Thursday, April 11, 2013

Pentecost Prayer Day 10

What are your core values? What if every one of us wrote a mission statement for our lives, similar to the ones written by corporations, both for-profit and non-profit. We know that publicly traded corporations have only one mission, which is to make money, but they have wonderful, flowery creeds, as do religions. These wonderfully flowery creeds are often memorized, but hardly ever dissected for how we can apply them to our lives in practice. Sometimes, though, it is inspiring to add a bit of poetry to our plans.

A creed for one's own life should be developed early in our teen years, as this will guide us on the path to achievement. We can hardly successfully merge our lives with others if we don't really know our own goals. This is what I see as the problem plaguing teens, adults, marriages, families, communities, corporations, the world in general . If we don't know where we want to end up, we can not find good partners to help us on our journey.

Peace, for me, isn't about pretty poetry and prose; it's about knowing what path we're on and how we plan to choose partners for our eternal journey. If my goal is simply to get to heaven, how will I know if I'm succeeding until I'm dead? But if my goal is to help create peace "on earth as it is in heaven," I can see the products of my life in the eyes of others and in their interactions with others in community.

Is your religion's creed a mission statement for an action plan, or is it simply flowery words? Perhaps we can all ask The Sacred Spirit to give us personal Pentecost to help us in developing our own mission statements for ourselves and our families. This is something for which I pray.

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