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WHAT DO YOU READ, MY LORD?
There is probably much that could be said, a bit less that should be said, but I I’m not the person to say it, and remain silent. You are surprised by the silence — it is not what you expect of me, and that you find disconcerting and a bit unnerving. If I asked you…
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TIME ERODES
The house is suddenly empty standing alone on a stark barren lot. The old drapes are drawn tight and little light enters, but there is no one there to see it. Every once in a while there is a rattle, a creaking, and you expect someone to appear in one of the now dark windows,…
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CHOSHA’S STOP ILLUSORY THINKING
Before life there is death, before death there is life. In life there is death, in death there is life, a worm cut in two, each half moves, in each a new worm or is there one worm. This I ask you, but answer or no answer both are full of Buddha nature. A reflection…
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NOT CLOSE ENOUGH
The church is about half full, which is to be kind, a quarter of the pews are filled, but people are spread widely apart to give the family, to give the priests, just to be on the safe side to give God, the impression of a fuller house, although it being a Mass of Resurrection…
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WITH THE GREATEST CARE
She looks carefully, not wanting the others to know what she sees, for she needs her secrets. She wanders over, the others follow totally unaware she has a goal, that she will not be satisfied until she attains it, and that she has a determination that would give them pause and no small measure of…
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INTO THE SOIL
She wants to know if I want to her gloves while planting so I don’t get dirt deep in my skin and under my nails. There is no way I can explain to her there is a certain joy in placing my fingers into the just wet soil, in moving it with my hands, squeezing…
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REAL TIME
Reality is clearly something to be avoided to be dressed up in tattery, tied in ribbons, perfumed, yet its fetid stench is always lurking in the background waiting to pierce your nostrils in an incautious moment until you retch and bring up the bile that marks the darker moments of your life, the kind that…
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THE VILLAGES
You are driving through the Florida that once was, that is off the coast, and out of Orlando, the Florida of jalousie windows, run down once gas stations and the more than occasional double wide. Suddenly, you are in a Disney version of a semi-tropical New England, gated villages where cars have been supplanted by…
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FALLS
The water pours endlessly, relentlessly over the lip, cascading into the gorge the mist rising, engulfing the rim of the falls, swallowing whole the small island, that will be eaten by the river over the next centuries. We sit in the comfort of our room, watching as if this was a movie, the water in…
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JIZO’S FLOWER
When you see a painting of a beautiful rose, how can you describe it. You must breathe deeply of its sweet fragrance Be careful, do not pierce your finger on its waiting thorns. The rose has withered into dust before your mouth is opened. A reflection on Case 76 of the Iron Flute Koans