"Thy name"

(a meditation on each word(s) 

of the Lord's prayer)

Your Name

which signifies omnipresence

in a land that

stares into 

its self-absorbed screens.

Your Name

which signifies omnipotence

in a land that 

fights over 

scraps of power.

Your Name

which signifies omniscience

in a land that

hung Truth

on a cross.

The Bird With the Human Head

~ Anne Sexton

I went to the bird

with the human head,

and asked,

"Please Sir,

where is God?"

"God is too busy

to be here on earth,

His angels are like one thousand geese assembled

and always flapping.

But I can tell you where the well of God is."

"Is it on earth?"

I asked.

He replied,

"Yes. It was dragged down

from paradise by one of the geese."

I walked many days,

past witches that eat grandmothers knitting booties

as if they were collecting a debt.

Then, in the middle of the desert

I found the well,

it bubbled up and down like a litter of cats

and there was water,

and I drank,

and there was water,

and I drank.

Then the well spoke to me.

It said:  "Abundance is scooped from abundance,

yet abundance remains."

Then I knew.

Irish Folk Tale

Once there was a poor and generous old man from Ballaghaderreen who has a dream.  In it he is told to make a journey at the end of which he will find a pot of gold.  In this case the old man has to leave Balla and travel a good way to Dublin and there, when he crosses one of the bridges over the River Liffy, he will find a pub, and there he will find his treasure.  

The old man follows the dream map and when he sees the pub that was in his dream he looks around but there's no place he can dig for a hidden treasure, so he stands beside the door and waits.  He waits all day and at nightfall the publican comes out and asks,
"What are you standing here for all day long?"

"I had a dream that told me to come here."

"A dream?  I think you must be a daft old man to follow dreams.  I, myself, had a dream a month ago and it told me to go to some poor old sod's cottage on the crossroads from French Park to Ballaghaderreen and if I did, I would find a pot of gold in his front yard.  Do you think I would go traipsing all over the countryside because of a dream?  It's cold.  You should go home."

"Indeed I should and will," said the old man.

And when he got home he dug in his front yard and found the treasure and wasn't he himself and all the others the better for it.  

And if he hasn't given it all away we might share a bit with them.