Striving with the Gods

8/8/2019 Striving with the Gods

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Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.Ulysses.

Foreword

My father once told me that the spirit is the loneliestentity in existence. It has no contact with what goes on around it

except through very inadequate channels of interpretation. It is

true; Life is so rich in every possible way and yet we can never

truly become part of it in what we know to be this incarnation.

What we do know and see is often too much for us so we let it go

by. But sometimes, when we can, we absorb some of our environment

and return it with a little of ourselves in order that our lives

might have some meaning. I, in my pride and power, have attempted

to do this but it is so much coloured by me that there is possibly

very little of value for others. I hope that this is not the case.


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For Belind who suddenly made it all seem worth it!

THE GIFT

Amidst the confusion and learning of this beginning I offer you aplace in my heart that is yours, always yours.

Yours in every sense of the word.

A place furnished by you, walled in and painted by you.

A forever place.

No matter that I marry, lose, love or hate anyone, anywhere,

No matter that I cross oceans and never return or eventually die

to take this place with me beyond the stars.

It will always be available to you; No debt, no rent,

Only the hope that you will, from time to time, visit this place,Open the windows wide to let your breath freshen the air,

Your spirit brighten the rooms.

But it will be your place, your breath, your spirit and your

brightness.


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WARA hangover from that in the past that was dark and dangerous yet

better regulated than now when we are supposedly free to make

rational decisions.

"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" refers not to the men

that are sent in to do battle, but rather to the raging

opportunities that offer the savagery in a man's breast a chance

to override his gentler half.

We are children of our history and must deal with the violence

that is in us not entertain it. It is a terrible responsibility

for the leader of a nation to command the hope and sunshine of our

future into a situation where the resolution of problems lies in

the barrel of a gun or at the end of a whip. Where decisions are

based on fury or hate rather than consideration or brotherhood.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

I think that you had better hurry, we are going to be late.

What sort of pictures are they?

Well they are in fact a collection of sorts; they portray the

emotions of war.

Oils?

No! Words actually

Woman at an Embassy

A girl comes out of an embassy door. What an imposing building, it

is very high and has been built of grey stone. It is quietly

dignified, just as it should be. Down the street there are a lot

of people making a lot of noise. They seem to be very cross about

something or other.

The girl is happy. She is dressed in a light brown skirt and a

white blouse. She stops at the top of the stairs leading down to

the street and turns to look back into the building. She laughsand the whole world enjoys the sound. The grey stone seems


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brighter and stronger because of her and the air gladly carries

her pleasure to all that listen.

Never, ever, ever! she shouts to someone we cannot see.

It is satisfying to look at her; she has blue veins at the base ofher neck, which you can only see because the skin is so delicate

there. Further up, as the skin follows the line of her jaw, it

thickens slightly, giving itself more texture. It is a very nice

color indeed. Given the opportunity you would like to reach out

with your finger and let the tip of it run down the slow curve

from her ear to her chin.

Her eyes would sparkle. You know in your heart that she would

smile at you and then take your hand away because she is just a

girl and adoration is a mystery she still shies from.

It must be about ten-o-clock because the sun is behind the

buildings and the air has a morning freshness. All is clear light.

At the other end of the street, away from the crowd, there are a

few people. Ordinary people; shopping bags, hats and children.

There are also some cars; a red jeep, a panel van, a sedan. The

crowd has come closer and there are two large trucks moving

towards them.

The dignified grey building is right in the middle. The color

suddenly fades from the girls eyes as her back grows red flowers.

Everyone is running towards the steps. Everyone is shouting. Somepeople have guns in their hands.

Life is snapped away and the noise leaps into the air. Far above

the City it cries, Freedom!

The pain as it rends peace from its shell tears at all involved. A

lot of the crowd is entering the building, which remains

dignified. The grey stone makes the dark pools of blood

surrounding the girl seem stronger and brighter. The air only

motions towards her. The emptiness in her, you must listen for

yourself.

INSIDE JOHNNY DANIELS

Wham Bam, going to get you if I can The lungs, the voice box

work hard to let sounds out to tell the world that inside here it

is good. In here there is power.

Deep inside Johnny, we change from one thing to another as Johnny

directs us. When someone close to Johnny died a little while agoit got very thick in here. It was crowded; there was no room to


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move. Dark things swelled and pulsed and tried to break out into

the air. For a little while some things escaped and we shook and

rattled while great sobbing chunks jumped away never to be seen

again. But not all; Johnny was very strong and he pressed down and

stomped and squashed and nailed down lids. Now there is a lot of

that stuff down there beneath us. It makes the floor hard.

