Thoughts Have Hands

Life is but a profane paper dragon
painted with colors of love and fear

Not sacred
Until named a personal human blessing
When passion for service touches hearts and makes a divine connection by giving and forgiving.

Life is a pallet of blind possibilities
Stacked in warehouses of the mind.
A business district needing
more than human intervention.

Life is the business of survival,
Until personal relations become a priority.

The human mind can cancel feelings
and keep on breathing

But the joy of personal connection creates sacred living if humans will overcome fear and touch hearts with trust and compassion.

Cosmic truths remain indifferent,
mere mathematical abstractions,
until we make history less about power, and more about community.

Only when trust births loving connection will transcendence make harsh reality truly human.

THH
5/26/24

This one Sunday, our Christian calendar devotes to doctrine imposed to explain divinity.

One God in three,
A riddle for humanity confuses weary minds with indecipherable mystery.
A compromise born of authority.
A mystery born of tradition called history.

A diversity devoted to being one
A oneness blessing strength in diversity
Divine hope for abundant living in community.

A god comfortable being family
A god who loves infinite diversity

As humans crave comfort most,
A love held so close it makes us feel one.

A togetherness intended for unity.
A relationship turning on divine charity.

As humans struggle to practice lessons of her holy community.

The life we live confuses love with personal loyalties.
Love knows no boundaries.

Love refuses to bow before heroes winning wars, or exerting power enslave.

Love is harder still.

For then we must serve others to create human community,
And work to abstain from numerous idolatries.

For the love we seek redeems equally all diversity.

Our god – a mystery in three persons,
Where one and one make three,
And we learn the unfading lights dance,

An equality in one loving all humanity

And realize the nature of divinity is care for neighbors as one holy human family.

THH
5/26/24

The one Sunday the Christian calendar devotes to doctrine

A doctrine imposed on weary minds to explain divinity

The one God who is three

A riddle for humanity

A compromise born of authority

A mystery beyond logic

Part of our tradition called history.

A diversity devoted to being one

A oneness blessing diversity

A hope needed for community.

A god comfortable living as family

A god who calls us to love all diversity

The human mind wants comfort most.

A love held so close, it makes us feel one.

A togetherness each person knows as holy unity. A relationship turning eternally on divine charity.

The life we live confuses love and loyalty

The love we need transforms community

The love we find redeems personally

Our god – a mystery of three

Equals one loved humanity

As we find divine love similarly, caring for neighbors as if we were one.

THH

5/26/24

Life has no real personality.

It floats on far east winds

Wiggles back and forth

Up and down comically.

A multi colored dragon dream, with

Big snake eyes

That pierce right through you,

Blind to every want and desire,

Either you are in the way or holding on.

Frightened at first

All rolling thunder, flashing lights

dancing tunes of it’s own delight.

The dragon laughs at human concerns,

Uninterested in personal horizons,

Beckons no direction, no right time or place,

Chases no purpose,

Offers no grace.

The dragon slays years thoughtlessly,

As we beg favors

Ask for calm

try to deliver on promises.

From beginning of life to its end,

the dragon plays by impersonal rules,

And leaves to us,

The cause of human caring.

We live with ferocious dragon visions,

Currents of furtive imaginings,

None completely true,

but scary – full of nightmare thinking.

Better to brace for the Dragon turns,

Attend your interests and condition

Through the dragon’s wind,

Make friends with all givens,

Enjoy human hospitality,

Invent a loving community.

For when the dragon succumbs

Every once of energy spent,

Only the personal designs of the human heart

And their accomplishment

Will be all we can show for the thrill of the ride

As we follow behind into oblivion.

THH

5/25/24

How many times will I sit quietly on my back porch?

How often do I get to feel the soft breeze stroke my skin?

How long do I have to hear the birds sing their peculiar songs?

How long to watch my dog breath up and down on the floor beside me?

How much beauty can I drink in?

How much feeling can I absorb?

I know not,

Or how long,

Or how much.

But with every breath and in every moment, I know it will never be enough.

I know this moment and every one given

Sacrifices itself on the altar of my consciousness,

Digs deep into eternity and I’ll always beg for more.

THH

4/27/24

The rushing of the rain straight, hard and clean sounds like a mountain stream.

Under cover I listen to it fall,

pounding the metal roof, rolling like a kettle drum

It makes me want to jump up and dance

Sends shivers up and down my spine

The rain releases all pent up tension,

As my old dog lays suspicious by my side.

The noise too loud, or he may smell a threat but it’s just spring weather slaking earth’s thirst with a long tall drink

So calmly I contemplate the falling rain

Not for insight or revelation but the sacred feeling of being held fast in Nature’s all encompassing grasp.

