Photo: Holy Spirit Red

 

Spirituality: Danusha Lameris, “Small Kindnesses,"

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, 

“Here, have my seat," “Go ahead — you first," “I like your hat." 

Photo: Rest in Peace

 

Poem: “Memorial Day” bu Samuel F. Smith, lyricist of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”

                         Strew the fair garlands where slumber the dead,

Ring out the strains like the swell of the sea;

Heart-felt the tribute we lay on each bed;

Sound o’er the brave the refrain of the free.

 

Sound the refrain of the loyal and free,

Visit each sleeper and hallow each bed:

Wave the starred banner from seacoast to sea;

Grateful the living and honored the dead.

Photo: Pentecost Red

 

Prayer: Columba

Be thou a bright flame before me, 

Be thou a guiding star above me, 

Be thou a smooth path below me, 

Be thou a kindly shepherd behind me, 

Today – tonight – and for ever

Spirituality: Jon J Muth

The old turtle looked at the boy. "But your questions have been answered"... "Remember then that the most important time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side. For these, my dear boy, are the answers to what is most important in the world. And this is why we are here."

Photo: Renaissance set for "something rotten"

 

Spirituality: from The Rose of the World by Danil Andreev

Creative work, like love, is not an exclusive gift bestowed on only a chosen few. A few now possess sanctity and moral vision, heroism and wisdom, genius and talent. But all that is merely activation of the potential dormant within every soul. A sea of love, an inexhaustible wellspring of creativity, bubbles behind the consciousness of each one of us. . . . All creative work that is done in its own name and for its own sake is divine in nature. Through it, people elevate themselves and fill their own hearts and the hearts of those around them with God.

Photo: A network