To Dance Beneath A Thousand Moons

How many years, since last we shared the promise of our tryst?
How long since I have told time by the shadows of your face?
The sweet memories impossible to erase
By candlelit roses, gleaming stars and by the aureate sun
Telling ghost stories we didn’t believe around the campfire
Sitting by the side of a pool too cold to get in
Laughter – the incarnation of happiness

I do not live until you are beside me
I do not live until you are within me
Breathe your spirit into mine
Breathe your hope into my being

I know we will meet again someday soon
And when we do, how joy will fill my soul
We will sing songs of bliss, sharing songs of sorrow
And we will dance beneath a thousand moons!

Hatred

Hate

A word that is the opposite of love
we hear it all the time

It is carelessly tossed around by our children
"I hate that kid Joey he's so mean to me"
"I hate homework it's so boring"
"I hate that rock star his music is horrible"

What is hate really?

Hate is nigger bastard spic whore
Hate is crusades terrorism genocide war
Hate is all those things and so much more

Hate is something we feel deep down inside
It's a kind of emotion that grabs at our hearts and won't let go
It takes a hold on you it takes a hold of you
It takes all of you the whole of you
Ripping into your heart until it breaks
Ripping so hard your world shakes

It's burning in the air,
a slow smothering blanket
suffocating life right out of you

It's a tidal wave of misery
bitter like the blackest sea
drowning you in its bigotry

It's the bile that rises up in your throat
When you hear words coming from the lips of those
Whom you know are wrong and damned to hell
Because you see everything in black and white
Crisp clear dividing lines, you see it so well

Hate

is more than a word

Hate is something a word can't adequately describe
Maybe it's better that way too,
Who wants to speak a language
That can put something as strong as what 'hate' represents
into the words we speak
the words that leave these lips?

***

I was watching a movie entitled The Color of Friendship, hosted by Disney Channel. The movie itself was released several years ago and is based on a real experience by a real congressman, Ron Dellums, an outspoken black activist who called for an end to apartheid in South Africa. The story is of his family receiving an exchange student from South Africa, whom they assume will be black, and of that exchange student, Mahree, a white girl who assumes that her host family will be white.

At the conclusion of the movie (which did have a happy ending), the producers noted that Congressman Ron Dellums was present at the first free elections held in South Africa. This was in the year 1994.

1994

I bet everyone, or virtually everyone, reading this post, was alive at that time. I know I was. And when I read that year, I was deeply disturbed. We think of racial tensions in America as present, but almost bubbling under the surface. Except for certain occasions, we don't have these kinds of racial conflicts that we have now relegated to history, the 1960s and the 1950s and even earlier than that.

I've always thought of South African apartheid as a thing of the past. I've known about it, even briefly studied it before. I once wrote an essay on Nelson Mandela, the nation's first black president, elected after his released from serving 27 years of a life sentence for insurrection against the white racist government oppressing his country and his people.

But the past, my friends, was yesterday. Hatred is a part of life. In America, in South Africa, in Israel and Palestine. You need only to glance in your history book, glance at your newspapers, turn on the TV, and you can feel hate rising the way yeast does, slowly, but surely. You look once and it's flat, and you look again and BA-BAM, it's there.

Hatred is not something that goes away.

We created hatred. Hatred, and its products of suffering and pain, was only one more result of the Fall. One more attribute to a broken, imperfect humanity.

Hate is something we can overcome. Not in a day, a second, an hour. Not tomorrow or even today. Not everywhere, from all peoples, all faiths, all colors.

But we created it. We can erase it from our painful history.

HATE:

The Holocaust of World War II. Adolf Hitler murdered 9 million people.

Slavery in America, and "Separate but Equal", Jim Crow laws. The Whites trumped the Blacks.

Apartheid: South Africa.

The Taliban: Afghanistan. Pashtun nationalism at the expense of the Hazara and other minorities.

Saddam Hussein: Iraq. Gassed the Kurds.

You. Me.

Yesterday.

Today.

It is time to stop this hate. The products of hate are suffering, pain, and death.

No God wants to change the world that way.

No man should live with hate.

