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Grace and Gratitude
Today is one of the High Holy Days of the year for me.
It is the culmination of a process during which – if we are willing to submit our hearts and souls to some serious truth-telling – we are able to discern whether we are living our proclaimed values…or not. There is nothing quite as revealing as rereading our checkbook.
It is not always a day of celebration. Usually my husband and I fall a little short of our ideals; occasionally we even fall short of our stretch goals.
But in the past three decades or so, it has always been a day of grace and gratitude when I feel an overwhelming thankfulness to all those who came before me, whose taxes built roads and schools and hospitals and libraries and parks and railroads, and funded fire departments and police departments (yes, even in the midst of some horrific revelations) and the National Guard and FDIC and Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
I take up their mantle with joy. Yes, joy.
May this Tax Day 2016 be a day of grace and gratitude and blessing for you, too.
You can read the post I wrote about this in 2013 (called ‘The Spirituality of Taxes’) HERE.
Prayer and Politics
For those of us who were born in Massachusetts, today is Patriot’s Day.
It honors the first battle of the Revolutionary War – which took place in Lexington as British troops marched out of Boston, being harassed on every side by the local militias – that made these (former) British Colonies the United States of America.
It is also (coincidentally) the day of the New York primary.
I thought I would share one of my favorite quotes of all time (it seems to fit, somehow).
Edward Everett Hale was the United States Senate Chaplain in the early 1900s (1903 – 1909, to be precise). Someone trying to figure out exactly what it was Hale did, asked him one day, “Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?”
To which he replied, “No. I look at the Senators and I pray for the country.”
Letting Go
If I really want to let go
of something,
I can’t keep calling it home
to roost.
Higher Standards
Baby-Boomers say, with a kind of hushed horror, that our children will be the first generation in a long time that will not have a higher standard of living than we (their parents) have.
I’m not so sure.
It all depends on what constitutes “a higher standard of living,” doesn’t it?
Praise!
Earth Day!
From Francis of Assisi, a portion of the Canticle of the Sun (in my own adaptation):
Praise to the Holy!
All creatures in creation, praise!
Praise for our Brother Sun,
who unfolds the day,
and through whom sacred light is given.
Praise for his beauty and radiance and splendor!
Praise for our Sister Moon and all the stars in the heavens!
Praise for their brightness – for they are precious and wise!
Praise for our Brothers Wind and Air,
who bring clouds and tempests, snow and rain,
weather of all kinds,
bearing sustenance and softening the soil.
Praise (and again praise) for our Sister Water!
She is useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
Praise, praise for our Brother Fire,
who is sparkling and cheerful, and powerful and strong,
who brightens the night.
And praise, O praise, sing praise for our sister Mother Earth,
who feeds us and grounds us,
and nurtures us with fruits and flower, grass and herb.
Praise to the Holy!
All creatures in creation, praise!
Wisdom
Wisdom is not a trait to be acquired,
it is a journey to be undertaken.
Appreciation
It is so easy to take daily miracles for granted. This poem reminds me to celebrate not only the world around me, but the small triumphs of life. The ordinary moments of survival and strength and determination.
Fueled
by a million
man-made
wings of fire-
the rocket tore a tunnel
through the sky-
and everybody cheered.
Fueled
only by a thought from God-
the seedling
urged its way
through thicknesses of black-
and as it pierced
the heavy ceiling of the soil-
and lauched itself
up into outer space –
no
one
even
clapped.
(Fueled, Marcie Hans)
[The photo was taken in Prague, a poppy growing from a crack in the sidewalk.]
Text © 2016, Andrea La Sonde Anastos
Photos © 2015, 2016 Immram Chara, LLC
NOTE: The first fiber art piece is ‘Abundance’ which is in a private collection. The second is ‘Green Man’ — a piece filled with small surprises inspired by our sabbatical in England — which is available through my Etsy shop.