Category Archives: Poetry

In the Moment

Leave a reply

Mechanical Clock by jimking@deviantart.com

The past is gone with its joys and sorrows and yet it wants to linger

To corrupt the moment with its unanswered questions and haunted moments

It wants to continue to speak long after its allotted time has passed

It wants to live again and again in that long awaited moment

That kairotic time where grace and possibility have opened up

Where there is no longer the need to seek a better past

Or to live life as an apology for the missteps we make real and imagined

And in the moment I am trying to live and love and dwell

Maybe someday this moment will be an echo of a past gone away

But for now I am in the moment and I am alive

The future also desires to cast its own voice into the moment

Whispering its potentials and possibilities, pitfalls and perils

Filling the space with what ifs, might becomes and the questions of uncertainty

Speaking in harmony with the past it tries to haunt the moment

With the specters of questions that cannot be answered

And may never be asked, if not in the fears of what could be

Yet in this time of grace there is perhaps the courage to listen

To listen primarily to the moment, not ignoring the future and past

But to realize that their voices are meant to complement and not dominate

This moment in which we live, this time where we love

And for the moment we can dance and celebrate and embrace

The life that we know and the gift of each passing moment

Neil White, 2014

Little Faith Ones

1 Reply

Extract of Herbert Boeckl's fresco "Saint Peter's rescue from the Lake Galilee" inside the cathedral of Maria Sall, Carinthia, Austria

Extract of Herbert Boeckl’s fresco “Saint Peter’s rescue from the Lake Galilee” inside the cathedral of Maria Saal, Carinthia, Austria

Do we enter into the storms of life under the judging eyes of some untouchable creator?

So enmeshed in the separation between the our own unworthiness and his perfection

And the magnification of every misstep to the point where each trespass and violation

Is magnified to take upon the unshakeable weight of the world in our lives

Tipping the scales of justice from the possibility of salvation to certainty of damnation

Living a purgatorial existence of trying to love a creator that seems to no longer care

In a world that is anthropocentrically centered around our actions and failures

“You of little faith, how could you doubt?”

Yet, perhaps we enter the storms of life under the eyes of a God who approaches us

Who comes to us in the storms, who beckons us to come beyond the safety of the ship

And perhaps rather than pointing out to us every failure, instead in the moment of need

Reaches out the hand and grasps the hand thrashing about in fear and returns us home

To the belly of the boat where the winds can subside and the waves diminish

Tipping the scales of justice from the certainty of damnation to the possibility of healing and life

Entering the purgatories of our own lives and opening to us kingdoms of hope and peace

Where steadfast love and faithfulness meet and righteousness and peace kiss

In a world that is theologically centered upon the God who comes near uttering

Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid as I come to you in the midst of the storms of life

“My little faith ones, why do you doubt?”

Neil White, 2014

Seeing our Better Selves

2 Replies

When my image is captured and frozen in time it is so easy to see what I don’t like

Even more than my mirror image where I can turn and perhaps see things differently

In the moving image I can find the better light and the parts of me that I like

But there, frozen in time in a now dead moment it is so easy to pick at the flaws

To critique myself in a much harsher light than any other would ever see

And in my life it is helpful to find those who remind me how to see my better self

Who in that same image see not the flaws frozen to be picked apart and fretted upon

But in that moment sees not a moment dead in time but instead a reminder of the living me

And learning to see myself through another’s eyes and risking cataloging the moments

As living reminders to celebrate the person I am today viewed in a new light

The Givers

1 Reply

Eugene Salandra at http://www.saintvictor.org/2012/07/17/monday-in-the-15th-week-only-a-cup-of-cold-water%E2%80%A6/

There are those people who are born with an innate sense of compassion

Whose oversized hearts sometimes lead again and again to painful paths

Where they enter into another’s life and struggles and bear their burdens

But in those moments where their heart is broken and their spirits sag

Rarely do those whom they walked for days with journey a mile in their shoes

Perhaps they wonder if it might be easier if their soft hearts were turned to stone

