Life is Scary When I Face it Alone

Life is scary when I'm alone.

Worst case scenarios grab my heart and soul.

Where is the corrective for my attitude

When I am stone?

Observation

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was greater than the risk it took to blossom.
            Anais Nin

BEING KIND: The Music Video that Circle the World | Empty Hands Music | ...

GRATEFUL: A Love Song to the World | Empty Hands Music | nimo feat. dani...

Fwd: Where there is hatred

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Susan Henry-Crowe <gbcs@umc-gbcs.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 4:43 PM
Subject: Where there is hatred
To: rbu6000@gmail.com

This past Sunday, I worshipped at Asbury UMC where Dr. Ianther M. Mills is the distinguished pastor and a moral voice in the United States capital. Articulating the fears and anxieties aroused by those who touted hate and bigotry, she gave expression for so many who are now living with questions - Who can I trust? How am I to be on guard for where and when acts of terror and racism emerge? Who really are my friends? Offering Christ's love and solidarity to God's people, Dr. Mills encouraged the congregation not to hide Christ's light under a bushel but let it shine.    Reports of incidents of violence and abuse were received directly and indirectly to Church and Society this past week. Violence towards young women at gas stations, acts of hate against churches, schoolchildren terrorized and bullied in school cafeterias and bathrooms, Muslim brothers and sisters terrified for their own safety, anxiety of deportation, and the well-being of young people working here on Capitol Hill. The rhetoric that produced and allowed fear, racism, sexism, regionalism and classism to fester must be addressed. The fears are real and the wounds are deep.   Repentance must come for the sins of hate sowed in our country and the world. There are many good and faithful public servants at all levels of government. The power bestowed is the power of the people, for the people, by the people. It is for the people of every race, religion, national origin, class, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability or sexual orientation.    For United Methodists, we are called to not only hear the fears and see the wounds, but to take action against fear and hate. Acts of hatred and violence that are being perpetrated are unacceptable and must be rejected in any and every form.   "The United Methodist Church must be proactive in resisting hate and teaching how to live in our diverse social world without passively accepting the rise of hate and bigotry. When we do nothing about hate language or horrifying atrocities, we participate in the social support of hate." (Resolution 3421, "Grieving and Repenting from Acts of Hate and Violence.")   As Christians we must be true to the promises made at baptism. To follow in the way that leads to love and freedom. We support active engagement in promoting diversity, support those who speak up when experiencing acts of hate, encourage the reporting of crimes of hate to officials and justice-minded advocacy groups, and support witnessing to those individuals who commit acts of hate to show them compassion and the saving grace of Jesus Christ.   May our prayer be "where there is hatred let me sow love." Peace, Susan Henry-Crowe CONNECT WITH US ©2016 General Board of Church & Society You are receiving this email because you are a Member of the General Board of Church and Society Click here to unsubscribe | View this newsletter online

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My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style. – Maya Angelou                                                                                

What I need

I need some respect from myself and from others.

                                                                       

Anthem -- Leonard Cohen

Anthem--words of a song by Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring 

Forget your perfect offering 

There is a crack, a crack in everything 

That's how the light gets in. 

Ring the bells that still can ring 

Forget your perfect offering 

There is a crack, a crack in everything 

That's how the light gets in. 

That's how the light gets in. 

That's how the light gets in.

 

Trapped or Free?

Freeing the gift of love! What a difficult undertaking for creatures like ourselves, willingly trapped as we are by sin, shut in by our selfishness. We often fail to realize the depth of evil, terrifying as it is. I am not speaking only of the selfishness of the wealthy, heaping up riches for themselves, or of those who sacrifice to achieve their self-selected goals. Or of the dictator who breathes in the incense due only to God. I am speaking of the selfishness of good people, devout people, those who have succeeded through spiritual exercises and self-denial in being able to make the proud profession before the altar of the Most High, “Lord, I am not like the rest of men."

            Carlo Carretto Letters From the Desert

A WORD FOR THE DAY

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well...for there is a Force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go.

                 Julian of Norwich

On Compassion

If you love the justice of Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment then you will seek to do compassion. Compassion means that if I see my friend and my enemy in equal need, I shall help them both equally. Justice demands that we seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner and comfort them and offer them our help. Here lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devils much distress.
             Mechthild of Magdeburg

In Dark Days

If the light is in you and me, we must not cloud our lives with the darkness of this world.

Read Philippians 4:8

Laugh When Trouble Comes

                                Amy Schumer

Human Beings Suffer

Human beings suffer.
They torture one another.
They get hurt and get hard.

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cares and healing wells.

Seamus Heaney
Source: from "The Cure at Troy" in Opened Ground

A Circle

A good leader will not exercise authority from 'the top'. The diagram for community is not a pyramid but a circle. A community leader leads with others. The pyramid is the diagram for an army or for industry.
              Jean Vanier, Community and Growth

The Better Teacher

From the age of six to fourteen I took violin lessons but had no luck with my teachers, for whom music did not transcend mechanical practicing. I really began to learn only after I had fallen in love with Mozart’s sonatas. The attempt to reproduce their singular grace compelled me to improve my technique. I believe, on the whole, that love is a better teacher than sense of duty.
      Albert Einstein

A Prayer from Thomas Merton

O God, we are one with you. You have made us one with you. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, you dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection.

O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept you, and we thank you, and we adore you, and we love you with our whole being, because our being is your being, our spirit is rooted in your spirit.

Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes you present in the world, and which makes you witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious.