praying for the Sun

Praying for the Sun     or    Twenty Four Degrees of Christmas

As I awaken, very late for me, to a still and sunny day
I have to bless my wonder at daylight's golden ray
for sunlight streams into my home and along my forestwood
though I have done didiley to expect this rare sunshiny good

yesterday's silver somber gray has changed again once more
and I forget how low I felt when my chin was on the floor,
and I forget that light and cloud often weigh so heavy on my heart
tied as I am to this velvet life full of pricks and dart

but my craft is tethered tight and calm to my narrow little quay
and surely I've no right to think this light shines free from pay
for I have played the game of life not always as I should
so do I owe something for another sunny chance in this merry neighborhood?

midwinter cold grips the air and clings to metal and pot
and chills my rabbit frame as if my lucky foot was coldly caught
in a vise-like trap of all my sins and fears and the reasons not to love
but for no reason I survive and feel a grace from both below and from above

even though how far I've flown and lived till now I know little more than naught
I've ridden life's great silent currents not knowing that I useless fought
perhaps cool and errant zephyrs have carried me as a soaring dove
but all the while a deeper drift held me soft as a velvet glove,

my mutiny on all the bounty of my little ship of state
belies the peace I feel in my heart even though I do not really rate
and there is no joy in thinking I have the means to make my case
and somehow there are explanations for all the meanings of the race

but at last allowing wonder to range free from all debate
giving in to silent thanks and a wordless twist of fate
and now the air is warming with a brightness hard to face
and it is so very difficult to accept I deserve a little bit of grace

so I say a little prayer to our sun for the little that I feel and know
soon shrouds of white billows will wrap me with a winter snow
and my bright disposition will soon take flight before dawn's gray
but let my happy visage remember and take pleasure from this day.

A Global Christmas Prayer for Peace in Our Lifetime or All I want for Christmas

A Global Christmas Prayer for Peace in Our Lifetime           or         All I want for Christmas

Lord, thank You for this ordinary day, which is anything but ordinary; 

but I cannot live everyday in the exulted consciousness and knowledge of You and everything You have given us already. 

I can only live in my prosaic mind.   My small human mind is only capable of human thoughts and I am foolish and arrogant to think I can think Godly thoughts and know Your plan.    And it is silly of me to think and to use words to try to express Your Spirit. 

So I am left to my own rough and pock-marked character; even though, with Your divine help, I can remain constant, it is always my own uneven personality which needs to remain vigilant. 

It is a work in progress, forged by the choices I chose to make everyday.   For in choosing to walk in Your Light, along Your lighted path, I gain a measure of peace. When I harbor no mean thoughts toward my brothers and sisters and I judge not their souls or my own, but always seek to see You at work in all of us, I gain a longer vista. 

I gain an acceptance of a greater truth; we were not designed to hurt and to kill each other.   That is only what we do in our ignorance and denial of the real truth.   And for some the real truth is beyond them, or above them, or below them, or just does not cross their radar because they are too intent on their personal agenda and do not have the heart yet to see how You have woven us all together in Your matrix of life. 

 And when we hurt each other, these are only the disconnects of man's world which is always breaking the fabric of Your Perfect World. 

It is true we were once part of Your Garden of Eden and we chose to use only our minds to see what is all around us.  We extol our own rationality, but what is that but the wisdom You have already planted in our hearts.  Your divine wisdom is the only glue which maintains us.  Your infinite Love is the only force which drives all the creative forces of the world.

When we bend to Your will, and see ourselves in context, when we see ourselves as part of the miracle of life on this third Rock, we gain the emotional and spiritual maturity to know the real truth: 

       "We are all joined in one common journey; we are all part of Your parade of life."  

 And You sent Jesus and Many others to tell us of this.  But we remain ignorant because we chose not to see the real truth.  The real truth that would set us free of our preoccupation with ourselves and also set us free of the delusion that we rule the Planet and must enslave one another, like turtles climbing on top of turtles. 

   For those thoughts and that thinking is the thinking of man's mind and man's fears.

And while it is true we must compete and seek to perfect ourselves, that does not mean we must mistreat one another or treat each other unfairly.  Only when we uphold our uncommon dignity which we derive from You, Lord, can we be free.  Only when each is given an opportunity to seek You freely, and to express their heartfelt appreciation of Your Gift of Life and Your Gift of Creation, do we gain a proper place to stand. 