Jesus loved. He said to love your enemies. Love those who persecute you, who torment you. One of the most impossible things to do. We hear it all the time, from our parents, our teachers, our pulpits. Even from our own lips.

But do we hear it? Do we practice it? Practice what you preach. It's another cliche, but it rings true.

Like overcoming hatred, loving those who hate us is no easy task and it's not something that happens overnight.

But it's a first step.

And with one step, the journey begins.

Ghost echoes of myself

Blood runs down her face streaking her hands red

Almost like the henna paint she will never wear

on the wedding day denied her

much like fleeting happiness, fleeting childhood

that once graced her impish smile and a sparkle in her eyes

How old is she? the reporters ask, four, five, even six?

Crowding around with their cameras

and the flashing lights and everything

and all their questions, questions, questions

shouting as they shove microphones into tired, bloodied faces

They need their story and the front page and the lights

They need it the way some men need blood on their hands

singing the song of slaughter with bloody lips

hacking limbs left and right

the swoosh through the air and the hollow thud ringing in their ears

The smoke hasn’t cleared yet; it smothers this city

Heartless grace fallen from the highest heaven

the bodies still litter the streets

the blood of babes runs red where rainwater should flow

the acrid stench of death rises from within the city walls

Green flags adorn the graves, fluttering limply in the wind

But for many, there is no grave, only the place where a body fell

some are too afraid to venture into the streets

to claim the bodies of their loved ones

for fear they will join them in the place they call Paradise

“Goddamn you, goddamn you to hell,” she screams, at first anyways

Then screams metamorphose to half-choked rage, tears raining down

to cleanse our wounds with the bitter salt of lament

and she rocks herself back and forth with eyes closed

imagining her little girl is still in her arms

What am I to you? An insect? Even less?

Someone to be controlled, to answer when called upon, to act for you?

to take the blame when you fall?

to die in your stead?

to suffer the punishments for deeds I have never done?

You look at me with the pride of kings and the scorn of the righteous

But what is righteous about war and murder

my children sleep in death’s womb

free from your terror

and the suffering you inflicted on them

I saw you, when you thought no one was looking

I saw you slit my son’s throat and defile my daughter with your hands

i saw you standing over my mother’s dead body with hands stained red

and a thoughtful smile on your face

like you were contemplating an arrangement of flowers

So I walk the city streets with no one at my side

The rubble rising up around me

curious young faces staring out at me

hands reaching for me, emaciated frames with bones peeking through

begging me for what i myself don’t have

“Goddamn them, goddamn them to hell,” the men chant in unison

As though one spirit has possessed them all at once

“death to america, let her perish in flames,

because she rained down fire on us

see, the smoke still remains”

She is only four years old, with no more years left to live

Your bombs took her away from me and all who would hold her

no one will teach her the alif bei, the wahid, ithnayn, thalatha

no one will hug her and call her little darling

no one sheds tears for her where she lies

Her future husband deprived of her embrace, her mother of her smile

Her brothers and sisters of her tiny voice, her children of her kindness

am i a stranger now in my own land

that i see this body discarded like trash

and don’t recognize the face staring up at me

Because I don’t belong here, not in the shadow of hatred

Because hatred consumes and blazes within

and hatred is why smoke lingers over my sad city

and hatred is what they teach their children

so they can maim and slaughter each other

The suicide bomber’s thoughts are not so different from my own

He too broods of his past and his future

remembers his mother’s touch on his face

his family he is leaving behind

and the paradise he steps ever closer to

What kind of God does he worship? Is it the same God I dream of?

Is God far and distant, with an amused glint in his eye?

is god man, or woman, or it? does god smile, or laugh, or cry?

god speaks to me in dreams

and tells me my sorrows run deep, as if i didn’t know

This smoke hurts my eyes and stings my flesh

But how much worse for those whose blood has stained the streets?

