The rise and fall of character

I have spent my life

in a model of appraisal

with adjustments, corrections,

and refinements

all for the sake of character.

There is a cognitive place

within each of us

that does that work for us.

It does that work

for each of us

at being a kind person,

being a sincere person,

being a caring

and a concerned person.

All that effort

worked perfectly well

in innocence . . .

but then

life came to forks in the road.

There were conflicts

and contradictions galore.

There came complexities

that were hardly comprehensible

and yet part of life,

part of the enormous duplicities

of consciousness in living.

These experiences spread us

in all directions.

We got into ‘mis’ and ‘dis’ information,

into agendas and motives,

into control and ownership positions,

into relationships and postured priorities.

The simple beauty of character

instilled to be the directive perspective

across these perilous circumstances

was to be uniformly apply.

The reference was to having ‘character’,

somehow a method to being

but . . . not really being.

Much more than that,

it became the management

of a projection,

both outwardly as well as inward,

a proof of worth,

a documentation of self . . . justified.

There is a calm and peace

to being the caretaker

of the mansion of being.

It is an exercise

as a life process

and ever so slowly

one becomes that mentality.

The joy of job pervades

from chaperone to chauffer

from caterer to chief.

One is the master

of one’s self-sense

and by the eventuality that comes,

nobody cares for the projection,

everybody always wanted the juice.

This method provided for a life

but not for a means of living it alive.

The joy of being

is somehow buried away.

The essence of flame,

though still a flicker,

has little candlepower

to reveal the inner light.

Only in the last hours

before death

does that light return with clarity

and yet not fully bright.

That the character of the person

gives way to an integrity of spirit,

provides for the possibility

that the child of innocence

may fully reappear

though weathered and battered

with life lessons

as part of the display.

But there . . .

both before and beyond

as in the rise and fall of character

belies the precision of spirit.

No matter the form,

not really the labor of death

but the light of the life,

under a perpetual guardianship

despite the mentality

and projection of character.

It is as if we all are each

a metaphorical tray

upon which there is placed

a chalice of person

and within that chalice

is our nectar of being,

filled to the brim with being.

Our life becomes

the waiter of deliverance

that tray, as the concern

for that chalice,

all seems to demand management.

Its precious nectar of self

under some sense of guardianship.

Yet to be the trust of a life

in the endless supply of nectar.

For us to share . . .

to give up sips along the way,

to realize the ocean within

that eventually gives of us

as a final toast.

“To the rise and fall of character

as necessity . . . as purposeful,

as our self in a constant life

of spiritual reclaim”.

Yet here we are quite privately

with another toast

only to be unsaid,

only in every moment

so secretly so,

“until the ocean is our chalice

upon which we sip

of our innocence complete . . .

again”.