People's Prayers

Thursday, July 3, 2014

A Moment: We the People, 2021 Update ~ Independence, Interdependence, and Greatness

I love the country of my birth. We are part of each other. I have traveled to 42 of our 50 states and I have lived in 10 of them. We are more than New York City, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco - those mega-cities that most visitors "know" after a few days on tour and therefore assume they "know" the US. As if London is representative of all of the United Kingdom, Paris is all that is France, or Hong Kong explains China. We are more than our crime statistics, deadly mass shootings, and the extreme disparities between wealth and poverty.

We the People of the United States are mostly in small towns and rural areas with a considerable population of folks who rarely travel far from where they were born. As in other places, our coastal cultures are different from the interior ways of life, the mountain life is different from that on the big lakes or the prairies, and do not confuse the Southwest with the Upper Peninsula, or a Yankee with a Hoosier or a Buckeye. As in many countries our accents, our slang, and our time zones change many times across our 3,000 mile (4800 km) width, from north to south, and even inside of every state.

In these days the political divide is more polarized than ever and we have already seen dangerous consequences resulting from some of the unconscionable rhetoric that is pouring out. I sincerely hope and pray that somehow wisdom and common sense grows beyond broadcast soundbites, unsustainable and extreme political rhetoric, manipulative self-interested opinion disguised as journalism, and the falsity of nationalism, isolationism, and heinous white supremacy, all of which, by ourselves and others across the world, have led to devastating global wars in the past. Ironically, our own Declaration of Independence calls out King George III in the 18th century for a variety of actions that we ourselves, via our elected representatives nationally and locally, have been party to, here and elsewhere in the world, over at least the last generation such as:

[The King] has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. [emphasis mine]

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world... and so on.

I do often wonder how many "true" and "natural" citizens of this country, especially those elected to government or aspire to be, have actually read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution whose principles are often bandied about inaccurately?

I also know it has always been this way, from our beginnings as restive revolutionaries fighting for our Independence, to our Civil War, to Civil Disobedience in the 1960s, to the us and them of now. We have had hateful debates and diatribes and we have come together in tragedy and triumph. As with any family, we have relatives we don't like, don't speak to, and disagree with about everything. Some of it will eventually be resolved and some of it will not. But, we are family and we do go out of our way to help each other in a crisis whether it's a horrific act of violence or a monster natural disaster, even if we walk away again in a difference of opinion.

Again, I love the country of my birth. I don't always like us or what we do here and around the world, but as with any country on earth, We the People are not the politicians, the political parties, the headlines, all the bad news, or all the good. We are individuals, who by accident of birth or decision, live here with daily lives of quiet inspiration and desperation and everything in between. We are Americans, for better, for worse, forever, even if we leave. While I am certain that I would love any land of my birth, I just happened to be born in this one. Here is what some have said about the freedom we proclaim as the Right of citizenship:

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.
~William J. Clinton
What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance

between freedom "to" and freedom "from."
~ Marilyn vos Savant
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.
~Thomas Paine
"Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty."

~Samuel Adams

“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”
~Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
~ Rodgers' and Hammerstein's South Pacific

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

I saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

While all around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling

A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,

This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

~ Woody Guthrie

This is a great country even with its flaws, issues, and problems. We must learn from our own Founders that we are not free-floating and completely self-reliant in the world and/or only on our own terms. They did forge relationships with our former colonizer, after our Revolutionary War, that brought us to being staunch allies in this day and time. We have eventually made allies of many former enemy countries to further the qualities of life for ourselves and each other on this planet. Our freedom only goes as far as we rely on interdependence with all other human beings in their own countries on this earth. Of course, we must protect our own and our friends collaboratively from the terrors of rogue nations and outlaw organizations bound to do harm for desperate, faulty, and extreme ideologies. But we must be clear, in our sense and practice of Democracy, that Independence and Freedom carry the significant responsibilities and application of universal justice, mercy, and peace - we all reap what is sown by ourselves and in our names. We will always and only be as great as the alliances we form and the freedoms we protect together.

Click here to hear/see the iconic Pete Seeger with Bruce Springsteen and others sing: This Land is Your Land

All compositions remain the property of the owner of this blog but may be used with attribution as long as they are not sold or charged for in any way. If you would like the weekly Prayers of the People prior to its appearance on the blog, please send me an email Leeosophy@gmail.com

Meditation Moments: Borrow or Lend?

