A Tsunami Called Faith

there is another kind of Tsunami

striking way deeper than our shorelines.

Call it “faithlessness”,

it knocks us about violently

every day,

crash, we find a new job,

another wave -- a new lover,

once again, another place to live,

wave after wave strikes us and we

cling

frantically

to crumbling bars –

new diet, exercise, therapist, vacation, self-help book,

yoga, meditation, love project…

what if you let go, completely?,

as you will with your last breath,

what if this tsunami was the greatest love of all

come to take you home?!

We grieve so deeply for the actual dead of a tsunami,

because we do not know where they’ve gone!

Our faith is not strong enough to believe they are

safe.

We scream and wail for them from our ignorance.

We help the traumatized survivors with superhuman

vigor (as we should!).

But under all the carnage, hurt and devastation,

something is scouring the ocean-bottom of our

faith.

People who could barely look at one another, now

leaping into each others arms??!!

After the tsunami settles and the rebuilding is done

like the silence after the monastery bell,

will we fall back asleep ?????!!!!!!

Will we remember how to close our hearts again,

with business as usual?

A tsunami is striking our most intimate shores

every day,

against all reason,

surrender,

let go,

give everything you have to others.

The floating wreckage is evidence enough.

Our carefully tended separateness

will not be tolerated.

Wake up to the illusions of

nations, walls, cultural and individual identities!

Swim together

in a way never thought possible.