But that was yesterday and yesterday is so easily put aside.

Today Johnny flies a plane and when Johnny flies he is happy and

it is good in here. So we sing and we spread lightness that lifts

him and makes him feel like bursting.

Johnnys eyes send us a message, it runs like fire through us all

and you can feel the fine tension. Down below the darkness stirs

and we are afraid. There is much living to be had in moments like

these; it is as if we hang on a rotten string, will it hold out orwont it?

We are in Johnny, he rules. He takes us where he will. We are

Johnny, ready to drop out of the sky and fire, ready to kill.

But wait! It seems that there is no danger and we relax a little.

It comes to us from Johnny that what he sees are not warriors but

people. Peaceful people going about their peaceful business. The

floor shifts a little, there is some protest from the dark parts.

It is lucky that Johnny has control of the past. Johnny has the

keys to the floor. It is strange that he reaches down into himselfand unlocks it. Why is he doing this? The blackness pushes and

surges up, it is wild and fills our space with anger. Inside here

it is suddenly thick again. I can see the voice box and lungs

betraying us all. They strain against the very roof of Johnny,

shouting their rage. It is impossible to fight the blackness; it

takes us all by the throat.

Kill, Kill, Kill. We all throb inside Johnny. As the plane banks

we tighten up inside. It is different from yesterday; yesterday

the darkness was slowly painful. Today it is quick, sharp and

strong.

Johnny goes, we all go, out of the sky we come

Kill, Kill, Kill.

CHILD IN A FIELD

The water has a still grey look to it. It seems endless and is

only disturbed as the couple bend, moving forwards one step at atime. He and she work in perfect rhythm doing what they and their


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He could not have done it, he said, it was not in him to do it,

not even for her.

The room darkened around them and the curtains in the window hung

motionless. Beside them a coffee table stood with a vase and fresh

flowers of the morning.

There was no understanding of it in them. There is no

understanding of it in any of us.

On the death of an innocent bystander at the American Embassy in Saigon.

Warriors that fight for causes cannot be treated with; when they

are defeated they must be removed completely. If not, they just

gather together whatever they have left and start all over again.

This is as true in the arena of the heart as it is of revolution!


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DEATH

The loss of us in someone else, nothing more, nothing less.

It is possible that life is a strong, strange river, seething

through the universe. A mass of boiling colour and unpredictable

turbulence. Temperatures and intensities rise and fall, strike and

recede in a welter of emotion and desire with a rhythm that we

sense but cannot see, hope for but cannot predict. Some shout, I

understand! or I see! and swim strongly in one direction or the

other. Of these some are borne up, others toil continually, whilst

the rest sink sooner or later.

All of us must be swept out of sight at some stage. We believe

therefore that we become part of the river to pour forever through

a world of which we know nothing. It is quite possible however

that all that joins the journey is the rotting flesh of our

bodies. Our egos become no more than bubbles of emptiness briefly

rising to disappear from the surface.

I heard an old man, healthy and strong but with only a few years

left to him, talk of his wife of fifty years who was dying in a

hospital nearby. Behind his words, describing his love and his

life, a whisper of what was waiting for him when she had gone

reached out across the room and touched us all.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to build and create our life around

another person outside ourselves. The death of such a person

proves beyond doubt just how much we need their continued

presence. When they are taken from us we stand amidst the rubble

of walls that were once our stronghold and we are defenceless.

The old man has little left to him that seems worthwhile, the cold

wind blows through the gaping holes and he has no desire to

rebuild and call in new partners. His cloak is slipping from his

shoulders and he will perhaps quietly wait for night to fall andcatch him without shelter.


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Life is so constant and secure.

Death is not the opposite of life nor the end of it, it is just a

very small part of its security.

Nothing ends, it only changes. A leaf is not a tree nor is a

person life. From alongside the river we can appreciate that the

peace and beauty of our surroundings is the creation and

assimilation of different aspects of life. We fear the loss of

awareness and perhaps this fear arises from a lack of the very

awareness we really need; An understanding that other forms of

being have their own knowledge, their own self and their owncontract with the environment in which they exist.

It is you and I that fear death.

Life cannot fear death. Death is to life what breathing is to us;

part of an endless cycle that pumps existence around the body of

creation.

I look across the valley and see endless mustard coloured grass

and life; Life in trees, in horizons and in rocks. My heart fills

with a great joy and for a moment I grasp the beauty of creation

and the security of its perfect logic.

She has become a part of all this; part of the past and of the

eternal future and I am trapped in the present. I can never touch

with what I am, what she has become. I can only catch glimpses and

perhaps feel the feather like touch of God's love, which now

includes her own. This love desires from me, for me, that Isomehow pursue both the joy and pain in creation. That I try each

day to partake in and absorb the wonder and excess of giving that

exists everywhere we care to look. In this way I can become a

source myself and radiate the greatness of it all, contributing to

its inevitable success over all that is dark and lost.


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LIFE

All that is; laughter, tears and truth so real we never seem tosee beyond the surface of it.

Relying on life is like trusting the Gods; the wind or a passing

grasshopper can change everything.

I have a place to go to when I am unhappy or my heart tells methat it has no hope any longer. This place is high and the edge

falls away into the countryside below.

Sometimes when I sit on the edge and look down, the birds fly past

beneath me. Not far beneath me, but just there beneath me, a few

feet away. The swallows are beautiful and although small, stretch

their wings so far out that they seem to cover the sky itself.

When they know that I am there they get curious and turning they

shoot up and around, falling back down to slip over my head in

wonder. The crows are not so graceful, they are also not so

impressed; they fly slowly around me watching carefully. Sometimesthey get verbal and cry out, asking who I am. But they all fly.

They all ride the sky, translating what is invisible into grace

and glory.

When I am there I like to toss stones into the air and catch them

before they drop into the nothing at my feet. These stones ride my

power; they take the energy of my arm and sail up, up and up.

Sadly it does not last long. In an instant the earth calls out to

them and they listen to come rushing back to where they think it

is safe. Of course they are just stones and will never know that

the power they have comes from my insignificance and that thesafety is just an illusion. Sooner or later I always miss and they

drop past me to the ground far below. Their high mountain seat

lost to the whim of a troubled mind.

The stones are not aware and feel nothing, the birds must surely

know something, but I, I take from both of them understanding and

strength that makes me a comparative god, so far beyond them that

even if I knew it all I would not want any of it.


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It is great to be at the top of the mountain, but I never saw a

mountain worth a damn that you cannot fall off.

Life was never promised or given as an unbalanced event. It has

always been and always will be a fair mix of joy and despair,laughter and grief. Life is not balanced by having some good

things and then some bad, it is balanced at any point in time. It

is balanced in each event that we experience.

There are no free rides and anyone who believes that such a

concept is the right of every individual is mistaken. What is our

right and has always been so is the right to view life as we

choose to, to take from it what we will.

We cannot and should not refuse or resist any of the experiences

that come our way, but use our energy to work through all,laughing when we can, crying when we must but always with the

knowledge that everything that remains with us is what we have

freely selected.

Some people say they need a friend, what they want they really

want is a field on which they can demonstrate their unassailable

skill as players. To offer yourself as that field is a great

sacrifice but a destructive one.

Every mistake that you make is an opportunity to rebuild, to see

something exposed that was previously hidden and can now be

assessed and learnt from

If you cannot see yourself as other people see you, the most

compelling force that you possess is without direction.

There are great things to be done and they wait patiently for

someone who can pick himself up out of the clinging ordinariness

of all that is around him.

The best provider of a good reason is self-interest, with it you

can fool not only the others but also yourself.


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I want more! is probably the single biggest cause of ending up

with less. There is value in pushing the limits but none

whatsoever in going beyond them.

We envy people that show great courage and achieve the impossible,

so why do we run from any opportunity sent our way that allows us

to do the same.

Uncompleted tasks flit through the caverns of ones mind like

frightened bats, they must be dealt with and allowed to fade into

the dark corners or taken by the throat and cast down to the floor

where they can be forgotten. Left alone, they clutter the air anddistract you with seemingly random flights across your purpose.

Now and again I glimpse the edge of a strong philosophy for life

that makes understandable the pain and the loss, the joy and the

laughter that strikes us in a manner that seems to have no pattern

or purpose.

The idea that we pay for joy with grief or for laughter with

hurting is abhorrent to me and I have no time to explore it. Sometimes we do live in the darker half of life and despair of ever

walking out into the light. Sometimes we are in the brightest of

sunshine and cannot believe that the dark can ever surround us.

But this has nothing to do with a logical issue of circumstance.

I believe that there is no chaos in Nature so somewhere, sometime

a balance will be struck. We have to accept that this balance is

not there to injure or pleasure the individual. It works rather

towards a greater good, a larger purpose than you or I. As

individuals we wish that it was not so, but as individuals we

contribute very little to the magic of life, except perhaps withinour small and very brief spheres of influence.

If we could just stand far enough away from our desperate

involvement with the immediate, we would perhaps see enough of

where it is all going to say, Now! Now that I can see I give and

take it all; pleasure or pain without reserve.


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I believe that God has a poor opinion of anybody who thinks it is

OK to die. We were not created to be objects of pity or easily

submit to fate. Our mission, whatever it might be, should be

accomplished with delight in the vehicle we have been given to

pursue it life!

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life

for his friends. JOHN, 15:13.

To offer your death for a friend, perhaps short and quick or slow

and painful, but always romantic and sometimes glorious, is one

thing. To offer your life is another.

A person who is prepared to surrender the rest of his expectedyears to some or other service for the good of another gives more

than just a moment of nobility.

Conceit is not a pleasant trait, but when you go into battle it

does not help your cause to step forward believing that you are an

idiot.

To stand back and let life meander along for a while makes no

sense in a modern world, but life does it anyway, regardless of

how much we reason with it.

There is a link between the natural timing of the universe and the

occurrence of events. We would often like to interfere with this

and have things happen when they suit us. When we do this we lose

much of the harmony of our lives.

Why is it that the spirit has so much control over us? When the

heart soars and everything appears golden, then the physical

becomes all powerful and life is taken and moulded as you desire.

If the heart is empty and lies open and raw then any little

difficulty becomes a brick wall shutting out hope. All the

challenges become problems and they tramp across the spirit

beating it further into the mire.

Life is not vindictive but masochistic; if you want to excite ityou must grip it by the throat and shake it around a little.


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Still a child

I am a child of the sun and the sky,

A child of the grass and flowers,

of bark and bees,

leaves and dappled rays of light.

I am a child of the radiance of God

And of the darkness of the devil.

I am a child of hate, of love, of joy and grief.

I am a part of all these things,

They have in them the birth of me.

I have in me the essence of them all and more;I have been borne and moulded of cement,

Of paint, nails and corrugated iron.

I am glass and houses, dusty roads and tar.

I am cars, pavements, lifts and trains and planes.

I am something of all the people I have ever met.

All this and years have made me old,

And I have wisdom.

Wisdom beyond the years I have been given,

Because I know that I am, even now, still a child.

The moral issues of life must have a rulebook that fits, that is

applicable, regardless of cultural or religious background. The

way we see the rules, emphasise them or ignore them is so much

governed by what is convenient.

A passage in the New Testament says that although we see dimly

now, one day all will be clear. How will we stand in the clarity

of that vision? In that light, what darkness will be revealed?

We can only hope that there is love enough to accept where we bent

the rules to justify selfishness we were not even aware of. Love

enough to allow an imperfect offering into a perfect picture. To

love is divine, to err is human; but the measure is safe if the

divine is enough to balance the humanity.


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THE GODS

Even the One God is at least two that I know of.

Sometimes the dark creeps up on me and slowly invades my soul. I

wonder what has happened to God and why it is that his presence is

sometimes so, well just so missing.

Would it be too easy for us if it were otherwise? Perhaps we are

not here to fall down and weep every time things go wrong. Perhaps

the more we fight back and stand taller than our troubles, the

easier it is to see him.

We are greater than problems, our hearts higher than fences.

Not even in the darkest moments of my life, when grief or

frustration has smothered every hope of light, when hurt, sharp as

a razor, has slashed and gauged at the real me, the only me thatmatters, have I humbled myself before God. I refuse to do so; it

is a thing born in small minds and has no hope of life in my

concept of love. God and I like each other a lot but we often do

not agree.

God, I guess I will never understand you but I was hoping that you

would understand me. You can break me if you wish, it just seems

such a waste from where I sit.


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RHYTHM

What have we, A dewdrop that for a moment shone in a slender

stream of never to be forgotten sunlight?

Or an evening stillness deep and filled with fire,

that quickly fades and with the twilight is soon gone?Would it not be more glorious to keep forever bright that which

the gods themselves have cause to desire?

But it is they that have decreed there will be no joy or peace

anywhere that does not flare and die to the rhythm of the

universe.

To allow events to proceed unhindered by your needs is to place

your life in the hands of the Gods; it requires a belief in theirregard for you that is almost incredulous

We in our deprived sense of God liken him to us, but he is much

more, so much everything, that for the present it is perhaps best

that we name him and classify him. For the truth is so vast and so

far beyond our understanding that we would surely deny it could

ever be.

Dear God

Dear God,

Jerry came to me today and said that I should think about

calling on you to save me. He said you could heal me of this

thing. I think he is right, you can cant you?

If I call you Saviour and if I give my life to you, then Jerry can

lay hands on me and he says that if I believe I will be healed.

I thought that you and I were already friends of a sort. I always

seem to run to you if things get really bad. When they are not too

awkward, well you know where I am if you need something; at least

I believe that you do.


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I do not think that I can do what Jerry suggests and I will tell

you why:

I have in a small way tried to maintain a standard of behaviour

and level of dignity in this rather strange life you have given

us. I think that it is right to do so because if I am your

creation we do not need the devil holding me up as one of yourfailures. Anyway I do not think that we do.

If I bow my knee and give my life to you now that I have cancer,

because I have cancer, it seems just a little false. I have in

fact strongly criticised this sort of thing in other people and

questioned their motives.

I cannot deny that such a step on my part would do a lot to help.

It would give me some fellowship down here and because I trust

you, a great deal of hope. But, and here is the big but, it would

also mean a betrayal of my own glibly given opinions. You knowthat I have often stood talking to friends with a glass of wine in

my hand or used my pompous and unassailable position of fatherhood

to expound many theories of honour and integrity. What would I be

worth if I fled for succour to the charisma of repentance and

commitment as soon as something went wrong.

So you see, if I am to die then I must do it by the same standards

that I have professed to support when it was easy to do so. I

really would like to die a man of honour, even if it is only in a

small way. Honour is a hard mistress; pretty good at providing

lofty ideals such as the armour of righteousness and things likethat, but decidedly rejecting those who fail to stand by their

commitments when the trumpets sound and the battle starts. She

does not do this with fury, but with pity and disgust. Fury I can

deal with; Pity, disgust these are not so nice.

I have often said, You must be proud of what you are and faithful

to your beliefs to have any hope of satisfaction at the end of

your life.

That is not the only thing I have been arrogant about but it makes

the point. So you see I am a little bit stuck here. Caught as itwere, by my own big mouth.

I hope you can understand all this because I think that if I want

to die this way I am really going to need your help. Just between

you and me I am relying on my belief that to do this with some

integrity is in fact serving you anyway. I am going to have to

tell Jerry that if I get over this cancer, then I will consider

letting him save me. For the moment I think that you and I will

just have to try and work it out on our own.


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I heard God in the rain last night; I awoke sometime when all the

others were long tucked deep in their brief hibernation. Through

the warm haze of just lost sleep, I heard God in the rain, outside

the window. He said nothing. He just let me know that He was

there. It is strange that He is at times such a private person but

it is O.K. that He just is.

When the Gods smile at you and the light of their laughter fills

your soul with joy, take it and play the game with your entire

heart, their gifts carry no limits except your own.


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LOVE SACRIFICED

There is no logic to love which is never given reasonably but

often without limit and to bottomless pits that take and return

nothing, not even acknowledgement.

We make many mistakes in this life and squander all sorts of

possessions. They can be replaced. Deep caring, friendship and

above all love are too precious to play with. We must open

ourselves to them wholeheartedly, because wisely is not a quality

we should associate with love. Love cannot grow or flourish if it

is not given. The world is desperately short of this greatest of

all gifts. However hard it may seem, however wrong it might appear

to be, Love is for sharing.

In the midst of a crowd I am alone and I want it to stay that way,

yet I want so much from other people.

When I needed desperately to be loved there was no love. In my

self-pity at the time I was blinded to the needs of everyone else.

If I had been able to give, I might have been able to receive. But

I was not and did not.

There is no meeting place for myself and these people around me. I

am lost in a world they can never enter and they, they are part of

a world I am frightened to rejoin.

Once there was a meeting place for us, it was a field in which we

had laughed, played and cried. When it clouded over we stepped

outside and closed the gates. Far away on the other side of

opposite fences we stood and looked back at what we had once

possessed. It was empty, shrouded in mist, almost as if it had

never been.

We will never be able to step back inside that field, but we can

walk around it and perhaps when we do we will be able to see thatwhat we had enjoyed was not so much the grass and the sunshine as


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each other. Now you are no more and this is the joy that I am

without. I look around and see the people about me, but you are

not there. Will there ever be someone else that can share new

fields with me?

I am filled with an indescribable sadness today. If you hope

greatly, disappointment of the smallest kind can become

devastating. It cuts deeply into the tissues of the soul and one

fears for that in you which is perhaps the essence of your life;

the very ability to hope that you value above all else in the

first place. No hope for some might mean despair, for me it is

death. The emotional level of life must be high for life to be

worthwhile but one pays for this with bitter tears. I, in the face

of failure, am always able to pick myself up and continue with my

hope flying high where it catches the strongest winds, the

brightest sunshine. I do not know how long I will be able to dothis, I grow old and my banner becomes increasingly harder to

raise.

He sat alone in the house. She was not there but in another town,

a town where she had friends and support. He had told her to go.

She needed to be away because of what they were doing to her. From

the beginning he had known that he would pay with bitter tears for

his involvement. But like all lovers, in the glory of being

needed, he had thought it would be worth it. He had not faced whathe knew of himself because he wanted what she meant to him and

tomorrow is always tomorrow.

But now it was today and he was alone. What he could do for her

was nearly finished and in his mind so was he. His fear of being

alone for the years to come and the loss of perhaps the most truly

real person he had ever met cut too deep for reason. Emotion and

its bitter winds tore through his heart.

Beside him, on the coffee table stood a telephone. It was not

connected, it was just there, part of things waiting to be packedfor the final departure. A departure from the people and the

situation that had so hurt her. People that had given him a role

to play for which he would be paying long after they had forgotten

that they had ever been malicious or unkind towards anyone. She

too had known how he felt and if they had shared anything it was a

deliberate ignorance of how destructive these feelings would

become. There was nothing in his heart that could deal with the

sense of loss and futility that had breached every defense he had.

He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.


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NEW LOVE

A power that overrules everything you ever feared, intelligence,

weakness and reality, in short, The greatest gift of all!

I live - I love - I have feelings that swell my heart beyond the

confines of my body. I must love, I must touch, I must be loved.

I want someone to snuggle up to me at night as if I was the safest

place in the world. I need to reach out my hand and let my fingers

slide down a perfect cheek. I need to drive my body to the limit

to transport my lover to the ultimate abandoning of all for me and

what I am doing.

I need to have someone I trust with my whole being, in my life and

in my heart.

That love will never have the new sun sparkle across it as did the

first, but it will be deep and perhaps it's evening twilight will

have its own joy, rooted in all the knowledge of what has gone

before.

You occupy so much of my thoughts. The fact is that you are one of

Gods special creatures something magnificent, but proud and

wary, like an eagle or a Lynx. Now I step into my garden and find

you there, a gift. Momentary perhaps but so very real If I reach

out to try and possess you, will you turn and escape into a

wilderness that I cannot enter, lost to me forever. Brave words

cannot put courage where the price has been paid so often that its

reality is a part of life. Perhaps if the Gods do not care that

much for me they care for you and will guide you to something that

will spill over onto my plate without shattering it. I have loved

and lost so much, my need is so great and the plate so fragile.


24/31

When we know the devastation of losing that which we have loved

without reserve, then to stand on the edge of new love and step

again onto that highway is truly an act of courage few can make.

You cannot know where it will lead you or how long you will

travel. It is true that you understand the great joy of sharing

but you also know just how easily the darkness can close in.

Paint me a picture. Fill the skies with rain and thunderous

clouds, the corners with darkness and draw pain and grief in every

shadow. Then put yourself in it; as small as you like, far to one

side or big and right in the middle. But paint yourself in full

colour, as bright as I have learned you to be and I will take this

picture with joy and hang it on every wall in my house.

Mine

I look to the horizon and see the glow of dawn rising unstoppable

from the earth.

You are my new day, strong and beautiful; lifting my soul to the

heaven God wants it to know.

You are in me, around me and everywhere I touch,

Yet I am told that you are not mine.

They say you are like the night sky; impossible to own.

You laugh, talk and cry with people I do not know,

You wake up in a bed I do not sleep in, share your meals with

someone who is not me.

