When God Made Me, He Made Me To Be His Abode

Last night I watched Jonathan Demme's concert film of Neil Young, "Heart of Gold." Somewhere near the middle of this marvellous movie, Neil sang the song copied out below, which I offer as solace to those whom diligence, time and wisdom have taught to stand exactly where they are and absolutely still to look through God's eyes at this world. God sees Himself in everything; it is the Light from His eyes that makes everything animate and alive. The coin of His realm is attention. We must learn to pay strict, undivided, compassionate attention to this field we share as members of a praise-singing group of psalmists called the Gnostics.

God must cease to be spell-bound Merlin trapped in the tall, sturdy tree of our bodies. We must break that spell with awakening. We must know with every atom and breath of our being that this liberation is meant to happen any time any where and succeeded the moment the first flicker of light addressed the candle wick from which it leapt in joy. That's the job and joy of the Christ within, a job only it can perform, a joy only it can emanate. Christ/Buddha/Bawa is God in time and flesh--our time and our flesh. Only this legacy-Christ within can affirm the unity and peace for which I have long prayed in words borrowed from his love for me.

If I stay as 'I' am, the I-am, then I will continue to be sickened by George Bush and kept en-thralled by the anger that has defined me for years. That 'me' is best described as the anti-Christ because it remains other and thus incoherent. There is higher refuge and coherence within me than anger and I must take it every chance I get until it becomes a gambler's winning streak.

Yesterday, in advance of Condi Rice's arrival to discuss a peace summit with Vichy Palestine, the Israeli government declared Hamas-governed Gaza an "enemy entity" and vowed to shut off water and electricity to the people there. This is the ultimate poisoned fruit of duality, the sanctification of fear and unsublimate fire. As I heard the news, my hand tightened into a fist, my throat constricted. But for the first time, a voice said, "There isn't enough hate inside you to make hate work. You can't travel this road any more. Act like you're the only man left alive and search for others of your kind. Make your mind a settlement of the new world you will discover by ceasing to hate the enemy."

Today the note of things to do left on the bureau reads: Commit to a coherence of kindness and compassion at all costs. Become, as your guru asked you to do, the proof of God. That proof is indestructible. Practice makes perfect and perfect makes practice. Let your life be the constant practice of heaven on earth, the doorway in which the prophets stand and through which they walk, the window sill on which they lean with lustrous eyes in moments of rest.

Here's Neil Young to sing to you awake, just as he did me:

"When God Made Me"

Was he thinkin' about my country
Or the color of my skin?
Was he thinkin' 'bout my religion
And the way I worshipped him?
Did he create just me in his image
Or every living thing?

When God made me
When God made me

Was he planning only for believers
Or for those who just have faith?
Did he envision all the wars
That were fought in his name?
Did he say there was only one way
To be close to him?

When God made me
When God made me

Did he give me the gift of love
To say who I could choose?

When God made me
When God made me

When God made me
When God made me

Did he give me the gift of voice
So some could silence me?
Did he give me the gift of vision
Not knowing what I might see?
Did he give me the gift of compassion
To help my fellow man?

When God made me
When God made me

When God made me
When God made

--Neil Young

2 Little & Lovely Lyric Poems by Kenneth Rexroth

As I grow older, poet Kenneth Rexroth is a constant companion. His sweet, simple lyricism reminds me of Wordsworth. Here is two of his last poems, "I Dream of Leslie" and "Void Only," from the early 1970s.

I DREAM OF LESLIE

You entered ny sleep,
Come with your immense,
Luminous eyes,
And light brown hair,
Across fifty years,
To sing for me again that song
Of Campion's we loved so once.
I kissed your quivering throat.
There was no hint in the dream
That you were long, long since
A new arrived guest,
With blithe Helen, white Iope and the rest--
Only the peace
Of late afternoon
In a compassionate autumn
In youth.
And I forgot
That I was old and you a shade.

* * * *

VOID ONLY

Time like glass
Space like glass
I sit quiet
Anywhere Anything
Happens
Quiet loud still turbulent
The serpent coils
On itself
All things are translucent
Then transparent
Then gone
Only emptiness
No limits
Only the infinitely faint
Song
Of the coiling mind
Only.

--from: The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth, Copper Canyon Press, 2003, pages 694 and 701

Thinking of John Coltrane

FOR JOHN COLTRANE 40 YEARS AFTER HIS PASSING

I did not know with certainty until now that we share a field of consciousness--a green field at its most serene and sustaining. I did not know with certainty until now that premonitions of joy or danger are part of a telepathy we all share as full or partial participants in this consciousness. And I did not know with certainty until now why I endlessly repeated and still repeat William Carlos Williams' line, "All beauty and its enduring," as the apotheosis in words of our guardianship and intended history here.

To accept Christ, or Buddha or Bawa, I realized this morning, is to accept our shared, common kinship in and as the dominion of God. To live according to this holy intelligence (perennial wisdom) at the core of our beings is our salvation. We are redeemed the moment this intelligence, greater than our 'selves' but contained as seed within them, bursts into our share of eternal being. Seed becomes tree whose fruit feeds us and whose shade comforts us. God is the only ancestor.

There is a hymn that Johnny Cash recorded a few times called, "Let the Lower Lights Keep Burning," about our duty to keep the gnostic lights glowing in acts of kindness and compassion that represent our remembered and accreted deputizing as sons of God. This world is His and we are asked to tend it. This world is His and yet it is entrusted to us. The rescue we pray for comes from our inheritance and legacy as God's children. There is no greater salvation than receiving and spending this inheritance (inhere-ance). If we do not exercise that native intelligence (heritage), then we risk losing this place lit by the lower lights of our love and learning. The fires of war must be sublimated into the light of peace.

On July 17, 1967, John Coltrane died. To many of us, it was news as saddening as the death of JFK. As tribute to him and all that he meant to me, I sent songs of his to friends this morning. Dear brother, rest in the peace it is within us to attain here.