What a Wonderful World

So, on my way to do my good deeds, I got all emotional thinking of my brave little friend Queenie with the huge personality taking care of her son and husband, each over two hundred pounds and over six feet tall, when she herself should have been in bed. I was rushing to the post office between grocery shopping for her and making the delivery to her house, to get king cakes in the Saturday mail to my granddaughter and daughter in Atlanta. I got there just as the post office locked it's doors, but that was the least of my worries.

I had packages in my hands, so I stuck my credit card in my pocket to avoid having to carry a purse. As is my habit, I turned off the engine and dropped the keys into said purse while extracting my credit card from my wallet. You know that sinking feeling you have just as you hear the car door shut and you realize you've locked yourself out. Per my reasonable husband's suggestion, I carry a spare key...in my wallet, which was in my purse... in my van.

Not to worry, we have Triple A insurance. Oh, but wait, my cell phone was also in my purse, locked in my van. Even if I could find a pay phone, I had no quarters because they would also be in my wallet, in my purse, which was locked in my van. Oh dear, what to do?

Across from the post office is a wonderful little breakfast and lunch place that we frequent on Sacred Sundays. I asked at the desk if I could use their phone. With no hesitation, the darling little gal at the desk handed me the house phone. Realizing that I had no phone number for Triple A, I asked for a phone book. It was rather amusing, the look she gave me, as if I was asking for a dinosaur burger. After a bit of fumbling, she produced a local directory.

I reached Triple A, but they could find no record of our membership on their computer. I, of course, didn't have our membership number because the card was in my wallet, in my purse, in my van, which was locked. The dear roadside service lady on the phone empathized and went so far as to call Tennessee Triple A to see if they had a record of our membership. Lord love a duck, they had never heard of us. Twenty minutes into this, on the restaurant's business line, I was still stuck.

After assurances from Triple A that we could be reimbursed if they had declined us by mistake, I called Pop-A-Lock. As I sat on the restaurant front porch waiting to be rescued, two waitresses came out to commiserate with me in my misery. One confessed that she had done the same thing just days before, but that, thanks to her daddy, she and her sister had Triple A insurance. She remembered that Triple A had given her a coupon for a discount on Pop-a-Lock, which she ran to her car and retrieved and gave to me.

The young man from Pop-a-Lock was covered in body art, probably to cover his freckles, with one of those half inch plastic rings in his ear. We discussed his piercing as he retrieved his equipment from his trunk. In the trunk, was also a baby stroller which led to discussion of his eighteen month old and thirty-five day old children. He was so pleasant that I felt compelled to give him a ten dollar tip, as a baby present. What a wonderful world we live in when we all realize that we're all in this together.

This morning Richard and I ate at Sunrise on Second simply to have the opportunity to thank the staff for their random acts of kindness.

Children's Church

I took my son to church on Sunday;
Nobody asked what he had to say.
They all told him to be quite and sit down,
Not to behave like a class clown.

He is a child of exuberance;
Going to church became a penance.
The joy simply wiggled out of his pores,
The childlike joy The Sacred Spirit adores.

The rest of the week, we had responsibilities;
On Sundays we could let our love run free.
He had been forced to sit and listen all week;
On Sunday's, my soul, his joy did seek

Heaven was in my children's eyes,
And for this, they were often despised.
As parents we were to act as martyrs,
Or we'd spoil our sons and daughters.

I gave up on church for my family
In order to allow my son to continue to be
When there's a church where the children preach,
I may want to hear what they have to teach.

Until then, I prefer my children's families;
In their love, The Sacred Spirit is what I see.
The Sacred Spirit creates church in one's home;
Wherever compassion is, we are never alone.

Caring and Sharing

I began the day feeling forlorn because all my reasons for living were gone.

The reasons to live were presented one after another, as they are to any mother.

My friend, when I asked her to accompany me to coffee, said she wasn't free

Her whole family had the flu; though she's a doctor, she was feeling unglued.

I offered my help to get her prescriptions, if she could simply make this decision.

She accepted; so I offered to provide some chicken soup upon which many rely.

This blossomed into neighbors on both sides accepting food that we can provide.

This vocation, to which I feel I've been born, is one that many continue to scorn.

Accepting help makes us feel vulnerable; when you're too weak to push, I pull.
Why do so many resent the helpers, and banish them from their family shelters?
The purpose of help isn't to keep one weak; it's building the community that we seek.
When we share with others on whom we can depend, we become trusted friends.

How did we get to the point that what's most sacred makes us ashamed of being naked?

We all need the help of other human hands; this is what fullness of humanity demands.

I am so tired of hiding our vulnerabilities, as if  our human frailties, nobody else sees.

We don't share the same gifts it is true, but if you'll share yours with me, I'll share mine with you.

I don't believe in a heaven or hell separate from that in which we now dwell.

I believe that the life we embody on earth is simply one of many a verse.
Some create dissonance, some harmony; all of it is of interest to me.
Can we really feel good without the bad? Can we really feel happy without the sad?

We will never get past our competition while we don't believe in full community fruition.

Eternal peace will never be a possibility as long as any of our loved ones are community free.

I remember, with love, every moment of joy with every loved person, be they girl or boy

I hope that each bit of love and grateful memory will serve to heal The Sacred Spirit of Eternity.

When Given a Choice, Choose Joy

How did we get back to this kind of terrified hatred after Kumbaya and Blowin' In the Wind?

It is so strange to listen to how different people feel about the catastrophic imminent endings that are being so widely predicted today. A male friend who served in Vietnam, and spends his life helping the vulnerable in the New Orleans area, gave up on religion many years ago. The defining moment was when a priest banished a black family from his all white congregation's Mass. He recently pointed out that he found it strange that the people who seem most afraid of death are so often those who proclaim themselves to be most religious.

I was with a group of women at my pottery class yesterday, and we got on the subject of how our husbands are reacting to all the fear-mongering rhetoric that is saturating the media today. Several of the women spoke of how their husbands are arming themselves and obsessing over how to defend themselves and their families. Most of we women agreed that we'd rather be dead than live in a bunker without our families and friends.

Perhaps we need an end times scare every so often to get our relationships in order. Isn't that the energy that was the catalyst for the early Christians? Didn't they firmly believe that the end was coming in their own lifetimes? The difference today seems to be that we are buying guns and filling our airways and minds with fear and hatred. The early Christians were getting together to pray and do good works, hoping to bring more people to heaven with them through sharing of their faith.

What if all people of passionate faith were to sing songs of praise as we reach out to all who seem scared or angry and really listen to what their fears are? What if we would turn off the angry rhetoric and music and fill our ears with the joyful songs, voices, and laughter of children, birds, breezes, waves, and each other? What if we made up our minds to go out singing and dancing, no matter when the end hits us?

Sure, people may say we're crazy, but isn't all the fear driving us crazy anyway? Life is choices. I choose joy.

Infinite Energy

All positive energy is infinite, and from the same original source. Individuals are but manifestations of The Sacred Spirit (Divine Energy)  of the universe, like fleeting stars in each family galaxy. We only see them for a little while, but their auras live on forever.



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Unwanted Infants

I am the unwanted infant whose mothers had no joy in their eyes.
I am the child who was rejected when every child should be prized.
I am the child who is so needy that I will do almost anything to be held.
I am the child in whom fear of abandonment always dwells.

I am a mother who struggled to give my children a safe place,
Not having an internal well of community and spiritual grace.
I am a person who still struggles for a reason to continue to live,
Now that nobody seems to want or need what I have to give.

I speak out for all the vulnerable, as if it were my pain;
It feels so very painful, as if the rejection is mine again.
The grief for others I mirror becomes too much for them,
And, once again, I've used up the compassion of a friend.

I hurt for every child not loved while being conceived;
Those born to the selfish are those for whom I grieve.
Some have babies for their religions, some for status;
These are child abuses that we don't often discuss.

Children do not, to their own conception, consent;
"God" does not dictate to whom children are sent.
We use our animal bodies, without Sacred Spirits;
As the child's unloved soul dies, nobody will hear it.

When a mother's soul is dead through addiction or depression,
The child feels the deadening as his or her own rejection.
Fear, too, is experienced by a child as rejection or rage;
For another generation of fear and anger, this sets the stage.

Jesus had no soldiers; we need no soldiers for the true Christ;
To continue converting followers through fear is a great vice.
We must stop forcing children on those who cannot love them;
To lead a child to despair and rage is the greatest human sin.

Ministry and Humanity

We say that the preachers and priests are our ministry;
The truth of this concept, I've never been able to see.
Priests perform rituals that bind us in hypnotic states;
Preachers read to us what they feel their attention rates.

Ministers hold us as we cry and rock our babies to sleep;
This is not the religion in which my soul was steeped.
Pretending to be above physical needs was to be exalted;
When they preyed upon the vulnerable, victims were faulted.

Parents are actually the ministers set upon this earth
To protect the innocent to whom they and theirs gave birth.
The communities have seduced parents into believing
That religions will take care of the children they're conceiving.

It is all a hoax to build armies for religious domination,
Pretending victory on earth is the way to eternal salvation.
When we realize that all Divine Energy is never ending,
To the throne of righteousness, nations may stop pretending.

We must all wake up to our individual responsibility
For ourselves and what we do, me to you and you to me.
The energy we share with others whether positive or negative
Is the energy that the universe beyond ourselves has to give.

We are meant to minister to each other and to the earth;
Each of us are, from the same seeds of life, given birth.
All humanity are neighbors, whether from near are far;
We cannot choose who our eternal brothers and sisters are.