In the meaning of our Christian heritage in North America, in the meaning of all the diverse people of all faiths who have joined with us here to celebrate our freedom to worship You in whatever way holds meaning for them, and in the meaning of our First Nation's people celebrating You as the Great Spirit which joins everything,

I pray to all that is holy and sacred about our existence on this speck of rock and water and earth and fire and air;

for all of us to wake up and see the truth of our brotherhood, and to see You, Lord, as the only arbiter of our fate.    Amen

May all of you find peace in the celebration of Christmas and the holy infant, Jesus, so tender and so mild.  God bless all of you.

America is Only an Idea

America is Only an Idea or Chasing a Dream

345 words 12-1-2016

we live on the cusp of a wave of human hope

the rolling lip of monumental energy welling up,

from a source deep under what is visible to our eyes,

and the crest of this silent force assumes a sinewy shape,

containing an undeniable strength and resiliency we recognize,

and call our own without regard to it's true nature,

and we live fully formed on this moving edge,

but without the x-ray vision of a superhero or a simple soul,

we forget that the monumental energy is not exactly us,

but a natural and super-natural magnetism beyond our imagination,

and because we have no words and no ability and no way to name it,

we invent a million ways to give shape to what we cannot describe;

we start communities and churches and organizations trying to symbolize

the ineffable and indescribable and utterly impalpable gift,

we have been given:

to live, to witness, to share, to connect,

to touch the vibrant part of the living energy we are a part of,

but cannot put our finger on or find a way to wrap our minds around,

because we are only a small part and our vista is truly limited,

regardless and thoughtless and clueless we wander over the interior landscape

of our fearful and desolate imaginations, bereft of a Sense,

that we belong here, inextricably rooted,

tied to a golden miracle by a million silken strands,

woven seamlessly joining us to everything there is,

and to the ultimate secret and silent source of the Big Om,

the big breath we all breathe,

the yearning we share with each other to find God,

and have a communion with what is sacred and holy,

in our spiritual and most sensual intercourse with each other.

So thank you America and God Bless the Spirit of all those seekers of brotherhood,

and seekers of community, and those who have tried to do the right thing

and hold the love of God and their brothers in their hearts.

OUR ERA OF POST TRUTH

'Post-truth' declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries-uncredited story –

dated Nov. 16, 2016

                                   http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600

Oxford Dictionaries says post-truth is thought to have been first used in 1992.
However, it says the frequency of its usage increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared with last year.

To my friends and all the rest of you very intelligent free humans:

 

We are all full of crap  and everybody's crap stinks. I have written about truth and perhaps how we find the truth. I feel this to be an important topic. Bogus news is a plague. 

There are reasons for this, as documented and discussed in the following links. (A quick scan of the links and/or the stories provides some of the details.) The basic concept is that all of us exist inside of our own 'filter bubble', our own 'echo chamber', made worse by the algorithms of google and facebook. In political terms, both left-wingers ( like me ) and right wingers, tend to gravitate to 'news' and 'content' that supports our own beliefs. This is all pretty obvious, especially to most of the savvy and sophisticated users of diaspora. Whether we want to admit it or not, is another matter.

No one is prefect and we are all subjective. At least we can start there. No one has the absolute truth, only what we perceive to make the most sense to us. Most post links and some kind of documentation to amplify their ideas. But there are a plethora of fake news sites, pseudo opinion sites, and outright 'pure' propaganda sites.

One problem with the recent US election was the 'narratives' of each political group took precedence over what could be defined as relatively objective truth, if such a thing exists. I would maintain it does; if you look deep enough and hard enough and if you are willing to grapple with the ambiguities of life's great and small mysteries. 

You can add another fact to the equation. Language is constantly morphing as we find new expressions to describe our feelings and discard other words and expressions that do not seem relevant to our lives. Thus the relevance of the Oxford Dictionary in reporting on word usage and the emergence of new phrases.

All of this adds up to quite a quandary. 

As an aside, I find that the word choices of my 'spellcheck' seem to have become less accurate for some reason. So if you are a bad speller like me, and the spellcheck is not providing an appropriate spelling, you are in real trouble. But that is a small problem.

