Pentecost Prayer Day 48

Rest, Old Mother, you have done what you must do;
It is now time for those you taught to help lead you.
Don't think they don't honor you because they do differently;
They have handled things in their lives you couldn't foresee.

Just as they bowed to your knowledge when they were young,
Please listen to the songs of experience they have since sung.
They want to hold you gently as you may have done to them,
But you continue to fight them, as you would not a friend.

It is time to honor their adulthood and their life's ways;
In peace, let them care for you in your waning days.
They do have your spirit; perhaps what you don't like
Is they, like you, can also speak with your own bite.

Be gentle with them as they do the best they can;
They have the same problems as every human.
Just like a lifeguard they can't help one still fighting;
When you stop, your depression will be lightening.

You cannot change the past, so celebrate it with others.
Responsible citizens are raised, not by weak mothers.
You have been strong when they needed you; now rest.
After you're gone, the universe will still carry on your best.

The spirits of your husband and your deceased son
Remain inside your family until the universe is done.
Your spirit, too, will stay to give others strength,
When the next phase of your life is called to commence.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we learn to rest our bodies and minds as we allow our souls to impart to others our spiritual strengths.

Pentecost Prayer Day 47

It's not that I want my progeny to be like me; I've often prayed for the opposite.
Both of my children, I prayed, would best of their father and my composite.
I preached at them that they had choices about which traits they'd incorporate.
I came to this knowledge little by little; I hope I wasn't, in teaching it, too late.

My religion and some religions before said we are programmed by our parents;
The mistakes they and their parents made have haunted humans ever since.
But there are other beliefs that celebrate the individual talents and gifts,
Rather than setting all who are different, from community of the tribe, adrift.

Some are born to be warriors until all earthly evil comes to an end
Some are born to be interpreters, so that all human voices can blend.
Some do the work of the body; others the work of the mind.
There can be no human progress unless all efforts are combined.

Damn the religious leaders that relegated the dirty work on earth
To positions of disrespect and scorn to which others are given birth.
The work of blood and dirt, as well as the work of the philosophers,
In balance to all needs, is that to which our survival as humans defers.

My children have a balance of my thoughts and their father's skills;
I wish that the honor of both was something our society instilled.
A thinker without those who can bring visions to fruition,
Leaves all physical parts of nature in untenable positions.

Will we stop the competition of those who plan and those who do?
The people who do both well is reflected in only a few.
It is time that we honor partnerships of opposite gifts,
Before we send all of humanity's progress to, backwards, drift.

Many men have been shamed for reflecting any feminine traits;
Though this is the balance that our world, in humans, awaits.
Women have been log-tasked with performing as both parents
When off to industry and war, the male parent was sent.

It is time that we begin to prepare our children and ourselves for peace;
Only with equal strengths, will our progress toward unity increase.
Respect and celebration for different approaches to success
Will keep humanity from our tendency, in fear of change, to regress.


My prayer for Pentecost is that we come to understand that humans can choose what gender roles they play after their own births. Male and female are equal, no matter what came first; our gifts and weaknesses are interdependent.

Pentecost Prayer Day 46

I read a post today explaining the ecstasy of relationship with Jesus/God. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2013/05/virginity-is-sexual.html

The relationship with The Sacred Spirit is described often in the Bible as comparing in ecstasy to sexual love between man and wife. Clearly, we are supposed to reach a higher plain of spirit when involved in either pursuit. Ecstasy on earth, I believe, is a bit of heaven on earth. But, ecstasy  like the drug named after it, is highly addictive, even when it comes through our religious rituals and practices.

In marriage, we must not ignore our responsibilities to earthly endeavors, like dirty dishes and diapers, in order to endlessly experience ecstasy. So, too, can earthly relationships frustrate us in the pursuit of this spiritual high. We must, in order to be fully responsibly compassionate humans, choose when to turn in and when to reach out.

The Sacred Spirit needs nothing from us other than to honor The Sacred Spirit in all of the physical world. To believe that The Sacred Spirit needs our worship is to diminish the infinite energy of The Almighty. Prayer is sitting in the presence of The Sacred Spirit in whatever is going on in our lives at the time and listening closely for what is sacred about this moment in our own lives on earth.

Pursuit of the next big moment of ecstasy takes away the joy of the small things in our spiritual lives. It invariably leads to the balance of agony. This is a bipolar way to live our lives. "Go with the flow," is much more than an old Hippie mantra; it is a spiritual exercise.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we accept both the fire and quietly burning embers that can be made to flare when the time is right in our earthly and spiritual relationships.

Pentecost Prayer Day 45 Becoming a Baby Again

I read a post today at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/spiritchatter/2013/05/pentecost-for-the-rest-of-us/ in which the author talked about waiting in prayer while we await Pentecost. "Wait" was my daughter's favorite word while she was under my care. Waiting seems to be the hardest thing many of us can do. We don't want to wait; we want to participate.

My daughter was always very methodical in her actions; she didn't toddle and fall. She waited and watched until she felt sure that she had figured out this walking thing. She then got up and walked up our driveway. I wasn't asked or expected to participate in her efforts. I was simply to wait while she did it herself.

When my first grandchild was born, she was a very hyper-aware baby. She was extremely excitable; I say that she moved like a little ferret.  I took great delight in seeing and hearing her hearty laughter. When she was fussy, my way was to try to "cheer her up." My daughter would envelop her in her bosom and say to me, "Mama, stop. Wait. She needs down time, not more excitement." I would watch my daughter absorb all her daughter's anxiety into herself as the baby drifted off to sleep. It was beautiful to behold, but I had no participation on the process.

We want everything to happen on our own time, not in eternal time. Often, especially in relationships, all we are asked to do is wait and watch. Pentecost is a state of being, not a series of actions. We want to go out and infect people with it, but it is usually best to simply wait. Opportunities to share The Sacred Spirit will come to us, just as plants grow toward the sun and animals draw near to a source of warmth emanating from each other.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we learn to watch and wait.

Pentecost Prayer Day 44

I was blessed by being with my dear friend and her family as she struggled with her fear of illness and death during a recent hospitalization. It isn't every friend who is allowed to help a leader in her most weakened state. I have been asked to sit by the bed of several giants as they confronted their own fears.

I still grieve that I was not strong enough to hold my mother-in-law as she passed from the physical world into the spirits of those whose lives she had touched. I was, however the person who held her hand all night as she wept in fear before the exploratory surgery that announced her fate. I was also in the room when she breathed her last. I like to believe that much of her Sacred Spirit went directly into my womb which was sheltering her first grandchild, a girl. Her granddaughter carries in her a huge spirit and strength that I recognize as much stronger that that of myself and her father.

It is a gift to be able to attend at the illness or death of a person who carries such a huge spirit that others greatly fear their loss. I believe that we must get past our own fears and assist the weakened person to open their souls to a peace with whatever they have sown, while they were strong, carrying on in others for all of eternity.

I certainly don't want to spend the last days of my life using up the energy that I worked so hard to impart to others. I believe it is a merciful gesture to soothe others while they let go of their physical selves.

My Pentecost prayer is that we truly begin to see life as a continuum that began before our physical births and continues in all we have touched in any way.

Evil Incarnate

My niece's social worker called me today. I was not available to answer her call, but I assume it was made because me niece has, once again, checked herself into a mental institution to escape the consequences of her abhorrent actions. My deceased little sister, who fought me and our mother for matriarchal influence over our family, did much the same thing whenever she was in trouble with her support sources.

I have cut off all ties with most of my siblings, as I did with my mother when I was fourteen years old. I struggle daily to retain my sanity in a world where we are asked to believe in opposing truths simultaneously. My family seems to like to live in the abyss that our pseudo-spiritual, religious society creates, pretending that they don't experience the cognitive dissonance.

Our culture is afraid of evil intent, so we have now labeled all evil as mental illness. The question we're not asking ourselves is, "Which came first, the evil intent or the illness of the mind?" I, my siblings, and their children were brought up by a woman who believed that even thoughts had to be purified by punishment. When the judge, jury, and executioner, all in one mother figure, sought to become more humane, she decided that all evil in her charges was the work of demons that could be exorcised by her holiness and that of her priests.

In attempting to explain the explainable, we have created even greater evil than that which already existed in humanity. We often speak of Adolph Hitler as the greatest example of human evil in our time. The social work system would have us believe that Hitler only acted evil because of his low self esteem. Where did we lose the idea and acceptance that the greatest evil is too much esteem of oneself?

There is certainly more evil done in our society by those who set up themselves, or are set up by others as gods, than there has ever been done by those who feel inferior.

Pentecost Prayer Day 43

Often the choice is between peace and our perceptions, what we like to see as universal truth.
The scriptures are read with different translations and eyes that see through varying lenses.
Does one's child see the world through the parents' eyes, or through eyes that are unique?
We must accept the same of people seeking The Divine, and gifted with many manifestations.

Where one may find a path to inner peace in one passage of one "prophet's" perception,
Another may find nothing but fear in the way life's lessons are described by their priests.
Seeking The Sacred Spirit's truth of existence has reigned as long as has humankind;
We must not discount anyone's vision of the path to earthly peace and harmony.

Because you may not experience broccoli as a delicious addition to your dinner,
Doesn't make one who experiences it as nectar of the gods an infidel.
It is true that all nature is stressed by change introduced too quickly,
But we've had thousands of years of killing only leading to more of the same.

Our children in public United States education are being exposed to multi-cultures,
The foods, the friends, the families, and the faiths of their many co-classmates.
I'm sad for those who are sequestered from what public education has to offer;
They receive no inoculations to be strengthened in their families' faiths.

Unless a child is given a strong refresher in example at home and community,
In every encounter with one's family of responsible compassionate authority,
There is little chance that the child will grow true to his or her family's core values,
No matter what fear of reprisal may be threatened by family and tenants of their faiths.

What are the core shared values of those seeking The Sacred Spirit?
How do we educate ourselves and others without resorting to a focus on fear?
My prayer for Pentecost is that we open our eyes and ears to the small children,
Who will suckle from anyone who nourishes their  innocently sacred bodies and souls.