We shall be released / Waking up just in time

Yesterday I was drowsy in the late afternoon and took a long nap.  The sound of hard rain woke me up in the early evening.  I felt like going back to sleep, but instead I got up and was rewarded with an extraordinary sky show that began with a fragment of a rainbow.

Thinking the sky show was over, I came in from my porch and turned to my laptop for my Spanish lesson of the day.  The next time I looked out the window, I saw the nearly full moon appearing and disappearing again and again behind the fast moving clouds:

Early Morning Light

We are so lightly here. 
It is in love that we are made. 
In love we disappear.
Leonard Cohen, Boogie Street

Thanks to Beth for the quote.

Treaty

The first version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that I heard was sung by Jeff Buckley.  It was recorded in 1994. My first listening was early in June of 1997, soon after Jeff Buckley drowned in the Mississippi River at age 30.  I listened and wept and felt immense gratitude.  I had not heard Leonard Cohen's version.  Although I've heard many many versions since then, none moved me again in that way until I heard the Yiddish version by Daniel Kahn soon after Leonard Cohen's death.



Yesterday my copy of Leonard Cohen's final songs arrived in the mail. I listened to it in my car while doing the things I needed to do yesterday and was deeply moved by words like these:

"...When I turned my back on the devil / Turned my back on the angel too..."

"... I heard the snake was baffled by his sin ..."

Although I was expecting only 8 songs, when what I thought was the final song ended just as I arrived home, I realized that there was a 9th track.  Something told me to wait to listen to it until today when I got into my car at 7 a.m., on my way to get together with a group of eccentric friends for what serves well as our breakfast together.  I want to give anyone who hasn't heard the CD the opportunity to have their own experience of that final track.  My guess is that I'll be listening to Leonard Cohen's final songs in my car for some time to come.

In the meantime, here's the song called "Treaty":

Leonard Cohen. Dear to our hearts.

Leonard Cohen will live forever, as he said he intended to do.

Easter weekend meditation / Something of a Zen koan / Long before the sky would open

... And Jesus was a sailor

When he walked upon the water

And he spent a long time watching

From his lonely wooden tower

And when he knew for certain

Only drowning men could see him

He said, "All men will be sailors then

Until the sea shall free them"

But he himself was broken

Long before the sky would open

Forsaken, almost human

He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

And you want to travel with him

And you want to travel blind

And you think maybe you'll trust him

For he's touched your perfect body with his mind ...

(Leonard Cohen, lyrics from "Suzanne")  

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.  It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

(John Lennon)

... You don't need no passport

You don't need no visa

And you don't need to designate or emigrate

Before you can see Jesus ...

... You don't need no church house

And you don't need no temple

You don't need no rosary beads or them books to read

To see that you have fallen

If you open up your heart

You'll see he's right there

Always was and will be

He'll relieve you of your cares ...

(George Harrison, lyrics from "Awaiting On You All"-- 1970)

We don't ask for more cathedrals.  We don't ask for bigger churches or fine gifts.  ... We ask the Church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of brother.  We don't ask for words. We ask for deeds.  We don't ask for paternalism. We ask for servanthood.

(Cesar Chavez -- Christian, farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist -- speaking in 1968)

If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth.  If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.  And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in 1955)

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

One time I trusted a stranger

'Cause I heard His sweet song

It was gently enticing me, there was something wrong

When I turned, He was gone

Blinding me, His song remains reminding me

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Sweet silver angels over the sea

Please come down flying low for me

He wages war with the devil with a pistol by His side

He's always chasing him out of windows

And He won't give him a place to hide

But he keeps His door open wide

Fighting him, He lights a lamp inviting him

He's a bandit and a heart breaker

My Jesus was a cross maker.

Yeah, Jesus was a cross maker.

(Warren Zevon sang "Jesus Was A Cross Maker," written by Judee Sill)

Martin Scorsese's Jesus in "The Last Temptation of Christ" was a cross maker:

Judas:  If you were me, could you betray your master?

Jesus:  No.  That's why God gave me the easier job -- to be crucified.

Vietnamese Zen Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a book called Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers.  

Although I was raised as a Christian (first in the Lutheran Church and then in the Episcopal Church), I stopped going to church when I was 18 years old.  From that time on, I have explored many religions and spiritual traditions and am grateful for their teachings, but I have not chosen to affiliate myself with any of them.  

I do find the story of Jesus to be a mysterious and compelling one -- something of a Zen koan -- and I continue to listen with all my heart when certain people talk about their understanding of and trust in Jesus.

Senegal Yellow / Cobalt Blue / Titanium White

After working through early rock and roll and then the Beatles, Tim Buckley, Laura Nyro and James Taylor, I started above painting (still in process) while listening to the "Songs of Leonard Cohen," released December 27, 1967.  I had forgotten how much darkness and bitterness and alienation there is in many of those songs.  My selective memory had embraced the tender moments and blocked out everything else.  I was 18 years old when that album was released.  My recollection is that Richard introduced the album to me, and that we listened to it in the months before he was drafted in spring of 1969. 

 Thank you, blog friends, for your continuing comments.  I hope to be more conversational soon.  My life is unusually full right now.

(Hmmmm .... the video of my painting in process appears to be uploaded, but when I publish there is a white space where the video should be)

(Update:  Now I can see the video)