And their ears could become deaf and their eyes blind to the need that surrounds them

Yet, sometimes the hardest lesson for a giver to learn is the most important

Somewhere in their journey of learning to care for others and to pour out their souls

They come to believe that everyone else is more important than their life

They become deeply wounded healers trying to pour out of exhausted vessels

In believing in the value of others they forgot to value themselves

To have the compassion for their own blemishes that they have for others

And to learn to trust their own heart and mind to seek out those who give to them

Who see in them, not the person who is the soul mender

One whose life is consumed by the endless hunger of the wounded

But the companion, friend, and the ones who see in them the beauty

They struggle sometimes to see in their life

Neil White, 2014

The Kingdom of Fools

Leave a reply

The Pearl of Great Price, engraving by John Everett Millais (1864)

Into the fertile fields committed to the harvest wheat and tares are allowed to grow together

And the kingdom of heaven grows from the inconspicuous seed into the noxious bush

Making a mockery of the cedars of Lebanon or the towering cypress and majestic oaks

It bears no fruit and yet it grows resiliently much to the dismay of those who would cut it down

It is a foolish kingdom where a woman contaminates fifty pounds of flour with unclean leaven

Making that which could last throughout the year begin to mold and decay within a period of days

Perhaps only a kingdom filled with gluttons and tax collectors and sinners would merit

Such a wasteful exuberance, an amnesia of common sense and self-preservation

Only in a place where the harvest is thirty fold, or sixty fold or a hundred fold

Would such a feast be possible and such a kingdom endure for more than a fortnight

This scandalous kingdom where one finds what others have missed and to one’s profit

One goes to procure the field where the hidden treasure lays concealed from the world’s eyes

Where all common sense goes out the window to acquire a pearl of exceeding size

Laying aside the needs of the day and the needs of the future to acquire the one thing

The precious result of a long lasting irritant surrounded by the excretions of the fearful mollusk

And perhaps this foolish kingdom is less about some distant and unseen harvest where

Wheat is separated from weed and good fish from bad and fires and barns and markets are fed

But about the presence of the kingdom in the midst of all kinds of fish caught in the net

Where treasures new and old are brought out and put in the service of this crazy dream

And in the midst of the world which holds on with a death grip anxious for some feared future

The insane generosity and abundant belief begins to shape the lives and actions of the servants

Caught up in the inauguration of the kingdom of fools, disciples of a lord of foolish grace

And rather than being consumed by what to include and to exclude they learn to join the banquet

And to be a part of the kingdom that emerges slowly and patiently in their midst

Neil White, 2014

Silent Nights

1 Reply

I spend my days in a world saturated by sounds and people

Conversations that catch my ear and individuals crying for my attention

Frequently called upon to address the cares of the moment

Retreating only occasionally into the sanctuary of my own thought

Meditating and centering myself to once again enter into the fray

Into the blinding light of attention that sometimes comes with being a public person

