Outside the Limit: a meditation

Outside the Limit

Working through the Thursday graveyard shift
At 7-11, I stock cold shelves of ‘cours’
Then write a college essay on dreiser’s
Claim, ‘life is thin surface, all negation;’

But alert in that night, I muse in the stillness
While beyond store glass, the parking lot lies
Vacant, lit by neon signs and street lights–
When so unexpected my mind transports.

I rise outside of self, see far beyondness,
Perceive myself sitting between store rows,
Observe my little ego, skin, and skull
My bodied self--finite with staid cans and jars.

Suddenly drowned in awe, awash in fire here
Luminous presence, aware beyond words, vivid bliss
Blessed all-encompassing exalted surpassing
Great transcendent limitless awareness.



--Daniel Wilcox
First pub. In different form in
Flutter Poetry Journal,
then The Mindful Word,
and second published poetry
collection, Psalms, Yawps, and Howls

Love and Loss and Lasting

A Song of Songs Into Olding


Intense clangor—the joyous movement

of rod and belle
of the brash and the subtle

caroled with rubied passion,
they ring with joy their supple skin.

Fertile in consummation, in oneness

these two-to-one
jewel their future

days with melodic movement.

Appealing with rings that couple gold,
One circle—
unending,
endless,
eternal,

They spangle their handed time with madrigals.

The chiming lyric of the sapphire
adorns their sensuous
moments.

Embellishments of gemmed time

lay close

jeweled bare on their skin,
on circular strands


Down

the

years


Turning irritants, trials, and struggles

Into pure spheres
of visioned music,

Shimmering pearls of perseverance

(Unlike the coldness
of the bland flatness,

the flaked shale
of many a marriage's mediocrity).

He and she chime in their aging,

wrinkled skin, touched creases,
caressed emeralds of cherishing,

lasting into the soft opalness

of Olding, their souls flow
warm with mellifluous serenity.

Precious
the seasoned-round

romancing,

the ringing, rubied

Song of songs.



—Daniel Wilcox

First published in Word Catalyst Magazine

--



The Essence of Software


Why is the metal-cased T.V.
fine, structurally sound,

but my loving wife of 60 years

Slowly...

dies?

What repair man can I call
to have her tinkered with

so her inside will remain vibrant and joyous—

that we might share another year together

in our odyssey

through this hard land?

Why isn't there a warranty for her?

"Guaranteed, Call 1-700, Zenith Lasts!"

Already I picture the scene,
the day coming soon like a tsunami

that will roar through our lives

and

drown us all.

I will stand

Lone

without
an umbrella

in the soft, vicious rain

and stare

down

at the immaculate metal coffin

that will endure for centuries—stainless steel, you know—while

my wife

's corny word play
(like the time she pretended
a hot dog was a cigar)

will be gone.

How obscene...the coffin will gleam with color--

the little blue angels

in the panels and the chrome handles—long lasting like the T.V.

But
my wife will not

endure,

not even appear in syndication.

And the only reruns
will be in my head

until my own show
is cancelled.

The T.V. will remain—

Well, maybe not...

It too will wear out
and be dumped

into some landfill

to corrode and rust
to oblivion.


Is there Netflix for humans?



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in La Fenetre, France

--

Their Beekeeper's Moon



Their beekeeper’s moon lasted only several phases

of love’s eternal sphere;

too quickly the warm honey of fired passion,
the illumined glow...

—all those amorous-vesseled words

emptied,

no wined days
or champagne-giddy nights

only

pain-flask-jarring
loss;


then

broken with dishearten
their lacerated lives

scattered into

loose shards,
glass-chasmed


and w i d e n e d---

a barren landfill
of middle years,

their debris-ed evenings...


his wandering looks,

her sidetracked eyes,

their mangled conversation


meant
seemingly
no keeper's hope remained. No communion...

However

graciously in elder-oaked age,


old scars healed and new buds came,
a fresh phase of shine

shone in their faces,

the nectared honey of freely choosing

chosen love
—their lasting
passion.



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in the The Greensilk Journal


--


Ever After


Waking up close to you,
Your ‘presence’ covered in our morning’s lips caress

Like the shimmering, luminous night's seal to a sleeping princess,
We’re warm, luscious honeycombed lovers,

Deeply treasured in life-long mellifluous romance
Truly our cherished delicious passion,

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake
And the stars shine in our room
Through time to time to time

Cherishing
Our heart-welling felt vow

Spectrumed rainbow of our arrowed heart,
Protecting our intertwined soul and body
Not tempted, nor wayward

But delivered from every
Disloyal fragmented moment.

For an eternal now choosing
True love so royal streamed

From time to time to time,
Through the first falling sky-up

On mount passion's verdant peak
High above the desert of briefness,

We begin newly blessed, giving life;

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake,
And the stars shine in our room
From time to time to time

With the snapping of the corked top
And the delicious splash

Of champagne on a sun-covered table,
And the burgundy bottle never empties
And our two communing glasses shine,

In the shimmering, luminous union
And the moon lights our room

And the stars’ shine on the lake
On our wedding night over and over and over,

You all in white lace
Warm in my embrace
And ever after.



By Daniel Wilcox

First published, different form
in The Shine Journal,
and in selah river





In the Light of commitment, kiss your true love,

Daniel Wilcox

A Few Romantic Poems of Commitment and Passion

"Roll Ever Columbia”

They bag fading lighthouses,
Explore more lone departed posts,
Live in their relationship of ship
To water and shore;

Brave roaring ocean storms
Bar none, faring better, more
Than boats-of-line passing through
That perilous channel ‘washing
Tons’ of Oregonian waves,
Churning in between,

But unlike historic river pilots
Who guided in-bound ships
Over that dangerous bar,
His home doesn’t dominate high
On Fort Astor’s exalted bluffs;

And her love hearkens back to 1812,
Long before any lensed high tower,
Back when townies lit up a blazing
Tree as the brilliant signal flare
To direct to an approaching schooner.

His love lights up her coastal way,
Rivering to her protected harbor;
Not like today in shallow America
Where too many a sparred couple
Forever shipwreck their ‘bows.’

He’s an in-bound ship-of-line
Braving the dangerous headland
And the deep rolling river, but above,
His wild woman glows aflame,
Delights his vessel’s guided way;

There’s no disappointment;
Her shored cape opens with
Welcome, he sings the mark,
“Safe water.”

Oh so verdantly green,
Unfathomably deep,
For life;
Roll on,
Dear Columbia,
Ever and ever and ever.


*Don Bruno de Heceta, Spanish Sea Captain, was the first known
European to discover the mouth of the Columbia River in 1775.
*Captain Meares, on July 6, 1788 tried to find safe harbor on the
northern side of the mouth of the Columbia, but couldn’t so named the
place, Cape Disappointment.
*Woody Guthrie song “Roll on Columbia”

By Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Jeanette Cheezum’s
cavalcade of stars

--

two hands

after a fine guitarist’s set,
hidden music
muses
through the spheres

out in the audience
hidden in the middle, two arms
under a table with two full glasses
ignored

two hands commune
caressing
as if the one
and only touching
on earth,
before the fall

for an hour and a half

embodied, that
warm embrace of their fingers
and palms

close slow dancing

no palming
but sheer magic
one body, one spirit



By Daniel Wilcox

First published in vox poetica

--





A Song of Songs Into Olding


Intense clangor—the joyous movement
of rod and belle
of the brash and the subtle
caroled with rubied passion,
they ring with joy their supple skin.

Fertile in consummation, in oneness

these two-to-one

jewel their future
days with melodic movement.

Appealing with rings that couple gold,
One circle—unending, endless, eternal,


They spangle their handed time with madrigals.

The chiming lyric of the sapphire
adorns their sensuous moments.

