TODAY is a special day!!! It is James Taylor’s birthday. JT has been the soundtrack for most of my life. Below is one of my favorite songs titled “Grace” from Jonathan Elias’ PRAYER CYCLE that features James Taylor.

In these troublesome days when the whole world is watching, grieving, praying, sending aid, crying out for peace and justice and an end to the seemingly endless violence, terror, and war that plague the earth, I am especially mindful of Christ’s three temptations in the desert, They have been identified in a number of ways but one trio names the archetypal temptations as POWER (the abuse of), PRESTIGE (ego), and POSSESSIONS (greed). Certainly, Putin is the poster boy for unapologetically taking these three temptations and turning them into his modus operandi. Such times expose the underbelly of humanity at its most inhumane, and yet it also bears witness to the courage, compassion, generosity, lovingkindness, and hunger for justice embodied and expressed in little and large counter actions that reveal the nobility of people and the sacred kinship that does not recognize human drawn borders.

Such times feel overwhelming. We ask what can I do? I am only one. Yes. But each of us is one who can negate the callous, cruel, arrogant, megalomaniacal, and heinous acts of another by living a truer truth that is not a betrayal of our humanity and a violation of the rights and dignity of others. It is for us to make credible, real, and impactful in our sphere of influence what cynics will say is an anemic response, one that is naive, Pollyannaish, ineffective, and impotent. Nevertheless, in response to the pernicious litany above we can choose to incarnate deep sympathy, kindness, humility, altruism, and radical love. In Isaiah 1:16-17 the prophet describes the Holy One saying “Cease to do evil, learn to do good. Make justice your home forever.” We can choose love or hate, beneficence or malice, selflessness or self-aggrandizement, making peace or being violent, being a force of good or a force of evil, hope or despair. Which side do we re-present?

When things like a pandemic rearrange our lives and our world, when the powerful few abuse their power and wreak havoc, suffering, and death on the many by launching unprovoked wars, our power to manifest good can seem quite insignificant and small. But when joined with others, every thought, word, gesture, and act on behalf of the common good create a critical mass to expose what is false and to counter what is death-dealing.

The song below seems fitting to these troublesome days when what life brings feels like more than we can handle, is frightening, and elicits horror at the human-caused horror that looms as large as the ocean is vast. We struggle against the wave of barbarity and violence and reprehensible acts of malfeasance. Our boat seems so small. In disturbing, disorienting times our prayer takes the form of a lament, a psalmic cry from our innards for help, for a way to cross the stormy sea. Out here in the darkness, we cry out for protection. Out here in the darkness, we search for One to carry us. Out here in the darkness, O God, help us to help one another find our way back home to dignity, compassion, peace, loving care, healing, and justice. May it be so.

Movement V: GRACE

Father won’t you carry me
For the ocean is wide
Father won’t you carry me
For my boat is so small

Father on a moonless night
Help me cross the stormy sea
Out here in the darkness
Help me find my way back home

Father won’t you carry me
For the oceans wide
Father won’t you carry me
For my boat is so small

Father in this season of dying
Let me sleep in your arms
And come watch over me
Someone watching over me, over me

Father won’t you carry me
Father won’t you carry me
Father won’t you carry me home

by Jonathan Elias, The Prayer Cycle

⊕ PLEASE PASS ON THE ALMOND TREE REFLECTIONS and/or the link to The Sacred Braid. Thank you, Dan

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