Pirate talk

Monday, September 19, 2022

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Pirate talk

THE SECRET PLACE

By Dennis Lee

 There’s a place I go inside myself,

Where nobody else can be

And none of my friends call tell it’s there –

Nobody knows but me.

 

It’s hard to explain the way it feels,

Or even where I go.

It isn’t a place in time or space,

But once I’m there, I know.

 

It’s tiny, it’s shiny, it can’t be seen,

But it’s big as the sky at night …

I try to explain and it hurts my brain,

But once I’m there, it’s right.

 

There’s a place I know inside myself,

And it’s neither big nor small,

And whenever I go, it feels as though

I never left at all.

 Thomas Merton called this place, in French, la pointe vierge, literally the “virgin point.” As he said about it:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

At Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, Merton had a moment of exquisite vision of God and us, and he wrote, “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

 

There is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, thanks to Dave Barry and his pirate buddies from Oregon, Cap’n Slappy and Ol Chumbucket. Aarrggh! Ahoy maties! Avast! Look out, ye scurvy bilge rats!

There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. But you can laugh with them, and jump up and down with them, and walk the plank, and look them in the eyes and say, “I love you, Cap’n Hook,” like Peter Pan kind of did. And in time perhaps they too will see the light within them, the God-place which cannot be breached by pain or mental illness or death.

To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.

Retreat leader and scholar Ron Rolheiser often quotes fellow Canadian Dennis Lee’s poems at the beginning of his retreat days. Here’s another one:

THE COAT

by Dennis Lee

 I patched my coat with sunlight

It lasted for a day.

I patched my coat with moonlight

But the lining came away.

I patched my coat with lightning

And it flew off in the storm.

I patched my coat with darkness

That coat has kept me warm.

(Proverbs 3, Psalm 15, Matthew 5, Luke 8)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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