IN SEARCH OF...

My friend Eric in Mérida sent us a poem that had been emailed to him from Wil, a friend up north, who'd come across the poem by accident. The poem, called "In Search Of," had been written by Dina G. McIntyre, an Indian-born follower of the Mazdayaznan religion and a Zarathustran (Zoroastrian) scholar, as well as a retired lawyer who has practiced before the US Supreme Court.

At first glance the poem turned me off because it began, "Beloved, I search for Your Face." It's just my makeup to get crusty around the use of such words as "beloved," and the mention of someone's face, but then I remembered that Eric doesn't send me schmaltz and happy-face-icon stuff. Also, I noticed that in the poem the words "Your Face" were capitalized. I myself capitalize the word "Nature" when I mean to show piety toward Nature as the physical-world manifestation of what others might call the Deity or God.

So, I gave the poem another chance, this time paying attention to the capitalization as the words' thoughts blossomed around me. The work still didn't appeal all that much to me, but something else about it did.

What I liked was how this poem was floating from person to person, along the way offering positive, friendly vibes. It'd been written by someone who felt moved spiritually, and then that special feeling had been shared with others. Wil up north found something worthy in the poem, and shared it with Eric, who liked it enough to share it with me, and now I'm passing it along to you.

This kind of sharing is especially important right now because nowadays a tidal wave of aggressive, bigotry-based negativity is washing across the world. To fight it, people like us need to be sending out all the ripples of nurturing, caring influences we can, for when enough ripples merge together, they become a tidal wave, too.

Here's Dina G. McIntyre's poem, a ripple that merged with Wil's ripple, which merged with Eric's ripple, which I'm rippling out to you, just in case you can deal with words like beloved and Thee:

Beloved,
I search for Your Face.
In the moving lights and darks of earth and space,
I search for Your Face.

I stretch my mind to grasp at the thought of Thee,
Grasp, as You move and breathe in all around me,
And find in my grasp,
Wisps of eternity... elusive...

In the silent rhapsody of the universe,
In tree, and sky, and star, and sand,
I feel your Hand.

In a loving heart,
In a truthful mind,
In an act of grace,
I see Your Face,
Beloved.