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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Friday, January 3, 2020

Continue


My wish for you
Is that you continue
         Continue

To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness
         Continue
                     Maya Angelou (full poem at end)
_______________________________________________

If ever there was a time for persistence
It is now

For this is a time when it often feels
As if we are
Collectively
Stumbling from failure to failure

And it feels, deep down
As if no matter what we do
No matter how hard we try
No matter what skills and resources we bring to the task

We cannot stop the world from imploding
We feel like “hollow [people]”
And the words echo like a drum beat

“This is the way world ends
 This is the way world ends
 This is the way world ends
 Not with bang but a whimper” (TS Eliot)

And so it is difficult to continue
To continue to do the hard work of love and compassion in a world that values power and wealth
To continue to speak of grace in world that demands merit
To continue to stand for truth, when lies are not just accepted but shared
When cruelty is gleefully applauded and seen as strength
When greed and corruption are simply, “how it works”, the “art of the deal”
Some mornings
As the darkness lingers
And the rain (or snow) falls and the winter winds howl
It seems foolish

to continue

even on the first day of a new year
a new decade

there is that voice that whispers
it is useless
nothing will change

and there is a sense of dread instead of expectation
as we look forward through a wilderness that
that stretches on forever, onto a path that has no end

and one feels, hollow

And yet
We must continue
For we are Sacred children
We carry divine DNA
Sacred presence

And we must continue to be those
In whom the Sacred works
Through whom the Sacred works
(as foolish as that might seem)

And so we must continue
We must get up, and put one foot in front of the other
We must breathe deeply
We must awaken to the love that dwells with in

And continue
To protect the planet
To fight poverty and inequity
To work for peace
Continue
To fight corruption
To value, accept, welcome, include ALL people

We must continue
“To be who how [we] are
To astonish a mean world
With our acts of kindness

Let us not become weary in doing good,
for at the proper time we will reap a harvest
if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9)
________________________________________________

By Maya Angelou

My wish for you
Is that you continue
         Continue

To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness
         Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden
Of your tender heart
         Continue

In a society dark with cruelty
To let the people hear the grandeur
Of God in the peals of your laughter
          Continue

To let your eloquence
Elevate the people to heights
They had only imagined
         Continue

To remind the people that
Each is as good as the other
And that no one is beneath
Nor above you
        Continue

To remember your own young years
And look with favor upon the lost
And the least and the lonely
        Continue

To put the mantle of your protection
Around the bodies of
The young and defenseless
        Continue

To take the hand of the despised
And diseased and walk proudly with them
In the high street
Some might see you and
Be encouraged to do likewise
         Continue

To plant a public kiss of concern
On the cheek of the sick
And the aged and infirm
And count that as a
Natural action to be expected
         Continue

To let gratitude be the pillow
Upon which you kneel to
Say your nightly prayer
And let faith be the bridge
You build to overcome evil
And welcome good
       Continue

To ignore no vision
Which comes to enlarge your range
And increase your spirit
       Continue

To dare to love deeply
And risk everything
For the good thing
       Continue

To float
Happily in the sea of infinite substance
Which set aside riches for you
Before you had a name
       Continue

And by doing so
You and your work
Will be able to continue
Eternally
______________________________________________

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