Answer Me, Please
Answer Me, Please —
When a human spirit
falls in despair and desperation
into a deep and still silence
looking, searching
for purpose and meaning in Life—
Where, pray tell me, where exactly
can such an answer be found?
When a human soul
asks of itself,
“Who am I?”
Who, please tell me, who is it that answers?
When the soul inquires of itself,
“What is it, in all the world
my heart craves most dearly?
“
Who, or what for that matter, is it that knows?
And where, exactly, I wonder too,
do answers to such questions live?
Who is it that knows these things, anyway?
Are meaning and purpose and joy in life
found through the stirrings
of
an alchemical creation inside
or discovered outside oneself through divine revelation,
or can they be inherited
the way we pass on
shame and insecurity or love and peace
religion and politics?
Might it be possible, I wonder, for purpose and meaning
to blossom forth in each moment of living
the way springtime opens into flower
the delicate bud of the wild iris thriving
rooted into the rocky soil on a mountain’s side?
Might I carry such a wild intelligence
within the vulnerable bud of my own being?
And which, I wonder,
is the more important:
The answers to these sacred questions
or the living hunger
of such questions nourished
on the altar of your heart?
Some part of me apparently feels a need to append a comment to the bottom of this post. Yet in trying to do so I find myself flailing for words and attempts at what feel like simplistic starts that want to appear as wisdom. They also have no end in sight… as though each start would lead on to interminable words or a long story or…
Yet I also love the simple simplicity of the prosaic reflection above, as is. It is as though it asks of us not answers but for more questions. Questions like: What questions keep you alive? What questions bring vigor into your life? What questions invite you into a larger and more expansive place of being? What questions are living in you?
I’d love to hear your comments on what questions most pressingly stir your heart, mind and soul these days.
Answer Me, Please— is an excerpt from an upcoming ebook release: The Once and Future Human: Wild Resiliency Reflections, Confessions, Aspirations and Invitations. Please contact me if your interested in personal or organizational support or speaking on the nourishment of your wild resiliency.
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Belkys
12/18/2013 at 12:33 amQuestion that keeps me on going: how far can the human spirit go in its quest? So far, no politics or religion has proved to feed our deepest aspiration…and still everyday we face our reality waiting for changes that have not occurred and will not given the fragility of all human systems. It is amazing how weak all system are and how easy is to find the exception of all that looks strong (in public and private matters). I would say my big question is of God: what is man to be honored with the capacity to love and feel? How much can we improve ourselves for the sake of loving each other and understand our brothers and sisters and stop judgments that mislead our intention? For me it is how different life can be from one moment to the next……independently of our provisions. That is the key, although there is magic in keeping the same pace everyday when nothing new happens….it is great to be still and silent just being, not doing or having.
Howard Tonkin
01/29/2014 at 4:21 pmIs the unconscious God? That’s the question that I’m searching an answer for
Larry Glover
01/29/2014 at 6:13 pmThanks for the comment and sharing your ‘question’, Howard. “God forbid,” that any of us should be arrogant enough to ‘answer’ such a question for another. What comes up for me with your question however, is the awareness that I’ve basically given up any personal use of the word ‘God.’ I find we collectively and too easily use it to reduce what is an ineffable Mystery to three letters and then think we know what we’re talking about. So I’m first off curious what it is ‘God’ means to you, in this context?
And then let me be so bold as to answer ‘Yes,’ to your question! The unconscious does function in our life as God, at least in so far as it drives our beliefs and attitudes and worldviews… without our ever inquiring into their personal origins. ‘God,’ in this sense, being the determinater of our experience of living, rather than say the prime cause of the universe.
Dwight Coe
06/03/2014 at 10:33 pmWhen I read this beautiful blog entry, and many others over the years, I have often longed to reach out to you. You, more than any other person in my past, have been on my mind since I found you while looking for your brother. I wasn’t ready or able to a dialogue with you because of my own issues. When I read your blog on your dad’s funeral, it brought me to tears. The Glover family was THE family to me. And as I read of your distance for your dad I hurt deeply for you. His misunderstandings and sins caused him to be blind to the needs of his son… a tragic mistake.
I’ve gone through a breakdown….still working through it. But only now do I have the able to look at my past, and let it be in the past. Only now do I feel any power or ability to speak of your past and how it framed your truth, and how my past framed mine.
If you’re interested…..
…let’s talk.
Love ya,
Dwight
Larry Glover
06/07/2014 at 3:57 amDwight, I’d love to visit, and I’m honored by your reaching out. I’ve sent an email to the address listed in the comment but am not sure if it will go through. I would appreciate hearing of your journey and you have healed and are healing from your past and of the truth you now live in.
I would also like to extend this invitation to any other friends from my past who may happen upon this blog. Let’s reconnect and share stories and learning.