things. But not so with those Who turn the other cheek. They already know their weakness. It is their constant companion. And in it, they grow strong in faith, For faith is the only way they can survive. And armed with faith and humility, They win an inward battle That lends itself To perfect strength And stamina in suffering. And you can write this down: That those who suffer the longest always win. In the absence of the ones you love,
Imagine that the strangers you meet are them. Love deep into the foreign one And it will seep into the very ones You miss and cannot see. Corporations and kingdoms,
Democracies and fascist regimes, For all their pomp and pretension, In the end, are temporary. They have a beginning, And they have an end. But family is eternal. It is the bedrock of existence. And the family of God is the only order Without beginning and without end. Just think about it, What are you When all else is stripped away, But a child of God, So that your deepest definition Is in relation to a Heavenly Parent. It is the ultimate identity, And it is the only authority That transcends The grave. I am surprised that the Spirit of Christ
Is not a part of any cause that I can find Except the family. It doesn’t seem To take part in debates Of doctrine. It doesn’t argue. It doesn’t try to prove itself at all. In fact, it is most often found In the unsolicited praise Of those that it inhabits. And when those who have it Try to describe relationships in its context, They inevitably are cast back upon descriptions of the family, Father, son, mother, daughter, sister, brother, These are our closest approximations To the love that we’ve found in Him And in those in whom he dwells. And isn’t that a surprise, That in Him we find a family, And in the family, at its best, We find something of Him. There is a kingdom of peace.
Its banners waft in the wind. But there is no earthly power That has found the peace within. Their heart is bent on anger. Their will is set to win. And until they forsake winning, They’ll war and war again Until it works a cleansing A change from deep within, And then, Oh then, When men are free From the need to war, to win, Will the unseen peaceful kingdom Come to Earth again. I bang the pots.
I stir the bushes. Fly away. Fly away. Take to the sky, you little birds. Take to the heavens, you big birds. Don’t stay long! I say, Just long enough to leave your curse upon them, Or in other words, your blessing, The blessing of the ruin that you took early, The one that they’ll find late which they’ll find out Is the key to their deliverance. But whatever you do, move on. Don’t stay long, lest you take sides in the coming battle, The last and most senseless battle of them all When the earthbound folk will kill For the sake of killing. You don’t yet know How anger can clip your wings And wet your feathers. And drown you In a cause That you’ll regret long, long, after they are gone. And it’s coming soon. It’s coming soon. But not for those Who can still fly away and keep on flying, Not for those who keep on moving out Of the life that was expected And into the voice That points the way To the Unseen Holy Place. I love to work with people.
And I live my life mostly by my gut And prefer to deal with people who do the same. But it becomes impossible to do that when organizations get too large. And so I have finally stopped shadowing their thresholds. Because if I must fill out papers before we look eye to eye, I am not interested. If you need to ask me a set of questions that you’ve written down, I’m not interested. If you don’t know at a glance, And if I don’t know at a glance That it’s right, I’m not interested. |
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