Bridges

I am rather taken with the building of bridges;

particularly those humongous constructions

that reach out from opposing sides

to meet, by design and artifice, in the middle.

And I laud the engineers and artisans

who make it happen.

The bridges I am tasked to build

are more challenging (or so it seems)

since they are meant to span

the vertiginous chasms and ravines

between Thee and Me.

Small wonder most collapse before they're finished.

I reach out into wind-swept emptiness

and call to my neighbour opposite

to reach out

and to meet me halfway,

that we might share a tale or two

about life and the point of it.

Would that the bridge we build

be made of stronger stuff;

of high-tensile fibre and girders

forged in the red-hot furnace of our hearts,

and tempered in the ice-cold waters

of a real world.

How amazed are we, on occasion rare,

when we find ourselves mid-span and together,

peering into roaring depths below

and humbled that we,

with conjoined intent and effort

made Me and Thee into the mighty span of We.

© Karel Reus

Retired Preacher

Retired preacher,

left high and dry,

without a flock,

without the weekly gig

of sermonising.

Take comfort.

You are released from pretence,

self-censorship,

and walking tightropes

over vertiginous convention

and orthodoxy,

What will you do, retired preacher?

Take a trip, perhaps,

or read some books,

play golf,

attend theatre,

make things,

grow things,

and forget,

(if that is possible),

the call,

once loud and clear,

to save souls,

demand justice,

administer the means of grace,

love

and declare

Good News.

Been there! Done that!

You've done your bit.

It's up to others now.

Think again, retired preacher!

A door has opened,

not closed.

Ahead is time,

perhaps a decade,

give or take,

when you might

breathe fresh air,

unpolluted

by the politics of faith,

when you might

speak your mind.

Now is the time to speak, retired preacher.

No better time, in fact.

The thought police can't get you now.

No need to toe the Party Line.

At long, long, last

you can tell it as it is,

express your certainties and doubts,

declare allegiances

and show a way forward

without looking back.

And if there is no audience;

no docile congregation,

be brave,

and write it down

and cast it like bread

upon the water,

and trust,

and trust again

your words will find a shore.

© Karel Reus

Legacy

My restless mind scans the vista

of a life now almost run its course.

I seek the signs of paths and tracks

I once had thought were straight and true,

though now I see they twist and turn

with little reason.

I seek those rises where

I planned for ventures bold and brave.

I seek the valleys dark

where, brooding, I had lost my way.

Where are the mighty towers that I have raised

to mark my passing;

where I declared that this brief life

was worthy of attention;

where I, like Darius of old,

had carved upon the rock in bold conceit

"See, I have made this world a better place"?

Why is it that I can no longer find

these monuments to me?

I see life’s wasteland now

for what it is;

blighted way-stops,

lost hopes and chance diversions.

I see this wildness now

for what it is;

illusion.

It will be best by far

to find myself in smallness,

knowing that my legacy is

little more than this -

that I was here, and that I’ve gone,

that I once passed this way,

my life’s tread too light to leave a mark.

Put simply, I just was, and in my was-ness

I loved a little, cried a lot,

learned much, forgot too soon,

built castles in the air

and made, at times,

together with fellow pilgrims far too few,

a we-were-here-ness that left

some trace somewhere, sometime, somehow.

© Karel Reus

Can there be death after life?

Can there be death after life;

a snuffing-out,

extinguishment

stillness, stasis

no-more-ness,

repose, at rest,

all done and dusted

in pacem?

The last breath slams

our vision's shutters,

and mind's meanderings stop sharp.

Micro-lives feed richly

and inextinguishable life

(soul, atman, if you like),

asserts its right to rule.

But what of me,

who built, broke bread,

laughed, cried, and imbued

the world (my world),

with purpose and with love?

But what of me,

who dared assume to hear

(in part at least),

the music of the heavens,

who watched the play of good and ill,

emotion's mess,

seductive beauty,

the mind of God?

Was all of that just vanity,

reduced at last

to cannibalising drives

of my microbial selves?

Can I find a modicum of joy

in melding with the universe's stuff?

Can I see plot and plan

in tooth-and-claw

transforming present me to future me

in a where and when unknown?

Rouse yourselves, you arbiters of meaning;

you architects of prose,

whose grandiloquent blocks,

dare house a god

who needs no walls.

Bestir yourselves

authorities in god-talk,

come down from your high place

and tell me, as my eastern neighbours do,

that there will be a welcome end to life;

a peace at last.