~ Corrie ten Boom* [1892-1982]

I am slowly learning, as I wander through the experience of living, that when worry rears its anxious specters I must forcibly and deliberately push it away. It's so very easy for me to conjure mind maps of fear that fill my head, travel through the rest of me, and render me uselessly pacing or slumped in mindless paralysis.
There are many conditions in the world at large and in my own community that are cause for concern, even alarm, and call for immediate action or intervention. But worry enervates, creating problems rather than providing solutions. Worry is selfish and demanding of the attention of one's self and others to the exclusion of more important endeavors. When I get bogged down in my own head about my own stuff, I lose the momentum that should be put to better use. And while I'm getting better at it, I often need help to pull myself away from the edge of the sinkhole, and back into the present for the work at hand.
SO, help me, Lord of Inner Strength. Grant me continuing improvement in my ability to set aside the borrowing of some potential trouble, and lend myself to the beauty in the moment, the ordinary of life, and the opportunities to be of service to others. And a little pocket of joy now and then will help keep me going forward. amen.

*Corrie ten Boom was the author of many books including her best known Hiding Places which told the harrowing story of her family helping to house Jews escaping from the Nazis during World War II. She and her family were subsequently imprisoned in Ravensbruck, a Nazi death camp where several of her family died. Her work for the mentally disabled before the war and after she was released from prison in setting up refuge centers and shelters for death camp survivors and even the jobless Dutch who collaborated with the Germans, earned her international recognition and accolades. She moved to California in 1977 where she died on her 91st birthday.

Please feel free to request a prayer or meditation to be composed for a particular person, concern, or topic for posting in this space. You may leave your request in the comments section or contact me directly at Leeosophy@gmail.com All compositions remain the property of the owner of this blog but may be used with attribution as long as they are not sold or charged for in any way. If you would like the weekly Prayers of the People prior to its appearance on the blog, please send me an email. Personal prayer requestors will remain anonymous.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Meditation Moments: About a foot wide

The sun is the width

of a human foot.

~ Heraclitus* [c. 535–c. 475 BCE]

Well, ok, then, maybe two human feet...and my first reaction is to laugh! I remember myself as a child lying on the grass blocking the sun with my foot and feeling powerful.

And there you are, Sun, in all your resplendent presence pouring light upon us brightening, dazzling, blinding, warming, heating, wilting, frying us and then suddenly we're chilled by a passing cloud!

So much of life is a matter of perspective. Too much of a good thing followed by too much of a bad thing...and here I am trying to find balance, harmony, and just the right measure of objectivity. But when I get swept away in emotion, I can easily lose my perspective and feel overwhelmed. There have been moments when I was so lost in love I could hardly breathe, some moments when anger has sent my blood pressure nearly to explosion. And when the extremes of passion take over, the truth is lost. Help me, Lord of Sun, Moon, and Stars, to find the warming light in the darkness, the cooling shade in the heat, the balance between want and need, and, the wisdom to check the width of the sun every now and then. amen.

*Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus in what is now Turkey. He insisted that the "only constant is change" and most famously that "No man steps into the same river twice."

Please feel free to request a prayer or meditation to be composed for a particular person, concern, or topic for posting in this space. You may leave your request in the comments section or contact me directly at Leeosophy@gmail.com All compositions remain the property of the owner of this blog but may be used with attribution as long as they are not sold or charged for in any way. If you would like the weekly Prayers of the People prior to its appearance on the blog, please send me an email. Personal prayer requestors will remain anonymous.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Prayers of the People: Yoke of Ages, 4th Sunday after Pentecost

for Sunday, July 6, 2014, Readings: Gen 24: 34-38; Ps 45: 10-17; Romans 7:15-25a; Mt 11:16-19, 25-30

I thank you, [God], Lord of heaven and Earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants. - Matthew 11:25

Yoke: the bar that is used as a frame to pull or support something heavy.[yourdictionary.com]

We are never without our yoke - we are either carrying heavy loads for ourselves, or joined to another to share all that life brings, or with others to pull for some purpose or cause. If we were not yoked from birth to those who raised us we would simply have died. Even in our darkest most alone moments, we are lifting and dragging a weighty burden, and our happiest moments are linked with those we love.
We knew God from birth but as we grew older, wiser, and more intelligent, we lost what we knew and the stress and strain of life became harder. Jesus invites us to be yoked with him and with each other to bear a good and lighter burden, and, to know God again. This is a yoke of choice, a yoke of freedom, a yoke for all time and, all ages.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Most Holy Jesus, we come to You as You called us, to seek the knowledge of our God that only You can reveal. Let us learn our way of life from You, and be united with each other in Your love.