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.