Embellishments of gemmed time


lay close
jeweled bare on their skin,

on circular strands


Down
the years

Turning irritants, trials, and struggles

Into pure spheres of visioned music,

Shimmering pearls of perseverance




(Unlike the coldness
of the bland flatness,

the flaked shale
of many a marriage's mediocrity).

He and she chime in their aging,

wrinkled skin, touched creases,
caressed emeralds of cherishing,

lasting into the soft opalness

of Olding, their souls flow
warm with mellifluous serenity.

Precious
the seasoned-round romancing,

the ringing, rubied
Song of songs.



By Daniel Wilcox


First published in Word Catalyst Magazine,
and in outwardlink.net,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls
--



Ever After

Waking up close to you,
Your ‘presence’ covered in our morning’s lips caress
Like the shimmering, luminous night's seal to a sleeping princess,
We’re warm, luscious honeycombed lovers,
Deeply treasured in life-long mellifluous romance
Truly our cherished delicious passion,

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake
And the stars shine in our room
Through time to time to time

Cherishing
Our heart-welling felt vow
Spectrumed rainbow of our arrowed heart,
Protecting our intertwined soul and body
Not tempted, nor wayward
But delivered from every
Disloyal fragmented moment.

For an eternal now choosing
True love so royal streamed
From time to time to time,
Through the first falling sky-up
On mount passion's verdant peak
High above the desert of briefness,
We begin newly blessed, giving life;

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake,
And the stars shine in our room
From time to time to time

With the snapping of the corked top
And the delicious splash
Of champagne on a sun-covered table,
And the burgundy bottle never empties
And our two communing glasses shine,

In the shimmering, luminous union
And the moon lights our room
And the stars’ shine on the lake
On our wedding night over and over and over,
You all in white lace
Warm in my embrace
And ever after.



By Daniel Wilcox

First published, different form
in The Shine Journal,
and in selah river



--


Northeast Night

Under the warm stars
Of that Whittier night,
Not Snowbound
Globally warmed,
Sliding,
Not sledding,
A lass and a lad
–Lasted, ever
Clung so close
Warming,
Like maple syrup
Snuggling
Within his
Large parka,
Smoozing,
Below
A maple
Tree



By Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Jeanette Cheezum’s
cavalcade of stars


--



Summer of Love in Philadelphia

Twenty-two flights above Rittenhouse Square
in the spring of the fall you carved a smilin' pumpkin
candled at your windowed level,
a light in the times of horror and stress;
But below, we wandered our nights with
chapped hands interlocked, pocketed in my coat suede.

We walked blind streets of revolutionary warmer, earlier days
and handled paddles, splashing and pulling canal water,
canoeing near the Delaware,
swishing and crossing where Washington
and we escaped near New Hope,
our newest way from countless foes
through spaces of pilings of bridges
of lush foliage over hung.

We were loving friends three times over
in the spirit and the soul and the city;
though warmed in closeness we never caressed,
for you talked of betweeness and violin practice
and your distant boyfriend on the coast.
I called you evenings when I felt
despair, drafted away from Nam, taught
to work with lost children handicapped
by their errant parent's living.

But summer saw you in Quaker action
In raining D.C. for King's impoverished ones
while I never saw you ever after.

Yet your letters far crossed this land of Guthrie
from Reed in the redwoods of Oregon
To south in teeming L.A.
in the movement of the angels, where
I couldn't see clenched hands or shattered glass
like in the new left bank of America so Isla Vista,
Instead searched of the ancient so
coral deep in the past

on the wretched Cross spanning the centuries,
kind hands outstretched and open wide.

No more passioned letters reach
me,
And Oregon no longer knows
you.

But I 'wonder' in this living stream —
And will now hold you up in the Light,
For within my part of you so longs.


By Daniel Wilcox

First published in Wild Violet Magazine,
and in Quill & Parchment,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls

--


Kiss your true love in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Finding Hope in the Midst of Tragedy and Evil

I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The Divine Right of Human Rights*

Human Rights? What are they?

Though Thomas Jefferson, (revolutionary, legislator, liberator, enslaver), lived a hypocritical, contradictory life, his clarion words still ring out and illuminate the nature of human rights.

