The world hustled and bustled in its own way as usual.
The little stars flickered and twinkled way up in the sky.
The angels huddled and bundled in a way quite unusual
To gaze into the glowing face of a new born boy.

One said, "See how tiny He looks in those swaddling clothes,
The Prince of Heaven has crossed into earth's deadly orb.
He who made Solomon rich has chosen for Himself a manger,
The Head of all things is born in His own world like a stranger!"

Then a gong rung hard and an angel called, "To the shepherds!"
And in an instant they were out of Bethlehem into the suburbs.
One angel declared to some grubby men, "Unto you Christ is born!"
And the angels rejoined, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo! Peace on earth, good will to men!"



© Domenic Marbaniang, Christmas 2012.

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"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace." (Numbers 6:24-26)

I've seen the blind see and the deaf hear;
I've seen lame limbs leap and tumors disappear;
Yet, all these now seem like fleeting sparks
Before the flame of love-ignited simple hearts-
The miracle of innocence in the eyes of a child,
Miracles of tenderness in a world grown so wild;
Miracles that make truth glister and shine
Through acts that are merciful, compassionate, and kind.

The world seems infinitely void without the miracle of purity,
The lightning and thunder color the dismal with riotous fury;
Yet, this dismal cloud is rent when Love sheds all covering,
Makes no pretense, desires no coloring;
And, in the midst of a world consumed with passion and rage,
Love breaks through as the miracle on God's precious stage --
The heart of man, the eyes of a child, the lips of a kind sage
Touched by Love are God's miracles of boundless grace.

What sparks of joy now break upon the horizon!
It's the glimpse of God on one Human Face;
The Son of Glory has come to embrace His miracle
In the very pit of human sin, suffering, and shame;
He has left the grandeur of the highest heaven
To meet His child and save him from all disgrace;
For, what does heaven matter to the one who is Love
And hopes to see the miracle of love lighten one human face!

(Aug 30, 2012, Nov 15)

III
The Song of the Disciple

His eyes glistened with innocence, with mercy, and with love;
They sparkled with the fire of God's truth from above.
His lips uttered oracles that pierced us to the core;
They kindled our desire to listen to Him all the more.
His words were not concocted by human will;
Neither were they hosted by some sugary quill.
His thoughts were not such as would have pleased a man;
Yet, they were such that even a child would understand.
He fed us when we were hungry,
He clothed us in our shame,
He loved us though unworthy
We were of His name.
He called us to learn by being with Him,
Our lives were changed by just watching Him.
His breast was one's pillow,
His hand, one's rescue at sea;
His fingers, when they wrote on the ground,
Tore veils from eyes and caused the blind to see.
He chose not the highest places,
He taught us to seek of such none;
He was the meekest and the lowliest,
And by His humility has all worlds won.
He gave us no degrees or titles dear to men;
He cleansed our hearts and showed us what's real
When He stooped to our feet with a bowl and a towel.
"Those who live by the sword will perish with it," He said;
And, with that He put an end to the politics of power and violence.
And yet, it was not over;
We deserted Him in His weakness as into cruel hands He fell,
We covered our eyes in fear as He bore our agony of hell;
Yet, when He rose in His power vanquishing pain and death,
He never once mentioned our desertion of Him and how we fled.
He came to us in our weakness and strengthened our hearts;
He came to bind us together when we were falling apart.
Is there such union of meekness and power anywhere?
None except in the One who is both the Lion and the Lamb.
To this only True Teacher I dedicate this song,
The song of the disciple who still for the Master does long.

The Unique Christ – I (Poem) - The Song of the Lamb
The Unique Christ – II (Poem) - The Song of the Clay

The young warrior stood motionless
On the bloodied ground where battle
Had raged yesterday with vehemence
Of heat and sound; of flashing metal
Clashing, slicing, piercing, battering,
Flying, falling, striking, slaughtering
Men and women in the battle of pride,
Filling the air with blood curdling cries
As bodies fell one after the other with sighs –
All now calmed; the violence, stilled; the battle, won.

“But, what did I win here?” the Prince thought,
As his eyes gazed around the tormenting scene
Of strewn bodies that had once valiantly fought
A battle of dignity and the right to be rightly free;
“What have I gained now?” the Prince sighed,
“An open grave, a banquet to worms and vultures,
A treat to hyenas.” “It’s not so,” the devil lied
“They deserved this for being against your culture!”
A little child came walking with tears in his eyes;
“My remorse shall equal all my sin,” the Prince began…

“For every act of violence that I have done,
Ten thousand acts of non-violence shall I return;
For every hand of cruelty that I did wield,
Ten thousand hands of kindness shall I yield;
For every single child that I did orphan,
Every child of the world as mine shall I reckon;
For every beast that this war has slaughtered,
Every beast of the field shall henceforth be preserved;
Let my remorse be so great that never a life I will annihilate;
May trees and beasts, as all humans, now freely live
And breathe peace in this Land of Non-Violence.”

“You are a fool to make such a pledge” the devil replied,
“Another fool for a Prince after Siddhartha, who shunned
The delight of palace for the wilderness’ plight,
The heroism of war for a monk’s bowl of rice,
The light of victories for a patch of worthless lies;
And what will you gain by all these?
The enemies will gain their upper hand –
He who refuses to slaughter will himself be slaughtered –
Then, you shall repent and relent; but, it shall be
Too late! For Fate will have switched her wand –
He who doesn’t listen to Time shall by Time be bartered –
So, be bold, O Great Maurya and do your duty;
It is the duty of the Kshatriya to slay the enemy;
Let Ahimsa be the delight of the weak herd
Who can neither string a bow nor wield a sword;
Leave non-violence to the monks and the nuns;
Let them pursue remorse, holiness, and all that is weird;
But, you must pursue power by sly and force;
And make all efforts to follow the violent course
Until you have finished with all and all is won,
And every inch of this land has become yours!”

“Begone, O Prince of Vices!” the Great Maurya roared,
“I will have none of yours; for, you are a concocter of lies:
What I have purposed I will with all my strength do;
As I said, the path of kindness and non-violence shall I pursue.
This shall be my penitence; this shall be my lot;
This shall be my inheritance, my only reward;
This shall be the evidence of the change of my heart
That I do what I do desiring no other reward
But the good of all, dharma as ahimsa, peace on earth.
My hands will sow kindness and reap kindness in return;
My eyes will sow goodwill and reap goodwill in return;
My thoughts will sow benevolence and reap benevolence in return;
My life will sow righteousness and reap righteousness in return –
Thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and hundred-fold; wasted, none!
I can barely atone for the sin I have done…
Yet, no more! What’s done is done, may Justice do His work!
I shall return to acts of kindness; to kindness is Ashoka won!”

---

After the Battle of Kalinga, King Ashoka (304-232 BC) renounced war and violence forever. He embraced the non-violent path of Buddhism and preached kindness to all living creatures. His reign is known as the Golden Age of Indian History. “Ashoka” means “without grief or sorrow.” The wheel in the center of the Indian Flag is called “Ashoka’s Chakra”; it symbolizes Truth, Justice, and Virtue.

© Domenic M, 2012

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Regarding Conversion
Quote added on August 16, 2012

"the tradition that Ashoka actually became a Buddhist monk is now discredited. The inscriptions never mention the Buddha and show no awareness of his 'Noble Eightfold Path' or any other Buddhist schema. Even the idea of 'conversion' is suspect, since codes like those of the Buddhists and Jains were not seen as exclusive...... conversion, in the sense of renouncing one set of doctrines for another, was meaningless." [John Keay, A History of India, London: Harper Perennial, 2000, p. 96]

"But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be loved?" - St. Augustine, Confessions.

From the depths of infinite eternity,
One would expect some dark, deep, ditch of emptiness;
But, that depth is filled with Divinity
Of the Triune God, in eternal mutuality, LOVE Himself!

From the spring of this Mutuality
Was patterned the Human Community,
In the image and likeness of God,
In the very figure of LOVE Himself.

The essence of Mutuality:
One soul in two bodies,
Mutual procession, each from the other,
Selfless spirit, two individualities;
Two for sure, but relationally one.

By two and two, that’s the order;
For, the lone man is an abyss of emptiness;
Void, devoid of the presence of an other,
Void, devoid of the sense of one with another.

In mutuality does one discover one’s identity;
One is always one in relation to another –
Who you are is who you mean to someone;
What you become is what you become in relation to another.

Just two Laws did God ordain:
Love God, Love fellow humans!
Thus, is dispelled the darkness of inhumanity:
To love and to be loved: there lies true tranquility!

© Domenic M, 2012.