Craving the moments of rest and calm in the midst of the squalls of life

Yet, sometimes the silence I seek in the saturated day haunts the night

At the time when we seek that companion that hears our stories

To lay down our burdens and exit the avatars that others see

To open up our souls and pour out the burdens of the heart

Yet, all that answers back in the loneliness is the echo of our own voice

Bouncing off the walls in the silent nights of solitude

Calling forth the contrast between the public life of the day

Where the world waits upon the words we speak

And the dark nights of the soul where our words echo hollowly

Off the quiet hallways of the house where we enter the night

Neil White, 2014

The People We Wish We Were

1 Reply

Love is Not a Victory March by Marie -Esther@deviantart.com

Admiration can so quickly turn to envy and self deprecation

When we see someone else who in the sliver of their life we see

Inspires us and yet reflects back the part of us we like the least

We desire that which we are not yet and perhaps cannot be

And in our infatuation with the people we wish we were

We fail to fall in love with the people that we truly are

And the long and sometimes painful journey that forged our story

Not that we don’t continue to change and grow and evolve

But that our lives are not lived in the pursuit of some ideal person

Bound by expectations that are not ours and roles we don’t fit

Perhaps, it is the very piece of that personality which others note

Sometimes in a remark they intend to be helpful or constructive

That reconfirms in ourselves our own unresolved identity issues

Re-awakening the voice that tells us that we don’t fit or belong

Yet, that very trait in the right setting becomes the gift we bring

The key that unlocks the possibility of the moment that once was closed

From the well of our souls we pull forth the living water to bring life

And perhaps that moment goes unseen and unheard even by us

When I reflect upon the crucible that formed and shaped me

The white hot forge where the steel was folded and shaped

And the stone that slowly honed the edges of my life for its fight

Or the continual use that dented and dulled my blade

Sending me back again to the blacksmith’s forge and stone

And how that strength was used again and again and again

Yet, somehow wanting to be something different, another tool

But it is that form and shape, the gifts and the limitations

That come together in this form and I am who I am

Maybe someday the smith will shape me to be something new

Some softer tool forged from more malleable materials

Perhaps, someday, the task for which I was shaped will be complete

But until that day, I was created and honed and wonderfully made

A masterwork of sweat and long labor pounded into form

And the person I am for all the imperfect edges I may see

For all the admiration of the other tools in the creator’s workspace

I can still wonder at the labor and the struggle that forged me

And rather than longing for the person I wish I was

I can learn celebrate to celebrate, with the smith, the person I am

Neil White, 2014

Symphony of a Life

Leave a reply

I would prefer to write a love song, but it helps to be in love

So I write from what I know, these little verses of life

Sometimes content, sometimes sad, sometimes dwelling in my imagination

The lives I’ve lived or dreamed or feared or missed

A life lived in the words on a page are but a glimpse

A window into one introspective soul opening itself

Perhaps someone might see their own reflection

Staring back at themselves from within the frame

Others might just find some meaningless string of sounds

Yet, they are the notes that emerge from my instrument

My memory or fantasy, my psychic world in narrative

And you my reader, the imagined audience

Are there as my orchestra begins to play its parts

Neil White, 2014

The Man I Tried To Be

Leave a reply

Titian, Sisyphus (1548-1549)

All I wanted was to feel loved the way I tried to love
Trying to make a person happy that knew unhappiness
And for a while I succeeded and the shadows lifted
From the soul of another who dwelt in the deluge of depression
But the sunshine was quickly concealed when the rains returned
And as the raining season deepened a cold north wind blew
Yet, I tried again and again to recreate the magic of summer
Holding onto sunrises and sunsets, pointing to each ray of hope
Every rainbow of promise that the storms might someday end
Yet, even on the cold and rainy days I tried to dance and sing
To celebrate the gifts of each day no matter the sky’s disposition
Yet, even the eternal optimist learns their limits in time
They too feel the heavy dankness entering into their souls
When their image is continually reflected back
In the storm filled soul of the one they love
And although I tried to be that man who could weather the storms
Some Promethean hero bringing light and heat into the dark world
Yet, no heroic or banal act ever seemed to bring the light back
And so Prometheus found himself rolling the stone of Sisyphus
Unable to roll the stone away to the point where new life might be found
Eventually, the storms left me treading water as the heavens cried
And I searched for some ark to place within it all the lives
Consumed by the floods that seemed to never end
And as painful as the ending of a world is by necessity
For me, it was only seeing the man I tried to be die
That allowed me to return to who I was before the fall
Before the flood, before realizing that I too was flesh and blood
Yet, in the aftermath of the deluge the sun returned
The climate changed and the dankness slowly retreated
It was a long journey into the new world
A journey from which I gained much but never desire again
But it was a journey from the man I tried to be
To being satisfied with the man who I am

Neil White, 2014

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular

Category Archives: Poetry

In the Moment

Little Faith Ones

Seeing our Better Selves

The Givers

The Kingdom of Fools

Silent Nights

The People We Wish We Were

Symphony of a Life

The Man I Tried To Be