Best Seminary Poems
The dear old pastor had occupied the same pulpit for years and years;
He preached fire, damnation and The Hereafter scorching his congregants ears!
He had baptized hordes of kids and officiated when they married,
And comforted many mourning souls when their loved-ones were buried!
He suffered through stormy sessions at the monthly meetings of The Board,
And withstood the bickering of sisters of The Women's Guild, utterly bored!
Some of his flock were as stubborn as army mules and were quite contrary!
He faced challenging situations that they didn't teach about in seminary!
He confided with his long-suffering wife proclaiming, "This is the pits!"
And after serving the Lord nigh on thirty years he decided to call it quits.
He advised The Board that he was retiring due to health issues, you see.
(Truth was, he quipped, "I was sick of them and they were sick of me!")
A virgin out searching for God
Discovered that God was a fraud!
How can peace endure
Or girls remain pure
When males come equipped with a prod?
Eyes of Seminary – Zamreen Zarook
Every day in our lives has different fragrance,
God give us various things in abundance,
Day by day knowledge is gained in accordance,
Things depend according to the attendance.
Two years of studies,
Helped us to come out with various abilities,
Extremely joyful moments with buddies,
But life said every aspect has its boundaries.
Teachers become very friendly,
They approach us very kindly,
They speak on us exaggeratedly,
Because they know, if not we might behave badly.
Big shots in the school boundary,
These are years of foundry,
It helped us to find and go for laundry,
Marvelous days, fully packed with sundry.
Various angles the kith and kins are civilized,
It’s because our knowledge is enhanced,
Guys and girls turned well experienced,
That’s why we call it levels of advanced.
The answer used to come with great ease
My answer wasn’t an answer at all, but a complimentary question,
“What’s it like to not be a twin?”
I bypassed the story of the grape jelly on mom’s new carpet when we were toddlers,
The 8 years of elementary school and junior high where we shared a classroom,
In 8 years I never had to write down an assignment, she was the conscientious one,
I played the violin, she played the piano, when my brother came home from the seminary UNSUPPORTED CODE WE UNSUPPORTED CODE gave him a concert
We weren’t identical, she was the cautious one, I was the adventurer
She took a job in high school, and when time came to retire, she was still working for that company,
On the other hand I changed employers every few years, “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”.
She never lived more than about 5 miles from our childhood home, yet in her travels to Europe she probably logged more passenger miles than I did including two tours of duty in Thailand and four on Guam.
Now I am alone, my coconspirator has passed on,
I’ll have to take blame for the jelly on the carpet, take down my own assignments, and do everything the same way that single birth people have always done.
What’s it like to be a twin?
It’s like no experience you have ever had, you’re always connected, you grow up with a built in playmate, you have someone that always takes a special interest in your wellbeing.
I realize all this now because she’s gone, now I see what it’s like to be a single birth and frankly, it’s a much bleaker existence than being a twin, to be more direct, being a single sucks, I want my twin back.
A semi baked semi colon is neither a seminar nor a seminary session. It is in fact the whirr of wheels from the large overweight apostrophe on a bike. Uphill downhill and all around the picturesque towns, villages and hamlets but not cities for cityscapes' are carnivorous and carnivores can charm even a chalice from a wagon if and when sealed with the juice of a steak. Well oiled grease test then. All in line. Good. Garages grab greenery giving great galloping geraniums. On the phone now are we? Oh good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. But never a good night in a customer query box ticked. Tickle a ticket to induce laughter. In many many rides on a bus or a train a mandatory mane maneuvers managing mere mobile movements. And always remember that the globetrotting goldfish in the wicker hat can sing mist loudly to a cone. Hahaha Kyu k pass hai saja hai mekhana and a fried onion belches to a melted cheese. *** geomorphologic Z
A time of revolution...
of a poet was at hand.
Of turbulence and triumph,
independent in a land.
On Golovinsky Prospect
to the main street of Tiflis.
Exploits of Djugashvili...
Tilipuchui Tavern was a fleese.
European fashions, Pushkin gardens,
grand hotels.
Often singing melodies,
he claimed poetry for his swells.
A wandering existence of a
Bolshevik to be.
The perfect crime was hidden...
as a mask, a robbery!
A poet was becoming...
a romantic in his life.
With a faith devoted to a struggle...
storm and strife!
Yet he never wavered,
an existence he believed,
that he alone was destined...
trial and suffering he'd achieve.
Liberation-freedom,
and the forces of a chain.
Death and combat were essential
for a lasting thing to gain.
The only lasting thing,
torn with conflict on the brink,
that would mark a struggle...
for a cause within a link.
There was constant trouble
and a lasting reprimand.
Return to seminary would not happen,
there again.
Yet he chose philosophy,
he created from the start.
A prisoner and in exile,
revolution was his art!
A new world he would order
from Baku to Petrograd.
Upon the Russian stage he'd step,
perhaps he had gone mad!
But he would bear a will...
that remained for all his days...
forever with a shadow,
contradiction in a haze.
Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky,
and the devils were his due...
A russian revolution
was the making of a Coup!
Outside, being outside, I thrill in nature’s seminary.
All lives sincere within earth’s sweet, sylvan sanctuary.
Trees never lied to hide their ancient commentary
or nature bid to conceal its ways often arbitrary.
As a golden, soft, internal peace dispensary,
nature does reveal mysterious ways unwary
of gifting precious tranquility I find necessary.
Alive, being alive, I soar when I may tarry
with nature’s simple, honest need, and frolic merry.
Abundant joy I do derive breathing solitary
while nature comforts me in her own monastery.
From ocean shore to ocean shore, mountain to prairie,
earth elements venerable release is salutary
for human grief to fly away in nature’s aviary.
Immanuel Kant, changed the spelling of his name from Emmanuel to "Immanuel" to accord with its Hebrew meaning: "God is with us." So, this quintessential Enlightenment thinker - and Thomas Jefferson a little after him - could not talk about God easily. Kant & Jefferson did not "know" God or prove Him in the ways we gain empirical knowledge through the senses. But Kant is no John Locke, locked into sensual data, unable to taste intuitions that beckon agape love, morality, dignity, desires to have children, longevity, and most essentially, for Kant, what remains the "holy in human rationality." By the way, imagine J. J. Rousseau ("Emile" author) called marriage "holy"! Do not quickly label enlightenment thinkers the way seminary or college tend to do!
So Kant did what is best and wisest with God. He said that Morality was crucial for religion, not vice versa, that God was helpful for morality, yet God could not be known empirically, so Kant chose to focus on reason and Human rationality as part of the image of God in human beings (Genesis 1-3, esp. 1:26-27). That is why his contributions to Moral Philosophy confounds so many - we cannot use anyone and anything as means to our ends; the highest and holiest thing we can do is build a corpus of universality in morality. Or more simply, do unto others as you would have done unto you: Do NOT elevate your desire or maxims unless you want it universally in all circumstances. I KANT see how Immanuel - who was eloquently grateful to his harness-maker dad and Pietist-leaning mom, is hated by Evangelicals at the Academy in general. Of course, there are exceptions (other than I? LOL!)
I
I am not BIRD
Yet in the Word
I am often eagle, winged
In strength, your protection
And so, Let there be Light
(versus Love) is no oversight
Because my light is fraction
Of my love in action
Not just fancy vocabulary
Missed by all, and the seminary
2
I began creation in love and light
Only one you see, without insight
My son chose, "Son of Man,"
But told religion, "I am"
(8:58 in John, and seven others)
He also is First among sisters, brothers
Yet that True Vine, ensuring they fruit
Father God, is husbandman, not root
Yet the triune root exists
We are one in aim, objectives
There is no rivalry, jealousy
We are the first Community
The communion and union
Our Love is not thy love, til glorification
3.
I am the gate, Jesus said (John 10)
David called me Good Shepherd, 23 Psalm
I am not these, yet I AM
Can you try to understand?
You personify me, First Person
O vocabulary is nice and cumbersome
I want silence, too, communion
Humanity give me things, my own creation
Since temples, ziggurats, pyramids
I want to be in thy midst!
That's my Creative Love
You'll know if you come above
In today’s highlight of moral issues:
leadership of clergy in the Catholic Church;
seen as a major backlog of urgent need
that came out as the topic of our guest speaker.
She’s Dr Monica Applewhite, Ph.D.
who presented ‘leadership’ in perspective
held at St Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers;
a huge place, a better rendezvous for this event.
Understanding the problem as the first item
brought us to embrace our roles as priests;
safe environments for children and adolescents
the main issue that was explored and shared.
The clergy of the whole archdiocese of New York
attended this session with learning experience;
it’s an update and a continuing information
that Church’s faith points to a shared witness.
With the presence of our beloved Cardinal Egan
who reinforced a plea for his clergy people,
alertness, action, vigilance and prayer
that’s how he drew the process in a nutshell.
Defined as a decision that demands seriousness,
our discipleship, our calling entails commitment;
as men of God in service to his own people,
our priority has its share of sorrows and joys.
To battle with the world, the flesh and the devil,
these are constant forces, tests and trials;
involved in this journey of following him,
Christ, our model and source of inspiration.
The cost of discipleship for someone like me,
embraces situations common to all people
how life is being led with depth and allegiance;
a biblical portrait, a priority matter, that Christ –
has called me to commit and be of service.
I studied liturgical theology in seminary.
Even so, I was struck by the simplicity
of Robin Wall Kimmerer's First Nation observation,
"Ceremony
is a vehicle
for belonging--
to a family,
to a people,
and to a land."
But,
what is necessary difference,
if any,
between ceremony and life,
between liturgy and loving words
and actions,
between medicine
and healing therapy?
Language
is a vehicle
for RightBrain sacred personal meaning
and LeftBrain exegetical purpose--
for co-arising ethology of Earth's sacred creation
and ecology of evolving and revolving,
spiraling lands and oceans
speaking in plant through harvest voices,
then Advent silence in-between
this great secular-sacred nutritional cycle
and divide.
Language of four-dimensional RealTime Seasons
with sacred and secular co-arising dynamic Reasons,
cooperative purpose
for gift economies
Flowing back toward (0)Soul Prime Relational meaning
for bilateral revolutions
of exterior Yang winds
covering interior Yin co-bilateral evolutions
of Earth's Sacred Baptismal Waters
Water minds
flowing
winding bodies.
Elder Sacred Right
speaks through ceremonies
of cooperative light,
ethology of Western Grace
and Eastern Karma,
co-arising Sacred Ecology
of polypathic love,
surpassing any creed,
language,
ceremony
Both (0)Sum Prime Relational Source
but also divinely sacred expanding love,
more perfectly cooperative Unions,
radical ecopolitical Welfare
of a species
within Earth's Great BiCameral Tribes
Speaking sacred Right meaning
and secular Left purpose
of restoring co-redemptive global vocations,
ego- with eco-therapies,
meditative medications,
bilateral secular-sacred co-intelligent consciousness.
Some of this
goes a bit deeper and yet wider
than what I love most
about Ecological Liturgy Studies.
So,
consider our (0)Soul BiCameral Source,
breathing Yang meaning and purpose in and up,
exhaling Yin ceremony and therapy out and down
Left 4dimensional SpaceTime Special Case,
Right Sacred PolyPathic OtherWise.
whether you like it or not, your priest, your pastor, your minister,
your clergyman
of whom you hold the utmost regard,
whose very advice
you secretly tell yourself has been inspired by
the lord your god &
maybe even “jesus” himself,
may in fact hold a very
deep
dark
secret---
your clergyman or woman may have come to the
rational
conclusion,
a long time ago,
that what it was that they went to seminary for,
that what it was that they themselves thought in the deepest reservoir of their hearts,
that the pure unadulterated faith
which they once held onto like a child does their mother’s hand
when walking in the city,
which they once thought was so obvious &
real,
is nothing but a cheap hoax of the most serious kind,
&
that it is all a
lie---
at best, this lie which they are still taking part in,
is one which they think brings comfort to their
flock,
it pays their bills,
above all, they have no idea what they would do
if they turned their back on the whole sham now,
after
wasting
half
their
life
peddling religious smut like a pimp on a street corner.
huddled in their corner at home,
locked up in the closet,
they bite their nails and bear upon their backs the weight
of the lie growing like a cancerous tumor---
they may have friends who are clergy,
with whom they can speak of losing faith in a roundabout
manner,
by which both parties are made to feel more comfortable
when the ambiguous nature of a conversation finally gets down to the
nitty-gritty,
that this sham
this character was NOT born of a virgin
that this character did NOT walk on water
never cured a leper
never turned water to wine
never turned a few fish & a loaf of bread to a feast for
thousands &
was never crucified, dead & buried only to
rise again.
inside their minds is an explosion ready to awaken
millions
that finally, even the prime liars in this campaign of
deception that has lasted a few thousand years
is
breaking---
it is all a matter of time before the technology that we
have produced as a species cures our very fear of
death &
without the fear of death,
you will no longer need to be a slave to these
charlatans
that continue to beat you senseless with their
poorly written fiction.
get ahead of the curve &
scrap it all before your shepherds do,
making you look like the sap that you presently
are.
There was a beach
Where Sandy would teach
The children how to swim
There was a ballfield
Where Blondie revealed
His secrets for hitting a ball
There was a library
Where Cynthia was the lady
Who helped you find books to read
There was an ice cream stand
Where the Sawyer clan
Sweetened your summer evenings
There was a set of tracks
Where we would make pennies flat
Then skip them across the river
There was a Rexall store
Where you could score
A milkshake that would make you sing
There was a mountain
Where the folks who do the counting
Proclaim it, most climbed one in the land
There were several cemeteries
Where each one’s preferred seminary
Kept separated the dead and the living
There were parades and jubilees
Where the whole community
Would celebrate life for a while
There is a small town
Where my roots can be found
Firmly planted in American soil
When I was in seminary
my spiritual director advised me to notice,
as had he,
that there are two kinds of:
Clergy
Those who understand their calling
as to coldly forgive
and heatedly challenge
all bedeviled sinners
And those who feel called to mentor
gods and goddesses
and all transgender images in-between
to warmly engage
and repeatedly comfort
all divinely endowed
panentheistic
Holy Spirited saints.
Lay Leaders
Those who live for a vacation
from telling Others why they must not do
whatever trauma-afflicted compulsion
we might feel addictively drawn toward
And those whose felt sacred vocation
is to communicate compassionately with Others
to therapeutically understand
what we would most love to be
and become
co-invested in ego-health
and ecosystemic-wealth
re-associatively together
Unconditionally regarding
both categories of Clergy
and Ego/EcoTherapeutic Lay Leaders
and All PolyCultural EarthTribal Creatures,
verbally dominant
and nonverbally
co-passionately prominent
Comforting the nonverbally afflicted
more than verbally afflicting
the too win/lose oppressed
survivalist
StraightWhiteCorporateMale
Business As Usual
RightWing Evangelical
anti-ecofeminist gospel truth
is Holy Spirit anathema
comfortable
with cognitive/affective chronic
bicameral dissonance
About having been raised in a seminary
with two kinds of Clergy.
A common misconception God can do anything,
That nothing is beyond God’s power to achieve
I hope you’ll excuse my examples on the wing,
None reflect on God, in whom we should believe.
In truth, God cannot create an unworthy soul.
To do so would be the antithesis of His nature
Because all souls reside in their creator, whole,
I say, possessing, like God, an everlasting future.
God cannot do evil actions; God is entirely good,
No evil can be ascribed to, or blamed on, God,
Be assured, God always does what He should
I am convinced nothing from God can be flawed.
God cannot hate those engaging in wrongdoing
For “hate” is not in God’s vocabulary; God is love.
Hating would be a totally unimaginable viewing
From our Creator’s unique position here or above.
God can’t make a stone so large He cannot lift it
Is the old seminary truism for consideration
Which can be debated in the most erudite skit
I’ll leave you all the above for your deliberation.
Written August 3, 2022