an old writer and his words

  • THE BEARDLESS BARBARIAN 無門關 四

    A young childhas no beard. In one dreamyou are beardedand awake clean shaven. In one dreamyou are clean shavenand awake rubbing your long beard. When you meet your dreamsand when your dreams meet,which is real, Wakuan asks. A reflection on Case 4 of the Mumonkan 無門関 (The Gateless Gate Koans)

    Lou Faber

  • CHOSEN WORDS

    There are times when I pause and wonder howthe words that are my stock in trade view me.Do I empower them, give them a meaningthat they would lack without my imposedcontext, or do I imprison them, locking themon a page or screen, forced into proximitywith others they never would have chosen.What would they say to…

    Lou Faber

  • SOME SAY

    Some say that we live our livesin ordinary time, fraught in a worldbeyond our comprehension, beyondour control, and not the ordinary timeof the church, which is now anything but ordinary as we must live it.People talk of the new normal as iffurious that abnormality can be normalizedby labeling it as such, rather than actingto return…

    Lou Faber

  • A CHANCE MEETING

    For two years we occupied the same spaceevery week for nine months each year, yetwe never met until thirty years later, at the homeof friends in common, and the realizationwas the source of surprise and humor.How could you inhabit the halls and studiosof a radio station, college but the worlddid not know that, at least…

    Lou Faber

  • QUANTUM

    The universe is bothenormously vastmeasurable only in metaphorand so infinitesimally small,an ideathat would fitin the cornerof a grain of sand.As you walk the beachgrasp universesbetween your toesand kick theminto the tideof the cosmos. First appeared in Litmora Literary Magazine, Issue 5 – Beyond the Cosmoshttps://www.litmoralitmag.com/faber-two-pieces

    Lou Faber

  • SPLIT

    Setting apart, that is our skill:bifurcating, creating dualities.Is it that unity scares us, certaintyunavoidable, no room to escape,to deny, to invoke missing nuance?One of my religious heritagessays you remove head coveringson entering a sanctuary, the otherthat you put one on upon doing so.One says you are born a sinnerthe other says until a certain ageyou…

    Lou Faber

  • NEVER OURS

    Try as we do to draw linesimpose borders to delineatewhat we claim is ours and whatwe reluctantly cannot claim,the ocean will have none of it.It willingly reminds us thatit’s ebb and flow predates usand will barely note our passing.

    Lou Faber

  • GUTEI RAISES A FINGER 無門關 三

    One finger,a moment Guteione finger, that wayone finger, unity what have you learnedone finger,cut off,a moment in all directions no direction but stilla unity. A reflection on Case 3 of the Mumonkan 無門関 (The Gateless Gate Koans)

    Lou Faber

  • AND THEN

    My Buddhism teaches me that Ishould be in this moment,present in an infinitesimally smallbit of time, always here, never staying.This morning my back had an issuewith me, and made its displeasure known.Pain fills moments, elongates themand time ever moving appears to slow,to grind along, almost to a halt.Would that pleasure might do the samebut it…

    Lou Faber

  • MURDER

    It is one thing to murder your little darlings, as writers like to say, but as a poet it is wholly another thing to murder your children, those you have raised from birth on the page, tended with care hoping they might one day leave home and find their place in the world. How do…

    Lou Faber