Belief

Believers all believe
Their belief is best
Their belief's from God
To hell with all the rest

Believers take their stand
For things that they believe
Things for which they'd die or kill
They themselves deceive

Believers will believe
They excel the least
That all belief is blind
Is the nature of the beast

(C) 2012, Qoheleth

Qoheleth Haiku 3:5

 

 

⁵a time to throw away stones,

and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace,

and a time to refrain from embracing;

 

If we speak of stones

We gather stones for building

Discard to clear land

 

If we speak of sex

Sex has an essential role

So does abstinence

 

Live life in balance

In sexual encounters

In building houses

 

To hold another

In life sustaining embrace

Dispels loneliness

 

We need solitude

If we would know another

We must know ourselves

 

©2012, Qoheleth

 

Picture Credit: William Johnson Photography and activerain.com 

I AM Here

When light broke into nothing

With a Bang that no ear heard

When Order sprang from Chaos

With the speaking of a Word

I AM here

When a single cell of life

Oozed from a primal sea

And evolved in adaptations

To all you know to be

I AM here

In the sunrise on the mountains

In the sunset on the sea

In the pain and joy of childbirth

In the prison with the free

I AM here

When nail or phallus pierces

The flesh of innocence

And the flame burns the children

In war’s senseless offence

I AM here

In your deepest loneliness

Of homelessness and cold

Between the silks of opulence

A voice of silence in your soul

I AM here

©Stan Sanford

August 30, 2011

Picture from: http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/First_Nations/apache_creation_story.htm

Qoheleth Haiku 3:4

⁴a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

Parallel ideas

Comparing joy and sorrow

Yin yang in relief

Opposites reflect

Essential realities

Point and counterpoint

Crying in sorrow

Laughing and dancing in joy

Indicate our needs

We will mourn and weep

If we should lose a resource

For meeting love need

We will laugh and dance

In any situation

We meet our love need

I will weep with you

In sorrow and I will laugh

With you in your joy



Believers

Believers all believe

Their belief is best

Their belief's from God

To hell with all the rest

Believers take their stand

For things that they believe

Things for which they'd die or kill

They themselves deceive

Believers all believe

They excel the least

That all belief is blind

Is the nature of the beast

© 2012, Qoheleth



Qoheleth Haiku 3:3

³a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;⁴

What is this business

When is it a time to kill

When life is sacred

It’s a time to kill

To protect the innocent

Protocol of life

Does the God of love

See capital punishment

Fit in his design

God of healing grace

Strengthen my inner being

With power that heals

Rebuilding requires

Tearing out the broken down

To restore the house

Look at opposites

Each one defines the other

From our perspective

Building is not good

When it does not meet a need

But just serves a want



Qoheleth Haiku 3:2

²a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 

When the season’s right

Things come into awareness

And then they go out 

Birthing and dying

Encompasses our being

The self transcends them 

The planting season

Followed by harvest season

Followed by planting 

The birthing season

Precedes the dying season

Followed by birthing 

Opposites maintain

The circle of life in tact

Circle of seasons

Predestination

Without form and without voice

Without dreams and without choice

The predestined soul

Lives to be what it will be

Lives out the whims of deity

Its determined goal 

Without reason without rhyme

Without rhythm without time

These presumptive lines 

Live to float upon the breeze

Live perhaps that they may please

Their creator's mind

© 2012, Qoheleth 



Omnipresence

When light broke into nothing
With a Bang that no ear heard
When Order sprang from Chaos
With the speaking of a Word
I AM there

When a single cell of Life
Oozed from a primal sea
And evolved in adaptations
To all life that came to be
I AM there

In the sunrise on the mountains
In the sunset on the sea
In the pain and joy of childbirth
In the prison—with the free
I AM there

When nail or phallus pierces
The flesh of innocence
And fire burns the children
In war’s heartless offence
I AM there

When sun warms the breast of earth
And life within it swells
When upon a bloody cross
Heaven enters hell
I AM there

In your deepest loneliness
Of homelessness and cold
Or in the silks of opulence
A voice of silence in your soul
I AM there

©2012, Qoheleth

Seasons Change

(Song Lyrics)

On a gray and dismal winter day,

A greening tender bud on a tree:

In the cold of winter, the first sign

Of the coming spring I see. 

Seasons change, just wait a while;

The pain that you feel will soon be gone;

But you must accept the fact

That pleasure, too, will pass;

For the seasons never last very long. 

The spring is coming around again;

The colors and the sounds of new life

Blend in a dance of pleasure and pain;

I feel both the harmony and strife. 

The summer brings carefree sleepy days,

In the mountains, by the ocean’s shore;

Priceless, yes, each moment in the sun,

For all too soon they will be no more. 

Sunny days are growing shorter now;

Autumn colors bursting into view;

It seems the leaves try to hold the sun,

Just as I am holding on to you. 

©1997, Stan Sanford

Qoheleth Haiku 3:1

 

Suzie Buchholz             

¹For everything there is a season,

and a time for every matter under heaven:

Thanks to Pete Seeger

Many know Qoheleth’s thought

The Byrds Turn Turn Turn

Only a season

Is what God allots to us

To succeed or fail

In a space of time

We have opportunity

As we move thorough space

It is God’s design

For all that he created

Its own time and place

A matter of time

What we do to meet our needs

For it’s about time*

God leaves nothing out

Nothing that fits his design

He gives each its time

Make the most of time

The present is all we have

No future nor past 

*See John Denver’s “It’s about Time”



Qoheleth Haiku 2:26

²⁶For to the one who pleases him God

gives wisdom and knowledge and joy;

but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping,

only to give to one who pleases God.

This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

The one pleasing God

The one who aligns himself

With God’s grand design

Not a despot king

Requiring subservience

Is God Almighty

The sinner is one

Who does not align himself

With God’s grand design

Wisdom, knowledge, joy

Come to those aligned with God

Fulfills life’s purpose

Where is there justice

Where one works and one profits

God is a just God

Qoheleth confronts

 Contemporary wisdom

That God is partial

Injustice abounds

Output of the human mind

Not the mind of God