WISDOM IN A NUTSHELL

     A handy way to think what would be wise
     Regarding some perplexing circumstance
     Is to consider how to optimize
     The outcome: greater value means advance.

     And yet that would assume you can discern
     What’s valuable from what is not in sight,
     Although such judgment you can only learn
     By being wise enough to know what’s right.

          Perhaps it’s best just to assume you’re wise:
          A truth it takes some work to realize.

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THE ETERNAL CIRCLE

        What matters most is how we choose to live,
        Deciding surely on the ways most wise,
        While guided ever that the love we give
        Will cause in turn more loving to arise.

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 HEAVENWARD

     Are we progressing toward enlightenment
     Collectively, the goal toward which we’re bent,
     Acknowledged in our name, “the sapient”?

     There seems no certainty of our ascent
     With many of our species malcontent
     And few before to set a precedent—

          But yet I’ll not despair of that event,
          For our salvation may be Heaven sent.
   

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Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine, observes that

‘The great spiritual-religious wisdom traditions of the world have all taught some variant of this message: The deepest human pleasures come from living in a world based on justice, peace, love, generosity, kindness, and celebration of the universe and service to the ultimate moral law of the universe (whether learned through revelation or through reason).”

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RESOURCEFUL

    The more I can expand my consciousness,
    The closer I can come to the prime source
    Of wisdom and assurance of success
    By following a heavenly sanctioned course.

    The ways of waywardness are manifold,
    But wisdom can discern the prudent route
    With sights and vistas wondrous to behold
    When those pursuing it are resolute.

    All other ways will lead but to despair:
    Benighted and bewildered, those who go
    Awry will blindly fall into a snare,
    Entrapped by some antagonistic foe.

         I pray, then, for clear guidance on my course,
         Aligned by some ethereal resource.

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TO FIND ONE MIND

for Larry Dossey

   
       What makes our own intelligence unique
       Is our profound capacity to seek
       For what we seem intentionally designed
       To find: communication with One Mind.

       A Singularity, our cosmos sprang
       From nothing in the wondrous Big Bang
       And over eons learned complexity
       Until self-conscious creatures came to be,

       Then ever-higher consciousness emerged
       As if by some supreme directive urged:
       Good orderly direction working out
       Intentions it had always been about.

            What now remains is for our race to find
           The grace by which to recognize One Mind.

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THE MISSION

for Gary Zukav

   When my soul is unaligned with the Divine,
   Then my life is out of sorts and runs awry,
   Forgetting that the ultimate design
   Prescribes a plan with which all must comply.

   If we’d but realize the true intent
   For which each soul is brought into this life
   And comprehend the mission we are meant
   To carry out, we’d end all needless strife.

   Each soul has its life-mission to fulfill
   Incorporated in a human being,
   Which is to manifest the cosmic will
   By showing love that’s ultimately freeing.

        When we have learned a lesson this profound,
        Our souls will then transcend this earthly round.

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PROVIDE

  You may be sharp, intelligent and keen,
  But that’s no guarantee that you are wise,
  For many nasty bastards who are mean
  Are brighter than we want to recognize.

  Oh, yes, it takes intelligence to act
  With prudence and responsibility,
  But without heart and soul, the odds are stacked
  That how you act will end in misery.

      Wisest are those who are both good and shrewd
      With providence their foremost attitude.

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