Monday's Mourning

Good morning, dear ones. I've been listening to NPR and ruing the news from Japan. More than 10,000 dead so far and the building around the third Fukushima nuclear reactor crumbled this morning. And yet... they're still fighting in Libya, and the former President of the Ivory Coast still refuses to step down, and the governor of Michigan will sign the bill denying collective bargaining rights to state employees, even as a man who has lost 5 family members wanders around a shelter in Japan, uncertain of who or where or how he is. Makes me wonder about the way we set our priorities as a human race.

Of course, the situation in Japan adds only one more piece to the crazy quilt of concerns which spreads across my life this day...and yours, too, i'm sure. I try very hard not to be sucked into discouragement, not to rail against injustice, lest i add yet another portion of violence to the already-overflowing tide which seems determined to envelope all of us, even as i tread water, trying to stay afloat in integrity, in hope. Not an easy balancing act, i must admit... yet a necessary one, if we are to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Perhaps the very best we can do this day is to hold peace and love in our hearts, to breathe hope into the world rather than anger and frustration. Perhaps together we can BE the peace that we wish for the world. Perhaps...

May your day be filled with meaning. May you be held when you need to be held...may you hold those who need holding. May you have enough to eat, a safe place to stay, and a warm bed to welcome you this night. And may you know, every moment, that you are loved. love, linda

especially for my friend, Brady...from Life Lines:

on the fringe
Have I ever believed that
God causes everything
that happens? I don't think so.
It doesn't fit or make
much sense to me to lay
at God's feet all of
nature's fits & foibles...
all of humanity's
faintheartedness & failure.

Rather, I experience, know
God as an awareness of
the infinite in us...
                                    INCARNATION...
And if Jesus was fully human,
fully divine, so are we all,
aren't we? He was just better
at it...the divine more fully
realized and revealed in him
somehow.

Does that view make me
a heretic? Well, here I stand,
a fringe on the prayer shawl
of organized religion...
   unable, unwilling to
   force my way back
   into the orthodox center,
   yet also unable, unwilling
   to let go of my heritage...
and so I h
a
n
                            g    on.    

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