Principle as Love?

 Have you ever thought of Principle as Love?   Yes, and harmony too!


This has been a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around.  Principle is strong, tough, laws and rules, isn't it?  How can it also be Love?

 Well, here's what I've been thinking about.  The red light, when people pay attention, keeps crashes from happening.  It allows an orderly flow of traffic to go forward.  There's a sense of justice, or fairness, because everyone gets their turn.  A red light may be no-nonsense, but it is also an expression of Love keeping everyone safe.

Red keeps right ideas where they belong.  No colliding!

Yellow gives a heads-up on change coming

A yellow light warns drivers that their plans are

The heart of song - Bobby McFerrin

Krista Tippet does her homework before interviewing incredible people.  This morning her guest was Bobby McFerrin.

Bobby grew up in an Episcopal church in LA.  He loved singing in the children's choir.  His dad was an opera singer, and his mom sang all the time.  He grew up with singing in the home.

Here are three great YouTubes of his work.  There are times, he says, when he goes onstage feeling horrible, bad headache or tense because he's just had an argument with one of his children.  Within a minute of being with the audience, he's happy.  By the end of 90 minutes he's usually 80% healed.  To me this says something about his love for what he is doing, his love for music, his love for people, and the healing effect of acting on this love.

He tries to release in his audiences the improvisation and spontaneity they knew as children.  He taps into a deep spirituality innate, it seems, in all mankind.  (Scroll to the interview link at the bottom.)

He says of the Pentatonic Scale, "Regardless of where I am, anywhere (in the whole world), every audience gets that!"  You have to see it, to appreciate "getting it."





How do you draw thousands of strangers into singing "Ave Maria" together, beautifully, the first time?




For the 23rd Psalm, Bobby had been thinking about the heavy patriarchal element in the church and wanted to write something about the feminine side of God.  He dedicated this to his mother.



Note how in the final added verse which, in a traditional chant would be "Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," he is consistent in maintaining the feminine.

The text:
The Lord is my shepherd, I have all I need.
She makes me lie down in green meadows;
Beside the still waters She will lead.

She restores my soul; She rights my wrongs.
She leads me in a path of good things
and fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk through a dark and dreary land,
there is nothing that can shake me,
She has said She won't forsake me --
I'm in her hand.

She sets a table before me in the presence of my foes.
She anoints my head with oil
and my cup overflows.

Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in Her house forever,
forever and ever.

Glory be to our Mother and Daughter
and to the Holy of Holies
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be
World without end.  Amen.

You can listen now to  Krista Tippet's interview with Bobby McFerrin,  “Catching song.”

What Is A Dad?

Every boy has a dad - somewhere.

 What Is A Dad?

A dad is someone who
wants to catch you before you fall
but instead picks you up,
brushes you off,
and lets you try again.

A dad is someone who
wants to keep you from making mistakes
but instead lets you find your own way,
even though his heart breaks in silence
when you get hurt.

A dad is someone who
holds you when you cry,
scolds you when you break the rules,
shines with pride when you succeed,
and has faith in you even when you fail...
- Unknown 

May our Father in heaven embrace all His children on earth in those tender arms of His love -- boys and girls, dads and moms, grandpas and grandmas, and especially those who think they have no children. 

Revisiting one of the best dads

 Revisiting and honoring one of the best dads I've known.
First published August 28, 2007.
He was fond of saying, "My cup is running over (with goodness), and I'm drinking from the saucer! 

Dan with great granddaughter

My father-in-law passed peacefully away this morning. He’d lived a good and long life, survived two wonderful wives, is cherished by a third. He has three wonderful grown kids, grand-children and great grand-children. Dan was just going, as he phrased it a couple of days ago, “to walk into the next room.”

I’ve known Dan for forty years. He is one of the most consistently happy people I’ve ever met. The world doesn’t know what to do with happy people. It works hard to make them sad. He never took the bait. He kept his joy. Sometimes it took a bit of wrestling on his part to stay aligned with the good he believed was supreme in life, but he always rose to the occasion, and quickly.

He enjoyed a good joke. He was a careful and interesting story-teller. With a twinkle in his eye, he would relate an appropriate pun for the occasion, and chuckle at the groans from his audience. He loved people. He devoted the last 40 years to helping others find health, balance, stability, joy, peace – helping them feel the power of God’s love in their lives.

And, this is the big one – I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. He lived Christ Jesus’ life message: to love one another.

He made the best of what life gave him, and he always felt life was giving him abundant good. He cherished family and friends alike.

With his perpetual joy, undaunted trust in the triumph of good, and genuine love for all God’s children, he set a great example of what it means to unconditionally love one’s fellow man.

He will definitely “Be in that number, when the saints go marching in”!

----------------------------------------------------------------

If you would like to add a tribute to Dan, please do!

If this post has meant something to you, you might want to click on Comments below, and read those too.

Also see "Tribute" post in Kim's blog.

A smile

A smile is the lighting system of the face,
the cooling system of the head
and the heating system of the heart. 

Unknown

Has a smile ever made a difference in your life?  Your smile may have been the joy that lit up someone else's day during a dark moment.  Never underestimate the power of a simple smile.

A smile says to the other person, "You're worthwhile.  You are special.  You are worthy of my recognition."

Nature smiles on us through her flowers and her pristine lakes.  She sings to us through the birds and breezes.

Native Americans "caught some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile of the Great Spirit."

Mary Baker Eddy

"Bring me Sunshine!"

Have you ever found yourself avoiding some people because of their attitudes?  Negativity, cynicism, critical conversation can drag us down. 

Ever thought about the news in that context?  Is it any wonder that the advertisers of evening news programs are often drug companies promoting cures for the symptoms of various ills?  

More than one person has asked, "Who wouldn't feel sick after watching this litany of bad news?"

And is it any wonder that some news programs have realized a steady diet of negativity needs some balance.  Often they shine a ray of light in that direction by presenting a human interest story that embodies the values we all want to hear more about.

You don't have to join the crowd of heaviness.  God has given every one of us the ability to appreciate and value the beauty and good all around.  And to help others do the same.  Each of us can be a doer.

Here's a whimsical approach to the ability of one person to make a difference.

What is this place?

This email has been making the rounds.  It poses some interesting questions.  Is heaven a place with gold streets and pearly gates?  What would heaven look like to you?

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
  He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. 


After a while, they came to a high, stunning stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble.  At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
  Standing before the arch, he saw a magnificent gate that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold.  

He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.  When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'


Best buddies

Questions God won't ask

This is making the email rounds.  Some worthwhile thoughts here.

God won't ask what kind of car you drove, but He'll ask how many people you helped get where they needed to go.  



God won't ask the square footage of your house, but He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home. 



God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.   



God won't ask how many friends you had, but He'll ask how many people you befriended.  



God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, but He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.  



God won't ask about the color of your skin, but He'll ask about the content of your character.

She won’t ask whether you won or lost, but how you played the game of life.


The Carpenter

This email is making the rounds.  A message worth sharing.

Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side-by-side, sharing machinery and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch.

Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding, grew into a major difference and, finally, exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.

One morning there was a knock on John's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I 'm looking for a few days' work," he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with?  Could I help you?"



"Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you.  Look across the creek at that farm. That's my neighbor. In fact, it's my younger brother! Last week there was a meadow between us. He recently took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us.  Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I'll do him one better. See that pile of lumber by the barn?

Can you love without an object?

There is a difference, you know.  Between "unselfish" and "unselfed."

Until recently, I’d pretty much considered those two terms synonymous. 

If you think about it, unselfish love can be ego-tinged.  “I am unselfishly giving up my day off to help my neighbor.”  “I am unselfishly doing this or that good deed.”  

Unselfed love is love without self.  It is divine Love expressing itself.

Unselfed love is having no will of my own, but always, ‘Thy will be done.”  Always, "What can I do next for you and your children, dear Father-Mother?”  

Mother love is unselfish, and this mom has several fuzzy
"objects" for her love!

Here are some observations from Mary Baker Eddy, 19th Century religious thinker and healer. 

• Unselfed love doesn’t take offense.
• Unselfed love lives the might of goodness for all mankind. 
• It builds in our hearts a temple to worship God
• Rejoices in the good of others
• It keeps us in the Christian life

Most amazingly, unselfed love doesn’t require an object.  It just loves.  As the sun just shines, genuine Love just loves.