There is no need to feel helpless or get paralyzed by hopelessness. We know we have the power to make changes if we can join together and raise our voices in unison. There is more power in numbers that we ever hoped to dream about! I call for us to let our numbers grow exponentially as we all take it on ourselves to spread these messages. We are the bearers of a new vision. We can dispel the old destructive myths and replace them with the life-enriching truths that are essential to continued life on our planet.

St. Mary, Kentucky Ken Keyes, Jr. December, 1981

Great One who created each of us, I come to you in Gratitude.

I am grateful that you gave every human being a good mind and a good heart. I am grateful that we use our minds and hearts to love each other respectfully. I am grateful that you gave each one of us the capacity to see beyond the things that divide us and find the place where we hold hands with one another, the place where our hearts all beat with the same rhythm.

I am grateful that we humans appreciate each other. I am grateful that we love each other. I am grateful that among us, we have the collective wisdom to live these things today and to pass them on to all generations yet to come. I am grateful that we have future generations to pass these things to.

Great One who created each of us, I come to you in gratitude.

I am grateful that we cherish our young ones and surround them with loving kindness. I am grateful that our children draw the future to us and our elders carry the story of where we’ve been. I am grateful that our women and men are strong enough to be gentle and kind. I am grateful that we laugh together, cry together, and witness one another’s lives.

I am grateful for all the variations of human being. We are a colorful, creative species and I am grateful that we show our beauty in so many different ways. I am grateful that we use our religions and spiritual paths to help us love our differences. I am grateful that we arrange ourselves in families, communities, and cultures. I am grateful that each of these groups cherishes and expands portions of our collective wisdom and beauty. I am grateful that we share these things with each other and celebrate these things about each other.

Great One who created each of us, I come to you in gratitude.

I am grateful for our companion species on this Earth. They bring beauty and wisdom to our shared home. I am grateful that each species has a purpose of their own and our bodies are perfectly matched to the purposes we serve. I am grateful that all of us find the places where we support each other’s lives.

I am grateful for those who walk beside us as beloved companions. I am grateful for those who give their bodies for our nourishment, protection, and learning. I am grateful for those who have very little contact with us, living in ways that we cannot. I am grateful for their willingness to show us there’s more for us to learn.  

Great One who created each of us, I come to you in gratitude.

I am grateful for the air we breathe. I am grateful that each breath I take was once the breath of another and each breath I release will become the breath of another. I am grateful that the air connects each one of us to all of the others in an eternal circle of life.

I am grateful for the water that moves around our Earth, touching everyone and bringing health and beauty to each of us. I am grateful for the soil that covers our Earth. I am grateful that every human being who ever has been, and ever will be, is made of this sacred soil. I am grateful for the beautiful home that you’ve given us and for our gentle care of this place.

Great One who created each of us, I come to you in gratitude.

I am grateful that you surrounded our Earth with a beautiful sky. I am grateful that you gave us light and warmth from the sun and light and coolness from the moon. I am grateful that you show us the stars and let us know there is so much more than us. I am grateful that you decorate the sky with rainbows and shelter us with clouds.

I am grateful that you dreamed us into being and created us with the freedom to choose our own way. I am grateful that you gave us minds that grow. I am grateful that you gave us the capacity to dream and believe that which we cannot prove. I am grateful that you gave us souls that remember our own sacredness.

Great One who created each of us, I come to you in gratitude.

I am grateful that we nurture life wherever we go.

                                                                                        -Written by Laughing Womyn Ashonosheni

I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved.

Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.

I do not
Want to step so quickly
Over this sacred place on God’s body
That is right beneath your
Own foot

As I
Dance with
Precious life
Today.

~ Jack Kerouac

Because it’s time we untangle the narrative of faith from the frundamentalists, pious self-helpers and religio-profiteers.

And let’s do it with holy mischief rather than ideological firepower.

We’ll explore the point at which word, action and image intersect, and then ignite.  So let’s blaspheme the gods of super-powerdom, instigate spiritual action campaigns and revamp that old Picture Bible.

We’ve set up camp in the outback of the spiritual commons.  A bustling spot for the over-churched, out-churched, un-churched and maybe even the un-churchable.  A location just beyond boring bitterness.  A place for wannabe contemplatives, front-line world-changers and restless cranks.  A place where the moon shines quiet, instinct runs mythic and belief rides a bike (or at lest sits on the couch entertaining the possibility).

http://www.geezmagazine.org/

Little by little, Christians became devoted to their comforts instead: the soft couch, the flannel sheets, the leg of lamb roasted with rosemary. These things made them feel safe and cared for — if not by God, then by themselves. They decided there was no contradiction between being comfortable and being Christian, and before long it was very hard to pick them out from the population at large. They no longer distinguished themselves by their bold love for one another. They did not get arrested for championing the poor. They blended in. They avoided extremes. They decided to be nice instead of holy, and God moaned out loud…

…Hearing that, someone suggested it was time to call Christians back to their senses, and the Bible offered some clues about how to do that. Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness learning to trust the Lord. Elijah spent 40 days there before hearing the still, small voice of God on the same mountain where Moses spent 40 days listening to God give the law. There was also Luke’s story about Jesus’ own 40 days in the wilderness during which he was sorely tested by the devil. It was hard. It was awful. It was necessary, if only for the story. Those of us who believe it have proof that it is humanly possible to remain loyal to God.  (Barbara Brown Taylor)

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

–J. Kovitch 2010 August

Rolling Free

by Rainer Maria Rilke

How can I keep my soul in me, so that

it doesn’t touch your soul?  How can I raise

it high enough, past you, to other things?

I would like to shelter it, among remote

lost objects, in some dark and silent place

that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.

Yet everything that touches us, me and you,

takes us together like a violin’s bow,

which draws one voice out of two separate strings.

Upon what instrument are we two spanned?

And what musician holds us in his hand?

Oh sweetest song.