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Author: Joanne Corey
Please come visit my eclectic blog, Top of JC's Mind. You can never be sure what you'll find!
My New Website @ aopinionatedman.com
People who visit HarsH ReaLiTy by Opinionated Man, aka, OM, aka Jason Cushman will want to visit this post so that they can continue to read his blog which is moving to a new platform.
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Links to Merrill’s poems
I’m re-blogging this post with the links to all Merrill’s poems, because it wound up posting on the draft date rather than current date. Enjoy!
As promised, here are the links to all of Merrill Oliver Douglas’s poems which have been featured this week by Eunoia Review.
“In the Basement”
“High Tide”
“Crab Apple”
“What the Dream Reveals About Her Father”
“King’s Point, Delray Beach”
“I Love You Too Much to Wear Those Earrings”
“March”
“Cleaning Miller Pond”
“Song in Gray July”
“Woodchuck”
Way to go, Merrill!
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Saint Francis Prayer
Because I have been (somewhat uncharacteristically) posting every day this month as part of Linda’s Just Jot It January, I have been more proactive than usual in planning my posts. I had a topic picked out for today and had written most of the post in my head.
Then, today happened.
My mom asked me this morning if I could send her a copy of the Prayer of Saint Francis, which a friend who recently passed away had chosen for her prayer card. I wrote a note to remind myself to do it and set out on a day of errands, a meeting, and an appointment.
I wasn’t expecting it, but it became a day when human needs for peace, love, compassion, healing, strength, and joy were placed before me again and again.
The best that I can hope to offer is to share the words of the Saint Francis Peace Prayer, which, while it is a Christian prayer, can also speak in large measure to people regardless of their belief system.
Prayer of Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Shared for my mom, for Wilhelmina, and for all those in need of any of the gifts that Francis calls for in this prayer.
In peace,
Joanne
*****
To join Just Jot It January, visit here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/28/just-jot-it-january-28th-serendipity/
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here.
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One-Liner(ish) Wednesday: outsider
“The ability to respect the outsider is probably the litmus test of true seeing.”
~ Richard Rohr
During this time of tensions, if not outright hostility, between some individuals and groups that they deem as “outsiders” due to differences of race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, gender expression, etc., this quote is especially meaningful. It reminds me to show respect for everyone, even when disagreeing on fact or principle with their viewpoint.
~ JC
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/27/one-liner-wednesday-it-really-sucks/
This is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Visit here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/27/just-jot-it-january-27th-mendaciloquent/
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here.
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#Blesstival on Love
My friend Jamie of Sophia’s Children has begun a blessing wave for 2016. It is called a Blessing Sadhana or Blesstival and this post is my contribution to the wave. Everyone is invited to join in! You can read more about it here: http://sophias-children.com/2015/12/23/blog-blesstival-add-your-blessing-to-start-the-new-year/
The blessing that I would like to share is Love.
Love with a capital L encompasses all that we love but extends beyond those we know to those we don’t know, to those who came before and those who will come after us, to all creatures, to the earth itself, to the universe.
From my religious tradition, I name this Love “Divine Love” or “God” but other cultures and traditions name Love in other ways, such as Great Spirit or the Universal. Secularists or scientists may speak of the Unified Field or Energy or simply the Universe.
Fans of Douglas Adams may know Love as the real answer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Forty-two was just shorthand.
It is a profound sense of connection and unity that has been expressed by religious thinkers, philosophers, and scientists over the centuries.
One of the spiritual authors I have read in recent years is Richard Rohr. He writes an online series of daily meditations and his theme for 2016 is Love. Here is an example of a recent daily meditation by Richard Rohr on Love.
As I have been contemplating writing this blessing post, I have been noticing Love everywhere, including this piece from Ilia Delio, another favorite spiritual writer.
I have been thinking about the universality of Love more often since attending a conference on Interspirituality, where I was privileged to meet Jamie in person. Whether one comes to it from a spiritual, philosophical, scientific, or secular viewpoint, our connection to one another and to Creation as a whole is profound.
I wish everyone the blessing of Love for 2016 and beyond.
Signing off with Jamie’s usual closing,
Big Love,
Joanne
*****
I want to spread the Blesstival as far as possible, so this post is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. You can find out more here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/26/just-jot-it-january-26th-oneness/
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Poem by Marilyn McCabe
I’m sharing this link to a blog post from one of the Boiler House Poets, Marilyn McCabe. She loves sharing poetry in a multimedia way as she does in the short video here: https://marilynonaroll.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/word-up/
Check it out!
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mochi ice cream!
When I visited with daughter E in Honolulu for five weeks last year, one of our favorite treats was mochi ice cream, a Japanese-style bon bon made of pounded sticky rice wrapped around ice cream. The shops in Honolulu had many different flavors, a number of them tropical fruits.
When I returned home, I tried to find mochi ice cream. I finally found some green tea ones at Wegman’s, but my body doesn’t react well to tea, so I did’t buy them.
Yesterday, I happened to walk by the case and there were vanilla and strawberry mochi ice cream available.
I bought a box of strawberry and ate one after dinner last night.
It was delicious, but the memories of eating them with E made it all the sweeter.
*****
This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! First here first: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/25/just-jot-it-january-25th-prestidigitation/
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.
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Links to Merrill’s poems
As promised, here are the links to all of Merrill Oliver Douglas’s poems which have been featured this week by Eunoia Review.
“In the Basement”
“High Tide”
“Crab Apple”
“What the Dream Reveals About Her Father”
“King’s Point, Delray Beach”
“I Love You Too Much to Wear Those Earrings”
“March”
“Cleaning Miller Pond”
“Song in Gray July”
“Woodchuck”
Way to go, Merrill!
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Just when you thought things were as complicated as possible…
Last week, there was “breaking news” that former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was endorsing Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. She has been campaigning with him this week in her own inscrutable style.
I thought things were about as complicated as they could be with Clinton and Sanders close in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and Trump still leading the giant Republican field with Cruz in second place.
And then billionaire and former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, upset that it might turn into either Trump or Cruz versus Sanders in the general election, announced that he was considering running as an independent candidate, which he would finance on his own up to one-billion dollars. He will decide by early March after he sees the outcome of the first few state contests.
Bloomberg has been a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent. I am uneasy at the prospect of him running in the general election totally on the basis of having enough money to fund a campaign, without any participation of the voters.
If Trump gets the Republican nomination, Bloomberg enters as an independent, and either Sanders or Clinton get the Democratic nomination, we would have all the major candidates with ties to New York, which is a little strange. (Although Bernie Sanders has spent most of his adult life in Vermont, you can still here the accent of his native Brooklyn when he speaks.)
I had already felt that this political cycle was chaotic.
I can’t come up with a word to adequately describe it now.
*****
This post is part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. Join us! Start here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/24/just-jot-it-january-24th-compelled/
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today.
