Rev. Bob Janis

Our ancestors have handed to us
the dreams of a better world.
This gift was no idle passing.
They labored for it and struggled for it.
We may feel daunted by the task
of carrying so great a weight.
But remember, we have been given
something else as well:
and when we search deep enough,
may we discover
a courage within us,
many possibilities before us,
and a love that surrounds us,
and keeps us,
every step of the way.
Blessings to you all, my friends.
Amen.

Tao #60

If you want to rule the world,
you might first want to learn how to fry a small fish.

Handle the small things first.
When you know the way of the world,
all the little demons lose their power.
Oh, they’re still out there, those demons:
the cares and the worries,
the anxieties and the hurts are still there.
But when you’re cooking a simple dinner,
those demons just can’t reach the level
of us ordinary people.
And the wise woman
and the wise man
never bother with causing harm
to the people.
Even to themselves.

And so she cooks a small fish,
pours herself a glass,
and settles down of an evening.

The way of the world,
leads to heavenly blessings,
if we allow it to carry us gently
back into the real living of our lives.

In the beginning was the black,
which was with God,
and the black was God.
The black held all and was all and created all,
and all was kept in its keeping.

After the blackness gave birth to everything else,
after the light was weaned,
and crawled from the cradle
and into the new world,
white light was claimed
to be the begininng and the measure of all things.
But it was not.
White light was claimed as life,
and darkness as death.
And the light continued to shine
because of the darkness.

And the black is the birth and the death
of all things, the alpha and the omega.
The darkness sees into the world
the light of all colours,
and defines them one by one.

All the colours, red to violet,
and also the white
which does not exist,
which is merely the absence of perception.

In the beginning was the black,
which was with God,
and the black was God.

Well, the election for the most powerful post in the free world
is under way, and I have fed my children.
Cheerios, with the less healthy stuff on top.
My sinuses are clogged and I don’t feel all that up
to my own peculiar responsibility, and let me tell you,
in the grand scheme of things, my poll numbers aren’t even that high.
But if elected, by God and my constituent humours,
to a term of one more day, I hereby promise you
I will honor the thousand-year-old stirrings
that brought me to this moment, and do my part
to make democracy risky to the status quo world.
My platform is unconditional surrender to laughing children.
I will fail over time, but then, so did Ali.
Make bread and butter fly, swing while you be.