© Karel Reus

The meaning of my life, and other myths

A preface to the poem We Are All Compost, presented for discussion at the meeting of the Progressive Explorers Group (PEG) at the Glen Iris Uniting Church, Wednesday, 28th March, 2018.

++++++++

I have never been tempted to join in the headlong rush to unearth the real me. I have never, even remotely, been interested in meeting the real me, and I suspect that this me, supposedly more real than the me-s I encounter in my daily life, would be a great disappointment. So, when John ***** asked me to join with him as Poet to explore the meaning of life for me you might understand the dilemma I faced; since, if there is no me, then there can't be a meaning of life for me.

I have long taken the position that there are many me-s; each constructed by people I meet, or who know me by rumour or reputation. I am known and understood through their eyes and other senses, and I am a construct of what they perceive and believe they know. I am known in multiple guises,

and the interplay of those guises will be my legacy. I have no problem with that; in fact I rejoice in it. And if you ask me to square my Faith with this multi-dimensional me, I will have to say that of all the perceivers and knowers out there, the one whose construct of me counts the most is He who, for better or worse, I call my God. As Bishop Berkeley asserted, we are all ideas in the Mind of God.

If I am consistent then I will have to admit to not knowing the meaning of life for me; in fact I don't understand the question. I don't believe I was meant to be. I don't believe that I have a destiny, and that there is a map constructed by the Great Cartographer on which is inked a route for my life.  I do accept (and accept in joy) that I leave behind a random forensic trail of scraps and bits and pieces that will, with luck, become part of that great stage of being on which I have been privileged to play, just for a moment or two, a conscious part, and on which I will continue to act, but in other forms.

I have been a most fortunate participant in that great adventure called "life". It's been a ripper ride, despite its ups and downs. That is not going to stop.  For me the question is not "is there life after death?", but "is there death after life?" For my Buddhist friends that too is the ultimate question. However, they seek the end of it all. I, on the other hand, rejoice in the survival of the great life force. That, surely, must mean something.

And so to the poem:


© Karel Reus

Gelassenheit

The Benedictines embrace it.

The Amish live by it.

The Buddhists commit to it.

Islam demands it.

It is the silent space of spirit

and the heart-wrought home of soul.

It is the breath of God.

It is enveloping presence

of the great ground of being.

Gelassenheit

Submit.

Accept.

Go with the flow.

Suppress ego,

banish pride,

cast self aside,

disdain hurly burly,

and listen, listen.

Let silence speak

and in humility

pray, and pray again,

speaking only when you're spoken to.

Gelassenheit

            Yeah! Right!

            More easily said than done.

            It goes against the grain;

            requires work and close attention.

            It smacks of cowardice;

            and escape from duty.

            It seems a way to avoid issues;

            a cringing retreat.

            Weren't we meant to strive

            and prove our worth

            and pull our weight

            to show our faith?

Gelassenheit

But submission

is far from cowardly retreat.

Acceptance of the way things are

is not excuse for sloth.

Clear sight leads to knowing,

and knowing shows what needs be done.

            In gelassenheit we see the God

            that walks ahead

            and on the track he marks for us

            we may also walk.

Gelassenheit


© Karel Reus

Cui bono? (Who benefits?) *

I do not benefit

from ecclesial claptrap

couched in formal cadences

from churchy high places.

I do not benefit

from dogmatic gobbledygook

delivered sealed, signed, certified

from learned sources.

I do not benefit

from mystery parading as certainty,

impeding the quest for knowledge

with false starts and clues.

I benefit from truth;

truth said, truth thought,

truth done, truth taught,

truth the respecter of doubt,

truth uttered plainly,

truth lived with conviction.

I benefit from beauty;

beauty made, beauty seen,

beauty felt, beauty heard,

beauty the fruit of spontaneity,

beauty the child of labour,

beauty lived with joy.

I benefit from labour;

labour earnest, labour content,

labour productive, labour meaningful,

labour for its own sake,

labour sharing God's work,

labour done with dignity.

I benefit from love;

love from the heart, love boundless,

love with no conditions, love harnessed,

love challenged, love tested,

love the font of compassion,

love from need, love from duty.

I benefit from pain;

pain that tests, pain that teaches,

pain shared in anguish,

pain banished, pain defeated,

pain that brings me close to God,

pain the measure of my person.

