an old writer and his words

  • WITHOUT WITHIN

    When you peer through the glass are you looking out, or are you looking in, and how would you know which is true, and does it matter. When you walk through a gate are you entering or leaving. If you ask where the gate is located, you cannot find where you are going, for all…

    Lou Faber

  • PREPARE FOR LANDING

    And then there is the abyss where it all comes crashing back down on you and there is nothing and no one, and you grasp and find only yourself at the bottom and arise, crawl up and out, and nothing has changed except the face of one who saw you fall. You say words meant…

    Lou Faber

  • WALKING

    Walking on ice is easy, although you must be careful not to slip for the fall can be damaging, but walking on water is impossible unless you are not you, and he has returned in your body which we all find highly unlikely, although the difference between you is a simple state of matter. The…

    Lou Faber

  • ZAZEN

    He likes the sitting, at least at first. It does calm him, as it is supposed to, and he knows he needs calm in his life. Even his knees accept the stillness for a while. Soon enough they begin to question the wisdom of this practice. Good for him, maybe, but hell for them, regardless…

    Lou Faber

  • TRIPTYCH

    Origami cranes take to the sky, devour clouds denying winter. Zebra butterflies hover, dance on rays of light never tomorrow The pond imagines itself one day a great lake its shore dreams of spring.

    Lou Faber

  • AND CHARITY

    Faith, or is it hope, seems directly proportional to the need we have to believe in what some would call a miracle. In Hebrew the word for charity can also be translated justice. Faith, he says, is hope with a Godly intervention for hopes can easily go unfulfilled, but faith lingers, and isn’t given up…

    Lou Faber

  • TUNG SHAN’S NO COLD OR HEAT

    You say all you seek is moderation, simply finding a middle way, though nothing at all would suffice for you, no pleasure, no pain, no loss or gain, you would willingly attach to nothing at all. This is not the path the Buddha would tell you, for the place you claim to seek cannot ever…

    Lou Faber

  • WASH IN

    The morning paper said that a surprising number of Portuguese man o’ war washed up on the beach yesterday, bringing out the Dangerous Marine Life flags. The paper also featured stories on two fatal hit and runs, a person killed in an apparent drug deal gone bad and the opening of a redone highway exit…

    Lou Faber

  • LAKE SHORE LIMITED

    The little girl-women pile onto the train carrying backpacks, pillows and stuffed animals, all they will soon leave in the rooms of childhood. In the train’s café, Gerald welcomes us back his “established customers,” he says to all, as we sit beneath the wide awning that is his smile, sipping the much needed coffee.

    Lou Faber

  • KNOT WHAT YOU THINK

    “Trying to explain the Old Testament is like trying to untie a series of Gordian Knots.” He said that often, and few argued with him. Whether they did not argue because they agreed, or simply wanted to avoid his unwillingness to cease pushing until the other or others conceded whatever point he was making hardly…

    Lou Faber