Pentecostal Prayer Day 23

Do you know your mother was sent to live with others; the most sacred thing to her was to keep her family under one roof?

Do you know that your toddler mother lost her father; her mother spent her life doing penance; his death, of her sin, proof?

Do you know that your father killed fathers of foreign children, and he was never able to erase that image from his mind's eye?

Do you know that childish human frailty was persecuted by our own parents and church, no matter how diligently a child tried?

Do you know that religion has wrought more recriminations than all the family feuds in history, combined,

Promoting blame, shame, ridicule, recriminations, tribal war, and territorial greed destroying all humankind?

Until we allow men at home smelling, soothing, teaching and testing their own babies, they will never know

The truthful imperative that only creating peace on earth will allow a universal community of faith family to grow.

My Pentecost prayer is one for respect for the past while we move on to greater informed, individual freedom,
To connect directly with The Sacred Spirit that will allow us to fully responsible, compassionate humans become.

The Sacred Spirit from the Sea

We carried home multi-hued seashells, a gift from The Sacred Spirit in our seas.
Some have been broken to manifest the wings of the angels we can readily see.
Some have been ground down to manifest the delicately silvered mother-of pearl.
Some are bonded with others, never to be individually or collectively unfurled.

These permutations of our natural world remind us of the varieties allowed
In a universe in which only humans are, with complete freedom, endowed.
We can choose to bond to others, of our mirror images or not related;
That humans need common goals should not be ignored or underrated.

We worked together to sort shells into complimentary groups and pairs;
This is a function of humanity about which The Sacred Spirit didn't care.
The vast variety of manifestations of the glory of the universal energy
Is much too immense for us to, in one lifetime or community, fully see.

Found seashells are more precious to me than the gifts of diamonds mined;
I feel that the time spent searching with friends was a gift from The Divine.
I now have the opportunity to continue to celebrate this sacred gift;
I wish that all involved in the adventure could enjoy this creative lift.

Pentecostal Prayer Day 22

The stories in the Old Testament seem cautionary; not a narrative for how to live;
These are words of what happens when humankind doesn't work to forgive.
When Adam and Eve felt greed and envy for what they had no capacity to understand,
They, their offspring, and the offspring of these, created disaster for all the body human.

We've since been grasping for all that we see, pretending we can prosper without each other;
Even though the path to eternal peace includes all our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers.
We prefer to destroy that which we can't, in our own lifetimes, learn how to control
Than to trust that only responsible compassion will make each of us eternally whole.

We must stop honoring only women for waiting, and only men for other's protection;
In marriage, we bond our strengths and protect the values of our own unity's election.
There seems to have been a time of re-balancing The Sacred Spirit's "voice" in nature;
My prayer for Pentecost is that we begin to honor, by incorporation, all earthly creatures.

Pentecost Prayer Day 21

So many people are wanting to "get back to" the "good old days" with no clue what the "good old days" really entailed. A girl helping grandma churn butter and chase chickens, helping mama "mother" the siblings and cousins or stir the pot are not the same as a woman being a mom. A father who knows his family won't eat if he doesn't find a way to feed them, even when his wife is unable to put the children on hold to help, is a far cry from a boy with a work gig to attract a hot chick.

We really need to learn the difference between primary responsibility and playing at being an adult. Only responsible, compassionate adults should have true authority. We seem to have created a country of whiny wimps. As my daughter once told me, "You want your children to grow, but you don't want us to go through the pain that goes with it."

I encouraged them to grow, but it is true that I couldn't always watch as they made their mistakes. Most times, the best I could do was to be waiting in the wings for when they needed or wanted me. While I am still available to them, the greatest joy in my life is that they have found communities that can take my place in their times of need. To paraphrase Kenny Rogers' The Gambler, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to scold 'em, when we should walk away and when we should come..."

My prayer for Pentecost is that we all learn to allow and encourage growth and compassionate responsibility in those with whom we're in relationships. 

Pentecost Prayer Day 20

We just celebrated out twentieth anniversary of marriage with a trip to the beach offered us by our next-door neighbors, both highly passionate people. It was pure magic experiencing their joyful abandon in expressing their emotions to each other, no matter who may be watching. Maite, who is from Venezuela with all the passion that one can imagine that entailing, and thirteen years my junior, serenading each other and our spouses every chance we got.

We were joined for different celebrations by others of great passion. T. Sue, another friend ten years my junior, romped with us on the beach, as excited by seashells as if we were all six-year-old schoolgirls. My brother Bill made, for my belated birthday gift, an ice cream cake that was the most amazing rendition of this dessert I had ever encountered: three flavors of cake enveloping three flavors of ice cream, wrapped in three flavors of icing. He joined us for a supper of New Orleans style red beans with andouille sausage. This creative concoction was a fine finish from a fabulous brother.

We had a bit more cake that we could consume, as the original creation must have weighed in at thirty pounds. We took the rest to T. Sue's family, which had relocated to Florida from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where we were enthralled by her delightful ten-year-old daughter's piano solo, her son's delightful manners and wit, and her husband's hospitality and joy in showing off the garden that he and T. Sue have created, as well as sharing her culinary skills with us.

We sang, danced, laughed, ate, and drank with great gusto. I'm now twenty years younger than when we left for Florida one week ago tomorrow. Some emotions simply need to be sung, some cried out to the heavens, some embraced with such physical strength that they seem ready to crush us unless we wrap others in our arms. My prayer for Pentecost is that we all learn to be at peace with our passions and comfortable passing them on to others. 

Pentecost Prayer Day 19

My Pentecost prayer for today is that we each look for a center of calm so strong that nothing the world exposes us to can force our vision away from the goal of our Sacred mission. We must look inside with loving eyes to find our own abilities and authority to access The Sacred Spirit in our own souls. Only then can we set a proper path to connecting our energy to the responsible, compassionate care of the universal family.

Pentecostal Prayer Day 18

If you can't tell what I believe by watching my habitual actions,
Our relationship is built on only superficial attractions.
I prefer to follow example of others, rather than to lead,
But I want to observe and process before I proceed.

When the choices are to lead, follow, or get out of the way,
By myself, while I think, is where I will often stay.
I used to feel great grief in being left behind,
But in hurrying, to The Sacred Spirit, I'm blind.

I love to brainstorm with others about my professed plan,
But my actions are based on the values on which I stand.
My prayer for Pentecost is that we can agree on common goals,
And, from these visions, a set of universal values mold.