an old writer and his words

  • LISTENING

    We should have heardthe blasts of the trumpetsthat morning, encircling us,we caged in, imaginingourselves to be innocents. We should have heardbefore that day, but wehad chosen deafness,and the cries, the threatsof warning wereso easily cast aside. As the walls fellaround us we realizedthat we had no escapeand we cried to our Godas they cried out…

    Lou Faber

  • A SOMBER CELEBRATION

    Once again we celebrate a groupthat even most of its members wish wenever had to celebrate, wish there wasno need for, wish the very conceptof war was never realized or imagined.You have to pause and wonder why Godin his or her infinite wisdom allowedCain to kill Abel, allowed the seedsof greed to take purchase in…

    Lou Faber

  • THAT MOMENT

    I remember the first moment whenthe ophthalmologist told me my maculardegeneration in one eye had gonefrom dry to wet. I probably felt momentary fear.I had read enough to know that when one eyegoes, there is a fair likelihood the otherwill eventually follow, and wet AMDgenerally results in blindness.I have lost central vision in that eyebut…

    Lou Faber

  • 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