Darkly Devotions

Darkly Devotions

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Lyric prose meditations that play with elements from evangelical Christianity, Buddhism, yoga, reiki, Tarot and “weird voodoo shit.

~by Cindy Clem

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Opening exercise:  Close your eyes. You are on a raft on a dark lake, floating. Breathe slowly until the water stills around you. Let your hand submerge, water rivering through your fingers. Float, breathe.

Feel your fingers touch what feels like fingers, what slides up your palm to become a hand, clutching. Clutch back. Pull hard, pull for your life, until it breaks the surface, dripping. Breathe. Calm your beating heart. The hand moves, wants to touch you. Do with it what you wish. It is yours now, and you are safer than you were.

Today’s passage:

There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.  Genesis 6:4, NKJV Continue reading →

Darkly Devotions

Posted on by

Lyric prose meditations that play with elements from evangelical Christianity, Buddhism, yoga, reiki, Tarot and “weird voodoo shit.

~by Cindy Clem

***

Opening exercise: Take a valuable object, a pearl necklace perhaps or a large silver platter, and hide it somewhere in the place you live. Hide it well. Then, pretend you have lost it. Let yourself sit with the loss that is not really loss and feel the loss as if it were true. Try to forget the hiding place. Continue reading →

Darkly Devotions

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Lyric prose meditations that play with elements from evangelical Christianity, Buddhism, yoga, reiki, Tarot and “weird voodoo shit.
~by Cindy Clem

 

I.

Opening exercise [Standing meditation]: Stand, feet planted, arms by your sides, palms forward. Breathe.  Breathe up earth. Breathe into your feet worms, dirt, the many-legged things that move under rocks. Let them crawl and smear. Let them creep their way to your core. Now, breathe down. Breathe down from the sun molten tongues. Breathe into your brain the flames. Let them lick. Let them speak. Let them carry their words down the spine for the worms to eat. Breathe. Hear the life force munching.

II.

Today’s Scripture comes from the book of Isaiah. Not today the wings of eagles, mind you. Not today the beautiful news on good mountain feet. I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? 51:12, NKJV

And so let us reflect and learn. Pronouns abound in this tricky verse. I, even I, am He. Who are you?

Even I, believe it or not?
Even I, who am not prone to giving comfort?
Even I–yes, really, it’s me, remember me?

Why not a simple, “I comfort you” or “There, there”? Because Even I is a poet. Even I relishes language. Even I is all Self, all He.

Who are you? Who is this man, this man like grass who will die? The man of Tao, says Chuang Tzu, remains unknown. No-Self is True-Self, and the greatest man is Nobody.

Even I to No-Self: “There, there. That man who’s eating your back with his whip will die someday. Rejoice!”

Grass sprouts from the dead, who send forth their blades under our feet. This is what happens when your God is so…God-like. He is all perspective, all terrifying calm distance.

I, even I, am He. Wholly unto Me. Selah. Verily.

III.

Closing affirmation: No One is made like grass. Nobody floats like an eagle on the wings of the comforting He.

 

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Cindy Clem received her MFA in poetry in 2005 and has been writing non-fiction ever since. Her poems and essays have appeared (magically!) in Mid-American Review, The Normal School, Prairie Schooner, Memoir (and), Superstition Review, The Interrobang, Spittoon, and Michigan Quarterly Review (forthcoming).

Darkly Devotions

Posted on by

Lyric prose meditations that play with elements from evangelical Christianity, Buddhism, yoga, reiki, Tarot and “weird voodoo shit.”

~by Cindy Clem

Darkly Apologetics

 

Devotion n (13c) 1 a: religious fervor: PIETY b: an act of prayer or private worship – usu. used in pl.

~ Merriam Webster, 10th

 

As in “having devotions” (20c?)

As in I’m going to go have my devotions now, like I always do, every day, even on Sundays. When do you have your devotions, apostate?

Muslims have Salat. Buddhists have daily meditation. Catholics have Daily Mass Readings, Jews have morning, afternoon, and evening prayers.  (My apologies if I’m getting this wrong. I researched it for about 45 seconds.) But I think the term “Daily Devotions” is uniquely Evangelical Protestant Christian.

The Evangelical Protestant Daily Devotion is mandated by nothing but the measure of one’s own guilt conscience. My father spent time alone in his office every morning, reading Scripture and praying, often on his knees. My mother sat on one end of the couch, open Bible on lap, coffee mug in one hand, notebook and pen resting next to her. She usually finished before I got up, but on the mornings I saw her there she seemed wrapped in a deep stillness, a peace that passeth understanding, as they say.

My devotions were daily for a week, then weekly, and then fading into bi-yearly in a continuing cycle. My parents never pressured me. When I asked, they would agree that daily devotions were a good idea, a way to be with God. God wants us to be with him, just like any friend would. Continue reading →