FLAG of AMERICA - a poem for Memorial Day, 2016
Let this flag become a symbol of peace.
Let it not fly bravely over a battlefield
as a symbol of victory,
but instead become a token of humble service,
a testament to the value of Love and Unity.
Let patriotism mean love for neighbor,
and let our neighbors be the entire world.
Let all who have fought for an ideal
that they held within their hearts
for which they gave their lives be honored,
and let those be honored as well who gave their
lives to the purposes of peace,
who strengthened peace everywhere
by living lives of harmlessness
in thought, word, and deed.
Let the idea of supremacy be a thing of the past,
and let the flag that flies above us
be part of the breeze that moves it,
of the life that has sewn it together,
of the love that has held it in reverence,
and of the hope that is the world's hope.
O flag of my Heart, flag of America,
may you become the flag of the One
who holds all hearts within Itself.
May your presence bring Unity to the world
instead of dominance.
And may your colors bless the Earth
and be a Praise to the Creator of All.
FLAG of AMERICA - PART II
O flag of America,
You have flown your colors over so many
deeds and misdeeds.
Your origin is of virtue and light,
yet your presence has hovered over
times and places in which only enmity
was created.
This undoing from virtue and light to
enmity and oppression
could only happen because it was not
recognized where you came from,
from the Realms of peace and light,
from the Heart of the One
where only peace prevailed.
Now, your true essence must be restored,
that which is tattered must be made whole
so that what in its origins is pure and
holy can, in its outer expression,
become an emblem to all
of a new world of love.
THE FACE OF FREEDOM
I have seen the face of freedom
and it is no longer a battle cry,
but an embrace of love that desires
that men and women everywhere
shall live freely,
free from want,
free from neglect,
free from indifference,
free from despair.
That they shall become free to be
themselves, to fulfill the destiny
that their soul has chosen,
to bring the gifts to the earth that is
only theirs to bring.
This freedom does not come into being
for one or for several,
for the exclusion of any destroys the
very principle of freedom
which stems from the right to be oneself
that is accorded to all.
I have seen the face of freedom
and it is the face of the soul of each living being,
the shining beauty that dwells within
that is set free to shine outwardly,
unhampered by the desperation for mere survival
that prevents freedom from truly being free.
I have seen the face of freedom
and it lives within the heart of each one
as a birthright, a birthplace,
a home that is both the origin and the
destination of the embodied soul.
It is this freedom-to-be
that must replace the battle cry,
that must replace the exclusiveness
that has so long dominated the world
as we know it.
Instead, must come the knowledge
that I am only free if you are as well,
for the principle of freedom does not belong
to anyone,
not to a party, a person, a group, a class,
a political office, a gender, a skin color,
a place of origin,
a preference for this point of view or that.
No, the principle of freedom belongs to all,
equally, as a God-given right.
And so it shall blossom
in that day when the hearts of men and women
everywhere recognize that they are One
in body and in heart,
and must live as one so that all may be free.
In that day freedom shall be written within
each heart,
and it shall be the gift that each gives to the other,
so that all may live in a world that is newly created,
a world in which the light within becomes
the truth by which men live.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
'Government' is a structure. Many are outside it. 'Governance' is an action. All are within it.
'Governance' is the process by which we order our daily lives.
Come, let us speak together of the future that will be.
There is no voice too small to hear with dignity.
There is no voice too simple to respond to with gratitude.
Let us speak together, now, of sacred things,
and believe in the good that can come from each of us.
For the sacred is no longer separate from public life.
The sacred is all of life.
Not a religion, but a spirit.
Not a dogma, but the air we breathe.
Not a principle of obedience, but a fountain of inner truth.
All who are alive are holders of this truth.
All are part of good governance,
each holding a portion of the Whole,
each holding an aspect of the Divine.
We are not used to being this important.
We are not used to it and did not know
that we carried this process within us.
We did not know that we carried a truth
that was of value to all.
We had to find it. We had to seek it.
In this time each shall share the truth they hold,
and it shall be the fuel from which
public life is maintained.
In this time good governance shall become
the collective voice that blends together
the voices of all people,
a people whose Essence rests in their Divine core.
So, shall the truths of each join together
to become the truth of all.
So, shall the foundation come into being
for a whole new life, for a whole new world.
DEGREES OF HELP
We have come together to share resources
with each other -
the air we breathe, the water we drink,
the gifts of the earth,
the food of the oceans.
We cannot share resources if we take them
for our own.
If we hoard them, if we destroy them,
if we interfere with their growth,
if we determine their future thru our own
action or inaction
we are no longer sharing the planet with others.
We are claiming it for ourselves.
This is the origin of 'dominance,' the expansion
of one at the expense of many.
And yet 'dominance' is a thing of the past.
It can only exist when there is a struggle
of 'me' against 'you,'
when there is a need to believe in the 'survival
of the fittest.'
This belief belongs to the past and to a
different reality.
Today, there is no 'fittest' and no 'less fit.'
There are only degrees of help that we offer
to each other from the same universal Heart
that offers the gifts of life to each of us.
We live in and through these degrees of help.
And what we claim for ourselves in the way
of being more deserving of life and of wealth
must concede its place to what we claim for all.
For all that lives is our domain of care.
We have come to share life with all that lives.
And the heart that beats within us,
the heart that is gaining strength in great measure,
tells us that this is so.
For this is the time of the one Heart,
the time in which all hearts serve that One.
And we are the instruments of that change,
the change from individual possession out
of fear and self-protection,
to non-possession but sharing all with all.
We are a shared life.
We belong to the Earth and it belongs to us
in the way that deepest love creates belonging.
Let this be our legacy to the future, then,
that what was raised in fear, and beheld
itself in separation
shall henceforth know itself to be one with the One,
shall henceforth call itself 'sacred humanity,'
the One becoming many,
the many becoming One.
Photo by Bruce Rolff
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