Conception and Committed Community

When you wrap a blanket around yourself, the warmth is coming from you;
When you feel power of The Holy Spirit, that's coming from inside you too.
Each of us is endowed at our conception with this remarkable energy;
Parents should prepare before conceiving to protect and nurture our Divinity.


I believe our unborn children grow or diminish their souls' lives;
Based on the environment in the womb, their Spirits die or thrive.

When children come into the light of earth, their first sense should be joy

From committed community ready to, their own Holy Spirits, employ.

I am eternally thankful to my daughter's deceased godmother
Who shared with me the magnitude of joy I could share with no other.
We celebrated together from the moment I knew that I'd conceived;
As my mother-in-law lay dying, this gift, some of my grief, relieved.

My neighbor who lived next door said my daughter had an old soul;
I believe her godmother's love is what helped her Holy Spirit to mold.
When I conceived my son, our community was in a state of sadness;
My daughter's godmother was afraid that I would succumb to madness.

She sought out a source of people who would share their joy with me;
The failing was that these people were not committed community.
My son was born with a restless Spirit and a brilliant Holy light;
Few had the sacred strength to guide his Spirit toward right.

Where are the great warriors who will fight for our children's souls,
Men who nurture the mother and child while the baby's Spirit molds?
When children are seen as a burden or a trick to secure maternal support,
Escaping responsibility will continue to be a competitive sport.

There can be joy in changing a diaper and earning the daily bread;
If we begin with communal support, these are not tasks to dread.
Unless we properly prepare ourselves before a child's conception
The belief that we will bring up Sacred Souls seems a huge deception.

Preparation includes the presence of a community that blesses your union,
People committed to the children's bodies and souls before their lives are begun.
Perhaps churches and neighborhoods could form rocking granny groups,
Allowing sleep deprived parents to go home, shower, sleep, and recoup.

Perhaps our schools could become committed community centers,
Where rules of responsibility and compassion must be followed by all who enter.
A place where all with skills could come and share them with our young,
The perimeter patrolled and protected by the compassionately strong.

Could we mandate that all children who tire of regular school
Be assigned to learn to work in centers with the communities' tools?
Perhaps less teens would be so anxious to become parents
If they worked in these centers with the community "uncles" and "aunts."

The teens could be assigned to work out their excess energy,
Playing with children who need protection while running free.
This would all be under the watchful eyes of the community elders,
Under whose wings all the community children would be sheltered.

There is much physical labor in maintaining the building and grounds;
This could be done by those the elders don't want children around.
What could be wrong with each person educated in our country
Giving two years of their lives to helping build strong community?

Perhaps in this era of charter schools, we could begin again
Re-thinking the purpose of the school buildings that remain.
Go back to the way it worked in the early days of our country
Where schools and their guardians mirrored values of the community.

Thanks and Thrills

Thanksgiving Day was wonderful; our college girl surprised us
Over her and her mom's pumpkin muffins, we were allowed to fuss.
She was a delightful child, and now that she is grown,
She is able to come visit with us all on her own.

My childhood girlfriend and I then dressed to the nines;
We were escorted by Prince Charming to Luke in New Orleans to dine.
Others had labored long and hard away from their families
To create a Cajun Thanksgiving buffet, which was a sight to see.

The waiter was a young man, and he was so very solicitous;
Over my blonde bombshell friend, he made an extra fuss.
We had turducken, eggplant, mirliton, and oyster dressing, too.
We did Thanksgiving dinner the way the Cajuns do.

Or how very civilized and we didn't have to cook a thing!
As we finished each course, the dirty dishes took wing.
My prince, our friend, and I cooked for family for many years;
We felt entitled to feel as a jury of the cooks' peers.

Everything was delightful; we couldn't have asked for more;
And after a short nap, my prince and I had more in store.
A movie with our daughter's family was a great way to relax;
So many wonderful memories, now in our souls, are packed.

Holiness in Happy Holidays

I remember many times deciding whether to shut down emotionally or go forward with a gaping hole in my solar plexus. I wanted so badly to be able to seal over the hole that let in so much hurt, along with other emotions. I would make some progress in this effort while my children were visiting with their dad, but would have to open it up again when they returned to me. It seems that I didn't know how to love my children without being weak-kneed vulnerable to their every emotion.

I have heard "love" defined as a suspension of judgement. Maybe this is the most accurate definition for such a complex word. I never felt that it was my place as a parent to judge the right or wrong of my children's actions, but to anticipate the consequences to them and others, and warn them away from harming either. In my religious training we were taught to look for the evils in almost every move a human could make, especially in our own actions.  I worked very hard not to impose on them the fears that had been imprinted on me. I walked through my children's lives with rose-colored glasses, attempting to use only affirming words.

This seems to be the way I walked through the lives of all that I love. I was always surprised when others disapproved of anything about someone that I love unconditionally. I'm usually overly repentant when someone who loves me finds fault with me, hiding in shame until I can "cure" the offending fault.

We may all be forgiven by God for our weaknesses and transgressions, but this doesn't mean that my simple "I'm sorry" heals the human wounds I've inflicted. And how many times does it take being wounded by the same person in the same place in our souls before the scars seal the area forever?

If love is suspension of judgement, where does that leave us as human beings with wants, needs, and different familial values? How does one temper one's vulnerability without shutting down the depths of one's soul? Is there such a thing as emotional by-pass surgery where we can let only measured amounts of the energy of others into our hearts and souls?

This holiday season, I am committing to keeping my rose-colored glasses firmly in place by only associating with those who like to join me in a fantasy fog. This means we will not be exposing ourselves to big family gatherings where irresponsibility and ridicule are parts of "funny" family values. I just don't "get it" and I really don't want to. I want to keep the sense of holiness (wholeness) in our Happy Holidays.

Sad Is Not the Same as Mad

I've written about how I began to re-embrace the possibility of faith in The Holy Spirit after a young woman told me that she thought that God hadn't thrown Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, but that they had decided to turn away from God. God, like a loving parent, stands at the gate in sadness and hope waiting for his children to return home. When we begin with this interpretation, the rest of the Bible must be read with completely different interpretations than those which I have been taught.

When our children are very young, they are, in fact, dependent upon our acceptance of them for their very existence. In healthy bonding, compassion comes from mutual vulnerability, actually feeling the emotions of one another. As the parent's and babies' heartbeats and breaths synchronize with one another,the fussy baby absorbs the parent's inner calm. Quite often the parent gives him or herself over to a new-found innocence and joy.

The old paradigm for parenting was all about control. Babies were supposed to be taught to eat and sleep on strict schedules, bending to the parents' whims and wills. Children were expected to serve their parents, and make them proud of their progeny. In my religious training, we were taught, at the age of five, "God made me to show his goodness, to know him, love him, and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next." God was our master. He might love us later, after we were purified by death, but not now.

When my children were small, a neighbor continued to talk about her children's childhoods as "the magic years." This was very interesting to me, as her children seemed to always be sick, but they were also allowed to dance and sing on the coffee table. She seemed torn between her duties as a wife and mother and her desire to allow her children to continue being their most magical selves. She was always stressed, but she kept trying to nurture the magic of her family. She is also the woman who taught the young woman in the beginning of this tale that praying is sitting under a tree listening to God.

When we are bonded to our children in mutual vulnerability, our sadness doesn't have to be transformed into anger to affect them. Just as we are saddened by their sadness, they are saddened by ours. It may take longer to affect desired change, but when we ask for change for their own growth and goodness, we are willing to wait and watch, hoping they will return to us. Anger simply asserts control, and often leads to secret rebellion. Compassion leads to patient prayer while we wait and watch at the gate.

When I was six and still had some magic in my soul, I cried because my sins hurt "little Baby Jesus." I was then taught that I was to be sorry for my sins because they made God mad and would lead to my being banished forever. I am so happy that fathers are now learning to bond with their babies; maybe we'll begin to understand patiently waiting for the return to the magic made by mutual vulnerability, what I call "love."

Sacred Sunday Conversations

Our Sacred Sunday conversations are often about how the scriptures of many cultures impact our lives and those of all the earth. It has taken over twenty years to have him speak about what he believes, but it has been worth the wait.

He began our romantic relationship with an announcement that he was not going to tell me he loves me; he was going to show me his feelings instead. He said that he wasn't sure what people meant when they said they love someone.

He also said that he wasn't sure what the role of men was since the advent of Women's Lib seemed to have thrown out all the old rules of Chivalry. We've been busy making it up as we've gone along, but we still come out as as the traditional couple. His greatest joy in me was in supporting me as a wife and mother; my greatest joy in him was in showing him gratitude for his efforts.

We are now at the point where I no longer have anyone to mother. My new passion is in seeking a common language for defining The Divine in all of creation. I am also seeking to understand where the common boundaries are in both Judeo-Christian and non-Judeo-Christian families and functioning communities. Never did I expect the fireworks that my questions about boundaries would create.

We seem to live in a world that is greatly post-religion. Where does this leave us as members of the animal kingdom, while continuing to be aware that we have a spark of something special that non-human animals don't possess? It seems that even without what we define as religion, humans have always been aware that nurturing this special spark brings out our best, in ourselves and in our bonds to each other.

I seems that the rebellions of the sixties and seventies broke the traditional boundaries and fears between races and religions. We still seem to be looking for a way to define new boundaries for human behavior. Many seem to want to run back to their familiar areas and wrap themselves in their flags or their sacred scriptures without ever looking farther for areas of common community agreement. In a world of global communication, we simply can't ever go back.

Many have stopped looking for masters who have a special power to speak to The Divine, and are aware that each of us has the capacity to "hear" The Divine in ourselves and in others, if we simply take the time to "hear" it. I call this the Post-Pentecostal era, an era when we should each look for and share the laws of responsible, compassionate community written on the hearts of ourselves and others.

Early on, he said that he believed that what made humans more special than other animals was the capacity to say, "no" to their instincts. Over the twenty-something years I've known him, I've watched him enjoy telling himself "no." It's not exactly "no," but "all in its own time, as is life enhancing for himself and others." He enjoys the anticipation of careful planning, the process of the performance of each task, and the afterglow of sharing of stories about each others' accomplishments and enjoyments.

It seems that the problem for many of us is allowing ourselves too many choices. We go for quantity of experiences, rather than for the quality. He may not have as much as he could or do as much as many, but he certainly enjoys the process of performing any action. It seems that, for him, it's not so much about saying "no," but in deciding to honor all those things to which he says "yes."

We are now in the years where all of life can be anticipation and afterglow, not only about our own accomplishments, but in celebrating those of others. It seems a shame that our society doesn't slow down long enough to decide what they will do, how they will do it, and what they will do after. They seem to simply bounce from one excitement to another without any boundaries or direction.

What ever happened to the wisdom of the ages helping to mold the paths of the new lives, not as gurus, but as trusted elders of working communities? When my people are ready to listen, we will be happy to speak. Meanwhile, we live lives of savoring each moment and sharing in each others' wisdom gleaned from the many people and projects we've encountered in our lives.

Leadership of the Loud

A light bulb went off in my head this morning.

For many years I've suspected that some people may behave irrationally, but they don't know it's irrational because it's the way all the people in their immediate families behaved. What our own families do is what we generally accept as the norm for all families. Our families are generally drawn to others of their own beliefs, so this reinforces our belief that all people do whatever our family (and our immediate community) does.

I had written a tragic play that I thought I may have better named Folie a Deux (definition: the same mistaken belief shared by two people) for a contest. As a point of silly pleasure, I thought of how many people in groups get carried away with the group's beliefs; I jokingly labeled this Folie en Masse. Lo and behold, there is an online entry from a psychiatrist defining the term that I thought I had just coined as a joke. He was describing what led the followers of Jim Jones to drink the Kool-Aid.

Several years ago, Time Magazine published an article about what traits lead us to follow people. Disturbingly, this article revealed that we tend to follow those with the biggest voices. Unfortunately, I believe it is true that our animal brains process the biggest "bark" as leadership ability. We instinctively become frozen when we are verbally assaulted. Some flee, some follow, and the aggressive fight. What's to become of those who pull back and think over the situation?

I was reared in a dog-eat-dog family. We learned to speak loud and long. Nobody had ever really heard of bullying, except as a way to weed out the wimps who didn't deserve to live in the animal kingdom of survival of the fittest (meaning the biggest and baddest in our families). One never knew when the posturing and snarling was going to lead to deadly engagement.

My mate speaks in a voice so low one has to have an ear up against his mouth to hear him. (It is helpful in conversations to be able to read lips.) He actually has a lot of value stuff to say, if you only take the time to hear him. Early in our relationship, he said to me, "Just because you speak louder than I do doesn't make you right." Since then, I have tended to give extra attention and credence to those who always speak in measured tones and cadences.

For several years, we worked to balance our passions, mine very vocal, and his more circumspect. Perhaps you could say that I am the booming bass and he is more the sweet soprano. When he almost died, I decided to take all stress of decision-making from him. I seem to have gone from a Folie en Masse of my family to Folie a Deux with him. Things got scary in our lives without his balancing wisdom.

My booming base, not balanced by his sweet soprano has taken more than one along on my perceived path to peace. My passion usually burns bright, but doesn't last long enough to get us there. I have to take frequent breaks to get my breath again.We have all been so blessed that he continues to pick up where I leave off.

Perhaps it is again time for each of us to take full responsibility for our own actions and decisions; never, however, losing sight of the need to consider the impact of our actions on the other. I may become quieter, and he may actually learn to speak loud and long. It could also happen that our fellow community members in our country will begin to listen to those who speak softly and carry big ideas.

Neither is likely, but they could happen.

Arrogance or Art?

At last I have my best friend, from when I was fourteen, back;
Our paths have taken different turns on different life tracks.
While she studied, I was birthing; while she birthed, I was away;
Now she's semi-retired and has lots of time to play.

We've begun taking a pottery class with several other women;
This is another way that I feel like I'm close to heaven.
I always wanted the opportunity to express myself in clay,
Ever since my little sister and I were in our mud pie days.

There are many similarities in clay work and in baking,
But the products won't be eaten, all my work foresaken.
I'd like to do Raku sculptures of united  families;
The Shona art of Zimbabwe has similarities.

It seems that clay work may be perfect for one like me
What comes out of the kiln, you can never foresee.
Since I wing everything, and often face failures,
Knowing there's no guaranteed results has an allure.

Maybe instead of medication, we need art all along;
This seems to be another way to sing a joyful song.
So much of one's soul goes into one's art;
Isn't clay where, we're told, humankind got it's start?

We are told that God breathed onto humble clay
And imparted His soul into who we are today.
I've grown and cooked food that nourished families;
I now want to create from clay what my soul sees.

Some sing, some dance, some cook, some speak;
Some simply smile and make our knees weak.
Some write with such soulful, heartfelt words
That The Sacred cannot help but be heard.


Is it arrogant to feel art brings us closer to The Divine?
Or is art another way for our Divine Spirits to shine?
I like to believe that in sharing our artistic talents
We're sharing the Divinity that in many has been spent.

I grieve for those so are afraid of their own emotions

That they run from all beauty sung, danced, or spoken.

Emotion is the only path we have to another's soul;

Without that bonding, we can never feel whole.