Author: admin

From Richard Rohr’s blog on the Center for Action and Contemplation site.

Mirabai Starr writes in her book God of Love [One of my favorite books in the world – Wakil]:

The unifying theme in [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] is that God loves us unconditionally. . . . A hadith [saying] of the Prophet Muhammad expresses the unconditional love of God: Allah says, “Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you” (Hadith Qudsi).

The great Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan [1882–1927] placed special emphasis on the sacred phrase Ishq Allah Ma’bud Allah, which he translated as “God is Love, Lover, and Beloved.” [1] In Love, Human and Divine, Inayat Khan writes, “The Sufis say that the reason of the whole creation is that the perfect Being wished to know Himself, and did so by awakening the love of His nature and creating out of it His object of love, which is beauty.”. . .

This love dance is not some rarified state reserved for long-dead saints and the occasional living master. We do not have to go insane with longing. Few of us will relinquish the last traces of ego and walk away from our life in the world. [But] we can feed the fire of divine love by cultivating simple practices that expand our hearts and raise our consciousness, such as meditation and chanting, reciting ancient prayers or conversing with the Beloved, in silence or in lifting up our voices, in solitude or in community. “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” says Rumi. [2]

Avideh Shashaani describes prayer within Islam as “a state of presence where the soul is in communion with God. ”Ablutions—ceremonial washing—are ways to open heart, mind, and body to God’s love:

By washing the face with water we put aside the five senses that are engaged with the world; the washing of the hands signifies giving to the world what belongs to the world; wetting the head means putting all thoughts aside, and wetting the feet means redirecting our steps from the world to God. It is after we have cleansed ourselves of our interactions with the world that we are able to stand before God and declare our intention to enter the heart and walk on the straight path that leads to the Divine presence. [3]

[1] Inayat Khan, A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty (London: The Theosophical Publishing Society, 1914), 29.

[2] Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Monkfish Book Publishing: 2012), 60-61,136-137.

[3] Avideh Shashaani, “An Islamic Perspective onTransgression: Oneness,” “Transgression,” Oneing, vol. 2, no. 1 (CAC Publications: 2014), 25.

I find myself more and more often sitting with my brothers and sisters who are sinking into despair and who ask me why they should continue to care, continue to hope, continue to even get up each morning.

I understand this place, and I honor it and believe we have to be willing to feel that grief.

Yet there is indeed hope.

Today I wanted to share a song from Charlie Murphy with Jami Sieber and the Pat Wright Total Experience Gospel Choir as a reminder that “no one can hold back the dawn…”

And to give us all something to grab onto and to which we can lend our hearts and hands and voices to be the light in the world, and to help usher in the new world here is an inspiring piece by Naomi Klein on the Green New Deal.

Dear brothers and sisters – let’s make this happen!

The Game-Changing Promise of a Green New Deal

Beloved friends,

Perhaps the hardest practice in these distracting times is to simply breathe and remember presence. There is much work to be done, yet we need to be willing to accept where we stand and forgive ourselves when we fall or feel we may have fallen short.

We distract ourselves in our pain. We distract ourselves because we just can’t hear another story of injustice, fear, and horror. We use our toys, our media, our mind-numbing day to day routines, drugs, alcohol, or just not managing to get up in the morning. It is easy to understand why. 

In the end the solution lies in the courageous parting of the veils; the willingness to engage despite the pain; the conviction that although the work we do can seem futile and not nearly enough, it is like the intrinsic hope of the seeds floating on the autumn winds, the salmon fighting up the stream to die, the pieces of onion, garlic, and potato we push into the cold, wet soil. If we can allow ourselves space to simply be with whatever is present in this moment, we may step into the next moment a little lighter and with a bit more grace and compassion for ourselves and the rest of creation.

Here are some poems that speak well to this idea:

Forget about enlightenment.
Sit down wherever you are
And listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You are already more and less
Than whatever you can know.
Breathe out,
Touch in,
Let go.

By John Welwood

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early)

On this day that has become a celebration of consumerism and unbridled greed, we choose to buy nothing and to spend the day with our family. In this post, I include some poetry and writings that will hopefully remind us of what is true, what is real.

I begin with this wonderful prose poem from my friend and the amazing and talented director of our Seattle Peace Chorus, Fred West as his Thanksgiving reflection: What is Peace?

And so what is peace?

What do we sing for that is precious and strong like the beat of a baby’s heart and yet fragile
And often at risk?

Is it the Peace and Quiet we need to study, to read, to learn, to sing
Uninterrupted by a noisy world?

Is Peace simply the type of life where one is free to follow the deep calling of our life’s work
And not be obliged to work an exhausting job with little meaning or reward?
Is it a stillness of the spirit which seems to be tranquility itself, and if so
Would any artist feel the drive to chisel stone, any violinist the need to practice 6 hours a day, any inventor the urgency to develop something so basic and wonderful as a washing machine?
Would the genius of human invention be kindled if
Peace and tranquility reigned or is Peace a strand in the web of life only apparent in contrast to chaos and oppression.
Is it by definition a condition that will be
Imperiled by greed and oppression as the tendency of one human to rule over another will always create strife.

In the stories that come to us today about Mostar in Bosnia, the divisions of all basic services flow into certain zones that all people know are either Catholic of Muslim. The fire department from one area may not serve the opposition zone defined by the Yugoslav wars and before. Although there is not now war, we see the legacy of war and the many generations of division that war creates.
War is the ogre of life, it is the ogre that even monsters fear as there is no
Actual mind at work that can put the pieces back together, but rather mindless consuming paths of destruction.

We have just seen terrible destruction in the element of fire. Fire does not have a will to create misery but it obeys it’s own nature. the fire can warm us and it can humble the rich and powerful.
As Paradise California burned, one thing we know is that no firefighter would refuse to respond because of a religious affiliation of the residents.
We Take this for granted and yet it is not always so.
Is Peace then found in a certain unity where all people will pledge to help each other in times of upheaval and danger? should we then say to each other

“I will help you if your home burns down”

Does Peace include the vast world of animals who enchant our Planet and who are our teachers, our elders, and our inspiration? The Orca who fill us with awe and gratitude
Has now shown her dead calf to the world knowing that we, not she, is responsible for the PCB toxins in the water that find their way into her breast milk.

Do we extend our peace to the world of fish, birds and all creatures who walk the land?

Can the elephant, who shows us what size and might and lines of kinship,
and subsonic hearing,
And prodigious memory can be,
apart from humanity:
can this elephant find the same peace that we sing for?
In this world, an elephant is killed every 4 minutes for its ivory tusks.

We do not need statues of ivory. The keys on our piano play just as well with plastic Compounds and yet someone craves these things and the elephant is too far away to be of concern.

Does the tiger, who may be the most beautiful creature, full of grace and power, to ever walk the Earth, deserve the Peace that we desire, even as it must hunt for its next meal and will never be found sowing seeds for the next crop.
does the glorious bird who inspires us
To fly and to soar aloft deserve a sky with no pollution? can we make sure that there is a tree to nest in 
when we have a chainsaw in one hand and a bag of apple seeds in the other which do we reach for.

Is Peace a dream and the real world a rude awakening?
if so, it is like a dream of traveling to Mars and will take all the dedication of science and artists to inspire the quest. Where this dream may become real is where
We hold our children up to the warmth of the Spring sunlight and their minds and talents grow beyond what is now known.

Is the dream of peace so threatening to those who base their lives on arming for
War and guarding their families with weapons,from true and undeniable threat.

Aah, Peace cannot be a fantasy or a refuge of the lazy or those who are always afraid
Of the unknown.
The peaceful warrior does not offer to become a slave of the conqueror.
Peace can be carved only with arms of strength,
with hands that have swung a sword in graceful dances, that know the routes to high ground when the tsunami comes.
but the strongest arms which assure safety can also be a pillow for your rest
And chop the wood to kindle the hearth and gather the harvest for your Thanksgiving feast.
the strongest arms offer solace to those who are saddened and alone.

And what is that Peace but in fact not quiet, not tranquility, not a life without disturbances, not a life without problems or challenges,
But a world where violent death does not occur. assault and murder do not enter into the mind of anyone, and the most extreme form of violence, the
Feared dogs of war, do not roam the land for we know that when once unleashed, these creatures do not obey any master.
Only in exhaustion do they return to the cage.
these do not exist in our world of peace because all people and animals belong, and all are fed, all are loved and all are seen and lifted up.
Our peace is when every conflict is answered by negotiation and dialogue.
Plato tells us that all ideas must be tested in dialogue. let us hear what is in everyone,s hearts even as we struggle to understand a different view.
our peace is when conflict is prevented by bonds of friendship and mutually beneficial trade which have always been the glue of the most peaceful agreements.
Call for gifts and prepare a feast to stay the trigger.
Do not pull the pin of the grenade but pull the cork of the bottle for your guest.

