Pentecostal Prayer Day 26

I can honestly understand prejudice against those who attempt to turn our children away from our own paths. As the responsible party in their actions, we are hard pressed to keep up with all of the changes they naturally cycle through; it is much more difficult to keep up with the changes going on outside them and our own societies. How much more important it is to stay close to them in multiculturalism than it was in singular societal influences.

I have thought for many years that bringing up children is like living a PG-13 movie; we must stay available to discuss what they saw and what we hold dear as messages that we want them to incorporate into their own lives. Without this constant piece in their perceptions of the universe, they will often go adrift in a vast sea of uncertainty about their goals and their paths to reach the way points.

Making multiculturalism against the law is irrelevant to those who take the time to really listen and learn from their children. We are here to ask them questions about how their experiences mesh with the values that keep them feeling a part of our family's and friend's universe. We are not here to frighten them away from anything outside our understanding; otherwise, our values die from lack of growth and incorporation into their evolved realities.

How sad it is that, as the universe throws more complexity at our youth, our young people seem to have fewer elders who will take the time to listen to and guide them. Our communities must expand with the universe, not contract to fit ancestral molds and modes of behavior. Unless we diligently search for the universal kernels of truth in all humanity in all human eras, we will lose, not only our children, but the whole of humanity.

My prayer for Pentecost is that our eyes become open to eternal, universal, responsible, compassionate community for all of creation.

Laws of Love

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,"^[5] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"^[6]) is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect," which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius.^[7][8] The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".^[9]

According to the philologist Max Müller, the root of the English word "religion", the Latin religio, was originally used to mean only "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety" (which Cicero further derived to mean "diligence").^[10][11] Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What is called ancient religion today, they would have only called "law".^[12]

Many languages have words that can be translated as "religion", but they may use them in a very different way, and some have no word for religion at all. For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as "religion", also means law. Throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions. Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and universal or "Buddha law", but these later became independent sources of power.^[13][14]

There is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.^[15] One of its central concepts is "halakha", sometimes translated as "law"", which guides religious practice and belief and many aspects of daily life.

The use of other terms, such as obedience to God or Islam are likewise grounded in particular histories and vocabularies.^[16]

Definitions

There are numerous definitions of religion and only a few are stated here. The typical dictionary definition of religion refers to a "belief in, or the worship of, a god or gods"^[17] or the "service and worship of God or the supernatural".^[18] However, writers and scholars have expanded upon the "belief in god" definitions as insufficient to capture the diversity of religious thought and experience. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Etymology

Those who call themselves Christian are bound by two laws: Love "God" and your neighbor as yourself. The questions are, "Who is your God?" "Do you see that "God" in yourself?" "Do you look for that "God" in all others?" "Do you seek to serve the "God" in yourself and share this "God" with all others?"

Pentecost Prayer Day 25

Before any religions or humans, there was The Sacred Spirit available to all who had the capacity and compunction to embrace the responsible compassion on which the continuation of the physical manifestations of The Sacred Spirit depend. The "faces" (manifestations) of The Sacred Spirit shine in all the universe, except for in those who have it snuffed out by themselves or others.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we all accept, honor, and practice responsible compassion toward all of creation. 

Pentecostal Prayer day 24

Sometimes we have to pretend to be tough in order to be of any help;
My children know I will always be there if they can't defend themselves.
In order to test their own strength and those most closely bonded to them,
They push me away, so that on others, they're sure they can depend.

Those who believe God's grace is all they need are deluding themselves,
Unless they admit that humanity is that in which The Sacred Spirit dwells.
So many times we and others are given incredible, unseen graces
When the situation at hand, our conscious helplessness, embraces.

We must stop acting as if manna falls directly from the heavens;
The Sacred Spirit, on the creatures of earth's presence, depends.
Nothing on earth was meant to stand alone, without support of another,
Even though science continues to produce progeny with only a mother.

The skills we've ascribed to one gender or another, whimsically,
Have never been the absolute truth of how nature was made to be.
It's important we realize we are meant to find complimentary peers,
So that every tribe and generation has guidance by which to steer.

I know many of my experiences don't provide ways for me to relate
In the societal situations to which my children must acclimate.
My most urgent request as an elder of their community
Is that they have patience in explaining those areas I can't see.

I would gladly close my heart to all emotional input from them
If I hadn't, by giving them birth, promised, on me they could depend.
No matter the pull of business or my relationship with others,
The only non-negotiable position I've held is that of their mother.

My Pentecostal prayer is that we all accept procreation as a responsibility,
Not to those we create, but to our own sense of perpetual accountability.
Only then will we stop putting our egos and old-age comforts above
The responsible compassion that must come to define sacred love.

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.