every day i see more and more dead and dying

their groans and cries have faded into the milieu

and everywhere, people scramble to leave this city

They would go elsewhere, anywhere, but they cannot leave

Because we are barricaded inside, a civil unrest, a violent threat

and the city is under siege

and no one is safe anymore

and the children in their mother’s arms cry without end

The sound of tears falling shakes me

They pound against my mind like drops of rain

i fear too, though i do not know exactly what i fear

they have already taken everything from me

my city, my language, my faith, and now myself

I now am nothing, exactly what you intended all along

Even when I look in a shard of silver glass found on the street

i do not see the familiar face, dark hair, arching eyebrows

there is nothing to see

because you have erased everything there was

My hands are stained red, like henna from a long ago wedding

My hair has been torn and I walk in ashes

my beloved lies there, dead

no one is left to mourn her unlived years but me

and i have decided, knife to my skin

Tomorrow I will leave this world behind, all its sorrows and fears

The stench of death will no longer rise to my nostrils

this is all too much for me and i can’t take it any longer

my beloved has gone ahead of me, she is waiting and calling me

i walk towards the fate that has engulfed my countrymen

Tomorrow I will find out if the Paradise they fashion for themselves is real

Tomorrow I will come face to face with God, or with nothingness

i will rise above the hazy smoke that smothers our city

and when i look at my reflection in heaven’s pearly gates

i will see at last what you have made me

I will see what I am become

Silence

he broke the silence
reflections on silence by shuasaku endo

In the midst of darkness, this little one was a light ray. Tiny, with a Minnie Mouse voice, this daughter of my spirit had finally made the long trek westward, into the bowels of this man-made hell, situated in the south-central Pennsylvania boondocks. She, like my other children, was just a baby when I was cast into hell, and because of her youth and sensitivity, she hadn't been brought along on family visits until now.

She burst into the tiny visiting room, her brown eyes aglitter with happiness; stopped, stunned, staring at the glassy barrier between us; and burst into tears at this arrogant attempt at state separation. In milliseconds, sadness and shock shifted into fury as her petite fingers curled into tight fists, which banged and pummeled the Plexiglas barrier, which shuddered and shimmied but didn't shatter.

"Break it! Break it!" she screamed. Her mother, recovering from her shock, bundled up Hamida in her arms, as sobs rocked them both. My eyes filled to the brim. My nose clogged.

Her unspoken words echoed in my unconsciousness. "Why can't I hug him? Why can't we kiss? Why can't I sit in his lap? Why can't we touch? Why not?"...

...Over five years have passed since that visit, but I remember it like it was an hour ago: the slams of her tiny fists against that ugly barrier; her instinctual rage against it -- the state-made blockade raised under the rubric of security, her hot tears.

They haunt me.

(pages 22-23, Abu-Jamal, Mumia. Live From Death Row. Published November 1994)

Has God been silent? This is a question we raise repeatedly throughout this novel. It would be unfitting to dismiss the idea of 'God's silence' as the predominant theme in this book, which is itself titled Silence. Rodrigues has reflected long and hard on God's silence. I, too, have reflected on the perceived silence of God.

On September 11, 2001, was God silent as the two towers fell, slowly slipping in silence, images flashing like movie frames, like a photo album, one fading into the next, the smoke rising, the proud arrogance of that haughty queen slowly breaking apart, crumbling on the ground, unmasking the great tower to be nothing more than a child's toy...the smoke clearing, the bodies fallen, no names yet, the paramedics, the firemen, the police, searching for survivors. The final tally: 2,966 dead Americans, 19 dead terrorists. Watching the numbers scroll across the screen, white on black, flickering with each new increase, the sickening feeling rising up, an aching pain, the bitter tears brought to eyes, the trembling hands, the rushing thoughts, is this real, is this really happening? And then, most frightening of all, why God? Why? Why, why, why? like the sound of beating rain, tap, tap, tap, eternal and frightening. Where was God then?

As men, women, children shuffled forwards, slowly, lazily, heads downcast, tattered striped uniforms hanging on emaciated frames, smoke rising in the distance, waiting to be gassed and burned or chosen to live for a little while longer, as their sad eyes were on the ground, no longer willing to look into the sky for God, where was God then? Why was he silent?

As the man himself, Jesus Christ, Yahshua ben Yosef, hung from a cross of wood, large iron nails piercing through the bones of his wrists and ankles, his blood flowing profusely, his body in such great excruciating agony... esteemed, respected men of faith and the law (imagine your pastors and priests and rabbis and imams) looking down on him, mocking him, shaking their heads in disappointment, condemning him, shaking their fists with rage at this blasphemer... Where was God? He had a choice, too, Yahshua did: to fight against the authorities, the judges, to lead a great revolt against the oppressors. Instead, he chose to be condemned, and executed in a manner reserved only for slaves and traitors. And God was not with him then. At that moment, Yahshua took on the sins of all the world, and became as black as death and hell themselves, and God cannot look upon sin. Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? Yahshua was neither the first nor last to feel the echoing thunder of God's silence... He was alone in that moment, as pain coursed through his veins and all around his accusers witnessed his execution... Yahshua was alone.

Why does God let the innocent suffer? Why is God silent? If he is all-powerful, El Sheddai, why does he stand by, and do nothing? "I was put in here [in this prison] and heard the voices of those people for whom God did nothing. God did not do a single thing. I prayed with all my strength; but God did nothing." (page 168) Think about that. God did nothing.

Sometimes God does not intervene with a poof and a bang. Rather, he will ask us to do what is impossible, and with him we do it. He asks us to give up everything--our pride, our standing, our honor, our way of life. He asks us to drop everything and follow him. All our baggage must go. He works in the most unusual of ways. ...I was reading a devotion somewhere in my Study Bible, in the book of Job. For those of you unfamiliar with his story, Job was a righteous man who was prosperous in everything, but God allowed Satan to do many harmful and evil things to Job, to his family, his property, and to the man himself. The devotion stated that God doesn't make bad things happen. But he does allow them.

Let that sink in: God lets evil things happen. It's a strange thought, and yet proven true. Why then? Because we have a choice. God made that clear when he created man and put him in his garden. We can choose between good and evil, right and wrong, and we do so every day of our lives. We choose with every thought, every action. Often we choose what we believe to be right, but what is wrong in the end. God won't stop those with evil intent from doing evil deeds. It saddens him; grief runs through our Lord like a great river, a mourning so deep and meaningful we cannot truly understand it.

We ask these questions, these doubts arise in us, all of the time--but most especially when something terrible has happened to us, to someone we love, to those whom we rally around and support. Why is this happening? It is the litany of all who have seen evil happen. The speaker of a short story I wrote recently muses "If he existed, he would be either a psychopathic sadist or a devastated optimist. Look what his people have done, to him, to each other." (pages 7-8, "Look Out; I'm Coming Home". 2008.) I will not pretend that this is representative of my own constant beliefs. Instead, it is a mirror of the feelings we suffer when we wonder at the tragedy and atrocity around us.

God has been silent in Silence. Rodrigues, as aforementioned, continually reflects on this:

I suppose I should simply cast from my mind these meaningless words of the coward; yet why does his plaintive voice pierce my breast with all the pain of a sharp needle? Why has Our Lord imposed this torture and this persecution on poor Japanese peasants? No, Kichijiro was trying to express something different, something even more sickening. The silence of God. Already twenty years have passed since the persecution broke out; the black soil of Japan has been filled with the lament of so many Christians; the red blood of priests has flowed profusely; the walls of the churches have fallen down; abd ub the face of this terrible and merciless sacrifice offered up to Him, God has remained silent. (page 55)

I cannot bear the monotonous sound of the dark sea gnawing at the shore. behind the depressing silence of this sea, the silence of God. . . . the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent. (page 61)

But now there arose up within my heart quite suddenly the sound of the roaring sea as it would ring in my ears when Garrpe and I lay alone in hiding on the mountain. The sound of those waves all night long, as they broke meaninglessly, receded, and then broke again on the shore. This was the sea that relentlessly washed the dead bodies of Mokichi and Ichizo, the sea that swallowed them up, the sea that, after their death, stretched out endlessly with unchanging expressions. And like the sea God was silent. His silence continued. (page 68)

At that time, too, God had been silent. When the misty rain floated over the sea, he was silent. When the one-eyed man had been killed beneath the blazing rays of the sun, he had said nothing. But at that time, the priest had been able to stand it; or, rather than stand it, he had been able to thrust the terrible doubt far from the threshold of his mind. But now it was different. Why is God continually silent while those groaning voices go on? (page 168)But then, God breaks the silence, in the most painful way.... He speaks to the priest. God speaks to Rodrigues when he is at his moment of crisis, unsure of what to do, his heart and mind begging him not to step on the fumie but Ferreira and all this wild, wild pain, the sounds ringing, thundering in his ears, threatening his sanity, breaking apart the crucible, until he is over it, looking down at the tired face of Christ.... God breaks the silence. And not to tell him "Be strong; don't do it." But to tell him to break apart from everything he's been taught and believes in, and to do what every instinct in him screams against.

"Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men's pain that I carried my cross." (page 171) This he says to that poor man. This statement, like much in literature, may be taken both literally and figuratively. Literally, Christ is there to be trampled on by men; after all, that's why the government had that image made. Figuratively, Christ came to Earth to have the men of the world 'trample' upon him, condemn him, murder him.

God broke the silence. And in the most unexpected, most surprising, most unconventional way imaginable. God is not silent.

Beloved Fugitive Truth

O, beloved fugitive Truth
ye whom I love
why hast thou forsaken me
and left me alone

i dreamed of peace
and hoped for joy and rest
but my dreams were dashed
and my hopes cruelly murdered
and i am left alone
with silence thundering around me
one more number
in a broken and failing system

A Day of Thanks

There is so much to be thankful for! In America, most of us have heating, food, clothes, a roof over our heads. Some of us might not have much, and some of us might live in unpleasant places, but often, some of the poorest communities in America would seem rich compared to some of the communities elsewhere.

In America, we have the freedom to say what we want, to criticize the government, to cheer for our leaders, to boo them, to publish what we want without fear of being persecuted. Don't you love that? I love being able to say what's on my mind, to speak up in public about how much I detest a certain policy, or war, or whatever!

In America, we can practice whatever religion we want to! Including Atheism, Satanism, Wicca, and things you probably couldn't practice elsewhere. Aren't you thankful for that? There are countries where if you're not the state religion, bad things happen to you!

In America, we elect our own leaders! We choose them! How insane is that? And we're allowed to badmouth the candidates if we want to. What a freedom! And you know, even though we attack each other's throats every four years, with very few exceptions, we always have a smooth transition. Imagine it!

I know from so much personal experience that America has so many problems, some of which may never be resolved. In fact, I spend much of my time writing about her problems, her negatives, her downside, and everything wrong with her. But today, I wanted to stop and focus on the positive. Because even though there is so much wrong with the world and country we live in, there is so much to be thankful for.

And I will be giving thanks all my life long. So Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and God bless you! And if you're an atheist, God STILL bless you! :)

Untitled

Was it you when I turned, and saw it there, etched in a mirror, lost on the roadside
And lovingly, longingly, turned passion away
All my hopes slowly fading, losing their precious color
Mingling with the dust
Tears fall from ashes, and death quickly finds a way
While I stood at the crossroads, tired, lost, unsure of what to say

Was it you I dreamed of, was it only yesterday
That I heard a lonely voice calling from somewhere, whispering my name
And delight, love, had I not known
Did it come back to me, did I walk away
Still, still, still I heard the footsteps going far
Stabbing into the sidewalk, pounding on the tar
Falling snow so soft and pure, can you hear the breath of dawn

Death speaks not of shivering cold
Nor of an infinite night
Death, friend, is friend to me
An acquaintance of the light
Death is gentle, now, and murmurs words of grace
Settles me down in peace, shelters me in my grave
Death for me a quiet sleep, as I hide my tears from you
When did you last say those words, act those words, only of your hate

Nought were all my dreams, and dreams of gold in my hands
For nothing I was born, and for nothing did I die
And at my funeral, mourners did you see
Waiting, wanting, desperate for to own something that could not be
O where was love, o where was light, o where was joy on my wedding day
For I am lost, I was plain, I was beauty and disgrace all shamed

O God, Father, high in heaven above
O Lord of nations, ye to whom all mankind bows
God
Where were you on that day
Did you see our monuments fall
Did you know I died that day
A warm September morning, kissed by the light of fall
And dreaming, quietly, wended its path around the trees
Forging the way, now, for a place for us all