Exhaling

To Everyman, Abrupted

When will we reach for what is truest, what is at the
depths of what we are?
When will we stop running and listen to the
voice that is calling to us?
There is a Fatherhood that animates our being,
but you want to belong to yourself –
to hold on to yourself, you must
refuse every thing that needs a part of you;
you must cling tenaciously to you –
and how will you hold all of us,
with both hands
already full?
When will you let go and be free of loneliness?
We are earthen vessels, yes, but the elemental dust
from which we are made came from brilliant stars,
and still holds the capacity for fire.
When will you let yourself be warmed by this
flame within you?
It is in your bones, a breath from burning.

Will you surrender yourself to this birth into fatherhood’s fullness?
You must open both eyes to that radiance that is
father-child-love, and accept that you are both
father and child.
So why choose to remain alone?
When will you allow my love to open up in you
that place where you can embrace the fatherhood you cannot see?

When will you descend to that place from which
you can be lifted?
You must acknowledge the chasm between
what you think you will make of yourself and
what you are made to be.
When will the Father’s light -
creeping in gently from the bottom,
never denying our freedom, but always holding hope –
When will this deep light overcome your resistance to the
truth of what we are?
Admit that you will die and then you can begin to live!
Admit that I will die and then you will permit me to live.
When will you cease this solitary struggle?
Will you reach into me and breathe this light that
is not mine? Or will you only touch
the surface and
remain in darkness?
This light is bursting out toward you,
but you must open your hands to receive it.
You must let go and breathe it in deeply.

When will we speak of what is at the depths of you and me?
It waits to be wrapped in our words and discovered,
to be fanned out between us and
surround us with its
light until we
stand silent,
facing the truths too true
to be spoken or signed.

I am here, aching for you to know all of me and to still
accept me as yours –
to give me the gift of being known and yet loved! –
but you content yourself with shells and shibboleths.
I am here, aching to know all of you
and to prove to you that I will still accept you as gift –
but you cannot tell me what you do not know.
I am still here. Is our love to be measured in tears?
I am still here, offering. Is fatigue the measure of our love then?
When will you concede that you are the expression of the
Father,
that you do not express yourself only?

In us, the truth is embedded.
We must desire to know it,
work to free it so it can free us,
and then we must
ACT.

-from “His Suffering and Ours - words of hope for pierced and wounded hearts,”
now available at http://www.lulu.com/kathryntherese