Monday Poetry

I took part in a "poem a day exercise --  I think it is timely!

Today, I want you to write an outsider poem. You can be the outsider; someone else can be the outsider; or it can even be an animal or inanimate object that's the outsider. As usual, get creative with the prompt and don't be afraid to stretch the limits.

"Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
… "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Outsiders

Explorers looking for a new place to be
A home for you and for me.

A promise of a place to belong –
Somewhere to sing a brand new song.

Pilgrims looking for a land to worship free
To be with their God on bended knee

Outsiders all - found this place on the globe
As this new land they did search and probe

They explored and conquered the land
Pioneers in brave tiny bands

It was here that they pledged their lives
Humble men and their hardy wives

Others now look at these golden places
And come with hope upon their faces

No longer outsiders looking in
The Irish, the French, German and Finn

The Asian, African, Russian Turk
All have found a new place to work.

Americans all standing side by side
A part of this country. No longer outside.

Hanukkiah

It may seem intuitive to us that we light the Hanukkiah adding one candle each night. Yet the Rabbis of the Talmud debated how the Hanukkiah should be lit. The school of Shammai maintained that eight candles should be lit on the first night and on each subsequent night we would light one less candle. The school of Hillel, however, held that we would light one candle on the first day and increase the number of candles we light. We know that Hillel’s practice won out and the Rabbis of the Talmud tried to figure out why. They offer the idea that we increase the number of candles we light each night because when it comes to matters of holiness, we increase instead of decrease. They apply this principle to the lights of the Hanukkiah but also to all aspects of our lives. What are ways that we ensure we are increasing in holiness and not decreasing? Let’s use the light of the Hanukkiah as a reminder of the ways we can continue to bring more holiness into our lives and the lives of those around us.

Night Music ~ Loreena McKennitt - Snow (Live)

Aparian

"Were I to be the founder of a new sect,

I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee,

advise them to extract the honey of every sect."  

- Thomas Jefferson

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once,

but of stretching out to mend the part of the world

that is within our reach.

Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul,

to assist some portion of this poor suffering world,

will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom,

will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good."

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes (b.1945)

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.

That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.

-Emily Kimbrough,

"Eternity is not a long time; rather, it is another dimension.

It is that dimension to which time-thinking shuts us.

And so there never was a creation.

Rather, there is a continuous creating going on.

This energy is pouring into every cell of our being right now,

every board and brick of the buildings we sit in,

every grain of sand and wisp of wind."

~Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)

Certainly none of the advances made in civilization

has been due to counterrevolutionaries

and advocates of the status quo.

-Bill Mauldin, editorial cartoonist

"Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize

that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it;

that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal

of the preceding one."

~Andre Gide (1869-1951)

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.

-Natalie Clifford Barney, poet, playwright, and novelist

We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it,

ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests,

leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air.

That does not fit my definition of a good tenant.

If we were here on a month-to-month basis,

we would have been evicted long ago.

-Rose Bird, Chief Justice of California Supreme Court

“The high road of grace will get you somewhere

a whole lot faster than the freeway of spite.”

― Aaron Lauritsen, author

"Regardless of religion or race or ethnic background

we are all human and we are all on this planet together.

So what better reason do you need to not

tolerate any form of violence against another human being?"

~Tony Bennett (b.1926)

Night Music ~ Ray Charles - Moon over Miami

Saturday Matinee