Pentecostal Prayer Day 31

Language is important, but more than that is the intent;
Sometimes words don't translate to what the speaker meant.
Does it really matter what we call The Sacred Spirit
If we use any name that causes others to fear it?

Healing conversation requires compassionate sharing;
This must be the root of all faith's proof of caring.
The religions that speak much without listening
Are, the purpose of community of faith, missing.

It takes great courage to hear with respect, silently,
The pain from which another yearns to be free.
My Pentecostal prayer is that we will support
Conversing in community, rather than in court.

Pentecost Prayer Day 30

I am energized by all the religious conflict being brought out into the open after the 9/11 bombings. We have long needed this international exchange to define our values vs. our religious rituals. It is challenging all of us to personally define what we individually believe.

These discussions may be difficult and divisive in the short term, but I believe they will bear very rich fruit. Many families in many cultures believe in the same values for their communities and family lives. If we continue to prosecute all those who use killing instead of conversation as a form of conflict resolution, we will eventually reach a consensus on creating peace on earth.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we will realize that all peacemakers are, in fact, parts of the earthly body of The Sacred Spirit.

Pentecost Prayer Day 29

There are some with whom I am comfortable discussing "God," but this is a limited comfort zone. Mostly, I ask people to tell me about their manifestations of "God." Even those who seem to share my values are often limited in their abilities to assume these same values in people of other faith tribes.

My hunch is that all who feel responsible compassion for their own families are capable of feeling the same for the families of others. We have been fed fear by many generations of wayward humanity, but it all comes down to all of us being made from the same "stuff." Cosmologists now say that all of creation is made of stardust. I love this belief system, and it only increases my sense of the sacred.

I am perfectly at peace believing that I was born of the most magnificent body in the universe, and that I am destined to return to being part of that great celestial "star."

My prayer for Pentecost is that we all see ourselves and all others as parts of The Infinite Power with bits of The Sacred Spirit instead of attempting to bring infinity down to our own limited levels of understanding.

Pentecost Prayer Day 28

As is the story of the elephant in a room full of blind people, the stories in what we call sacred scriptures are all based on the manifestations of The Sacred Spirit that we each see, hear, and otherwise experience. Each of us experiences every reality through our own history-colored lenses and our own available senses. We must stop persecuting those that experience life through different experiences and abilities than does our own tribe.

The pretense that we all must be and believe the same in order to belong has led to much hypocrisy and rejection. I like to think that, if I was in a group of blind people describing an elephant, I'd attempt to find a commonality that we could all share instead of siding with only one experience.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we all look for common sacred manifestations, rather than continuing to side with only one of the human tribes.

Pentecost Prayer Day 27

Until we convince our men that we are next to them in their foxholes, we will continue to foster fear in them. Fear begets desperation, which begets mindless destruction if flight with honor isn't an option.

The tragedy in my lifetime has been the perception that any man who wants his women (grandmother, mother, sister) to stand with him is somehow less a man than those who simply destroy without forethought., responsibility, or compassion. We must all wake up to the vast possibilities available to all the universe when we take away our arrogance and fear of uncertainty. There will always be more that we don't know for certain than there will be things we know. It is not for us to understand or predict the future; it is our mission to act responsibly in the now.

Not all women are nurturing; neither are all men brave. We must seek balance in our lives and communities rather than living on fantasies and fault finding when life doesn't measure up. I lived and dragged my children through two marriages that were doomed by preconceived ideas of perfection. We must embrace the new paradigms of partnering and parenting, or our universe will turn backward until we reach our sure doom as the human race.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we open our hearts, souls, bodies and minds to The Sacred Spirit's balance in all of creation.

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?"