Let It Shine---Laura Zucker

The puddles are all frozen, gray skies draw near
No one can quite figure out how we lost another year
Decorations dazzle all around the neighborhood
Inviting us to fill our hearts with cheer

Let them shine, like diamonds in the night
Let them fill us up with light
So we can shine upon each other like the stars above
With the greatest miracle- love.

Judah and his brothers were a powerful clan.
They re-sanctified their temple and reclaimed their land
And as a heavenly tribute for their courage and toil
They got eight days of light from one jar of oil

Let it shine, like a diamond in the night
Let it fill us up with light
So we can shine upon each other like the stars above
With the greatest miracle- love.

In deepest darkest winter a child was born
Said to come to save a world that was tattered and torn
The Kings who came to witness, who had travelled so far
Were beckoned by the beacon of a star

Let it shine, like a diamond in the night
Let it fill us up with light
So we can shine upon each other like the stars above
With the greatest miracle- love.

It doesn’t matter who you pray to
Sharing the love is the way to
Let them shine, like diamonds in the night
Let them fill us up with light
So we can shine upon each other like the stars above
With the greatest miracle- love.

from Life Wide Open, released November 11, 2013

Two Poems And Poets: Bill Gallegos And Alberto Moreno

It has been a very long time since I could read and appreciate poetry. I set aside reading Nazim Hikmet, my favorite poet, because the hopes that sustained him and animated his poetry---hopes that I share---have become too difficult for me to read and recollect. These hopes seem so far from where we are now that it is painful for me to consider them. And so much of modern poetry seems full of irony or tragedy or is written in the contexts of cultures and times that I don't understand that the poems are lost on me. It took Diane Gilliam's book "Kettle Bottom" to once more locate a poetry that speaks to me.

The two poems below rock me. The first is by Bill Gallegos, who I hope will count me as a friend or comrade. He is a great thinker and activist and I have learned much from him. The second poem is from Alberto Moreno, an especially gifted poet and mystic who I once had the honor of meeting and watching. I thought then that I was watching someone who was moving in another world.

There was a time---and it was not too long ago---when I considered Bill Gallegos' activism and Alberto Moreno's Sufi-like mysticism as opposing tendencies, as contradictory. That was in my ignorance. What is going on here is that both poets are holding up lamps in a world that sometimes feels quite dark. Light doesn't contradict light in a world in which darkness causes us to stumble. Please listen to both of these teachers.


Maceo Orlando -- My Lost/Found Treasure (Bill Gallegos)

Watching you jump from mother's womb/wet and loud/tiny lips telling the world .. that Maceo Orlando had landed ...
in Tinsletown

You so quickly ran the ragged edges of wonder/father chasing just behind ... And 'buela's hands leading you back to the soothing realm of tenderness.

You always shared that kinda moon smile/soft and warm/the funniest kind of sly. An easy laugh/like quick sips of joy ... from the warm/warm waters of your heart.

Always unafraid to touch/fast besitos on the old man's cheek/lighting up the dark spots of long, hard days.

You love to love/giving out the velvet embrace/easing the crazy befuddle of middle-age jefitos.

You are a diamond my son/shining ever brighter from the hits and misses of my own unsures: "Am I too hard?" "Am I too easy?"/"Should I do this?"/"Should I do that?"

You wandered sometimes lost in the complex labyrinth of adolescence.

But its all good now m'hijo/because you found your way/your heart led you home .... and healed the unhealable/relit the cold ashes/breathed life into tired lungs emptied by fear and loneliness.

That is the treasure you bring my son/shining like a cat's eyes in the darkness/chasing away the shadows that chill the heart.

Maceo Orlando, you are the answer to the why/the lyric to the song/the mystical phrase from the poem/the ending to the story/the warm hand which walks us through life.

Pops

***

Would you believe
That I once kept a secret
From myself
For fifty years?!
I tell you this in case you are keeping the same secret from your own heart
The secret that you are unconditionally and irreparably
Loved!
---Alberto Moreno

"Everything has been done so that you might become so many suns, sources of life (for others)..."

Photograph from Lynne Myfanwy Jones

"Everything has been done so that you might become so many suns, sources of life (for others). May you be perfect light before that immense ight. You will be flooded with its supernatural splendor. To you will come, limpid, direct, the light of the Trinity emanating from the One God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be glory and power forever and ever. Amen."---St. Gregory Nazienzen

The Georgia Mass Choir - Walk In the Light

 

Some posts to encourage us

These came from a variety of people on Facebook: Beautiful Kingdom Warriors, Ginger Posey, Carlotta Young, Kermit Meling, Perry Blankenship, and The Crazy Black Librarian. This is a pretty diverse group of folks who probably don't know one another and who may not think of themselves having much in common to start with. But these are some of the people and spaces I go to for good words most days. I hope that these posts encourage and enlighten you as much as they did me. Many thanks to these good people for helping us on our journey.

"Stand firm against the forces of fear..."

"Stand firm against the forces of fear. Don’t give in to them for what they offer has no more substance than the shadows from which they are made. Fear seeks to lure you from the solid ground of wisdom and tempts you to get lost in the empty spaces of the human heart. Empty of love. Empty of hope. Stand firm so the bond between us may remain strong, a wall of light against the darkness. Let the calm resolve of our prayers work the mystery of transformation: a balanced center where fear like waves breaks against the rocks and disappears like spray into the brightening air."
---The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, Native American/Indigenous Ministries of the Episcopal Church

 

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace..."

 

The light that shines from with you...

 

The light within us...

This "sun inside" is evidence of the Holy Spirit. It's present in all of us. It shines brighter in some than others because the society we live in encourages it in some and discourages it in others or because some people have one gift of the Holy Spirit and others have another---but everyone has a sun inside them, everyone has a gift.  

Be a lamp...

 

Pray For Light And Offer The Light...

Our Prayer To The Holy Spirit

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth and Light, Who are everywhere present and fill all things, Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come to us and dwell within us, and cleanse us from every stain and every blemish, and save our souls, O Most Gracious Holy Spirit!

Sometimes that's all you need...

 

Story and SERMON: “Risking a New Story” - Rev. Ruth MacKenzie

 

Light someone else's path and light your own as well...

 

Whichever prayers you use...

 

Offer Someone Or Another Creature A Bit Of You Light

 

Nothing Can Separate You From God's Love Ever.

 

A prayer for patience...

 

Good morning! A light and true touch to start the day.

 

"The Lord Will Make A Way Somehow!"