Writing About God.com: 2022

On Christmas Day

Whose birth do we celebrate on this day?
The living embodiment of God?
The only one?

What about you?
What about me?

Even the tiniest blade of grass struggles toward the light.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Gravity

When it comes right down to it,
I know little more about
God
Than a duck knows about
Newtonian physics.

Try as he might,
The duck cannot explain,
Or defy,
Gravity.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Rehab

Honesty,
Pure honesty,
Every waking moment.

See the past,
Change the future,
No matter what you’ve done,
No matter how long it takes,
No matter how many times you fail
And fall,
Start again,
This day,
This moment.

Honesty is the first step,
Pure honesty,
Every waking moment.

From this all blessings come.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Balance

Your stricken conscience
Grieves over the suffering in this world.

Convulsed with joy,
A baby laughs.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Angels Wept

I was thirsty
And my cup was filled.
I was hungry
And food was served upon my plate.
I ate and drank freely
Until my cup was empty,
Until my plate was clean.

I was cold
And I was sheltered.
I was sick
And I was healed.

But the angels wept,
For despite all my blessings,
I’d forgotten to say:
Thank you.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Guru

When my cat sits on my lap,
Forcing stillness upon me,
I hear the distant barking of a neighborhood dog,
The sudden chirping of squabbling birds,
Footsteps down the hall,
The ticking of a clock,
The whoosh of a passing car,
A door softly opened
Then closed,
An airplane,
The scratching of this pen against this paper,
The smell of ink,
The movement of my toes,
The tempo of my breathing,
The sudden absence of sound,
The weight of silence.

When my cat sits on my lap
She reminds me I am living in a world
Of sense and sensation,
My furry little guru.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

A Honeybee

A honeybee
Searching for a flower
Saw his reflection in a pool
And flew
Into the sparkling water
Where so many others die,
Their wings too wet to fly.

This honeybee swam hard
Hoping to reach dry land,
But soon would weaken and drown
Had I not been at hand.

I took my net and lifted free
This tiny, desperate honeybee
Who then dried his wings
And flew
Away.

What did he think,
If he thinks at all?
That the hand of God
Caught his fall?
Or perhaps an angel
Restored his flight?
If there are angels for things so slight.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Time Keeper

I am the one who turns back time
This chilly gray morning
While wife and children slumber
In the hibernation of Sunday.

I sneak like a tooth fairy
From room to room,
Setting back clocks,
Slipping another hour of sleep
Silently under their pillows,
Hastening the darkening of a season
Already too dark for my timeless soul.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Saints In Waiting

If we were saints
Living the lives of abandoned insects
Under parked cars
With our antennae finely tuned
Into God’s frequency,
We would praise the glories
Of our tiny lives,
The stray fast-food crumbs,
A patch of dew-laden crabgrass.

Behold this mighty river of asphalt,
My children,
And fear not the larger beasts.
We are the chosen,
And through our selfless purity
We shall inherit this earth.

Not long now,
Our time to come.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Prophets

So many prophets,
How we revere them,
Study their lives,
Read their writings,
Marvel at their prognostications,
Follow their instructions,
Dismiss their detractors,
Proselytize the unenlightened,
Prepare for the promised apocalypse.

So many prophets,
Distracting us from the eternity of this moment.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Here On Earth

You ask,
Why does God not see?
Why does God not act?
Where is God’s mercy?

Here on Earth,
God sees through our eyes.
Here on Earth,
God works with our hands.
Here on Earth,
We are the conscience of God.

Look within your heart.
Each of us is called.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Advice To A New Saint

The hardest thing you will ever do
Is give wisdom to the unwilling,
For as their eyes open
The false flowers of their imaginary gardens
Will wither, crack and crumble,
And they will abandon you for what you have done,
For the certainty you have destroyed,
For they will be as strangers in a new world
And afraid,
Yet unable to return.