“…All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those rights were the essence of the Enlightenment.

If human rights are truly grounded in the very Nature of Being and Becoming, in the Eternal Essence of Existence, then they are rights which can’t be taken away, except wrongly by force, deception, and intolerance.

Rights are the truism of objective ethics. Yes, humans rights are grounded in Right in the absolute sense. Where ever there are conscious, rational, ethical living species anywhere in the universe, rights will exist.

Listen to Martin Luther King Jr. on this topic: “The first is this—the first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws…some things are right and some things are wrong.
(Yes)
Eternally so, absolutely so...Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute.”

But because of many factors, some leaders now, instead, try and base human rights on only finite sources. Shaky at best.

Grounding “human rights’ in anything finite whether evolutionary change, certain forms of government, various books, even good united statements such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights is wrong. That’s right. While all of these finite sources are understandable, they are all fraught with problems because they form very insecure foundations.

What human authority can give, it can take away. As it often does.

There’s always a “reason” to deny someone his or her rights. And according to millions of people, it’s always “we” who have the good reasons, and “them” who have the bad reasons.

As far back as Abraham Lincoln (with his denial of legal rights, etc. to pro- Southern legislators and citizens) and even further to John Adams (with the Alien and Sedition Acts), the U.S. government has, repeatedly, managed to justify the denial of human rights.

Indeed, try and think of any U.S. president who didn’t take away rights from citizens illegally and unfairly. I doubt one can find one!

Then think of how this denial of human rights has gone on through the centuries in all other countries as well, often to a very destructive degree. So unwell, so morally sick.

Hell (intentional double entendre), even grounding human rights in the Divine, doesn’t safeguard humans. Just look at some religious human rights defenders who often deny rights to “others.”

But at least starting with “human rights” as an irrevocable fact/ought/truth based in the very essential nature of ultimate reality is a start.

In the Light of Human Rights,

Daniel Wilcox

*Blog Action Day: “Every year since 2007, thousands of bloggers come together for one day to talk about one important issue.”

The Beginning of Wisdom

Remember we spoke last time of how Scripture is paradoxical, of how the Bible is mainly pictorial, symbolical, and mythical and less often or seldom logical, philosophical, and scientific. Poetic utterances come forward more often than journalistic prose.

So how does this help us to understand biblical contradictions? Consider Psalms 110:10-112:1 saying "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom..How blessed the man who fears Yahweh..." versus I John 4:7-21 saying "Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God..God is love..There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love."

First, notice that humans are "blessed" who fear God. In Scripture, to be blessed is a wondrous happiness. Obviously, the writer isn't dealing with the kind of fear that we often think of when we use the word today. When a person says he has a fear of terrorism, he is not "blessed."

Second consider a rather simplistic analogy: I both fear and love the Grand Canyon. I've never cringed toward the Canyon; that is not what I mean by fearing the Canyon. Rather, when I was on one of my many trips into the Grand Canyon backpacking, I had to crawl across several rocks slides and move along a trail only as wide as a large book and slanted toward a cliff which plummeted straight down over 1,000 feet!

The wind was blowing, yanking on my 60-pound backpack. Let me tell you, I was aware of the awesome danger--that this was real not some virtual game or safe tourist area. I feared the Canyon!

Yet contradictorily, I loved the Canyon. Few times in my life have I ever felt so in love with any place, any scene. To descend down dangerous trails, being able to look back geologically millions of years and outward visually for miles and miles, the vista so vast that I almost ended in ecstatic awe!

Extrapolate this basic example to fearing and loving Absolute Goodness, Total Truth, Ultimate Reality. Fearing and loving God are complimentary responses/actions. Ecstatic awe and deep intimate relationship with the Eternal are together as one. At least that is Jesus' view.

When I John writes that there is no "fear in love" he isn't speaking of absolute awe. Rather the writer is saying that an individual who responds to God's love will no longer have a cringing kind of fear of God. He or she will live in the Beloved.

Consider this modern version of these scriptural passages: "The Love of God is the beginning of wisdom."

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature of Reality: Step #1

What is the true nature of Reality? Notice the capital R. I'm not talking about the finite observable present day-to-day temporal world of basic facts which includes humans as one form of primate undergoing evolutionary change.

Rather, I am speaking of the ultimate category of reality of which philosophers, physicists, and cosmologists refer to, and what religious people and mystics say they experience--the ultimate objective source of Being and Becoming.

Where does "all this" come from and eventually go to?

After this cosmos in so many trillions and trillions of years either stretches out space to infinity or implodes back to a singularity, what will still BE?

Why are we here? Are there eternal truths?

Of course some philosophers and scientists declare there is nothing "out" there beyond matter and energy. The cosmos-- maybe universes beyond universes--has no Meaning or Purpose, only IS for no reason.

Scientists such as Richard Dawkins claim that even to think there might be some Meaning behind it all is to be deluded in the worst sort of way. He wrote The God Delusion to try and demonstrate this central non-theistic thesis.

And Stephen J. Gould the famous Darwinian biologist, in a magazine interview, said humankind itself is only a "fluke" of evolution that probably wouldn't show up again if evolution were re-run another time.

Other famous scientists in this chorus of non-meaning include Coyne, Harris, Cashmore, Hutchens, Monad, Dennett, and Provine.

Dawkins' most famous statement against religion and the transcendent is probably his declaration in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:

"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so."

"If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored."

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice."

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
--

So there is the first option as to the true nature of Reality: Matter, Energy, and Chance or Cosmic Determinism. The natural, indifferent Cosmos itself is all there is.

We humans are an accidental species or "meat puppets" who construct our own illusions.

Then die. Eventually we as a species will go extinct.

In strong contrast, Enlightenment figures argued that consciousness, reason, human rights, justice, equality, and so forth show evidence of the essential nature of existence--the Deity.

And Friends have trusted for 300 hundred years that Ultimate Reality is Loving Relationship, Equality, Purpose--
that at the very center and heart of Reality are eternal truths, everlasting ideals, absolute love.

Some other faiths agree with the Society of Friends. Transcendent Love is the Center of the Cosmos.

Martin Buber, the Jewish mystic wrote a book on God, titled, I-Thou, which speaks of a love relationship between God and each human.

The Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., (despite his own moral failings), strongly held to Ultimate Reality being loving and good and true and just.

In his speech "Rediscovering Lost Values," King said, "The first principle of value is that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations."

"In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws..."

"I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so."

"It's wrong to hate. (Yes. That's right) It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It's wrong in America. It's wrong in Germany..."

"It was wrong in 200 B.C. and it's wrong in 1954 A.D...It's wrong in every age and it's wrong in every nation."

"Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute."
--

No doubt early Friends would have ascribed non-theism to the "ocean of darkness" that threatens humankind. So how is it then that some Friends in the last 40 years have come out stating there is no God to worship, no Ultimate Reality to "quake before"?

They say God is a fiction, a word which does not represent anything real.

It is uncertain why such Friends deny God's existence. We are all doubters to one degree or another, but when humans, especially Friends, claim for certain that there is no God, it is puzzling and distressing.

After all both names--"Friend" and "Quaker"--are in reference to God. And the vital central focus of a Quaker meeting is worship of the Truth, the Light, the Divine.

If there is no One--no Center--to worship, then it would appear that such individuals are consciously choosing to pretend, what other non-theists such as Dawkins term "delusion."

Before I continue with an introduction to the Friends view of worship, let me emphasize that ALL humans are invited to come to commune in worship, even those who don't think there is any Ultimate Reality to live in and commune with. Hopefully, they will encounter the Truth, the Light.

After all, remember what Stephen King that famous Quaker horror writer;-) wrote in his novel, The Stand. In response to an atheist's statement that he doesn't believe in God, the heroic leader in the novel laughs and says, "But that don't matter. He believes in you."

To be continued


In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox