Competition or Community?

Where we went wrong in our religions is allowing them to become corporations;
This seems to be the problems we're also having with business in our nations
Religions are about community, cooperation, and  personal responsibility,
Values from which all corporations and their protected heads are free.

In times of severe crisis Americans are still neighbors helping neighbors;
In communities we believing in the fairness and balance of returning favors.
Other countries believe that there are some who deserve to be kings,
But this is not the freedom song with which American democracy rings.

Community brings up leaders with vision and exemplary actions,
Not simply those with connections, wealth, and physical attraction.
Community realizes that long range good for one must be good for all;
Exempting some from rules and consequences causes communities to fall.

We have come to a place in our lives, religions, and our nations
Where we long to be our own informed and equal representation.
This is the only way we won't continue to be dragged under
By those who are allowed our power, trust, and resources to plunder.

Let's go back to community, churches, schools, and small businesses
To form unions of individuals, this is what our early ancestors did.
We have to stop hiding behind large groups that turn to mob think
And take seriously "the chain is only as strong as its weakest link."

We can help to alert others if someone is about to hurt the whole,
Not as a way to harm, but as a way save all our souls.
But this can only be done if we're willing to treat all others
As potential community members, neighbors, sisters, and brothers.

We cannot fire errant family members or non-productive citizens,
But if they take from others, their freedoms and rights should end.
We must stop following false family, community, and church leaders;
This way is that from which the many civil rights movements freed us.

Do we want to belong to corporations with no individual responsibility,
Or do we want to belong to community where we may not always agree?
Where we are committed to the well being of ourselves and each other?
I believe Americans have the framework for communities like no other.

What Does Love Look Like?

We talk a great deal about giving up one's life for love.
We often believe that this means dying for another.
Every time we give a bit of ourselves to another,
When done with joy, it requires sacrifice of ourselves.
It is a great deal easier to assume that we would die once
Than it is to be vulnerable to a little daily death to self.
When we open to another, we exchange parts of ourselves;
This dwelling in each other is the real Holy Spirit of humanity.

As you go through your day, where do you see love?
Not hear it, but really see it, and have it warm your soul?
When my husband looks at me with his mischievous grin,
The twinkle in his eyes says "I love you" to my very marrow.
A friend spends time in email discussion, only between us;
This says we are vulnerable to each other; that's love.
Turning to each other and speaking into each others hearts,
With all outside distractions put aside; that look is love.

A husband's gift of a rock from his walk on the beach
Because his wife likes rocks to bound her garden.
When a granddaughter sits next to her granny at a movie.
When a granddaughter falls asleep in her granny's lap.
When a wife sits silently at her sick husband's bedside,
And a father gets up in the night with his crying child.
A husband slows his stride to take the hand of his wife.
A dad and son under a blanket with dad's morning coffee.

Mom and daughter laying side-by-side in the summer sun.
Pet owners stooping to pick up the poop of their pups.
A husband adjusting the hot tub temperature for his wife.
Spouses doing each others' dirty laundry, even underwear.
A daughter respectfully advising her mom on her wardrobe.
Parents changing babies' dirty diapers, no matter how smelly.
Sons and daughters doing the same for infirm parents.
A husband digging a beloved deceased dog's grave.

When a grandson agrees to have lunch with you
And doesn't ask for money or text at any time.
A child comes to simply sit with an old parent.
Scooping a cat's litter; putting out food and water.
Donating platelets, blood, or bone marrow.
Cooking a favorite food for someone else.
Encouraging another's honest efforts.
Being available to simply soothe and be.

Heroism, Heirs, and Humanity

I honestly believe it is an act of heroism to decide when and how we should leave;
If we're no longer able to contribute, our families, at our deaths, shouldn't grieve.
Medical science has exceeded our ability to make compassionate choices;
We must, based on our own family and personal values, assert our own voices.

My husband wants to live as long as his incredible brain remains;
I have long asserted my right to not believe just the same.
I, without physical strength, don't feel I've much to give;
He, while he thinks, not articulates, feels he has reason to live.

There are many who may fight to keep my weary body alive;
He, without my help will not long, according to him, survive.
Where are the boundaries for the life we owe to others;
When can we give up our roles as earth fathers and mothers?

I used to think I made a difference staying upon this earth;
This was probably necessary to those I had given birth.
But I cannot, for the life of me, begin to comprehend
Reluctance of those with no goals to have their lives end.

This generation has the internet to get all useful information;
This leaves all those with experience no honored life's station.
What good is history for those who are into adventure?
They can't seem to see that their history is their value's center.