They do not know that you were born inside my soul before I walked

the earth,

You were a part of me before I was myself.

They do not know that without you I am empty;

Less than a cloud without rain or a tree without leaves.

It is true that I am trapped inside my life and watch you through

the window.

They see me there and think that it is my house.

I do not live there,

I live with you and we soar like eagles,

Flowers bloom around us, the dew sparkles across the green of our

lives like diamonds.

Knowing this, I feed my hungry soul.

God made you to fulfil me;

He shaped your mind and fired the light in your eyes.


25/31

As I dreamed you would be a thousand times, so are you ten

thousand times.

You are the sun that casts this shadow sharp and bright against

the wall,

You define my life.I know you revolve for me but not around me.

I am always with you, I am content.

I love life when it gets going like this. I do not care what I

have to pay; I must take the reins and ride. When the horse dies

beneath me I will look around and see how far I must go to get

back, if I ever want to!

Love rampages through the fields of my life like an army of

marauding Mongols; taking what it will and laying waste every puny

defence I throw up. It must never stop; I do not want the country

to lie fallow ever again. Neither do I want the thorns and wild

grasses of self-pity and apathy to be seen anywhere near the

creations of my heart.


26/31

IN SEARCH OF REASONSWhy is a thing of the past and as such is not worthy of

consideration. But it is such an integral part of us it cannot be

ignored.

Quest

I walk these unhappy roads with hunger the basis of thought,What town or city lies before me does not matter.

All that matters is the effort that I make to reach it,

As if by this the sustenance I seek for my soul can be bought.

Before my feet, dusty tar and gravel stretch across the ground,

To endless horizons of cloudless skies and merciless suns,

Lonely nights filled with sounds of which I am not part.

Can it be that the very way I am is that which keeps me bound

To senseless travel and constant pursuit of my other half?

Troubles fill all the vistas around me, below me, above me.

There are no more pledges of happiness, they have been recalled.The universe has no one in it except me and I cannot live alone,

So must I wander, seeking that which will somehow make me, we.

Around my feet sounds of footsteps spring rhythmically upwards,

Quietly announcing that I walk on in hope of friendship.

Cars that pass know that I am there but pass just the same,

Drivers and passengers unwilling to stop or speed me forwards,

Not knowing that to do so would open life to me again.

What I need to make my life more than desperate existence,

Cannot be measured or pictured in any sensible form,

It is shrouded in haze, hanging above a shimmering desert.Not real, only a memory, a thought without flesh or substance.

Once in a distant past there was a magic holding me in its light,

A creature of love, created for me and made part of my life,

So that life was never to be one, but always two, always shared.

This was the way it had to be, justified because it was right.

There was no other possibility, it was, as we were, invincible.

I look all around and see that this is still true for many.

Sharing, touching, secret smiles and strong arms reach out wide,

Encompassing the togetherness of each other, quietly confident.

For each, the other, everything the soul needs, for me not any;Not from my memories or even from the people that pass me by,


27/31

Is there no possibility that I might share another soul?

Can a light not rise on my horizon one soft morning and call to

me;

Saying peace to you, life will be whole again before you die,

Someone waits over the next rise, someone who needs as you do.

Perhaps this is also not to be, perhaps my faith must be tested,

I am not to be driven by promises but by what has gone before.

The road is empty and the edges strewn with stones, barren,

Nights desolate, only the morning has hope, after I have rested.

Oh, that I might see beside me the form of my own desires walking,

Then will I know that I am not forgotten, not lost or cast aside.

Only when someones love for me touches my soul in concern,

When in their mind and inside mine I hear our souls talking,

Will I believe that at last the end of the journey has come.

There are times in life when the horizon is painted black and the

air is full of menace. Hope is far off and has little substance.

Bow your head before the power that is there, it is greater than

you, but do not kneel. Hang onto whatever pride you have and walk

into it. It has no interest in your destruction and will pass on

to whatever destiny it recognises as its own. If you are destroyed

it will be through your own power.

Flowers reach a peak of glory and then sadly spoil, eventually

dropping their petals to the ground bruised and withered. They die

and with the coming seasons do it all over again. So does our

innocence bruise and fall. We, however, replace it with cynicism,

ambition and cunning. The older and the more sophisticated the

world gets, the earlier in our lives this happens. If only we

could say NO! If only we could retain our simple trust and faith

to the grave.

I would like to know, What is the lesson that we must learn that

is worth the destruction of such value?


28/31

HOPE

The old stalwart of the lost and lonely who kid themselves that as

long as there is hope there is life. The truth is that hope is not

a quality of the future but a crutch for the present.

A NEW DAY

When Adam and Eve slipped and lost the reality of heaven,

They kept the breath of it.

The Lord left them the flowers of the field,

And the sun in the sky above.

Everywhere that we their children look there is a promise;

It floats on white clouds in a blue sky.

It sparkles in drops of rain on the petals of a flower.

It cries out from the lungs of a newborn infant.

It is the shadow of a glory lost yet certain to be found.

It is so much a guarantee of things to come,

That even the turning of the world calls out to us;

As the day was and at midnight is no longer,

So sure is it that the night will pass and the sun return.

I have inside of myself steel, There is a core that exists

somewhere at the end of the line that is impervious and stands,

unassailable, to preserve the essential me. This only becomes

evident when the flesh has been stripped from its bones and the

front lines of my array have been devastated by the hunger of the

outer world. No matter what happens, my strength and commitment to

life can be spent without reserve because in the end I remain.

Always standing, always capable of fighting again. But friend, I

am not unique, all of us have this, sadly we lay down our arms and

concede the battle before we expose it.


29/31

I work, I play I live at a hundred miles an hour, but it costs a

great deal. Sometimes I look around at the devastation that is my

garden and I believe that it will never, can never grow again. But

a little sunshine, a seed here and there and what do you know; thescars are covered in flowers.

Life continues and that is what makes everything possible in the

end; No matter what happens, how bad everything can suddenly

become, it passes and life goes on. It is this inevitable progress

that is our hope. The movement of time guarantees that all

becomes the past and that the future, unknown as it is, brings

change varied enough to provide relief. We know that there will beother bad times and that we will be in trouble more than once. But

we know just as surely that there will be good times too and we

hang on.

At times the gardener turns the soil viciously that we might bear

abundantly. Such adversity is the secret of growth. The shaking of

the body has no eternal meaning, it is how we use the experience

to free a human excellence that means so much to us when we mustturn and look at what we have become. It is what allows us to be

more than we ever believed we could be. It is a chance to shout

out that we are truly greater than the physical world around us,

to show that we have within us the souls that God gave us. It is

an opportunity to prove beyond any doubt that there is more to us

than flesh and blood, that we are a creation confounding reason

and science, full of immeasurable strength and love.

I have lost and grieved bitterly, I have given of my soul and

sacrificed more than I can measure for love and friendship.

Despite all this I am better, more understanding and more ready to

give than ever before. Bring out the wine and start the music; I

will dance and laugh with more joy than most. Yet break my heart

and I will cry out with pain that comes from the very depths of my

being. The aspect of life that I am not ready to face and test

myself in does not exist. Yet I am not hard of heart. I do get

hurt, yet I have not become bitter or small-minded. I have sold myeternity and defied God for the woman I loved, and yet not denied


30/31

him. I still believe in the constant interaction between myself

and all the gods. In this conflict I am armed with my intellect

and stand as much chance of victory as they do. So I will love

again, I will even love as the young do, with foolishness and

without hope. I will live as I have always lived, but harder,

because of the pleasure I have had in the years gone by and that,my friend, is all the reason I need.

It is often the case in life that you work hard and push towards a

goal, really making a prolonged and concerted effort. When you

stop to take a breath nothing seems to have happened. Everything

appears much as it was. But this is not so; behind the apparent

lack of progress your efforts have accumulated and although it

seems as though those efforts will never be seen, they are there

and remain there. If you give up and turn away then you will nevertruly know what you have done. Be patient, the time will come when

all that accumulated effort is allowed to flow free for you to

see. You will be able to laugh and wave your fist at the air. You

will feel the power inside of yourself and it is not conceit or

foolishness, it is achievement.

What am I, and how much of me has been coloured by you? I cannot

measure it but something remains. You are part of the creation

that I now am. This work I retain and put forward into a new life.

I am a person touched by you and this gift no one can take from

me.


31/31

ENDEverything ends!

The price of great writing is pain, with it one buys

food for the soul and ideas are clothed in words.

What I have to give is not mine; I am but a keeper of power that

floats through the channels of my mind and sometimes takes shapethrough the imperfect gate of my heart.

Documents

Striving with the Gods