The hardest thing you will ever do
Is give love to the unloved,
For as their hearts open
The impenetrable armor that kept them safe
Will come loose and fall to the ground,
And they will abandon you for what you have done,
For the desires you have exposed,
For they will be as strangers in a new world
And afraid,
Yet unable to return.

The best thing you will ever do
Will be without acknowledgement or praise,
Done for its own sake,
And for those who understand,
And for those whose understanding has yet to come,
Though they may never know your true name.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Tree

What are your opinions about this tree?
I ask myself,
Standing before this ancient oak
Hidden deep in the forest,
Limbs so wonderfully woven for climbing,
Were I of a climbing age.

How would I rank this tree
Among others of its kind?
How can I judge it?

I cannot,
For I’m not an arborist,
Not a conservationist,
I do not inspect trees,
I simply see them and behold them,
As I would do with the rest of life,
Were I that wise.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Ad Infinitum

If only you could sort through
All the ideas in your head,
You tell yourself,
You would figure it all out
And arrive at the grand conclusion,
The answer,
The answer to all those relentless questions.

Yet every idea you explore
Gives birth to a myriad more.

Dandelion seeds in the wind.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Prayers

Prayers recite us.

~ Text & photograph by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Something Eternal

I can easily see the second hand move
But no matter how long I stare
The minute hand seems stationary,
The hour hand frozen.

In the mirror
I am the same as yesterday,
Yet the photograph is surprising.
How quickly I have aged.

Yes, I see wind-blown clouds changing shapes,
Time-lapsed flowers unfolding,
Water that comes to a boil,
Still,
There is something eternal inside,
Surprised at the passing of time.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Saved

Go ahead and pray,
Pray for things both selfish and unselfish.
If you are blessed,
Many of the things you pray for will not come.

In this way shall you be saved.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Why One And Not The Other?

Easier to understand when we were animals,
Savages,
Without the grace of modern civilization,
Without protection,
Easier to understand the random hand of fate,
Pulling one down,
Pushing another up.
But now,
When so many millions are safe,
When so many millions are not,
I have yet to discover,
Why one and not the other?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In Motion

Yesterday,

Was it only yesterday?

This flower was a bud

In a small translucent glass vase

That once belonged to my grandmother,

A passionate gardener whose flowers were her children.

Yesterday,

Was it only yesterday?

This flower was a bud.

Today,

This flower is a bloom.

It opened quickly yet I did not see it move,

Even though I must have passed by

A dozen times or more.

Seen or unseen,

All is in motion in this inconstant world,

All the little children,

In the blink of an eye,

Gone.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

At Any Moment

If I told you I’d found paradise

And knew the way there

It would be partly true.

Yes, I’ve been there,

On occasion.

I get back there,

Once in a while.

But if I spent my days

Lecturing about paradise

As if it were the house in which I lived,

Then, that would be a lie.

I live in the real world

Which contains all possible sorrows

And joys,

At any moment,

In no particular order.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

An Angel's Plight

I cannot tell you the nature of my birth.
My countenance is but a mirror,
Reflecting your imagination,
Without human substance.

To say I am born of God
Is less than Adam’s rib,
Without lineage.

In my mind there is only being.

There was no infancy,
No cradling,
No mother’s soft cooing.

I am filled with envy
And my desire is insatiable,
The desire for love,
Love that must be earned by good works,
By intercession.

So I listen and I am called
And I answer as best I can,
Only able to influence,
Not change,
The course of any human event.

I hunger for that connection,
That bond with a grieving heart,
A heart so wounded that at last I am called,
Yet so often abandoned after healing has begun,
After joy has returned,
After the Earthly distractions come flooding back,
Severing the connection,
Casting me out once again,
Lonely winged messenger that I am.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Ark

I hear faint whispers,

Far from this devouring sea.

I am lost,

Waiting for pestilence to pass.

That all things must pass,

Small comfort to the despair of this place.