I don't need to understand or pretend to comprehend
The things that will happen at this world's end.
I believe we are all commanded, no matter our birth,
To create a peaceful, heavenly existence right here on earth.

I know that this is not the popular rulers' opinion;
This would take away the supremacy of their dominion.
If we all agree to get along for the future of all children,
There may be no more reason for war or for abortion.

Separate groups encourage unbridled procreation
For the increased powers of their own independent nations.
When will they stop fearing and begin to try to understand
All are in the "image of 'God' ", as long as they are human?

We give up our humanity when we turn away from The Spirit.
The "voice" begins very small, so that only we can "hear" it.
Every minute of every day, It is tap, tap, tapping on our souls
Asking us to "feed" It, so our humanity will remain whole.

It is so sad in life that anyone with a ready smile
Is thought to be a fool, with the reasoning of a child.
That secret smile that lives behind the eyes of joy
Is the greatest blessing coming from every girl and boy.

But our world wants to toughen them up for "reality";
We share our adult problems they may never need to see.
Innocence taken from us can be hard to watch in others;
Preserving it should be the job of fathers and mothers.

Wanting our children as peers, we burden them with our pain;
In many people, the peaceful joy can never be regained.
Some have had it dimmed in the womb by drugs and alcohol,
Never having the innocence shine in them at all.

Can we feed the joy back into such damaged, starving souls?
Can they ever heal the scars that are wrapped around their souls?
When we start looking at differences with loving interest, instead of fear,
Our joy may "speak" to them loud enough for their souls to "hear".

Instead we look away and ridicule them behind their backs,
Pretending their is some "norm" that the "different" one lacks.
We attack their joy until their light is eventually snuffed out;
I don't think exclusion is what compassion is about.

I takes all kinds and beliefs to build a vibrant community
This is how a peaceful, healthy world is set up to be.
When we realize that all creation is part of Divine Energy,
We will be able to, from fear, set our Spirits free.

McCarthyism in Our Midst

We say that we are now color-blind, but ignore hatred.
We say we're standing up for justice that was belated.
What do we do to the groups we have always scorned,
Not in the group we accept and embrace as "the norm"?

When we try to punish, drug, and kill people for not fitting in;
This is where most justification of evil  seems to begin.
Those who disagree with "the norm" must be silenced;
There should be no thought of , for injustice, recompense.

We have entered a new age of religious McCarthyism.
Our religions and our government desperately need a schism.
The horrors of the old religious ways of controlling others
Makes enemies, masters, and slaves of sisters and brothers.

Have humans learned anything in three thousand years,
That lack of understanding is what begets most fears?
The thing most destructive is the fear-fueled aggression
That seems to be our nation's most dangerous obsession.

If there is a Spirit of Wholeness, it seems very plain to me
That this, not religion, is what we must pray for and seek.
The religious should go back to the words of Genesis,
Or admit that "In Our Image and Likeness" is a myth.

Secrets and the Sacred

I'm always suspicious of those who are very secretive about their lives;
Community knowledge of people's acts is how communities thrive.
We have become a nation that seems to me to be quite immoral
Because none of us have knowledge of each other that is useful.

Going home to closed windows and doors, nobody hears the screaming;
There are no community penalties for relationships that are demeaning.
Not even the families who are falling apart and committing acts of violence,
In our privacy above all else society, stand even half a chance.

Where is the governing body to protect and guide the vulnerable?
We even fight to keep abusers from using conception control.
What is the point of increasing evil, no matter the root cause?
The sins of the parents to the fourth generation should give us pause.

We are born with animal natures; some have had their Spirit spark killed.
The degeneration of humans into animals is not what The Spirit willed.
But parents who give birth by force or as a result of inebriation
Are not likely to produce children open to the Spirit of salvation.

Even those we call heathens who cherish their spouses and their young
Have the hallmarks of the God image of which the sacred songs are sung.
But those who procreate as an exercise in earthly power or wanton pleasure
Are not likely to add to the fulfillment of The Sacred's endeavors.

How I hate acts of killing, be it murder, war, self-defense or abortion;
Until we accept that we can't control others, this will be our portion.
We live in judgement of "others" without real knowledge or justification;
Fear and hatred, instead of understanding and consensus, kills nation after nation.

Piety and Promiscuity

I have a confession to make about the Hindu sacred scripture;
I thought about naming it, but I wasn't quite sure.
The Kama Sutra isn't quite "The Song of Song's".
How does it, in the annals of sacred scripture, belong?

It's not the illustrated version, only the text,
To calm those who may, to the pictures, object.
I think I would belong in that group of "prudes"
Flaunting copulating bodies to me seems plain crude.

I have burning curiosity about what others deem sacred,
And I know that much art depicts people who are naked.
But I never have been much of an athlete or acrobat,
And there are lots of these poses I don't want to look at.

One thing I can say is that if there's a moral message here,
It does not in any way, to me, seem to be made clear.
And the mental pictures I'm getting from the prose
Seems to be a source where pornography arose.

Forget the many religious meanings of morality;
This text definitely promotes sexual promiscuity.
The men who wrote it seem to have no ability
To see the results of not taking responsibility.

To think that we have to teach young people pleasure
Misses the point of innocence by a very large measure.
When the time is right and there's a friend they can trust,
They will find ways to, each others wants and needs, adjust.

We make a mistake by putting romantic love first;
Seeking sex before friendship is a relationship's curse.
Even small children are encouraged to entice sexually;
Their lack of protection is frightening to me.

And the poor duped people who think they have learned
How "all" men or women feel, and then they are spurned.
Unless we are willing to open our souls to another,
The sex is simply animal action with each other.

It seems to me that the most important function of this unity
Is to allow our hearts, minds, and souls to be, from fear, free.
But unless we get to really know each other well,
Promiscuous sex will simply harden our protective shells.

Isaac's Inspiration

Compassionate responsibility is what morality means to me.

Those who seek to scare us are not what I believe Christians to be.

And those who refuse to admit that we are all equally vulnerable

Continue hurting others with their contrived “pull”.

Here I sit in “Santa’s Sleigh” waiting out Hurricane Isaac.

The van has the most important thing, to me, that we lack.

Electricity’s gone out; there’s no hot water for dishes or showers.

I’m reading an  Indian sacred scripture, but can stand it only a few hours.

I’ve watched seagulls sail over the storm-tossed harbor,

And brave (or stupid) sparrows actually flying backwards

I’ve watched lots of people dressed for Nor’easters,

Though we’re actually tropical storm and hurricane receivers.

Some have left the property, probably in search of power;

I don’t know where they think they’ll find it at this late hour.

The worst will be the humid heat in the calm after the storm,

But I know in our vehicles, we can always be cool or warm.

Our niece having trouble facing adult responsibility,

Seems ready to begin thinking about what her life should be.

The storm slowed down her release into her new world;

It remains to be seen if she’s ready to bring woman forth from girl.

A beloved nephew, that we hear from too little, texted me;

How sweet for him to be concerned, though he has a wife and baby.

A very dear friend, who’s relationship shy, has now reported

That she has actually, to a neighbor’s company, resorted.

Yesterday morning, upon awaking, I walked across our bedroom,

Thanked engineers and architects that there was no spot of gloom.

There are windows on both sides to let in light and fresh air

Allowing us to read and write from our bed and favorite chairs.

The building seems quite sound, though walls creak occasionally.

Though the van shakes from side to side, sometimes rather violently,

There are no great trees to fall on us, in the condo’s landscape.

All of this seems to be planned simply for our safety’s sake.

I am so grateful for those who use their skills and talents

To organize all the blessings that we Americans are sent.

We would not be able to trust even the roofs above our heads

If not for the oversight of “the government” that we dread.

Our taxes are a way to make sure that we are all safe

From the half-baked schemes and plans that our neighbors make.

I do not want to depend on corporate honesty during a crisis;

I prefer an informed, involved citizenry to, on justice, insist.

I felt that everyone should have national disaster insurance

When, with Hurricane Katrina, all of our belongings went.

So many chose not to share the burden of the unknown;

From this selfish culture, so much irresponsibility has grown.

None of us know who is next in receipt of natural disaster;

There are to those who think they will continue in their laughter.

No person or population will ever be truly immune

From fires, floods, tornadoes, mudslides and typhoons.

Our taxpayer dollars provide shelter and meals to eat

When the hurricanes flood our low-lying streets.

Our community system is based on Judeo-Christian justice;

All Abrahamic religions, on helping our neighbors insist.

The old notion is that rulers and clergy were next to God,

And deserved special favors, while on the vulnerable they trod.

In a democracy we understand that what I do affects you;

During crises we see who, to these values, holds true.

Sharing burdens with “the government” acting as arbiter

Is what, I believe, our rules of citizenship are for.

We must start holding responsible our friends and neighbors,

Rather than allowing the “connected” and “pitiful” special favors.