Not Choosing Extinction

I completely agree that all our voices ought to be raised in outrage, analysis and solutions for the evils being perpetrated. There are lots of eminent and knowledgeable writers making important statements, and I thank all of them for doing so. Many people of various opinions have been joining together in peaceful, public protest of the ignorant official injustices and brutalities destroying the world. Many others form the thoughtless mob refusing to grow.

But each of us must discern what is timely for us to contribute rather than simply repeating what has been said. So, I often put my thoughts into poetic form to let my heart be expressed and not just my intellect. A poem limits verbiage and packs a lot of meaning into each word, lending itself to a more contemplative reading — the need to be still as well as to take action. This poem emerges from my meditation on the source of wisdom for well-directed action and authentic response to society’s choice of extinction. I hope this reaffirmation of faith will encourage you.

Impossible, angry mob
Loyal to old creation
Refuses to grow forward;
Self-made, claiming sovereignty,
Ambitious around the clock
To get it all so you won’t get it,
Then defend it to the death.

Is the will of the growing universe
Thwarted by their choice of extinction?

I choose the will be done,
To stop my soul in silence wait
And contemplate presence to presence,
Like a whale remembering the ocean,

Breathing deep past excess verbiage
And the temptation to rant at them
Who demand old rituals
In so many clamoring voices.

I’m listening without mediation
For impulses in my innermost person
To counsel restoration
Of mind, body, and spirit;

Confessing fear and outrage and weakness
Unequal to the world on fire,
And blunders all wrong just from trying
To make the new creation happen
Before I die.

I have heard that Grace annuls without explanation
The deathly choices,
And incarnation inspires the corpse
To express the breath into the new Body Universe.

So, I watch for the way opening,
Stepping in that way beholding
The changes in us becoming
The new merger of Spirit and
All this.

                                                                        Mark R. Turner
                                                                        April 1, 2025
                                                                        Athens House

Also found on our Poetry Page.

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