I press my hands together in supplication,

Not knowing what to ask,

Knowing only that some things must stop

Before other things begin.

I hear faint whispers.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

If I Could Choose

Yeah,
Heaven may be swell,
For a while,
But what do you do with all you’ve experienced,
All you’ve learned?
Do you just sit around with family and friends,
Drinking wine at sunset,
Forever?

If I could choose my soul’s progression,
My soul’s destiny,
I would take all that I know,
All that I am
And be the seed of a new world.

Imagine being the initiating spirit,
The infusing spirit of a new existence,
For better or for worse,
The spirit that inspires,
The spirit that destroys,
Or something in-between,
Something complex,
Something that grows beyond its beginnings,
Something that evolves,
Kind of like planet Earth,
Which makes me wonder
Just what kind of erratic genius gave birth to this world?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Idea Of Free

I am so used to this idea of free
I forget how many in this world

Are shackled by ideas,
So many in this free country,
In my hometown,
Shackle themselves with ideas,
Rules for living,
Or no ideas at all,
Just behaviors,
Self-destructive behaviors
Masquerading as freedom.

So confusing,
This idea of free.

~ Text and photo by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

~ Photograph by Russ Allison Loar

Click on photo to enlarge

Imagine

If you are not living the life you imagined,
Imagine the life you are living.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Voice

I have immunized my intellect
Against the ancient superstitions
With science and culture,
Unintentionally masking a primeval wisdom,
A transcendent wisdom.
This island of logic
Surrounded by an ocean of eternity.

Yet something enduring speaks to me anew,
From the intricate vision of the old master artists,
In the refined musical vocabulary of classical composers,
Written into words by literary prophets,
Carried within the hearts and minds of all
Who pursue inspired occupations,
All who feel the gravity of the eternal
And give it voice,
A voice that speaks to us,
Still.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

We Suffer

At this level of incarnation
I suppose our suffering has purpose.
I have learned much from suffering,
Lessons I apparently could not have learned
Had my life been free from suffering,
Had my life been easy.
Lessons I apparently could not have learned
From joy.

Yet how can I condone suffering?
How can I countenance its merciless, random aim?
How can I find reason in the suffering of children?
In the suffering caused by villainy?
In the suffering caused by the collapse of civilization,
When whole countries suffer
From the corruption of a single man?

We are spurred to action and reform by suffering,
The best of us dreaming of a world
Where the last remnants of suffering are accidental
And soon extinguished.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

In Return

Oh how you scoff at religion,
At those who embrace a merciful God,
Who have faith in the promise of heaven.

You list the sins of the righteous,
The historic holy wars,
The blindness of orthodox doctrine,
The wolves in priests’ clothing,
The sainted certainty that employs violence,
That justifies violence,
Violence against body, mind and spirit.

Your debate weighs on the sins of the religious,
As if the evil that humans do
Is an inevitable consequence of faith.

I have an aged friend,
Raised in a small town,
Believing gratitude to God is the way to give thanks,
Thanks for the blessing of another day of life.
If I convinced her of your reasoning,
If I could take all her antiquated beliefs away,
All the naïve notions of religion going back generations,
What would I give her in return?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Recently Born

So new,
So young,
So ignorant of devious motives,
So free from self-imposed orthodoxies.

So new,
So young.

We race to fill our recently born
With our individual truths,
Our tribal truths,
Our instructions and conclusions,
As if we had no need of change.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

When The Lights Go Out

Every evening
When the lights go out,
When the streets are dark,
When everything you own is drained of color,
When you are ready for sleep
In the black invisibility of your room,
Now you know
How far you’ve come,
How far you have to go.

Now you know
The only thing you truly own.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Rules

To achieve an enlightened state of bliss,
How must I position my body?
Shall I sit cross-legged?
Or should I stand?
Should I close my eyes to temporal distractions?
Or should my eyes be open
So that I may learn to transcend all visual stimuli?
Should I join my hands in prayer,
Or perhaps raise a single hand
With fingers positioned to indicate some kind of divinity?

What is the best time of day, month or year
To engage in spiritual disengagement?
Should I face the rising sun
From the solitude of a verdant garden,
Or surrender my ego in a candlelit meditation hall?
Are there special words
Or spiritually empowered sounds I must make?
Must I focus on a specific kind of attainment
Or abandon all egocentric aspirations?

How long should I spend in meditation?
Or should I disregard such structures as time and space?
What should I do?
What should I not do?

Are there really rules about this kind of spiritual quest?
And what did rule makers do before the rules were made?
When did they decide that everyday life was not enough,
And why?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Mother's Prayer

God,
Oh yes that troublesome word,
She has trouble with that word,
Visions of blind obeisance,
A fairy tale euphoria,
Ignorance,
Superstition,
A certain lack of precise intellectual focus,
Oh yes she has trouble with that word.

Yet in her most private, personal moments
Something like a prayer emerges,
If only as the last obligation
Of a mother whose children have left home,
Her children,
Out there somewhere.

And so she prays,
Trying as we all try
To bend the course of destiny
To our will.

Atheist that she is,
She will not abandon her children
To a godless world.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

You Have The Gift

You have the gift
And the challenge,
The challenge to know you have the gift,
The challenge to accept the gift,
To live it.

While we are so busy complaining,
Blessings fall upon us like rain.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Absolution

Who is the fortunate soul
Who has not fallen
At one time or another
During this life?

How many of us have sinned
Without detection,
Yet repented without admonition?

How many suffer the consequences of sin
Beneath the guise of anonymity?

Who can say how long such punishment should last?

One might suppose death and its dominions
Washes away Earthly sin,
Yet even death does not erase all memory.

The echoes of our imperfect lives reverberate
In histories large and small,
Yet all unruly children are in the heart of God still,
Where only honest and sustained contrition will bring absolution,
The only kind of absolution that really matters.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Fog

So thick tonight,
It muffles the sound of this city,
Makes this place feel small,
Reduced to a single note
That calls like a meditation bell,
Calls me to let it all go,
To forgive,
Even myself.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Growing Younger

After this one particular life,
After this body,
Ceases,
I will carry what wisdom I have
Into another life,
But next time,
Born old and wise,
I will grow younger,
Stronger,
Coupling energy with experience,
Knowing that each day brings me closer
To the moment of conception,
Until,
At last,
I return to bliss.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

All The Way

We fight against the breakdown,
Trying to hold on to all we believe,
Fighting,
Fighting,
And most of us fight right up to the end,
Defending,
Defending,
And the ones who do,
Breakdown,
Fall so low,
So low,
It takes a long time to reassemble
The ideas,
The beliefs,
The dreams.

Some of us fall so low,
So low,
We break through the last idea,
No bottom,
Falling,
Falling,
Past falling,
All the way,
And are saved.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

There Is Wildness Here

There is wildness here,
Raw and raging
Beneath this exterior,
Pulsing.

There are visions here,
Soaring over lifetimes of leaf-filled trees
And rust-colored hills,
Over yellow fields,
Over oceans.

There is forgetting here
Of the small things people say,
The small things people do.

There is the unheard voice

Of the deeper self,

The truer self,

The wilder self

That wearies of all man-made things.

There is a silence here
That grows and infuses,
Like the melancholy tint
Of an old photograph,
An old photograph you walk around in,
Examining with wonder the frozen, yet flowing
Moments of a life.

There is a wildness here
That rises like an immense stone,
Floating impossibly
In the pure blue sky
Of a secret spring.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

After I Died

I am walking on a long, outstretched path,
Somewhere I’ve never been
Yet familiar somehow,
Past verdant bushes and trees,
New life sprouting, flashing from every direction,
Bushels of multicolored leaves,
Rainbows of sudden spring flowers,
Glistening gold and green painted hillsides,
Walking without destination
Yet toward something, large.

A promise?
A transformation?

I am walking alone
In the cool crisp air of morning,
Or is it evening?
No sense of time.
A yellow sparrow flutters down
A few steps ahead,
Deliberately attracting my attention,
Then hopping along with me,
Keeping a safe distance,
Leading me from her nesting place
Until we’ve traveled far enough away,
Then she is gone.

I am walking without destination
But something significant is happening.
I am changing in some undefinable way,
Transforming into something long wished,
A childhood dream.

Then,
Suddenly,
Without thought,
I rise and take flight.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Vaccine Of Prayer

How much immunity from a single prayer?

How long does it last

Before needing a booster prayer?

What is the prescription?

Once, twice, three times daily?

Before, with, or after a meal?

Do the elderly need to pray more than the young,

Fighting off the demons of old age?

What about the young?

So unaware of consequence,

So smug.

Are they temporarily forgiven

Despite their lack of prayer?

The recklessness of young and old alike

Cry out for contemplation,

Contemplation that engenders prayer.

Yet praying may become a rehearsed recitation,

A wish list.

What are we really asking for?

What do we really need?

Something

Weary singer of unsung songs
Moving in deep, undulating waves
Of subconscious longing for flight,
I plunge upwards into soar and glide,
Infused with the grace of birds,
Like the happy release of death
When very old.

So worn
And wishing for the play of wind
On flight feathers,
I let go and fall
Into something
Beyond these words.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Measure and Weigh

True Blue Gurus

True blue gurus
Tell me who I should be
With such certainty:
Honest, honorable and wise,
Trusting in providence,
Patient with injustice,
Content with my haphazard existence.

Yes, yes,
It is a blessing to be alive,
But endless, underpaid labor
Leaving little opportunity for imagination
Does not engender exuberance.

True blue gurus
Tell me there are no real obstacles,
That mind is the matter,
But here in the world outside my mind
Things can go terribly wrong.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Do Not Know

In My Dark Hours

In my dark hours,
Deserted,
Miserable,
Without hope of redemption,
In a world grown cold and colorless,
In the depth of my most personal failures,
I hear a soft voice,
Speaking calm words
With tenderness and tenacity,
Slipping through the black curtain
Of my defeat,
Pulling me back to life
From the perilous ledge
Of despair.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Reminder

After We Die

Prayers

How long do prayers persist?
How often must they be repeated?
What are minutes and hours,
What is the length of a day to a prayer,
Or to God?

Does God tally prayers,
Weighing some against others?
Or is such somber accounting left to angels and saints?
Are prayers judged by earnestness?
Do they ascend by urgency?

It is worry in me that encourages prayer,
Worry and love,
Love and fear,
Knowing that in this world
Science and happenstance will not be denied.

Even if God were no more than disinterested science,
Unyielding to desires both noble and base,
I would not have my heart grow so cold
As to abandon what is so easily accomplished.

You may not believe your prayers are heard,
But if they open your ears to the longings of your heart,
If they inspire reformation and action,
If they awaken the desire to be honest in all things,

The Angels Pray

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

He said this.
He said so many things,
Some lost in translation,
Others so direct,
So immediate
We fail to understand.

We are lost in hypothesis,
Wandering through the desert of the theoretical,
Dying of thirst,
Finding no relief in the idea of water,
No comfort from the concept,
When all along
The cool, clean water is before us,
But we do not drink.
We refuse to replace the idea with the immediate.
We will not drink.

We imagine a place,
A heaven,
A hell,
A limbo,
Where all our speculations are resolved.
We imagine that the real world,
The eternal world,
The awakened life
Is in some other existence,
Some other plane of being.

The angels pray for us,
Pray that we will awaken,
That we will realize
The kingdom of heaven is at hand,
Heaven and hell and everything in-between,
Here,
Now.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved