Home as Safe Harbor

If today, I can be of service to one person's life in filling a human need,
If today I can lighten the soul of just one, have I paid for the air that I breathe?
Many lives are lived in tiny steps, not in grand gestures and accomplishments;
Keeping positive air under others' sails is sometimes why we are sent.

There are so many who refuse to celebrate, choosing fear instead;
Faith is not the same as fear of the punishments that we dread.
Faith is absolute assurance that we'll never stand on our own
Without loving hearts, hands, and souls beaconing us home.

The greatest gift I was given from grandchildren to grandmother
Was their belief that I'd step in if they lost father and mother.
From the strong bonding to my children and to their young,
This absolute trust in my continued care had naturally sprung.

My husband and I created a home where we honored every spirit;
When defeatist thoughts were proposed, we didn't want to hear it.
We believed in building competent empowerment of each;
It continues to be our joy that we were allowed to, these souls, teach.

We've spent our lives attempting to protect childhood innocence;
Once innocence is destroyed, there can be no recompense.
We see the dangers outside our homes and hold them at bay
This is the only method by which The Sacred Spirit will stay.

We do not judge the right or wrong of what others do,
But we insist, in our homes, on values we hold as true.
Each person has a place in his or her own journey;
We provide a place where, our values, others can see.

I miss the days of little feet and innocent children's laughter;
Circumstances beyond our control, this life shattered.
I hope that we made some positive difference in the universe
Before our attempts at sharing our fortunes were reversed.

We had no children of our loins and love, but we were parents
To every child that, for any amount of time, we were sent.
We have lost touch with most of these, the children of our souls,
But their innocence that blessed our lives continues to make us whole.

The Sacred Spirit and Jewish Jesus

What if the bible is actually an analogy of the faith journey of all of humanity? What if different segments of humanity come to spiritual maturity at different times and places in the universe, and each person in each generation has to live out their destiny with an eye on becoming more spiritual with each succeeding generation? What if we stopped focusing on exclusion and began to focus on inclusion, with the goal being a return to a wholeness of The Sacred Spirit through universal unity?

What if, as cosmologists say, all matter in the universe, including humans is made up of star dust, which originated with one source of energy. What if, at the end of the earth, all The Sacred Spirits are all bound in one glowing ball of Eternal energy? Do you want to be part of the dark black holes that destroy energy or part of Eternal light?

It seems to me that Jesus was very clear on his feelings about all the competition for "God's" favorites, and the apostles voted to include gentiles in their mission of spreading the quest for unity of spirit. How did worldly religions manage to hijack The Sacred Spirit and invent rules for belonging to The Scared Spirit's tribe that even rejected the original leaders on the paths back to perfect peace?

Will humans ever fully grow up instead of beginning again and again rather than studying the elders before plowing ahead; or are we eternally doomed to be two year olds and teens who will always refuse guidance until we have self-destructed. Don't tell me what to do; simply give me the resources without any instructions or restrictions. Oh, but always be waiting in the wings to rescue me.

The real problem with our culture, as I see it, is competition for more than what we can ever enjoy and certainly don't need. Having spent four years with evil being explained to me in great detail, I know that I was much happier when I had less knowledge from the tree of good and evil. I also have more peace, the less I own and am responsible to keep alive.

I am so grateful for the great variety of skills that are employed to provide peace and prosperity in our ever- shrinking physical lives. The skills of others free up all the time I could possibly want to learn of the wonders of the universe, contemplate their places in the grand schemes of creation, and share love with the people most important to me.

Many mistake my positive passion for naivete or lack of intelligence. Suffice it to say that nothing could be farther from a description of what my life has exposed my poor brain and spirit to. I could say that I'm happy to be alive, but more accurately, I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to do my best to make a positive difference in at least one life while I've lived. I hope that, when I die, I will have left a legacy of a universe a tiny bit better because I lived in it.

I think this way because I stopped looking backward to ancient religious beliefs at a very early age, and have stayed focused on only The Sacred Spirit as perfectly exemplified by Jewish Jesus and his Jewish family with their many generations of growth in spirituality. I want to be part of The Eternal Light of The Sacred Spirit.

