Lenten Reflection Day 36 (Mar 29): HERE I AM (Psalm 40:5-10).
SONG: Here I Am by Air Supply: https://youtu.be/B6rXBLRo_GU
POEM:Rumi: Here I Am (excerpt): … In the silence surrounding every call of ‘Allah’
Waits a thousand replies of ‘Here I am.’
QUOTE: Leo Tolstoy: Here I am alive, and it’s not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.
Lenten Reflection Day 35 (Mar 28): SACRIFICE (Psalm 40:5-10).
SONG: Sacrifice by Elton John: https://youtu.be/NrLkTZrPZA4
POEM:Muriel Rukeyser: The Book of the Dead: The Dam (excerpt): … All power is saved, having no end. Rises / in the green season, in the sudden season / the white the budded / and the lost… learning its power, conquering boundaries, able to rise blind in revolts of tide, broken and sacrificed to flow resumed.
QUOTE: Frederick Lewis Donaldson: The Seven Social Sins are: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle.
Lenten Reflection Day 34 (Mar 27): DEED (Psalm 40:5-10).
SONG: Deed I Do by Ella Fitzgerald: https://youtu.be/Vj4gbky1QCU
POEM: Heid Erdrich: The Theft Outright (excerpt): … Such as we were we gave most things outright (the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes / and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today . . .) We were the land before we were a people, earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go, or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth …
QUOTE: Theodore Roosevelt: The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly …
Lenten Reflection Day 33 (Mar 26): MULTIPLIED (Psalm 40:5-10).
Multiplied by Needtobreathe: https://youtu.be/0Gjx-ZQuQ_Y
SONG: Multiply by Jamie Liddell: https://youtu.be/fkqIsSTWSsc
POEM: Richard Michelson: More Money Than God (excerpt): ... who has traced / the provenance, and picks up the pace, multiplying offers. And who now does my father’s bidding? Heaven’s coffers, perhaps, are for the destitute …
SECOND POEM: Jane Hirshfield: Like two negative numbers multiplied by rain (excerpt): Old shoes, old roads— the questions keep being new ones. Like two negative numbers multiplied by rain / into oranges and olives.
QUOTE: Howard Zinn: We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
Lenten Reflection Day 32 (Mar 25): FOLLOW ME (Psalm 23).
SONG: Follow Me by Uncle Kracker
POEM: Reina Maria Rodriguez: Memory of Water (excerpt): … whatever one does the others all follow, watching from the corners of their eyes …
QUOTE: Albert Camus: Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead. Walk beside me… just be my friend.