In the time it falls the world stops:

Demands of imagined duty,

Worries of what’s not been done,

Even anger and jealousy subside.

And the water washes over wounds

And cools me down outside and in.

THH

5/4/24

I’ve been waiting and now watching

these strange bugs fly carefree

and blind

In amusement of the places they find to get to …

Stuck on my blinds,

sneaking past them too.

Pretty funny we humans get so preoccupied with them flying around,

or upset if red eyes stare back

from the barbecue,

or bang your unsuspecting head

on a morning walk,

Really nothing much to dread.

The thing I find enlightening about their return is the persistent sound of singing wings up in the trees.

It’s a familiar sound,

I’ve known many years,

exactly like the ever present tinnitus

in my old ears.

So now you know this ringing sound

and can relax,

for cicada time is soon over

And once back underground

and out of sight,

There will be silence for all ears

except mine

for a number of years.

THH

5/11/24

What keeps us going?

A striving for gold,

To buy a bit of heaven,

never enough,

The panting for a lover’s embrace,

And the worry if she’s there for you,

Pull her close, fly blind

while you have time.

Symptoms of love,

the heart always ponders,

A willing practice in forgiving.

A warm diagnosis with no misgivings,

A rare and perfect find.

Or look to purpose to

occupy a healthy mind,

One to hold your place,

One promising direction

One dwelling place for prospecting.

Go after family and friends

Make a world with them.

Be ready to make amends.

Try to keep your wants to a minimum.

Look for what persists in spite of philandering,

For paths you travel depend

on reckoning with mystic impressions,

Childhood wishes,

and half forgotten dreams

Under cover of many developing schemes.

No path is laid out

No perfect grid meets your feet

Go strike out for a sunlit horizon

But know foreign lands hold

shadows for each expedition,

Dead ends,

Unmade beds and unmet needs,

Plans left undone,

as you move on.

Demands dangle over head,

Linger as warnings to your mind

And most should be ignored,

For success will come only if you keep going,

But never will you be free to explore

until you learn contentment

And let yourself be.

THH

5/11/24

Winds of change

stoke hidden fires

Buried in the underbrush of chore and secret misgivings.

Smoke ascends slowly at first,

Unnoticed in the midst of the grand race we run.

The curlicues drift high into the limbs,

Threaten stands of innocent forest,

Or drift across planted plains

of life-giving grain,

Suckled by the air into red hot flame.

Like troops of wild monkeys racing from branch to branch,

searing leaf and limb,

Condemning to dust hope

and the claims of history.

Old and young overcome by flames,

Topple to the ground,

Soot and ash spread across earth’s fertile mantle, a charred bed of dreams,

Ruins offered for an archaeology of power and destruction.

Humans in the heat of desire,

Fired by vainglory,

Plan heroic contests unending,

Each new birth fans upstart passions.

No time for reflection,

too quickly we burn in mad pursuit

through seasons of labor,

Action and reaction.

Fire and flame

Consume everything on its march,

In glory and greed,

In searing deed,

Until burned out.

Left to cool under dark skies,

Smoldering emotions long to be rekindled,

But the light has died,

Destiny of desire is spent,

and left on fields of battle.

The ash remains,

Blackening the survivors anxious brow;

Only ritual forces some depth of recognition,

begging understanding from darkness, to make of sacrifice a hallowed loss.

For ashes crushed, crossed and brushed away by time, or with luck by neighbor or friend

Bring tears with a human touch —

And the fiery moments too easily recalled and so misspent.

Suddenly life’s put on hold.

Causes believed in, lost or forgotten,

Leaves one to ponder, how to begin again?

A monk once inquired of Abba Joseph how to progress to sainthood;

The old man stood at his cell door,

raised his hands skyward,

And said,

‘If you will, you can become all flame’.

But what, then would any of us be ?

THH 3/15/24

Time plays a master game with us.

It spins the past tight then lose,

Tangles us in weaves of woolly memory,

Spurs wild boasts and creativity;

It affords many bright horizons

Travelers imagine can be achieved.

Time offers drama and humor for hungry minds to engage,

Begs us explore the twists of fortune and fate.

The master game has subtle moves,

forward and back, of memories soured

By business unfinished,

And actors wishing things had gone better,

To dreams dreamt in technicolor,

Caught in heady desire, longing for

A soldier’s return,

A lover’s win,

A gambler’s all in,

Expecting to live out the narrative.

A mortal fantasy fleshed out,

real and sweet,

A happy reverie.

A master game designed for eternity,

advertising little pleasures,

And rewards to be received,

While guarding the undisclosed truth, How travel comes to an end.

THH

2/13/24