Seeing The Sacred Spirit

Let's say The Sacred Spirit is the energy of "God" with many manifestations. I awoke this morning at the home of one of my best friends; some of the greatest manifestations of The Sacred Spirit in my life being loving friends and family. She shared with me that she was spending the day walking with another friend enjoying the teeming life in the French Quarter. Sounds like a sacred way to spend a day to me.

Even though I looked forward to sharing some sacred time with my neighbor, practicing her English pronunciations, she was emotionally under the weather. When her husband called to communicate her situation, he and I had the opportunity to share our joy in my friendship with his wife. There is nothing that manifests The Sacred Spirit more than shared community.

The Sacred Spirit is bonding my daughter with me from five hundred miles away, as she sits on her backyard deck grading students' writing assignments. She must be enjoying the same weather as we are. She couldn't bear to contain her joy, so she posted the perfection of her evening's manifestation of the glory of The Sacred Spirit on her facebook page.

This evening, The Sacred Spirit on the water looks bright and sunny with gentle ripples instead of waves. The way I see The Sacred Spirit in this evening's sky is as a bright cloudless blue The seabirds are soaring with The Sacred Spirit's breezes under their wings, preparing for their safe, sacred, warm nighttime roosts.

There was a sunbather by the pool soaking up The Sacred Spirit's manifestation as sunlight, so welcome in the last days of winter. And the workman who had been sharing The Scared Spirit in his repair work headed off to, hopefully, an evening filled with The Sacred Spirit of a loving family and home. And my sacred husband returned home to me from his day of volunteer work, happy to have shared his manifestations of The Sacred Spirit.

Sacred water, sacred waves, sacred sea;

All of this glory, all of ours for free.

Sacred men and women serving others,

Sacred Spiritual sisters and brothers.

All I see in all of balanced creation

Is The Sacred Spirit's manifestations.

I know others see God as only a man;

This I've never been able to understand.

The negation of The Sacred Spirit is easy

When we limit the manifestations we see.

If we recognize The Sacred Spirit in all things

We'll look for it in all that life brings.

When I slow down and take the time

To know that what I need is already mine.

I love to share my sacred visions with others,

As children do with their fathers and mothers.

Is Unexamined Belief Worth Believing?

Today on facebook, a young woman that I've loved since her conception posted this quote from Harry Potter: “This boy will be famous. There won’t be a child in our world who doesn't know his name.” – Professor McGonagall. This young woman is a dedicated, devout, practicing Christian who has read the complete Harry Potter series over and over again. In seeing this post, I asked myself whether she had gotten the same messages from the Harry Potter series that I had gotten, a restating of a message of scripture in a world to which adults and teenagers can relate in modern times.

This may only be that I find scriptural connections in every book I read and conversation I have, always attempting to find some new avenue to universal truth. I can even talk about a recipe and find some biblical message to paraphrase. This often makes people very nervous, as if I'm attempting to ridicule their biblical "beliefs." But are unexamined interpretations by others really beliefs, or are they simply words that have been memorized? 

I know many women who have spent their lives studying the bible, and yet few of them reveal their interpretations of their studies. I have asked many to do so, and have usually been told, "My faith is a private affair, between me and god." I have attended bible studies led by clergy, and invariably, the group defers in their opinions to the "expert." Perhaps the only way to become familiar with what others glean from their reading is to have bible studies operate more like book reports, where the books are read in private and reported on in papers independently written by the readers. 

For this reason, I enjoy the blog by dear friend Gayle Nolan OneBirdWatching.blogspot.com, in which Gayle relates her everyday life to scriptures stamped on her heart. I also enjoy several blogs posted on Patheos.com, which hosts conversations on faith from every angle imaginable to my mind. What better way to open our souls to universal truth than by hearing The Sacred Spirit as heard by all ages in all religious traditions on earth?

Preparing for Peace

What if we all started creating peace while we're on earth?
Is it possible we could replace fear and hate with mirth?
What if we believed that any energy we pass along
Will return and remain with us in our eternal life's song?

Would we then spend our time singing of the good,
Trying to, in all we meet, create brotherhood?
Would we continue to fill our souls with greed,
Or would we help to fill each other's needs?

If we knew thought that salvation belongs to all or none,
Would we continue to, all who are different, shun?
Or would we, with joy, open wide our arms,
And celebrate The Sacred Spirit, in all its forms?

Those who share the negative and then seek more,
Seem to be those who, the thought of death, most abhor.
Perhaps if they sought and shared celebrations daily,
They wouldn't, their own last breaths, find so scary.

Singing songs of gratitude for all that crosses our paths
Is the only way The Sacred Spirit grows and lasts.
What we allow to feed our souls and others while we breathe
May be the seeds of eternity that we ourselves conceived.

When we destroy the peace in another, we destroy some sacred;
It is our own souls that we are eternally stripping naked.
Fear, instead of friendships, is how many protect their souls.
What if each part of the universe is eternally part of the whole?

If we believed this, would we, with each day, begin
Attempting to welcome new people and ideas in?
Or would we continue to diminish our own energy,
The energy we will pass into universal eternity?

Feed 'em Fish

For the first time in the almost six decades in which I've known him, I heard him speak of god. We were there to help prepare a sampling of the freezer full of fish that he had bought from a door-to-door salesman. His daughter, a best friend since I was six, isn't familiar with cooking of fish, and was very concerned about the prices he had paid for food with which she isn't familiar. On the menu were fried shrimp, shrimp remoulade salad, grilled tilapia with langostino sauce, and lyonnaise potatoes.

I had carefully orchestrated that Richard would be in the kitchen with the gals to save him from the octogenarian's constant comments on armaggedon and other cheerful subjects of the sort. Seeing as he loves conversing with any man who happens by, and loves to ask Richard's opinions on all the pseudo-science that he is exposed to, this ended with our friend's father sitting in the kitchen, talking to Richard's back.

Richard's voice is so soft, he says it doesn't carry any farther than his own nose; the octogenarian is rather hard of hearing. This, as usual, led to my repetition of all Richard's comments, which invariably leads to much ridicule of me. It seems like any words that come from the lips of a woman, even if the woman is repeating, verbatim, what a man has said, somehow poisons the words.

I can often best verbal opponents, if not with erudition, with rapier wit; this is a gift I got from my father and regularly practice with my beloved Richard. Both of these men are, or were, sarcastically gifted scientists. Unlike Richard, my father had no boundaries on his snark. I try to keep mine from doing harm.

Our aged friend and I sparred for an hour or so while he intermittently admitted that he and his caretaker daughter were getting a good deal in our volunteer labors to fix their food. I reminded him that I am a food-service professional and that Richard was serving as my staff. At this point, he offered to assist with preparation by peeling shrimp. Perhaps he only felt like the work was valuable if he could be on a team that included a man.

As these things do, kitchen conversation while engaged in feeding of family, turned to talk of family values. I almost fainted when this avowed non-religious man admitted that he thought that god was in each of us. This led to a discussion of heaven and hell and eternal energy. I always knew that Jesus had a good reason for feeding people while he talked to them.

We didn't have any loaves to serve with the fish, but our friend requested that I prepare a second batch of fish before we went home.

Nice Neighbors

My second "son" arrived after work yesterday;
This time I asked that while I cook, he'd stay.
Richard had purchased new technology
For watching his favorites on TV.
I knew I was in for a tense night,
If Richard was left alone with this fight.

He wants to navigate technology,
But this a gift from which he's free.
I had made a deal with my second "son,"
We'd, for technology help, to him run.
In exchange, I will cook meals for him;
I don't know that we'll ever be real friends.

A student on one side, a "son" on the other,
I'm feeling again like a den mother.
I'm determined to make this equal exchange,
But, for me, this is a big change.
If friendship grows, it's baggage free,
With no primary responsibility.

This may only be the way of neighbors,
With the giving and the taking of favors.
I don't need any more kids or friends,
But a good neighbor can be a godsend.
Small crises can be, by neighbors, greeted,
A cup of sugar or band-aid is needed.

If we have a mission that is true,
We should focus on what we can do.
It is important to check ourselves
Before opening wide to someone else.
Neighbors quite often move away,
True family and friends, in the soul, stay.