I benefit from my humanity;

humanity distilled from cosmic chaos,

moving closer, ever closer,

to imago dei.**

I dare believe that I may also play a part

as God's stumbling helper.

I benefit from Jesus;

by what he said, by what he did,

by the roads he walked, by the meals he ate,

by his cures, his blessings,

by his challenges and condemnations.

I benefit from Jesus as imago dei perfecta, ***

and live in hope that by imitation and the grace of God

I too may be of benefit.

*Cui bono?: Who benefits? (pron. Kwee bono)

**imago dei: Image of God

***imago dei perfecta: Perfect image of God


© Karel Reus

Coming and going...

Most conceptions are unexpected.
Few births are convenient.
Life rarely begins as rural idyll;
complete with deodorised shepherds,
confused followers of heavenly light and angel hosts.
But, even lacking such tableaux,
each new life is incarnation of vital Spirit
and a declaration of hope.

All life is a puzzlement;
a random mix of purpose and happenstance
of which we make but little sense.

And death is mystery
that always comes too soon.
You might think that something so commonplace
might attract more timely attention.


© Karel Reus

Don't

Don't thrust a book at me,

(not even the ”Good Book”),

with intent to ensnare me.

Don't read a tract to me,

as if two thousand year-old words

can magically save my soul.

Don't pray at me with lowered gaze

and gracious platitudes and weasel words

reeking with sincerity and good intent.

Don't preach at me from your sacred soap box

as if you've leave through call or learning

to show to me the Mind of God.

Don't forgive me

as if my sins are known to you

and you can speak for God.

Don't try to make a difference

if you won't do the heavy work

and get some dirt beneath your nails.

Do hold my hand

and walk with me.

I do get lost, confused.

As buddies, mates,

we have a better chance.

And know me,

know me please;

my weakness and my strength

and passions,

and hopes and loneliness.

Let's talk and talk

and talk some more

and read and pray.

And if your faith is worth

more than a pinch of salt,

walk the extra mile with me.

You can wear my shirt,

and we will fathom

what this gig is all about.

© Karel Reus

Condescension noted

Your condescension is noted;

duly recorded in my ever-widening margins,

along with your concern, and empathy

and ostentatious pastorality.

What I require (indeed need)

is acknowledgement and respect,

and an understanding that the road I took

is of some significance.

"Stop right now!", I hear the young ones cry.

"Information overload!"

"For God's sake, be your age,

and merge with dignity into your shadowlands!"

But this I assert

to all you denizens of whippersnapper-dom.

I still have things

to say and do.

I, who daily hoist

the load of four score years and more,

am happy to unload

some timely wisdom onto you.

I know about:

• ·         learning from experience;
• ·         understanding incarnated entropy and decay;
• ·         the value of undemonstrative devotion;
• ·         the price of honest talk;
• ·         the joy of stillness;
• ·         the love of words;
• ·         the need for silence;
• ·         the power of simplicity;
• ·         the consequence of war;
• ·         the fragility of peace;
• ·         the temptations of power;
• ·         the burden of constant pain;
• ·         really knowing oneself and knowing one's limits;
• ·         relating to mystery;
• ·         the illusions of false humility;
• ·         understanding both sides;
• ·         the elusiveness of love;
• ·         the futility of hate;
• ·         the need for recognition;
• ·         not overvaluing achievement;
• ·         making use of being useless;
• ·         forgiving one's enemies;
• ·         serving in little ways.

So, you who are still age-challenged

and crippled by inadequacies of youth,

note that I've been there, done that.

Raise your High Street lattés to me and my ilk,

and your fresh-pressed juice,

and nine-grain sourdoughs,

and hush your organic eco-talk,

and walk with us, and talk with us;

cry with us, fear with us,

laugh with us,

and share these lives

not yet complete....

© Karel Reus

He did the same last week

He makes his way between the pews,

hymn and prayer books in one hand,

pew sheet in the other;

            (his day pack, as it were, for this short trip to who knows what).

In passing by he nods to some.

An eyebrow raised. A formal smile.

Hand raised. No words.

Admirable manners and civility.

Shorthand body talk.

No word for closeness.

In this place where habit reigns

            he did the same last week and the weeks before.

Like others in this sacred space, he knows his place.

He finds his seat, unmarked
but understood by all but strangers (mercifully few),

to be his spot.

It's been that way since Adam was a lad - or so it seems.

            It was his last week and the weeks before,

The organist plays softly.

