Unity

  • “Love Me,” We Say

    The Sufi poet Hafiz, writing over 600 years ago, opens one of his poems by asserting: "Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'" You don't say it aloud, of course, but it's there, just beneath the surface, revealed… Continue reading

  • Belove

    God doesn't want us to believe.God invites us to belove.* *In the gospels, belief doesn't mean intellectual assent to tenets and propositions, but alignment, orientation, alliance, relationship to/with the Beloved. "Do you believe in me?" means "Are you with me?… Continue reading

  • Without Mediator or Veil

    I keep searching for manageable definitions of mysticism and descriptions of what it means to be a mystic, a pursuit which, I realize, may be inherently contradictory. Nevertheless, I was happy to come across this challenge from Ralph Waldo Emerson:… Continue reading

  • Right or Real?

    The belief that I am right separates me from others. The knowledge that I am real draws me closer. Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.   Continue reading

  • Big Arms

    I want big armsa big hearta mind oh so very opento embrace what is way vasterthan what I've known or could ever imagine.  Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.  Continue reading

  • The Soul’s Raptus

    this is a vision    of the spirit's transport    of the soul's raptus snatched up    blown over    pushed through to that solitude just beyond reach    one aha past the present    one dream deeper into night where i am bleached transparent    borderless (all lands and none)    intended    unreflected so close, so… Continue reading

  • Core Word #7: Awareness

    Anthony de Mello wrote a potent little book titled Awareness. Do not read this book. If you read this book, you will be picked up, shaken out, and dropped several feet from where you started. You will most certainly be… Continue reading

  • Stripping

    Oh, you of the sacred plaid,and you of the holy stripes,you of the divine argyles and polka dots,you pinstripe believers and houndstooth congregants…it's time to strip clean. Leave your garments beside the door;exit your particular, peculiar house of worship. Out… Continue reading

  • Core Word #3: Expansion

    As I've grown spiritually (and I do think of it as growth, though maybe it's change, or evolution, or devolution–in any case, because it gets better and better, I experience it as growth), it feels, even when I'm letting go… Continue reading

  • Not One, But Not Two

    My friend Jim recently commented on a post of mine, decrying the use of labels. I think his response was justified. Labeling sustains separations that ultimately are illusory. In God, we become one. (Jim will occasionally refer to God as… Continue reading