Nietzsche called the greatest of all sins to be the murder of God (deicide). There was nothing more sinful than that. On the reverse, the greatest of all righteousness fulfilled was in the self-giving of the Son of God. This self-giving brought an end to the history of hostility between man and God. It cancelled all debts. Man had committed the greatest of all crimes, and God had allowed it to be done to Him in the ultimate divine sacrifice. The Cross was where Justice and Love met vis-à-vis. It was where man affirmed his estrangement and God affirmed His belongedness. It was where God accepted man as he was. The one act of righteousness by the Son of God nullified forever the writ of accusation against all humanity. The veil was torn away; the entrance is paved, now the ball is in our court. He has accepted us. Do we receive Him or choose to remain estranged? [Estrangement and Belongedness in the Ultimate Sacrifice of God]


When you first hid behind the trees of Eden,
When you first had that sense of shame,
Didn't you just wish God weren't out around?
And when He asked, didn't Him you finally blame?
When a brother lifted his hand against his brother
And slew him hatefully in an outrage untamed,
Didn't he just wish God weren't out around?
And when He asked, didn't he mock both guilt and shame?
Thus, through thought and word and action,
Man bred gods of infinite names,
And in all that he wished God were just obliterated,
So that he could have to God's throne his claim.
"Why be agonized by subservience to the One
When one can decide what's good and what's evil?
Why be traumatized by the fear of the One
When one can switch sides to the kingdom of the devil?
Then, morality could be settled in some selfish game
And immorality disguised in some mystic holy name."

Then He came, God Himself clad in human flesh;
He came to His own and they knew not His name;
And, though amidst them He spoke and worked wonders,
They betrayed and rejected Him to open shame --
Yet, on that Cross of pain and revulsion
God drank man's cup of poisonous hate;
He allowed man to do away with Him,
And in so doing He had mankind embraced.
There on that Cross did Love have the victory
Over selfish sin and prideful shame;
There did God allow the greatest of all crimes
And cover it with His own boundless grace:
The Judge allowed Himself to be executed
By the hands of sinful men;
Thereby, He put an end to all condemnation
And cancelled all writ against our name --
Then, He rose again:
Now, let those who wish God to have remained murdered
Remain forever removed from His power and reign;
But, as many as have repented and to Him surrendered
To them He has given power to be called by His name.


"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep." (John 10:11)
"Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father." (John 10:17-18)


© Domenic Marbaniang, 1 August, 2012

I saw a madman yesterday and wondered if
We ourselves aren't often mad in many ways,
When we let loose our tantrums, when we
Let temper kill wisdom, temperance, and the day,
When we let loudness overcome reason,
And violence put on destruction,
Coz' we've gotten so mad that people keep away.
A man (or woman) would also go wild with love
That he's blinded to what is pure and real;
We say "He's gone crazy in love (or perhaps, in lust)",
Misjudging his madness for a holy quest,
For it is truly love when one is willing to make a sacrifice
For the good of the other and all the rest;
But, it's sheer madness when one keeps believing the lies,
Counting purity and justice as utmost jest.
It might be a moment's infatuation
That soon turns out to be a mad delusion
Bereft of truth, leaving an empty sense of emotion.
I see another man running to be rich,
And so much by the smell of money bewitched
That he forgets home, family, and friends
And uses all around for his own ends;
"Isn't that madness?" I ask, for what else could it be
That drives one crazy after what is today but tomorrow may not be,
Seducing one to forego warm love for the quest of cold money.
There is another man that I see who's crazier of all the mad;
He laughs at the world, and walks about sneering,
Thinking that his "setting above" will bring much cheering -
"That's madness!" I say, for that's what mad people do all the time:
They think they're so influential, so distinct, and so elite
That the world must bow before their elated, inflated pride;
And, such attitudinal self-cheering only gets others leaving
One lonely, isolated, and "distinct" as one didn't thought one'd be.
I'll conclude: Let's watch out for madness, this virus of self-destruction
That clogs the mind, confuses the senses, and obstructs instruction;
Let's keep focused on truth, and us on the right side of the road,
Keep our eyes open and watch for the signals of reason;
For why should temper or pamper or whimper or dumper
Steal the life that God has given us to live with joy through life's best season.

"The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead." (Ecclesiastes 9:3)
"The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight." (Proverbs 4:7)

© Domenic Marbaniang, July 18, 2012