Shared Spirit

There's a video going around the internet of a father "giving away" his daughter. As is common for my reactions to things, what makes many smile sweetly, puts my teeth on edge. The daughter in the video is a nurse who has traveled the world with the missions. She is obviously fully adult, and her obviously southern, bible-belt believing father is "giving his girl away" to her husband. "How sweet," many say. "How sad," I say,  because we have not moved on from this archaic scripture-sanctioned salute to slavery.

As our children are growing, it is wonderful to begin forming friendships with them as they come of adult age. This is a tentative task, at first, as boundaries must continually be reevaluated and moved closer and closer to equal status. When our children are grown, what I pray for is inclusion in the partnerships that they form in their adult lives. It is barbaric, in my opinion, to continue acting as if our daughters are chattel to be owned and traded.

In functional families, the older parents should make themselves available to assist and guide the less experienced family, at the request of the younger couple. In this way, community is expanded; there is no joking about "Now she's your problem," when the couple is wed. There is no "gaining a daughter" or "losing a son" involved. There is simply growth of sacred community.

It is not easy to accept that our children will make their own decisions, without our input being their primary guide. Healthy marriage partners focus on the values that they share to create a new nucleus of family. It is also not easy to sit on the sidelines, with our hearts ever open to a call from our closest community members. The most difficult part for me has been in areas where my values and those of the new couples don't agree. All I can do is state my boundaries and refuse to take part in any activity that too severely challenges my boundaries.

It is our duty as community members, in any form of friendship, to refuse to participate in destruction of our own values. It is sad that often protection of our boundaries means ejection from the communities closest to us. It is the nature of life that all physical things, including friends, come to a physical ending, but a great consolation to know that spirit shared lives on in us forever.

Lively Lessons

Preaching is not what converts a soul;
It's practice with guidance that makes us whole.
When we bond with another, child or man,
Only then can we help them understand.

Why is "no" an adult's favorite word?
We're correcting before the child is heard.
The color-blind child sees a brown tree;
Is he wrong when green is what I see?

Who put certain colors in our heads
Where the color-blind child dreads
Any attempts at coloring or art,
And eventually thinks he's not smart?

What of penmanship class to show
Writing styles that went out long ago?
If we want the child to communicate
Don't use it for chances to, him, berate.

It takes much time to form a thought;
Many children feel overwrought
When faced with impatient adults,
Who, then, their intellects insult.

The days of shoving children into a mold
Should have gone out in days of old.
By labeling everything unique a disease,
It is only the despots that are pleased.

We all may learn through what we hear,
But putting in practice makes lessons clear.
While some learn by what they see,
Others learn with kinetic energy.

We are given five senses for learning
Why to only two do we keep returning?
The more of them that teachers utilize
The less our children are minimized.

America is meant to be multi-cultural;
Only Anglo culture is nurtured in schools.
Sitting down for hours and listening
Is not the way that all children can win.

What others say turning what we can do,
Seems to apply to only a few.
If someone stands beside a child while learning
The lessons taught, may continue burning.

Everything we do with a child's rhythm
Is a way to impart our values to him
If we fit ourselves into a child's mold
It seems that we may never feel old.


Tasks that work a child's growing limbs
Make their lessons parts of them.
Here's a new and quite radical notion:
Let's have all our lessons while in motion.

Sacred Smiles

The Sacred Spirit = faces and other manifestations of God = Infinite Universal Energy = The Infinite "I Am." = Sacred in humanity = Sacred Spirit of Jesus and all who lead us back to our sacred origins with their own lives. Upon their physical deaths, The Sacred Spirit that was manifest in them, some in greater measures than others, is left to inhabit the earth.

Is this also the sound "Om" which is believed by some to be the sound of the Infinite Universal Energy? How can Infinite Universal Energy have only one name, one "face," one manifestation, and one path for faith? How can there have only been one book of The Sacred Spirit ever recorded?

All of creation may be The Sacred Spirit enclosed in physical manifestations. Some manifestations are in human form, some of these forms with more Sacred Spirit than others. We may be helpless in choosing how much of The Sacred Spirit inhabits our bodies at birth, but all adults with normal judgement can control how and with whom they connect. The choices we make either grow or diminish The Sacred Spirit in us and The Sacred Spirit in those around us. Sometimes all it takes is a sacred smile to light the lamp of The Sacred Spirit in a soul.

Receiving Re-Birth

I've sat in the presence of many a friend,
Wishing that my scarred life would end.
They lent me their ears and their joy,
That I passed on to my girl and boy.

My children are grown; there are none
Who now need what I've become.
It is up to me to take my own reins,
And find the path that's been ordained.

Perhaps finding it is not to be;
Maybe it will freely find me.
Until then, I write of the everyday;
This is how I'm led to pray.

I see other's lives and am inspired,
By the energy with which they're fired.
As an observer, I like to spread
The joy by which others are led.

It's a fact of life that, as we age,
We must learn to step off-stage.
It is enough for me to observe others
Practicing being good sisters and brothers.

And the friends who are parts of my soul
Continue on in making me whole.
I live in gratitude for their presents
Of sharing with me their very essence.

My Sacred Spirit has many faces
That neither time nor distance erases.
Everyone who ever truly loved me
Remains a part of my spirit in eternity.

It is sad that also the great pain
Comes to visit again and again,
Not only my spirit, but the earth.
I pray that our chaos results in re-birth.

Singing of The Sacred Spirit

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude, when going grocery shopping;
I am able to purchase our desires, without budgetary stopping.
It is a constant reminder to me that my husband's years of denial
Daily save me from many of my fellow American's trials.

I do not deserve the largess he has shared freely with me,
And the many gifts he's given my friends and my family.
I often ask what he desires from his one and only wife;
He says, repeatedly, that my friendship continues to suffice.

My children love me in the same way, adding to my joy.
With balance in relationships, I try not to toy.
I've never been able to figure out what I owe in return
So my passionate gratitude, sometimes, too hotly burns.

Is pure, sweet love and admiration such a rare human thing
That unconditional acceptance, such gifts of gratitude brings?
I'm blessed by many in my life with mutual admiration societies;
Our shared peaceful presence is that by which we're pleased.

I have a brother who once told me my gift is appreciation;
How can it be that such a simple thing causes such celebration?
And how is it that so many that I've most admired
Have pointed out that my love of them only makes them tired?

Perhaps the term they mean to use is that they're overwhelmed;
So many of us have grown up with fear at our life's helm.
It may be difficult to accept the power of a Sacred wind,
When we have been taught to focus on our own and others' sins.

Perhaps if we can refocus on humanity's grand celebrations,
We'll find peace and prosperity in all the vastness of creation.
When we stop believing that our value is simply tribal,
We may live with gratitude for others, rather than in denial.

There's no religion that doesn't have roots in those before them;
Seeking The Sacred Spirit is reserved for only humans.
I believe we would be more satisfied if we stopped limiting
Our view of The Sacred Spirit to what only a few mystics bring.

The water outside my door I share with the country of Mexico;
This is also where the hummingbirds I know, seasonally go.
Some of my grandchildren, by chance, share this heritage
But many would like to wipe Mexicans off our country's grid.

Some of my best friends are Sicilian, with all the passion that entails.
When did the definition of passion insist that suffering prevails?
Laughter, tears, speech, singing, and other physical endeavors,
Are ways to express excess passion in which only humans are clever.

Why do we, in our embracing of America's Puritanical society,
Continue electing representatives who share in community hypocrisy?
I want to see how each person channels their gratitude and appreciation
In building, not their own power bases, but the strength of our nation.

Until I hear more of appreciation and grateful humility
For the incredible gift of being born in the land of the free,
I will continue, against the wealthy, white Anglo-Saxon males
Who have been taught that they have a "god"-given right to prevail.

I also continue to rail against the women who believe their wombs
Give them the right to control lives from pre-conception to tombs.
The secret of eternal success in the peace of humanity
Is in the sharing equally in resources, it seems to me.

The wars and rules that we perpetrate, at the expense of others,
Pass the resentments and revenge down to future sisters and brothers.
Has there ever been a culture of humans around our earth
That hasn't contributed to our uniquely American rebirth?

I am cowed by the gratitude to have been born in this land,
And to have been given freely more than I'd ever demand.
It takes my breath away, whenever I stop to realize,
That I'm the product of The Sacred Spirits that some friends despise.

How can I ever thank the black women who loved and nurtured me,
When my own mother and her mother lacked that loving ability?
How can I spread the word that passion is a wonderful gift
To the many of my friends who only trust in thrift?

It saddens me so that so many are happy for me,
While keeping their own lives and loves, celebration free.
I have tried for the last few years to turn my back on celebration,
But it's led me right back to the reason for my creation.

What can be any easier that to go around appreciating
The qualities in others who were, for acceptance, waiting?
Could it be that this is a truly Sacred Spirit vocation,
Not requiring any suffering martyr aspirations?

My husband doesn't seem to believe that I lack
Any  proper wife skills in which I feel I'm slack.
Many of my friends seem perfectly satisfied by my presence.
Are my attempts to repay them simply arrogant pretense?

I find it hard to believe that my presence on the earth
Is enough to justify the blessings of my birth.
Can it be true that I am admonished to only continue singing
About all the blessings that The Sacred Spirit is bringing?

Seeing The Sacred Spirit

Until we stop worshiping a "god' of war and blood-lust, I don't see our earth becoming what we envision as heaven, nor do I see the Israelites ever being at peace. Jesus said that the men of the bible were hard-hearted toward women, and yet we still justify our actions by following these men. Jesus exemplified compassionate friendship with women and men from all religions and walks of life. He treated them with respectful compassion, as he did those who were his friends.

Jesus is portrayed as a real man, with a special respect for his mother and father, even as a teenager. He is also portrayed as having a special relationship with a woman of flesh and blood, kissing her often. Perhaps he never married and bore children in compassion for how persecuted his family would be because of his actions and beliefs.

Jesus had a real legal father, whether by adoption or sex is unimportant in appreciating the example that Jesus set for compassionate community. I choose to believe that Jesus was especially enlightened by The Sacred Spirit nurtured by his earthly Jewish family and community in which they brought him to adulthood. I choose to believe that nature, as well as nurture, endowed him with a marvelously strong and Sacred Spirit that burns to this day in the souls of those who live lives of respectful compassion for all of creation.

I believe that our understanding of The Sacred Spirit must evolve with the nature of humanity. We should not limit our seeking to only the manifestations passed down by our ancestors. Ancient man was the most powerful human form, with his greater physical strength and his ability to reason. In seeing the spark of The Sacred Spirit in man, man began to worship himself by putting his own face on "god." Was this a reaction to the awe that man experienced at the power of woman to "create" human life?

Isn't it time that we stop fearing feelings of awe that make us feel vulnerable? Isn't it time that we celebrate and embrace that which makes us wonder, without attempting to bring everything down to our capacity to identify everything, physical and spiritual, with absolute precision? Even science understands that what we accept as truths are only what existing information allows us to see today.

We must all embrace our own vulnerabilities and those of others. Vulnerability is the only way that we bond with the spirits of others. It is wrong to ridicule and otherwise abuse vulnerabilities instead of looking for ways that we can complete each other. It is wrong to hand absolute power to any one person, whether in governments, religions, or families. All manifestations of The Sacred Spirit are, by their very natures, interdependent. Religions teach that all manifestations of The Sacred Spirit return back to their source for renewal and resurrection. And scientists know that all energy continues; it simply transforms from one manifestation to another.

I believe it is time that we shake off the shackles of fear of the unknown and immerse ourselves in celebratory compassion for what we experience as enlightening. I am not afraid of burning in hell; I am afraid of being so afraid of making mistakes that I forget to embrace life and love. While I live, I will continue to attempt to share a bit of my view of how to see and live "heaven on earth" and be a devoutly respectful Israelite (one who struggles with The Sacred Spirit in creation and tries to remain faithful).

I am one woman, born of Judeo-Christian man and woman, seeking to see The Sacred Spirit in all I encounter on earth.

Serenity and the Sacred Spirit