Silence

Be still and know.
Anyone can verbally attack another.
Anyone can be a smart aleck.
Anyone can be angry and tell other people things that will hurt them.
Anyone can be sarcastic, devaluating and belittling.
It takes a Warrior to be silent.
Silence is so powerful.
Silence can be so loving.

My Creator, if I get into a situation today

that needs me to respond with silence,

help me to use my silence

in a good and sacred way.

In my silence, let me be talking to You

and You talking to me.

Silence is the way of the warrior.

The Magical Mystery Tour

Spirituality is the sacred center out of which all life comes,

including Mondays and Tuesdays,

rainy Saturday afternoons in all

their mundane and glorious detail . . .

The spiritual journey is

the soul's life commingling with ordinary life.

--Christina Baldwin, Life's Companion [1990]

My heart is open.
To life, to love, and to my greater good.
Nothing can come to me if my heart is closed.
Opening my heart doesn't mean laying myself out as a doormat.
All my faculties are still engaged.
I am not suspending my judgment and discrimination - I'm removing from my inner world that which blocks me from being able to receive and experience the simple pleasures of any given day.
Life is happening all around me; the world is full of magic if I can recognize it and take it in.
I can own everything my eyes can see, but if I lack the ability to be touched and moved by the beauty that surrounds me, I am still poor.
I can own more or less of anything.
But if I have the facility to take in the wonder that surrounds me, I am rich.

I experience this magical mystery tour called life.

Elder's Meditation -- Our Secrets

We are as sick as our secrets.
Our ego takes over control of our lives and when that happens our minds get very sick.
Then we hurt people and our minds will always justify our actions.
Our minds will give us rationalization and excuses that we are justified in doing what we are doing.

My Creator, Let me live today with an open heart.

Let me realize to be vulnerable

is a strength, not a weakness.

Let me realize the power of an open heart.

Let me be available to truth.

If I get into trouble,

let me hear the whisper of your guidance.

Let me make heart decisions and

let my head catch up to that decision.

How Time Heals

"Time heals," people often say.
This is not true when it means that we will eventually forget the wounds inflicted on us and be able to live on as if nothing happened.
That is not really healing; it is simply ignoring reality.
But when the expression "time heals" means that faithfulness in a difficult relationship can lead us to a deeper understanding of the ways we have hurt each other, then there is much truth in it.
"Time heals" implies not passively waiting but actively working with our pain and trusting in the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation.

-- Henri Nouwen

The Seed Of Our Founding Fathers

With the gift of a land and a nation comes responsibility to the my Creator.
As a Christian, I am seriously impelled by the vision of our nation's founders to seek liberty, peace and justice for all -- a task that is never complete.
Let me cultivate for the final havest the seed our founders sowed.

Free me to flow your way, my Creator!

Where complacency darkens
my vision of your will for me:

Where greed for personal gain dims
my commitment to the welfare of all people:

Where the failure of faith discourages
me from pursuing your goals for me:

Freedin is not an achievement but a gift.
Freedom is not license but radical obedience to God's liberating law of love.
Let me give thanks for the gifts of freedom we have received and, trusting in God as did our nation's founders, let me seek to share them as gifts with all who are still enslaved by political oppression, social or economic injustice, or personal sin.

Free your people, Lord!
For all those who hold others under
the yoke of polictical oppression and violence:
-- grant them conversion of heart.
For all those who serve themselves
at the cost of social or economic injustice toward others:
-- grant them conversion of heart.
For all those who are enslaved by habits of sin:
-- grant them conversion of heat.

May the God of peace we with us all. Amen.

Owe My Mother

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning."

2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!"

4. My mother taught me LOGIC.
" Because I said so, that's why."

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC.
"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
"Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."

7. My mother taught me IRONY.
"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.
"Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
"Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA.
"You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER.
"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
"If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.
"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
"Stop acting like your father!"

15. My mother taught me about ENVY.
"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't
have wonderful parents like you do."

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
"Just wait until we get home."

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING.
"You are going to get it when you get home!"

18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way."

19. My mother taught me ESP.
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"

20. My mother taught me HUMOR.
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.
"If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

22. My mother taught me GENETICS.
"You're just like your father."

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
"Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
"When you get to be my age, you'll understand."

25. And my favorite: My mother taught me about JUSTICE.
"One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!"

Freedoom

Today's freedom is not for myself alone.
Rather I am to use my freedom to worship God and do good to others.
Any "freedom" that does not lead me to serve God and my neighbor is not really freedom at all, but bondage to self-will and sin.