do not fire the rocket of robotic and blind destruction but send up the rocket bearing the color and delight of firework displays.
.Carve your wood for the gun barrel to hunt your food and for the harp and the fiddle, not for the gun barrel alone.
Guard against those that urge isolation for it is in our cultural diversity that we find
The answers pondered by our wisest and most distant ancestors.
Do not follow those that pull away from the agreements that keep the Peace and protect the environment. We do not have our own bubble which protects this latitude and longitude,
As pollution and destruction will cross borders.

the child is sacred.
Our peace is revered because all good things flow from the child who is nourished and loved. The Mother and Father, friends, Grandparents, siblings, and all those pledged to raise the child, guard and protect, nourish and defend their child and the children around them. What is good for your child is also good for the child in Yemen.
As we feed our children, we are called to open our hearts to any child without food or clothing, medicine or education.

If one wonders
How do I serve in the cause of peace, there is much work to do.

What then is the language of Peace?

Nature
And all the divine spirits and energies of Creation have given us
Songs to sing. Songs to gladden the heart, songs to celebrate freedom, songs to mourn and songs to honor the dead. songs for birth and songs for love, songs to
Inspire the struggle for justice and equality, lullabies to sing with one voice which give solace to the child, and Cantatas to sing for the choirs of each land to gladden the soul and cause us to open our hearts to each other.

No one small group of people can protect that precious child from a missile, or
From radioactivity, from toxins in the water or pesticides on the food.

It is only a mighty voice that can create this demand, that can create the clamor that is now needed to create Peace, and it is only in
Raising our freedoms that we have the power needed.
Never before has
So much of life as we know it been
In the balance.

A mighty voice can
Find wisdom in the common ground that we all walk on.

That common ground is not a barren strip between barbed wire,
It is a garden, it is a place of life and color, flower and fruit, honey bee and Monarch butterfly.
The mighty voice will sing in many languages
And always welcome the new people to our shores. the welcome song is our special
Talent.
it is this that
We
Are
Thankful
For

And then my reply to Fred of my thoughts on Peace:

What is Peace to Me?

I think of peace as that still small voice that lives in each of our hearts,
That guides and moves our passion, laughter, creativity, and tears,
That reminds us we are not separate.

And that – when we are blessed – breaks into song:
The whisper of leaves in the autumn breezes,
The whoosh of Raven’s wing,
The rattle of stones in the rolling waves of the Salish seashore,
The delighted laughter of a tumbling brook,
The excited whoop of a playing child,
The passionate sigh of a deeply loved friend,
The perfect resolving chord at the end of a choral masterpiece.

We are truly blessed

And finally, this beautiful poem:

This Is How I Voted Today

by Fred LaMotte with thanks to Monica Winsor

This is how I voted today.

I went to the woods and dug a hole

under fern in leaf rot and luminous fungi

into which I pressed my mouth and screamed

a long hot uncreated vowel containing

the first and last letters of every alphabet.

I signed my vote with my tears,

it was ratified by planetary silence

groans of Adam’s first wife from far below

heaved out of the groundlessness

where she is gowned in seamless glistening mycellia.

Only then did I realize what I’d voted for

the abolition of Republicans and Democrats,

the downfall of spires and hierarchies,

the dissolution of superpacs and

$50,000 a plate dinner parties

in Hollywood and the Hamptons,

the deconstruction of the Constitution into a single

proto-Hebraic rune,

inscribed on a cavern wall somewhere under

the vast and indecipherable border

between Mexico and Arizona.

The overthrow of male and female hegemony,

the annihilation of both capitalism and socialism,

the eradication of black and white by a rainbow of tears,

the renaissance of family farms and local small-business collectives

spawning an exquisite tapestry of bio-regional economies where

no mention is ever made of “government.”

Where politics evaporates into folk music story-telling

fermented cabbage useful tools

and the gentle heroics of mere listening.

I voted for the mule that Jesus rode into the city

proclaiming forgiveness of all debts

which is the same mule Laotzu rode out

beyond the wall of China.

Which is also the mule that Rumi sat backwards on

stumbling Westward into exile

gazing Eastward toward eternal loss–

that mule I tell you will be president!

I voted to compost and manure the floor of the Senate

entangling every politician in a web of hemp moss

mushrooms and deer pellets.