The bigger problem is how do we talk to one another. If you accept the purpose of social networking and the whole internet is to facilitate communication between free humans, we obviously need a way to talk to each other, in language which we can agree on, and with honesty and respect. That Is the purpose of our endeavor here, isn't it ?

1. - rise of fake news -

Uncredited story – Nov. 6, 2016
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-37846860

2. - Zuckerberg plans to combat problem of Facebook fake news - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38039506

Uncredited story – dated Nov. 16, 2016



3. - How we got to POST-TRUTH -
https://www.fastcompany.com/3065580/how-we-got-to-post-truth
BY RUTH READER , a writer from Brooklyn, NY – dated Nov. 18, 2016

Why I am grateful today

Why I am grateful today:

I am grateful for the sunlight streaming in my window,

for being able to hear music and the cat's meow,

for having two legs that work and being able to walk,

I am grateful my electricity is still on though I am late on the bill,

I am grateful I am not in Aleppo,

for being on the green side of the grass,

for being able to write words with my keyboard,

I am grateful that company is coming for the holidays this week,

I am grateful for the good health of my family,

I am happy to feel the cold air and winter will dress the earth in white snow again,

I am happy that I have projects and plans ahead of me,

I am grateful for understanding how fake news works on the internet,

I am grateful that at least half of America is happy, though maybe for a little while,

I am happy for being free of pain and able to breathe air,

I am happy I do not have to be anywhere today,

I am grateful for being whole-hearted and at peace in my head,

for being in touch with my brothers,

for being out of touch with my enemies,

for being hungry,

for being.

Spirit Ride

Spirit Ride            11-2-16              333 words

You know I 'm trying, Lord, You know I care,

about my brothers and the state of all we share,

I know I do not exist alone for I see my real condition,

I am one of countless ones who live by Your volition,

You brought us here to witness, You brought us here to see,

Your golden world of precious life and all the ways to be,

Alive to this miracle of yearning in our struggle to define,

what living life means for us when we are blind to Your design,

What we do is often clueless or blinded by the Light,

of our self-delusion and denial of Your Great Web Sight,

for we see all things with our paltry minds, with our tiny brains,

we forget to see the divinity in the gift of simple rains,

we forget to see the Divinity which surrounds us day by day,

we take it all for granted or explain it all away,

as long as Earth keeps spinning and the rains fall on the ground,

we go about our modern life and never stop to hear the sound,

of the whirring humming birds and the buzzing of the bees,

the silent bark and breathing of our brother trees,

the majestic life of soil and the magic of shit made pure,

the silent sprouting of simple seed so life can simply endure,

yes, we take it all for granted that there is life on this third rock,

a life full of intention and the desire You pack into the crock,

So all of us could taste the ecstasy of holy communion with another,

and take our place in Your Holy Dance of one father and one mother,

and when we see the unholy truth of all the ways we work,

that life conspires to continue in spite of Man berserk,

do we not sometimes wonder, do we not really care,

at the end of this Spirit ride, and no longer imbibe Your Air.

Saving the Souls of the Heathens

Saving the Souls of the Heathens       Sunday 11-13-2016     299 words

My God,

the heathens are arising with the anti-christ,

they have laid in their guns and ammunition,

they have prepared a fortress in their hearts,

they have built an edifice of reasons

to excuse themselves for their fears

and make it all right to kill their brothers

and anyone who thinks differently than them

they cannot tolerate Your world of diversity, Lord

they cannot tolerate Your world of infinite colors,

they think that they have found a key to lock out the truth;

the truth that Your world is more complicated than any can imagine

and they cannot see You or themselves in Your Glorious Creation

and they cannot see how You really work Your miracle

in weaving us all together into Your rainbow of precious life.

men use the Koran and the Bible to explain why they should kill each other

and make it ok to murder children and anything which confuses them,

they create a narrative, a matrix of reasons and half-truths, to excuse

their hate-speech and racism, and to blame liberals for the sins we are all guilty of:

ignoring Your divine Creation, thinking we have a mandate to rape Mother Earth,

ignoring that we are all Your children and all pilgrims on the path,

ignoring that we all suffer when we attack and blame each other and forget

'we are all in it together',

and finally, Lord and Great Spirit of All Life, ignoring Your mandate

that we love and care for each other and see Your divine Spirit in each other's eyes.

Grant us again Your Grace, let us be humble and grateful, knowing only You

are Great, and all of us are just so many blades of grass in Your Holy Sea. Amen

THE WORLD IS NOT A MACHINE

THE WORLD IS NOT A MACHINE

The reason for the fubar, the reason for why we fuss,

can be found in old false fables, can be found deep inside of us,

we were taught by other humans, to fear and follow half digested truth,

we did not know any better, than to act and be uncouth,

we were taught to follow leaders who promised us the moon,

what we did not know and learned too late, is life's over much too soon,

we were taught to use our senses, and the evidence of our eyes,

and we forget to feel what our hearts tell us, and the wonder of the skies,

we were taught to think thin thoughts untrue, like we are very smart,

but we never learned enough about, how life is not like Art,

we never learn the simple truth to simply love life as it is,

and love ourselves in spite of flaws, and to see past all the biz,

we were taught to pile up treasure, and fear those who may rob our hoard,

when everything is shared by us, we'll no longer need our sword,

but that is for a future time, when every one has the heart,

to see that life's just a song we sing, and everyone has a part,

our froggy, croaky chorus echoes down more than we can describe,

for we have no memory of when we were all part of just one tribe,

yes, life is short, intense, and sweet, and the vision that we view,

what we think we see, we often misconstrue,

we are part of something that is more than a big machine,

if you take a moment to see the truth, you might know what I mean,

but listen not to what I tell you, listen not to what others say,

you alone possess the answers that will let you cross the bay,

you alone possess the key to unlock any door,

once you learn to let fear go, and learn what life is really for.

small prayer for peace

a small prayer for peace


Lord, God, Great Spirit, hear my prayer,

guide us, Lord, help us to see Your high road,

save us from our divisions and our disputes

as we make our way along Your proscribed Path,

Remind us of our heritage and that we believe in fairness and decency,

and the right of every individual to see You in the way that is most fitting for

each, knowing that You made us all different and we see You in different ways,

remind us that Your spark of divinity exists in each of us,

and sometimes it takes a little extra patience with our brothers

to see it from their point of view, and we do not always have the right answer.

Make me a vessel for Your Will, and give me wisdom to do my best,

and help do what I can to keep America great,

for I know we are nothing without You and You are the source

of any greatness we may aspire to.  Bring harmony to our land

and let us all work together as one people,

with liberty and justice for all.    Amen

Lies and the Internet - Who to Believe

Why is the Truth nowhere to be found ?

      It seems so hard to get to what is real in our world today.   There are so many sources of information and we are never sure what the hidden agenda is or might be of the particular site we are on.
      How can we get to the real bedrock of truth and avoid lies and mis-truths?
How can we decide who to believe?

     Well, first we look to people and organizations who already have a good reputation, a reputation of some degree of objectivity.   That is pretty hard to find.   We judge often by how much we feel the person agrees with us.
So we must ask ourselves first if we are prejudiced.   But none of us wants to admit the possibility that "we" are prejudiced.

     In the end it depends a lot on how opinionated we are or on what particular ax we have to grind.   And we have to admit Everyone has an ax to grind and no one is without prejudice.  There is no such thing as total objectivity.   We are all just humans who do not possess omnipotence.

     If you tend to be more conservative, you trust other conservatives more.   If you are more liberal, you tend to trust the folks who describe themselves as liberal.   But in the final analysis, you can find truth on both sides of the political 
spectrum.
     My personal opinion is that God is the only source of ultimate truth and all of us see the little piece that is closest to us.   For non-believers in a deity, my atheist brothers and sisters, some of you also see great truths about our human situation.  But I would probably have many differences in how each of us see life here on this third rock from the Sun.

     All that being said, each person must arrive at some sort of equation or procedure to use to determine who is lying or has questionable motives.
People talk about due diligence, but even accessing a broad range of information often leaves us puzzled.
     In addition, we have to admit to several wild cards.   For one thing, the internet is full of websites which are anonymous, un-ascribed, and undated, with no easy way to 'vett' the source.   Actually like a site like this one.
 
     You have no way of really knowing who I am.   I could be a Russian hacker or an agent of a foreign land.  I have tried to describe where I am coming from and to be open about my own motives, but you will have to be the judge of that.
 
     But we all should acknowledge for every person trying to express their particular version of the 'Truth", there are 10 or 100 who are not really trying to be honest.   Also, there are active dis-information websites run by foreign powers like Russia and others.   They take a seed of truth and then wrap it up in their particular propaganda to spin the info to serve themselves.
     Then there are unscrupulous website owners who really do not care what the truth is. They are the "Click-baiting" sites.    They take whatever headline is trending, and then they sensationalize it to get your attention, (because we are all attracted to the most outrageous news),  and they make their money with ads and other selling, because they have traffic to their site.
     Even if you do a diligent search for more information to substantiate what you just read or seen, you will encounter tons of conflicting data.  So in the end, you are thrown back onto your own resources and your own best guesstimate.
Welcome to the world we humans in all our infinite wisdom have created.


   My best suggestion is to read everything you can, survey and surf widely, and after you have gathered a fair amount of data, from a broad variety of sources, then make up your own mind.  I guess that is the way it has always been.   It helps if you have a foundation of truth to stand on.  You have to start somewhere.   Most of us find the baseline of truth in religion, but you may also find value in scientific and empirical data.   I wish you all luck and hope that what you decide on contains some compassion for us humans and for all life on the planet.

A Patriot's Faith in the United States of America and Why we are Great

A Patriot's Faith in the United States of America and Why we are Great

    I love the United States of America.  That means different things to different
people.  Because in this place in the World,
our Differences are Celebrated.

We tolerate a lot.  We even tolerate atheists.  We hope they come to faith in God,
because that is what the United States is about, at least to some extent.
Many came here seeking religious freedom, but also political freedom.
Freedom to work, and freedom to move about the cabin at will.

Your own free will and your own personal relationship with God are what we value.   What an individual regards as holy is valued in the United States of America.  And people love it here because you are permitted to go to whatever church you like or no church at all.  Toleration is our Creed.  And no one can presume to stand between you and what you regard as True or Holy.



Now the bad stuff.  We are a political experiment.  We have done some evil on the way to where we are.  A lot.   We have some 'Splain'in to do. We have a lot of things we need to clean up.
But we have also done good.  We stood against fascism and despotism when we helped defeat the Nazi madness which seized part of the world for awhile.

And after that conflict, when we possessed the pre-eminent power of nuclear weapons, and could have dictated to the world that they must all be under our specific control, we did not seek world hegemony, but rather, tried to influence all nations to embrace a system of democratic rule.  Unfortunately, most of the world was just shaking off the bonds of colonialism and many were not ready for our particular style and flavor of a free-wheeling democratic republic.



As I say, I love the United States of America.   I love it because it is my home, my mother and father lived here, and brought me up here, and the Americans I know are some of the finest, nicest people you could ever meet in the world.

And we are generous and naive to a fault. Many of us tend to believe what people tell us.  WE trust people.  We trust people to do what they say they Will do, and to have a moral code of honor.  Because that is how we are.  And we expect others to also be moral.  Because it is the right way to be.
          Doesn't everyone know that?

But there is more depth below the surface and still waters run deep.

Where can I start?  Americans are relentlessly optimistic.  Oh, we can be pragmatic and dour, but most progress comes from foolishly hopeful people with  an idea or dream which may not entirely be rooted in reality.

In other words, we are a nation of Dreamers and Risk-takers in many ways.

We self-selected out when we came here from other lands.  Those of us who voluntarily came here, that is.
Many came here looking for a sense of community and searched for the perfect community here.  So that is a lot of dreams and a lot of dreamers right there, especially because we know there is no Perfect in man's world.

We like to think about the Pilgrims, as our first Americans, but perhaps they are not the most accurate example.
 I would like to talk about what a Real American is, but not just yet.

I would like to acknowledge the good and to admit the bad and get everything out on the table.  As long as we leave anything buried beneath our fears, it will fester and rot and continue to infect us.

Only when we look at ourselves soberly, with some degree of balance and honesty, and allow ourselves to see and to accept everything, will we have any hope of having a community and a more perfect Union.

On Racism in America– Where we have come from

On Racism in America– Where we have come from   -Sept 30, 2016

( I cannot believe it's 60 years since the 1950's and we are still dealing with this)

I had a head-start liking black people. Not that I knew anyone black growing up.

There was one black kid in my high school; the exchange student from Uganda. And I would see an older black woman waiting at a bus stop from time to time, and somehow I understood, she was a cleaning lady for some white family. No, I didn't get my head-start in high school. I got my head-start from my father's jazz record collection. My Father loved Satchmo, the master, Louis Armstrong, also known as, “Pops”.

From wikipedia- “Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were highly restricted for black men of his era.”

I, myself, did not adequately appreciate Mr. Armstrong. But there were many others in my father's collection that I enjoyed more.

As a boy, I remember a road trip we took to Florida. I still remember going to some run-down, dirty, “filling stations” for gas in the South and seeing a sign on the rest room door, “Whites Only”. That would have been in the late fifties. I was maybe ten years old.

I also saw very slender, meagerly dressed, black folk in the cotton-fields of the South working under the sun in the fields, and some of the shacks that they may have worked and lived out of. A very different time in America. And not one I am proud to report.

I merely state it as the time I came out of.

     By the beginning of the sixties, I had started my own record collection, with some very prized jazz and old blues records. I had also started reading a series of books which were pivotal in my belated education, for I certainly did not get much, if any, useful information from school. I read “Black Like Me”, by Griffin, a white reporter who dyed his skin black, and traveled through the South, and reported his experience.

I remember books by Dick Gregory describing his feelings and thoughts; “From the back of the Bus” and “Nigger-an auto-biography”. Eldridge Cleaver's, “Soul on Ice” made quite an impact on me. There were also others; “Man-child in the Promised Land” by Claude Brown, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, and “Go Tell It On The Mountain” by James Baldwin.

     All this is to say, by 1969, I was quite ready for Richie Havens opening the show at Woodstock and I remember his set since I happened to be there, somewhat by coincidence.

     I was about 19 at that time and still did not know my ass from a hole in the ground. The fact that Richie was the only one ready to go on and that he carried the whole weight of the entire event on his shoulders, and they kept sending him back out to keep playing, because they did not have anyone else to put on, still brings tears to my eyes, as I think of what a pure spirit he was and what a gift of his beautiful soul he gave us that night. 

      During that golden time in history when we somehow thought we had vanquished, or at least had met the monster of segregation and racism, and had the beginning of a solution, we deluded ourselves that we ourselves were not racist. But of course, we were young and did not realize how deep were planted the seeds of our fears and all the subtle ways we all participated in the collective choice of society to defend the elevated position of white privilege. That understanding would take many more decades to begin to explore.

      But the upside was that we had opened a door and we were able to enjoy James Brown, Jimmy Preston, Sly Stone, ( especially Sly Stone who brought the whole situation together under one exulted vision ), Stevie Wonder, and the whole galaxy of black humans who shared their special appreciation for the miracle of life.

      And the special tragedy now, even after electing a black president who has been vilified by a sizeable number of Americans, even after all the beauty black men and black women have shared with America and the world, we are still embroiled in the same fear of losing our own sense of specialness as unique humans.    So we all have some “splain-ing” to do, as Desi Arnaz used to say to Lucille Ball.    We have work to do to see ourselves as one human race, equally precious and valuable in God's eyes.    Maybe if we try to see it from God's eyes instead of our own, we will be further along.

Talking to God as if we used human words, even though I know no words can explain God

Holy Creator 

what do I do when I don't feel worthy

of Your love,    when I doubt? 

And before I finished the thinking the thought,

The Holy Creator whispered to me the answer,

                                                    without scorn and with great kindness:

"Do not be afraid, my son,

you are part of my Creation,

you are one of my children,

you will always be loved by Me.

you are not alone for your fate is the same fate reserved for all life, 

you will return to Me, when it is your time...

and you are only forgetting the blessings you have already been given by Me

and you are only forgetting you are special but no more special than the others

and you are only forgetting to live not in your mind which is full of fears,

for that is the smallest part of you,

the smallest part of the many blessings you have been given by Me,"

Holy Creator

what do I do when my heart is weak and small,

like a little baby bird fluttering in it's nest,

what do I do when my vision is weak,

and I cannot read Your words?

And again the Creator spoke to me without rancor and without derision:

"Do not be afraid, my son,

My words were inscribed on your heart

at the same time your parents

lovingly called your name

and brought your soul forth

out of My divine energy...

and you are only forgetting you are not like a man-made machine,

and you are only forgetting your parts are not like the parts of a clock,

and you are only forgetting you breathe the borrowed air of My forests,

for all creatures breathe My air and drink of My waters, and share My spirit"

Thank You Lord of Life, my Rock, thank You Great Spirit

Thank You Nameless One for I will try to remember and try to see You in my heart

Thank You for lifting me up and bringing me to Your sacred and holy world of life.

Reasoning with God - Coming to Terms with Atheism and Arrogance

Dear Lord, dear Lord, dear Lord, hear my prayer,

I need You, I need to remember it is not all about me,

but how do I walk the line?

How do I strut the high wire of my pride

and also know that I am as nothing in Your Greater World,

but still I touch Your divinity when I vault through the echoes of my endless mind,

becoming lost in the infinity my ideas, for there is no end to our imagination,

which is really Your Grand Imagination, Your Great Intelligence active in me,

when I let go of thinking I am separate from You,

for the more I see how intimately You have created this world and us,

and how You woven the perfection of this miracle we are in,

the more patience I can allow myself,

the more eager I am to see how your marvelous landscape

changes in impossibly small steps,

defying me to observe how You blend Day into Night,

Spring into Summer, each tiny increment of Your Timeless Time,

bubbling and tumbling over each other, like the froth of an ocean wave

making it's way up the shore, flowing and ebbing, breathing in and breathing out,

a harmony we do not comprehend, because we are woven so deeply into it,

we cannot stand back far enough to see it,

and even if we could define our reality without seeing ourselves in it,

Where would we stand Then and Who would we Be?

If we divorce our infant understanding from Your Great love

and kick ourselves out of the Garden, declaring we do not want to live in Your faith,

and Your Spiritual and Supernatural World hold no interest for Us,

because:

We do not believe in anything except what our senses tell us,

We do not believe in anything except our own adult abilities, and we do not owe anything to anybody;

And if we do all of these things, are we then free?

Can we move about the cabin freely, knowing we fly only by our own power,

and there is nothing more to life, than what we can see with our eyes?

We are untethered to anything more than ourselves,and we travel free, owing no debts, for we sprang like a Jack in the Box out of nothing, and everything is emptiness and can be expressed by a mathematical equation,

And we 'believe' we will solve the mystery of our origin

by peering out into space and back into time,

we believe we will see our eventual destiny?

And all these things we do   are solely because of our own intelligence and will,

which we inherited from no one,

and the universe is a big clock, free of soul or intention,

and everything has a cause and effect, including atheism,

and lastly, there is nothing we cannot know, 

except ourselves when we deny our Connection to You.

Speak first to Your God when you wake

A Poem and a Prayer without Rhyme or Reason     Aug 2016     408 words

Speak first to your God when you wake,

say a blessing of thanks to the miracle of life,
the Gift which we can never repay,
just as we can never adequately thank our parents,
for all they have done to birth and to nurture us,
to dream and to live in that dream of all of our possibilities,

to give of themselves without reservation,
to respond to our tantrums and upsets with love,
just as the Great Spirit has done in the Creation of the Living Earth,
allowing all creatures to have a chance at life,
to know and to touch each other, to smell the wind and the rain,
to feel sunlight on our skin,
to see the constant motion of white changing clouds in the ever-changing sky,
and to be aware of our life and our small death,

to be aware of what it is to be human and connected
to an innumerable number of other humans in ways we cannot imagine,
and finally to know what it is to touch material reality
and feel the friction of living life as corporeal bodies in intimate contact
with all the marvels of our physical world,

a gift we will give up eventually when we return to the pure
spirit of the God's infinite universe and God's primeval energy,
and irrevocably join again with God's greater truth
of pure yearning and intention,
spirit seeking concrete form, desiring connection and contact
with the sweetness and honey of knowing life,

always pilgrims on a journey of faith, never reaching our limits,
but pushing the boundaries of our awareness,
and also enlarging our appreciation of the Gift,
constantly refreshed each day we get to draw another breath of the air we borrow from our brother and sister trees,
the breath which swirls around this fine earth,
assuming the shape of all our various forms,
our cousin caterpillars, the leviathan whales in the ocean,
the whirling hummingbirds, the buzzing bees,

God's infinite om of pulsating intention whispering in our primitive ears,

“love life, love the Gift you have been given, for it is precious and beyond price,
see the hand of God working to give you this opportunity to recognize this miracle that the hand of Man did not create,”

so speak first to your God when you wake and bless the Gift which we can never repay.

Keeping America Good Again

The following is one of the best things I have seen about making ourselves and keeping ourselves great.  I would suggest we change it "keeping America Good".

Excerpted From “Making America great again” August 2016

*Not an ad for Mr. Trump

• a short essay by Richard Nelson
  
• for the full article, see the link below
  

http://www.richmondregister.com/opinion/making-america-great-again/article_059bd068-689e-11e6-ba6e-bb630c757f87.html

*NOTE 

even though Richard Nelson is a conservative, my feeling is that he wrote this in contradiction to Mr. Donald Trump, and as an attempt to show that Trump has it all wrong in his race-baiting and rabble-rousing. Trump has not spoken about God and maybe no candidate wants to go there, but Mr. Nelson gives us a true definition of becoming great because we know God is the source of any greatness we may hope to achieve.

Richard Nelson wrote in part:

“Here’s where we can start:  Cultivate character.
Take ownership of your life and the choices you make.
Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Be careful with your words and be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.
Live a life of gratitude. Realize that God made you for a purpose. You are unique with gifts and abilities and talents unlike anyone else.
Be careful with your time, for we are only allotted so many days on this earth. Be diligent in your work and pursue excellence.
Invest in your family more carefully than you invest in your retirement, for that’s your real treasure. Nurture your children and love them deeply.
Train them to walk in goodness, justice and mercy. Invest in your community and practice good citizenship.
Minister to the needy. Care for the widows and orphans and help those who cannot help themselves.
Love your neighbor as yourself and love even more the God who gave that commandment.
Ok, end of sermon. But shouldn’t we preach these kind of things to ourselves daily?”

My Morning Meditation

My Morning Meditation   Friday 16^th of Sept 2016

in the mellow morning, I ponder Your delights,

after my forgotten dreams and the darkness of my nights,

in the always pregnant quiet of a day both cool and fair,

I breathe a breath of Your sweet peace and put all my small hopes there,

for there is no stillness in Your Vision, there is no empty in Your rhyme,

and if I sense it clearly, there is no change in Your unending time,

yes, although I feel the weight of mighty dunes of slipping sand,

in my hourglass of measured time, I also feel Your loving Hand,

always on my shoulder, always cupping the offered gift,

a chance to see a little way along Your Continental Drift,

You put me on the planet, You put me on this plane,

so I could see the miracle and have a small chance to explain,

my joy to all my brothers, and see Your light reflected in their eyes,

and know that all of us live and breathe beneath Your silken skies,

so thank You holy awesome God, even though I possess not a clue,

no matter what words I try to use, may my heart be always with You.

HAND WRITING YOUR DREAM

Hand Writing Your Dream - You are More than what the world tells you

inspired by “Wouldn't take Nothing for My Journey Now” – by Maya Angelou

Oh my brothers, and Oh my sisters, how hard it is to find our way,
when everything on the menu does not include what we really need,
when we confuse what we really need with what we think we want,
and it is so hard to know what it is that winds our clock,

when we look with our eyes and forget to look with our hearts,
and we let the fear take hold and let the world set our agenda,
and we forget the agenda of the world often leaves out the real things,
and the real things are not always stated and not on the menu,

then your eyes are no good for seeing what our hearts need,
and you have to look deep inside to know what winds your clock,
what keeps your spirit free, your heart at peace, your soul intact,
and ready to do the bidding of your clear mind,

so you must hand-write a new menu, with the choices that matter to you,
and you are not bound by the world's agenda, but only by what is real for you,
you have set yourself free and now you know there is a difference,
between what we need and what we want, and what is on the world's menu,

there is a difference between letting fear be the driver
or letting your own soul be the driver and seeing with your heart
how you want the world to be, that you make the choice when you decide
to live your dream and refuse to accept that others have any right to interfere,

or try to diminish what you can imagine with your fearless heart, 

with your clear mind,
with all your many abilities engaged in living your dream,

 and keeping it real and fresh,
living on the crest of your own personal tsunami, 

your desire to live and to be free,
and your desire to create your world 

and to create the menu that has the choices you have chosen,

see yourself as part of the Big Parade, your life is precious and to be valued,
you have a duty to those who came before you,

 those who helped cut a path through the fear;
they chose hope over fear so that you can live in the light,

knowing freedom lives in our spirits and our hearts,
when we allow ourselves to pay back the gift we have been given.