The 60-Second Sabbath

What the Night Knows

lying awake in the dark
    hoping to sleep

the sprinklers start
    their nightly rotation

spitting, hissing
    spraying the darkness

Night whispers

    stop trying to grasp
        what cannot be grasped

    stop trying to define
        what cannot be defined

    stop trying to contain
        what cannot be contained

but how? I ask
    and wait

Abby perches on the foot board
    her white fur dim and ghostly
stares out the window
    still, silent, wise

I want to know what she knows

Night continues

    you lie upon the beach
        still and warm in the autumn sun
    the tide creeps in, slowly but steadily lifts you,
        slips you toward the sea
    you relax,
        you sink just below the surface
    now you are the Sea
        now the Sea is you

    you sit at the edge of the forest
        smell the pines, the damp earth
    you exhale
        with each exhalation
    you feel lighter, lighter, lighter...
        until, weightless
    you merge with the air
        you rise and float
    moving, like a balloon,
        with the wishing of the wind
    you are the Air
        and the Air is you

silence cloaks the room

Night concludes

    breathe in
        breathe out
    sink
        rise

    you are the Night
        and the Night is you

I slide into sleep
    dissolve into God...

Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Concerto

A chorus of cicadas
    thrum through the darkness.

Beneath,
    crickets fiddle.

Light flashes at the horizon;
    tympanic thunder growls, menaces.

The ceiling fan, wheeling overhead,
    ticks, ticks, ticks...

The oboe breeze, loose with coolness,
    flows like longing across my skin.

This mid-August concerto
    lulls me to sleep.

Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Seriously?

Do we really think
    our sins
are greater than
    God's forgiveness?

We must journey
    beyond ourselves;
our ballooning egos
    cling to--
wallow in--
    our guilt,
because somehow
    we feel weightier,
more important.

God rolls their sad, wise eyes.
    "Please, dear ones,
this is news so old
    it's long crumbled to dust.
Your inflated penitence
    is for your own benefit,
not mine.
    Release and relax,
exhale and let go;
    you were forgiven
long before you felt your failure."

Our sins are so much smaller than
    God's forgiveness.

Your
    sins
are so much smaller than
    God's forgiveness.

­­Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

        

Brimming with God

In stillness,
    in silence,
        I empty myself.

No, it is more like this:
    in this gift of stillness, of silence
        I am emptied,

a divine hand,
    tipping the glass of me,
        a welcome libation,
            pouring forth ego, illusion, separation.

In stillness, in silence--
    empty--
        I await the filling.

God fills me.
    I brim with God
        and all is God.

­­ Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

My Mind (Observations)

My mind is a house
    built on shifting sands.
My thoughts are shells on the beach,
    scattered, rearranged by each scrolling wave.

----

My mind is a great tool
    but an untrustworthy master,
used--carefully and only as needed--
    then set aside.

----

I am not my mind (thank you, God),
    nor my thoughts, nor my words.
I am the observer of mind,
    beyond thoughts, without words.

----

One day, I shall leave mind behind,
    along with thoughts and words, along with "I,"
and simply rest
    in the Wonder
        that is God.

­­Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Instruments of Peace

"Make me an instrument of your peace,"
   we ask.

Which instrument suits you?
    How will you bring peace today?

With a trumpet blast? a soaring string?
    the floating notes of a flute?
with the rumble of tympani?
    the subdued strum of a guitar?

You, announcing: Peace! Peace...

The thing about instruments?
    They don't play themselves.
Instruments sing
    in the hands of the Musician.

"Make me an instrument of your peace."

Play me.

Play us!

Make us
    a whole, holy symphony of peace!

­­Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

Only Lived

The mind must yield,
    must step aside,
        fall away,

to experience
    the grandness of God.

God cannot be conceived,
    only lived.

­­Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.

On the Inadequacy of Words

    our little words
will never come close
    to describing
the reality that we refer to as God

    our puny, little words
will never come close
    to describing
the wild adventure that awaits us post death

    how do you describe mysteries
beyond the edges of understanding?
    beyond the borders of language?

    okay, sure,
what tools exist
    other than feeble, puny, little words?
what else do we have?

    so go ahead, do your best,
but recognize (I beg of you)
    that what you're doing
is more akin
    to plunking out a few random notes on the old parlor piano,
than what awaits--
   a breathless, deathless, unending symphony

    or so I say,
with these few honky-tonked notes
    (scrawny, feeble, puny, little words)

    ah, humility:
our best attempts at God-talk
   (even those of the loftiest theologians)
are nothing more than plink, plank, plunk*

­­*with a nod to Leroy Anderson
Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
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Old Dogs

I am okay being
    an old dog.

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks,"
    they say.

This
    is wrong.

Old dogs, can, in fact,
    learn new tricks,

but old dogs know
    not all new tricks are worth learning,

and furthermore, some of the old tricks
    carry too much meaning and power to forget.

New dogs take note.

And further furthermore,
    new tricks soon grow old,

as do new dogs.
    Soon enough, old.

Perhaps, after all, they are all
    just tricks,

and we are all
    just dogs,

surviving,
    Woof.

­­Text and image © 2023 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.