“The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees and soil. Our bodily parts function as a cooperative. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise, that human beings are all mutual friends in the process of birth, old age, suffering, and death, than we an build a noble, even heavenly environment. If our lives are not based in this truth, the we shall perish.”
“Like the cosmic dust following after a great Perseid meteor, we are the living remnants of time and all that has come to pass in its wake—briefly shining lights on the way to eternity. We are only visible to the naked eye for an instant. Take this moment to shine like the star dust you are. May the light of our time on earth shine to bless the world and each other. Shine. Shine. Shine.”
“Although we may see 1,000 suns reflected in 1,000 pots of water, there is only one sun. When we see the consciousness within all of us as one and the same, we will be able to develop a mind that considers the needs of others before our own.”
‘I’m lying on the ground looking up at the branches of an oak tree. Dappled light is shining through the canopy, the leaves whisper ancient incantations. This tree, in its living stage, rooted in sights and sounds that I’ll never know, has witnessed extinctions and wars, loves and losses. I wish we could translate the language of trees – hear their voices, know their stories. They host such an astonishing amount of life – there are thousands of species harbouring in and on and under this mighty giant. And I believe trees are like us, or they inspire the better parts of human nature. If only we could be connected in the way this oak tree is connected with its ecosystem.’
“Come when the nights are bright with stars Or when the moon is mellow; Come when the sun his golden bars Drops on the hay-field yellow. Come in the twilight soft and gray, Come in the night or come in the day, Come, O love, whene’er you may, And you are welcome, welcome. You are sweet, O Love, dear Love, You are soft as the nesting dove. Come to my heart and bring it rest As the bird flies home to its welcome nest. Come when my heart is full of grief Or when my heart is merry; Come with the falling of the leaf Or with the redd’ning cherry. Come when the year’s first blossom blows, Come when the summer gleams and glows, Come with the winter’s drifting snows, And you are welcome, welcome.”
Paul Laurence Dunbar (one of the first influential African American poets), born on this day in 1872
“O Marvel, a garden among the flames! My heart can take on any form: a meadow for gazelles, a cloister for monks, For the idols, sacred ground, Ka’ba for the circling pilgrim, the tables of the Torah, the scrolls of the Qur’ān. I profess the religion of love; wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the belief, the faith I keep.”
“My Beloved is in the mountains, And lonely wooded valleys, Strange islands, And resounding rivers, The whistling of love-stirring breezes, The tranquil night At the time of the rising dawn, Silent music, Sounding solitude, The supper that refreshes, And deepens love.”
“Because we live in the browning season the heavy air blocking our breath, and in this time when living is only survival, we doubt the voices that come shadowed on the air, that weave within our brains certain thoughts, a motion that is soft, imperceptible, a twilight rain, soft feather’s fall, a small body dropping into its nest, rustling, murmuring, settling in for the night.
Because we live in the hard-edged season, where plastic brittle and gleaming shines and in this space that is cornered and angled, we do not notice wet, moist, the significant drops falling in perfect spheres that are the certain measures of our minds; almost invisible, those tears, soft as dew, fragile, that cling to leaves, petals, roots, gentle and sure, every morning.
We are the women of daylight; of clocks and steel foundries, of drugstores and streetlights, of superhighways that slice our days in two. Wrapped around in glass and steel we ride our lives; behind dark glasses we hide our eyes, our thoughts, shaded, seem obscure, smoke fills our minds, whisky husks our songs, polyester cuts our bodies from our breath, our feet from the welcoming stones of earth. Our dreams are pale memories of themselves, and nagging doubt is the false measure of our days.
Even so, the spirit voices are singing, their thoughts are dancing in the dirty air. Their feet touch the cement, the asphalt delighting, still they weave dreams upon our shadowed skulls, if we could listen. If we could hear. Let’s go then. Let’s find them. Let’s listen for the water, the careful gleaming drops that glisten on the leaves, the flowers. Let’s ride the midnight, the early dawn. Feel the wind striding through our hair. Let’s dance the dance of feathers, the dance of birds.”
Paula Gunn Allen (1939 – 2008), Laguna Pueblo writer
“Strange to say, the Sermon on the Mount gives pretty precise instructions on how to construct an outlook that could lead to an Economics of Survival.
How blessed are those who know that they are poor: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. How blessed are the sorrowful; They shall find consolation. How blessed are those of a gentle spirit; They shall have the earth for their possession. How blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; They shall be satisfied. How blessed are the peacemakers; God shall call them his sons.
It may seem daring to connect these beatitudes with matters of technology and economics, but may it not be that we are in trouble precisely because we have failed for so long to make this connection? It is not difficult to discern what these beatitudes may mean for us today:
We are poor, not demigods. We have plenty to be sorrowful about and are not emerging into a golden age. We need a gentle approach, a non-violent spirit, and small is beautiful. We must concern ourselves with justice and see right prevail.
And all this, only this, can enable us to become peacemakers.”
Chorlton Unitarians 