I realized Something..

I laid down in the yard a few minutes ago,

had a Leonard Cohen song in my head

"Show me the place where you want your slave to go,

Show me the place, I've forgotten I don't know,

Show me the place, Where my head is bending low,

Show me the place where you want your slave to go."

Reminded me of St. Paul calling himself a slave for his beloved.

And I wondered why I even thought of this..why, what for?

"Show me the place, Help me roll away the stone

Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone

Show me the place, where the word became a man

Show me the place where the suffering began.

I looked up at a falling star and realized something..

wkm

Oxford Ms

"LIKE" us.. or whatever dadgummit.!!

Come on folks.. "LIKE" us or whatever... it will HELP us get more exposure....and that seems to be the path to some kind of shallow happiness.. and i think we are ready for a little of this happiness...

http://soundcloud.com/catswithbeards3

Love, Keith

Gates of Dignity

I was just watching a video on youtube about Leonard Cohen's journey into Zen Buddhism..

He found help for his chronic depression and self destructive lifestyle..

I felt a wind in my study as I watched, a cool wind blew upon my right shoulder

And please know there is no wind here as I write this..

I am Catholic, and I am religious, not "spiritual" like I used to say..

I am a religious being who needs ritual, liturgy, ancient traditions that are ever new..the Mass..

The wind made me think of Pentecost..not the Pentecostal church in American culture,

but the moment when the Apostles knew language didn't matter..

It caused me pause and deep joy and humility about being Catholic..

the beauty of the "Ancient ever New"..

It is something Hell will never overcome..

something Hell looks upon with curiosity and awe..(even the demons believe, and they shudder)

no matter how many Luthers or Calvins hell encourages in their "good" pursuits,

it will never overcome the gates of mercy built by the loving Jesus given to the world through the fisherman Peter....

These are beautifully strong gates which invite all to enter.

Gates of incredible bloody wounds and scars that keep no one who wants in,, out..

These are gates of mercy, beauty, grace, and love,

Justice, sin forgiven, and sinners groping for a life of beauty, and deep holiness amidst the struggle..., 

Of those desiring the field so they can have the treasure..

Giving all, selling all, ahhhhhh, God help me, I am weak beyond my weakness..

wkm

Oxford MS

For Thomas Merton

The Hills

Can we even begin to contemplate the beauty of a spring morning at dawn? Just across the way in the coming light there is a vale of fog covering the rolling hills. Dogs are barking far off in the distance causing my dog to bark. I hear Blue Jays and Mockingbirds singing because they can't contain themselves. My dog just came back in the house and is licking my arm, asking for a treat since he did such a fine job defending the house. Hold on a minute while I get him one...Ok, I'm back. I wonder if the seasons are god's way of revealing heaven's opposition to boredom. For instance, I have now seen these spring hills I described in summer, winter, and fall; and though the same hills, the scene is always unique to the season. In summer, the morning sky over those hills is resolute, shimmering, easy to understand. In the fall, it is soft, mysterious, playful. In winter, it is brooding, close, carrying a strange luminous light. As spring has sprung it is opaque, colorful, playful, alive. So often the voice of our heart wants to sing like these birds are singing, it can't help it.

wkm

Oxford MS

Cat With Beards

Hello my old friends from the past 6 years of emails, poems, songs, and musings.... crazy to think some of us have been in communication for over 6 years now..bizarre..

As you know, I am back home in Oxford, God's Country, Mississippi.. So happy to be home..and thankful for the journey in Nashville over the past two years.. It was a time of learning humility and making music, I hope I learned something...

I have started a new band here in Oxford..."Cats With Beards". Three dudes with facial hair who play numerous instruments, thus,  "Cats"..

Bear...he plays Banjo, Mandolin, Piano, Organ, Bouzouki, Guitar, harpsichord, ukelele, and other stringed things..

Greg...he plays Cello, Sting Bass, Bass, Mando Cello, Fiddle, Violin, and anything in the classical string world.

Me..guitar, percussion, hollering, singing?, bass, drums, synth, classical guitar, harmonica, piano, lawnmower and machette..

Listen to these songs and sing along my dear old friends...they are about stuff humans go through every live long day..

http://soundcloud.com/catswithbeards3      and don't forget to "LIKE".. it makes me feel good.

wkm

Oxford

beauty, honesty, hope...

The Feast of the Sacred Heart was for me a day of grace and seriousness. Twenty years ago I was uncomfortable with this concept. Now I see the real meaning of it (quite apart from the externals). It is the center, the "heart" of the whole Christian mystery.

There is one thing more – I may be interested in Oriental religions, etc., but there can be no obscuring the essential difference – this personal communion with Christ at the center and heart of all reality, as a source of grace and life. "God is love" may perhaps be clarified if one says that "God is void" and if the void one finds absolute indetermination and hence absolute freedom. (With freedom, the void becomes fulness and 0 = infinity). All that is "interesting" but none of it touches on the mystery of personality in God, and His personal love for me. Again, I am void too – and I have freedom, or am a kind of freedom, meaningless unless oriented to Him. ---Thomas Merton, a few weeks before he died..

Where are the "John Hammond's" of our day?

Here is a quote from a bio about Leonard Cohen  http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2001/oct/14/features.magazine37 ....(He would never have made it on American Idol)

There seems to be no one making a name for being a maverick in our musical world...no one seems to be taking chances on the possibility of a Dylan, a Cohen, etc... all we have today is frightened little music business people kissing the likes of Simon Cowel's boootay, shrieking at their own shadows like little children....so sad and so pitiful..art is forgotten by the masses.. thank God for the internet and the many making music everyday in their dens, bathrooms, garages, basements, etc...

 Check it out...

"Cohen's own future took off one night in 1967 when he supported Judy Collins, the 60s folk singer, at an anti-Vietnam war concert at New York Town Hall. When he took the stage, his guitar was out of tune, his voice froze to a whimper and he ran to the wings with stage fright. He was terrified. But both Collins and the chanting crowd persuaded him to take the microphone again. As soon as he did, they loved him. He was signed to Columbia records by a maverick talent scout, John Hammond, the A&R man who had taken similar 'risks' on unknowns Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan."