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.