After a while
You learn the subtle difference between
Holding a hand, and chaining a soul.
And you learn
that love doesn't mean leaning and
company doesn't mean security
And you begin
to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises;
And you begin
to accept your defeats with your head up
and your eyes open, with the grace of an
adult not the grief of a child.
And you learn
to build all your roads today because
tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
After a while
you learn that even sunshine
burns if you get too much
So plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul instead of
waiting for someone to bring you flowers
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong...
And you really do have worth.
-unknown

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." - Novelist and preacher Fredrich Buechner

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just Stay


A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside.

"Your son is here," she said to the old man.

She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.

He was heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile.
He refused.


Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.

Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.

Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless
hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse.

While she did what she had to do, he waited.

Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.

"Who was he?" he asked.
The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.

"No, he wasn't," the Marine replied.
"I never saw him before in my life."

"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"

"I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here.
When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed."

The next time someone needs you ... just be there. Stay.

**************
WE ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.

WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
(love this line)

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

I just discovered someone new, and he's full of great resources that also fit in here at ConsciousChrist. First off, check out: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/empowerhour

Just been working on stuff instead of sharing it. But here we are...connected.  A quote/poem-y thing for tonight:

There are only four questions of value in life.
What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made of?
What is worth living for?
What is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same. Only love.

Date:	2009-03-13 03:25
Subject:	race and culture
Security:	Public
Mood:	disappointed

I heard "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" on the radio today. What an AWESOME song. What a shining example of the best of country music, which is one of the treasures that "American" culture has produced. (I was just having a conversation here in Kauai this morning with a Polynesian friend about culture, and how those of us who are "white americans" are often expected to embrace and celebrate everyone else's culture, but never allowed to relish our OWN, and are expected to tolerate ridicule of it. But anyway...)
After the song ended, the radio DJ gets on and says "That was The Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band. What a great song. It's funny though; who would have thought the Devil played a fiddle? I would have thought the Devil was a sitar player."
I wanted to cry. A withering example of anti-arab sentiment laid unobtrusively into an otherwise terrific moment. I'd like to think it's just that DJ carrying around some racist attitudes. But the sad part is how ingrained it has to be for it to pop up in such a mundane moment.  In a way it's worse than if he had said "Kill the Towelheads" because at least then, his attitude would be obvious and probably wouldn't be tolerated. In this case, it was a gentle enough jibe that most people won't even consciously notice it's effect or its offensiveness, and he's not going to get fired or censored like he would have for more overt racism. Anyway, I found it VERY disappointing. It's the reason that people with ancient cultures (like Polynesia or China...) often think white Americans don't HAVE a culture - because moments like that make even those of us who are part of that culture wish that we weren't.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
    because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

-Khalil Gibran

"When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the services of my vision,
then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
-Audre Lorde.

The superior person understands rightness; the inferior person understands profit.
(Confucius)

The first letter of the alphabet of Love:

On the last morning she was walking near the tents and huts of the desert dwellers, when in a lonely corner behind a wall she came upon a little golden-yellow flower, growing all alone. An old pipe was one tiny hole through which came an occasional drop of water. Where the drops fell one by one, there grew the little golden flower, though where the seed had come from, Much-Afraid could not imagine, for there were no birds anywhere and no other growing things [in this great desert].

She stopped over the lonely, lovely little golden face, lifted up so hopefully and so bravely to the feeble drip, and cried out softly, “What is your name, little flower, for I never saw one like you before.”

The tiny plant answered at once in a tone as golden as itself, “Behold me! My name is Acceptance-with-Joy.”

Much-Afraid thought of the things which she had seen in the pyramid: the threshing-floor and the whirring wheel and the fiery furnace. Somehow the answer of the little golden flower which grew all alone in the waste of the desert stole into her heart and echoed there faintly but sweetly, filling her with comfort. She said to herself, “He has brought me here when I did not want to come for his own purpose. I, too, will look up into his face and say, ‘Behold me! I am thy little handmaiden Acceptance-with-Joy.’”

— Hannah Hurnard, Hind’s Feet on High Places

Date:	2008-11-06 18:42
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

We join people in your country and around the world in congratulating you on becoming the President-elect of the United States. Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place. We note and applaud your commitment to supporting the cause of peace and security around the world. We trust that you will also make it the mission of your presidency to combat the scourge of poverty and disease everywhere. We wish you strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years that lie ahead. We are sure you will ultimately achieve your dream, making the United States of America a full partner in a community of nations committed to peace and prosperity for all.

- Full text of a message from Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, to Senator Barack Obama, the first black president-elect of the United States of America. (Source: The New York Times)

"Love is just like breathing when it's true"

A line in a hymn at church struck me today: something about having "more of Thee"
And I thought about what that meant to me...
Do I want MORE of God, and what does that mean, and is it possible to have more or less of God?
Yes,I do want MORE. More experiential knowledge of God. More wisdom about the nature of God and my place in it. More recognition of God in others.
More of LIFE. More of LOVE. More of COURAGE. More of Peace.  More laughter and health and giving.  More of SEEING the beauty, the connectedness, the present-moment-joy that exists.
More of understanding other people and being able to give to them.
More Awareness of the truly divine holy WONDER that is EXISTENCE.
More of a Christ-like willingness to sacrifice. More of what I have decided are the three traits I admire most in Jesus and in anyone who has these traits: Humility, Courage, and Compassion.
So if "Thee" is an expression, personified, of all I have described, well, that is what Im addressing what I'm saying "I want more of Thee."
And somehow, maybe because of my church background, the word "Thee" sitll sounds right even as I'm redefining everything for myself. It grasps the reverence that seems appropriate. And it also encompasses my experience, that somehow, I'm not sure how, I still feel like I can have a direct and personal relationship, with prayer, conversations, and gratitude, with GOD - even if God is nothing more (or less) than ALL of US put together, an expressoin of that connectedness, or maybe the Being that would exist if all of Us could come back together.  Somehow Creator and Father also fit...as does a divine Christ I can talk to.
I don't understand how it quite fits with my intellectual understanding of things at the moment, but that's the way I feel.

PATIENCE

FORBEARANCE

I've been learning a lot about race and gender discrimination in our nation's history in my Constitutional Law II class and my Death Penalty Seminar. Not that I didn't already know a lot about the topic of intolerance, having been raised in Berkeley, but this is coming from a less biased, more historically accurate perspective. Nevertheless, the biases of our nation are depressing. Here's just a couple quotes:

"US Public Health Service statistics show that eight out of ten drug users are white, but of those in jail for drugs only one in ten is white"
-Eduardo Galeano

"The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another."
-Jim Wallis (founder of Sojourners, and great post-ecumenical Emergent church leader)


There's a lot more to say (duh!), but I'm outta time at the moment.
Cheers.