Two Poems

[pastor Jeff Otterman]

These two poems can be found in a book titled "Would You Buy A Ticket To This?" The poetry is written by Al DiLoreto and Al is a Spiritual Leader for many, many people. ISBN 1-58961-081-4

First Poem: What Love Is And What Love Isn't

I am here for you, but...

Don't use me to get lost or hide or make yourself feel better, but you can use me to help find yourself.

Use me as a way of understanding yourself, but not as a way of relieving yourself.

Please , don't look for in me what is missing in you. I assure you, it is not there!

I am a Thou, as are you, not an it, and if you can see this, we may have a chance, you and me.

I can help you find what's missing in yourself, but I cannot give it to you or be it for you. I make a great cheerleader, but a poor mother!

It is not that I am unwilling to give you what you need, I am unable to; so don't be angry at me for not doing something no one could accomplish. Only you can make that happen.

I can be responsible for only me, although I can be responsible to you. Please understand that giving oneself in love is not the same as giving oneself away.

And understand, too, that I have great respect for this person I am becoming and that, really is all I have to share with you. No magic. Just the feelings, memories, and experiences I have to come to cherish over the years of my lifetime. I will expect you to treat them as you would your own.

I cannot promise you happiness, for it is not a gift to any form of life. It will be hard work and we will hurt each other along the way, but if you have it in you, the gifts I have to give are available no where else and cannot be purchased for any sum. And I believe I can enrich your life if you allow yourself to be with me for awhile.

04/06/1990

2nd poem: What Spirituality Isn't

It's the American way...the taking of a life by the taking of a soul. It is murder without the effusion of any blood. It's quite tidy, you know, and, what's more, the guilty are not so easily identified.

We call it parenting sometimes, marriage other times, friendship is yet another name, and yes colleagues do it too.

It is the way of people who dread realness more than disease. The way of those who place decency above courage and caring. Who keep the dignity of duty at the expense of love. Where the absolutes of character and form, manners and propriety keep passion at bay. When correctness is used for deception, duplicity, or worse. It is the demand for personal innocence no matter what the cost.

The shaming voice of moral outrage, so debilitating and hard to stop, ricochets from parent to child to friend to colleague and back again.

Indignation, moral outrage...Why? Because it works at creating innocence by keeping you focused on me instead of on yourself, where your attention rightfully belongs.

For the enemy is not in the actions or omissions of another, but in the scorn of those who look in judgment not in love, so they don't have to look at themselves; innocence preserved. I decide what to do based on what you do free of personal responsibility.

Our mothers left us all with the same generic fear: that somewhere deep, we each are flawed. That somewhere in our dresser drawer is a par of shit- stained underwear. And our job is to find it at all costs while distracting the world by finding someone else's first.

It's a feeling that I have, that my shit-stained underwear may be someone else's ticket to Heaven, to more innocence, at my expense. Don't bother. There are piles of sh.. all around me that I gladly claim as my own. But I didn't notice what you noticed because I was tending to and working on my own.

01/23/1994

[Pandorasbox]

"I can help you find what's missing in yourself, but I cannot give it to you or be it for you. I make a great cheerleader, but a poor mother!"

Oh wow this is me to a T! This is what friends say I do for them. Thank you so much!