Saying “Yes” to the right thing

In the Monday mailbox …

We do not inherit this planet from our parents. We borrow it from the children. What, then, do we leave them, the children, that they may continue to borrow from their children their future?

. . .I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. . . . In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men. . . . The time is always right to do the right thing. — Martin Luther King, whose life we celebrate today.

It’s the nature of culture to have its agreed-upon lies. Culture holds itself together by projecting its shadow side elsewhere. . .to export our evil elsewhere and to hate it there, and therefore to remain in splendid delusion. . .As someone once put it, we [ministers, preachers, theologians] throw life preservers to people drowning in the swollen stream, which is all well and good—but prophets work far upstream to find out why the stream is swollen in the first place. – Richard Rohr

Eyes Wide Shut

We have journeyed far, / far yet fire, flood, invasion remain / in vain.

We fill barrels upon barrels with denied grief, / ship them off to any foreign land / for storage anywhere but here

and wonder when our infections / find their way back despite / the bung-hole plugged tight against the light.

Every poem you read or write has to move us from where we started to a place we didn't know where we were going. – Kim Addonizio in Ordinary Genius. (Norton, 2009)

In the shared quiet, an invitation arises . . . Draw aside the veil

you thought would always separate your heart from love.

All you ever longed for is before you in this moment,

if you dare draw in a breath and whisper ‘Yes.’ – Danna Faulds