The tune, familiar, though not rousing, sets a mood.

He checks the hymn list,

grateful that among them are a few he knows,

but irritated that there is one he's never heard or sung.

The matter gets but passing thought.

It's been a while since he sang ...anyway.

The minister will no doubt tell his flock

that it is good to try things new.

            He did that last week and the weeks before.

A reflex causes him to glance

at the empty spot beside him.

She sat there every week,

but now she's gone to God, or so they said,

though he has trouble grasping that,

or picturing the look of her at all.

How strange that all those years have left so little trace;

that memory is but a passing joke.

            He missed her last week and the weeks before.

His fragment reverie is shattered by the organ's chord

and in comes ”Rev” in fancy dress

(where did that ir-Rev-erent thought come from?).

And so the show begins.

At last the pastor steps up to that higher place

and tells of mighty works of God,

and grace, and love, and peace,

            as he did last week and the weeks before.

He tries to follow,

but his truant mind diverts and taunts him,

taking him down twisting paths.

He tries, O God he tries, but fails.

The pastor, nice bloke that he is, cannot connect.

The sermon ends though, trying,

he cannot bring to mind the point of it,

assuming that it had one.

Was it about sin and forgiveness?

Those ideas he still can't understand,

despite the memories of hurts he caused ...and injuries.

He tries to pray, but fails. He tries again.

            It was the same last week and the weeks before.

The final prayers and hymns march on, and then it ends.

His back is sore. He never mentions it,

but pain is what he pays

for this strange hour in the house of God

Were he to bother, he might see his pain as penance,

but he won't, because it's not his word,

            nor was it last week or the weeks before.

He shuffles from the pew,

and in the aisle a lady asks about his health

and a bloke shakes hands and says g'day

and someone comments on the weather

and invites him to stay for a cuppa and a cake.

            It was the same last week and the weeks before.

In time he gets back home,

seeks out his favourite chair,

registers the emptiness and,

remote control in hand,

he falls asleep.

            He did the same last week and the weeks before.

© Karel Reus

We are all compost...*

I am what's left of scraps

and scrapings

from life's many snacks

and feasts.

I am peelings and parings

and cores and pips.

I am remains of dinners burnt;

of false starts

and failed cuisines.

I am what's left of parties

and festive times

and wakes.

I am detritus of ideas,

ambitions,

hopes,

and schemes,

cooked on

a slow flame,

tasted,

tested,

digested (in part),

then cast aside.

I am rich loam.

Spread what is left of me

to grow a world

beyond my wildest dreams.

My composted life

is yukky and a little on the nose,

but it's good enough

for you to tend

your garden bed.

* ”...we are all compost for worlds we cannot yet imagine.”

From ”Ambition” in Whyte, David, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington, 2015.

© Karel Reus

Deathbed etiquette for a grumpy old man (Ich habe genug)

Be still, please, just be still, and quiet too, lest your loose tongue intrudes, when dumbness is by far the best response. In case my physical repose leads you astray, know this, my dears, that much is going on, in which you now play minor parts. Know your place. You had your chance. This is my show now. Stop and listen with me while I assess this final time; when chickens homeward come, jigsaw thoughts fall into place, warning signals flash, and gentle harmonies vie with strident chords for my attention. Don’t interrupt this final drama with puerile assurances of paradise to come, or reunions, or salvation. At this time it just may be that I know more of these than you. Perhaps you speak with well-intentioned ignorance, of ideas arising more from dogma than from knowledge. For me this final warm enfolding ignorance, is welcome and I seek no more the resolution of contradiction and paradox. I do not need your psalms and songs. Enough it is that Bach and Rembrandt walk with me – …and Jesus. Tunes, images and visions draw me on. Do not speak to me, or of me, with forced jollity. Do not pray over me. Do not bless me. Don’t belabor me with sheep and shepherds, with valleys green and running waters. Don’t burden me with religion. No angels, if you don’t mind. My devils live within me still and you, for all your mumbo-jumbo, will not banish them from these last thoughts. You, who lived with me, around me, for me, against me may do one thing, and one alone. You may do what I in my fragility have never sought, and you, in your haste, have never offered. You may hold my hand Steadily, firmly, silently, without the nervous pats and anxious strokes that speak more of you than me, and you may offer me quiet, steady, encompassing forgiveness, for all the many ills that I have left behind; for all the shards of well-meant deeds left shattered and scattered in your path. © Karel Reus