My blog is a forum for discussion and an outlet where I can share my opinions, thoughts, feelings, analysis, observations, and creativity–usually in response to breaking news and current issues. My military-brat and academic backgrounds led me to compelling interests … Continue reading
2/10/10 – We can help others best by recognizing that we don’t know how to—but God does. We can be fully present, accepting and loving. We can ask to see clearly, allow God to work through us appreciatively, encouragingly and forgivingly, and not interfere.
2/9/10 – When we limit the number of times we turn to our guiding spirit for insight, inspiration and help, we limit the number of daily problems, large and small, that we can resolve.
2/8/10 – Our happiness and strength arise from our undivided efforts to see, accept and lift ourselves and all others as God’s one perfect, unconditionally-beloved, eternal creation, to whom he has given everything, and with whom he is well-pleased.
2/7/10 – All apparent angry attacks and defensiveness conceal fearful pleas for healing and help. When we ask for God’s grace and vision, he lifts every imagined illusion and barrier to the love that sees only goodness and unity, and sets all things right.
2/6/10 – We get angry at others because we feel guilty about what we’ve done to them, not the other way around. And so we try to make ourselves feel better by dumping our guilt feelings on them, imagining we can rid ourselves of our guilt that way. We can’t.
2/5/10 – Human culture projects its fearful interpretation upon everyone’s actions, while spiritual guidance leads us to a more peaceful, loving vision. Thus, we can reactively interpret behavior as aggressive, or we can ask to see it as offering—or requesting—love.
2/4/10 – When we notice someone who frightens us—someone apparently sick or sad or desperate or angry—we can ask our guiding spirit for another way of seeing that person, not let our fear interfere, surrender the encounter to peace and inspiration, and relax.
2/3/10 – When we ask for clarity and guidance, we find out that what we need and want the most, but may have temporarily lost sight of, is exactly what God wills for us too. We are wholly supported in accomplishing this shared will—surely, safely, serenely, joyfully.
2/2/10 – We don’t understand our own needs. Our guiding spirit does, and will supply them, when we let go of our own ideas of what they are, and stop hurrying to fulfill them. Instead, we can be willing to ask, and receive.
2/1/10 – Gifts given resentfully, guiltily and fearfully, without loving thoughts, are unwelcome sacrifices, angry attacks, tradeoffs, payments for something. We imagine someone is demanding sacrifices of us, but we’re demanding them of ourselves. Continue reading
Not that I can sing, but these two wonderful entertainers sure can. Click on “more” below, and then, below the words to the song, click on the “Dreamin 1.wav” file to hear me sing the words and melody. And please let Tim and Faith know that you've heard a peace and love song that was made just for them (and just made for them, too…. They will know how to pick up some very nice harmonies….) I hope they love it and that you'll love it, too. Continue reading
I wrote this little poem in my head as I tried to fall asleep beside my dear husband (who rises at 4 a.m.) unfortunately rather too early for me on this night, since I'd just attended a funny, charming and inspiring poetry-reading by Claudia Emerson, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry (won for her book, LATE WIFE–a delightful collection of, among other things, her metaphorical musings about not only being someone else's late (ex) wife, but also her experiences “living with” the presence of her new husband's late wife…. ) Anyway, since I couldn't sleep, I tried to pray, and when I found myself still too excited to pray, but only able to play metaphorically with the idea of my praying–with how my prayers come to me very abstractly, then swell pregnantly, taking gradual form, then, as in defiance of their weightiness, struggle and rise in softly articulating bursts, then lift off like tiny helicopters into the ether, to float, one with me, in white infinite light…. After a wrestling match between my better angels and my wish for sleep, I got up and wrote down this “poem”…. Continue reading
EXCERPT: For the first time, Americans are experiencing the christian spirits of this exotic and unfamiliar culture which devoutly prays many times daily, is devoted to family, and which, just like Christians, exhorts its children at home, mosque and school to acts of goodness, kindness, generosity, and peace. EXCERPT: When we choose to see them through christian-spirited eyes, we’ll see a gentle people who have suffered greatly during a century of relentless violence from outsiders, simply because oil was discovered on the land of their ancestors, who yet still reach out hospitably to all who come, not as occupiers and invaders, but as peaceful, respectful visitors and citizens. EXCERPT: Most Muslims, like most Christians, have “christian” spirits, wanting to raise families in a compassionate culture which nurtures universal values. Yet most Americans today agree that, somewhere along the way, America has lost many of her ‘christian’ ways. Continue reading
(excerpt): Through whispered conversations, I soon “knew” what my schoolmates “knew”—that all these kids were children of “illegals” who had snuck across the river, and who were now sneaking around in bushes and backrooms doing filthy jobs none of our parents would dream of doing, living in hovels, and probably stealing and breaking other laws too. We exchanged warnings about their poor side of town: don’t go near the San Antonio River unless you want to get knifed by a “mex”…. (excerpt): The wealthiest among my friends claimed to “own a ‘wet’ (‘wetback’) or two,” whom their parents kept hidden away on distant ranches in shacks stocked with sacks of beans, to chop cedar and clear brush in the searing sun, at the cost of pennies a day. (excerpt) :From that ragtag bunch of schoolmates of yesteryear, no doubt themselves largely parented by penniless, ignorant laborers who dared their way across the border, had come this impressive line of smiling, capable, courteous, faith-driven professionals. Where “mexicans” had previously been relegated only to San Antonio’s lowest social classes, now they were the home-care aides who tenderly washed and fed my father, the capable nurses who treated him, the orderlies who gently attended him in hospital, the capable doctors who set his broken hip, the hospice workers who comforted us, the owners of the funeral home, and the directors who helped us plan his funeral. (excerpt):
Latinos now ably ran much of the city, blending in with the anglo minority attractively—and patriotically. As I hurried through busy days, helpful Latino faces sold me groceries and hardware, delivered our packages, repaired our dishwasher, patrolled the streets, and repaired phone wires. My father’s accountant was hispanic, as was his attorney…. Continue reading
(excerpt):Since when do traditional American values speak only for American citizens? Since when do our philosophies declare all men created equal, with Americans just a little more equal than all the rest? Since when does Jesus love the little children of the world, especially American children? (excerpt): News analysts have two jobs, to both reflect and create public attitude. This Sunday’s weekly news roundup created and reflected total American indifference to the suffering of human beings in the Middle East. Our otherwise distinguished news analysts were so busy interrupting each other over the fall of DeLay and the immigration gridlock in Congress that they couldn’t spare a moment to mention the fact that last week, the equivalent of a whole Shiite village was blown to hell by terrorists, as they gathered to pray to the very same God America prays to, even if we call Him by a different name. (excerpt):Americans claim to have democratically decided to throw $500 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’-dollars—not to mention our darling children and grandchildren—toward the goal of bestowing freedom and democracy upon our beloved Iraqi friends. Or has a tiny crackpot group of neocon warmongers managed to misuse our democratic processes in order to herd American citizens around like sheep? Perhaps this nutty fringe group of extremists think that when Iraq is safely “democratized,” then they can similarly ride herd on the Iraqis in order to commandeer their oil. (Excerpt): If not, if we so love the Iraqis, then why couldn’t we come up with just one silent moment of programming time during three hours of major-network weekly news roundups to show the minimum of respect for the ninety murdered souls on whose behalf we’re supposedly fighting and dying? Continue reading
(Comments on Zzzzippeedee Dooohhh Daaahhhh….): What a difference perspective makes…. Whenever I'm feeling blue or resisting something that just “is,” I try to remember to ask God for another way of looking at the person or situation–and I always receive what I ask for (it helps to pay attention and be ready for the answer.) I drew this comic strip soon after one of those happy moments when I'd received such an answer to a prayer. I remember feeling resentful, feeling like an old ugly lonesome drudge, about some housework I had to do, and praying, as I looked out the window, for another way of seeing my present situation. Suddenly I focused on a bird “working” for her brood, but nothing could have been more natural, beautiful, purposeful, or right than that little brown bird doing her thing for her family. Renewed with my wonderful answer to my prayer, I went back to work–this time joyfully. Continue reading
Excerpt: This is the latest segment in a 15-part series of questions and answers about “acceptance” which I began posting early in 2005. I think the series is best read from the beginning, so click on the topic “acceptance” if you would like to see the whole series. This post was drafted quite a while ago, but I never got around to posting it…. So I'm doing it now, in case readers whant to read the complete series as originally written. One more to come….Eppy Continue reading
Excerpt: God apparently intended for the world to be as it is, since this is the way he created it, and he is all-powerful and all-wise and all-good, by definition. He doesn't mess up, and he didn't mess up with the world. For whatever reason, he wanted it as it is…. Continue reading