I voted to turn the dome of Congress all abuzz

into a giant hummingbird feeder.

I voted for the reclamation of all human skin

with musky forests of golden fur.

My vote was the sound of Yes in every tongue

the co-whispering of all leaves

the council of trees

the un-clink of gold and emeralds returning to veins in stone the echo of a primal Sigh

that meant to sing the color green

but accidentally created the stars.

Hello friends,

Wendy and I are going to be joining some of our Seattle Peace Chorus singers on a trip to the Southwest in January of next year.

We would love your help to support our “Music Crosses Borders” tour! Our all-volunteer choir has about 30 people signed up to bring our unique brand of musical citizen diplomacy to US-Mexico border areas, to inspire refugees & immigrants and the people who are working tirelessly to help them in this difficult political climate, and to learn about the many challenges they face. But many of our singers are hard-pressed to afford this travel and could use your kind assistance to help defray some of the cost.

We’d also like to financially assist the nonprofit refugee shelters we’ll be visiting in the Mexican cities of Juarez and Tijuana. These shelters are already struggling to assist hundreds of refugees and other migrants, including folks, recently deported from the US; and the caravans of thousands of Central American asylum seekers heading for the border now will add immensely to their caseload.

So we’ve established a GoFundMe page to raise funds for this tour. 50% of the funds raised will be used to help Peace Choristers afford the trip, and the other 50% will be donated to nonprofit refugee assistance centers in Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana.

Please consider a tax-deductible donation to this worthy endeavor: (Doug Balcom is the organizer and our tireless tour coordinator). https://www.gofundme.com/spc-music-crosses-borders-tour

P.S. Funds you donate to our GoFundMe page will be routed through “PayPal Giving Fund”, a nonprofit agency that processes GoFundMe donations bound for charities. So you’ll get a receipt for your tax-deductible donation to PayPal Giving Fund; but rest assured, your donation will be forwarded to SPC. Although GoFundMe may charge a small processing fee depending on whether you donate from a credit or debit card, PayPal Giving Fund then forwards the proceeds without deducting any additional service fees.

Trigger warning – there are some horrific and disturbing scenes in this moving music video. But it is worth watching (and there is redemption to beauty at the end), and remembering that this was made over 20 years ago and the things Michael is singing about with such passion have only gotten worse. 
Don’t go back to sleep.

Lyrics: 

What about sunrise
What about rain
What about all the things that you said
We were to gain
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said were yours and mine Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we’ve shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, these weeping shores 

Aah, ooh

What have we done to the world
Look what we’ve done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying earth, these weeping shores 

Aah, ooh
Aah, ooh 

I used to dream
I used to glance beyond the stars
Now I don’t know where we are
Although I know we’ve drifted far 

Aah, ooh
Aah, ooh

Aah, ooh
Aah, ooh 

Hey, what about yesterday
(What about us)
What about the seas
(What about us)
The heavens are falling down
(What about us)
I can’t even breathe
(What about us)
What about apathy
(What about us)
Drowning in the seas
(What about us)
What about the promised land
Preachin’ what I believe
(What about us)
What about the holy land
(What about it)
What about the greed
(What about us)
Where did we go wrong
Someone tell me why
(What about us)
What about baby boy
(What about him)
What about the days
(What about us)
What about all their joy
Do we give a damn 

Aah, ooh
Aah, ooh 

Songwriter: Michael Jackson

Earth Song lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger

because we have finally realized there is just one 
flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.

I have come into this world to see this: all 
creatures hold hands as
we pass through this miraculous existence we 
share on the way
to even a greater being of soul,

a being of just ecstatic light, forever entwined 
and at play
with Him.

I have come into this world to hear this:

every song the earth has sung since it was 
conceived in
the Divine's womb and began spinning from
His wish,

every song by wing and fin and hoof,
every song by hill and field and tree and 
woman and child,
every song of stream and rock,

every song of tool and lyre and flute,
every song of gold and emerald
and fire,

every song the heart should cry with 
magnificent dignity
to know itself as
God:

for all other knowledge will leave us 
again in want and aching -
only imbibing the glorious Sun
will complete us.

I have come into this world to 
experience this:

men so true to love
they would rather die before speaking
an unkind
word,

men so true their lives are His covenant -
the promise of
hope.

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of
their arc of
rage

because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh

we can wound.

~ Hafiz ~

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices 
from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky)