by Patricia Bowers, who's online gallery is here
Christmas / Michael Leunig
Dear God
It is timely that we give thanks
for the lives of all prophets, teachers, healers,
and revolutionaries, living and dead,
acclaimed or obscure, who have rebelled,
worked and suffered for the cause of love
and joy.
We also celebrate that part of us, that part
within ourselves, which has rebelled, worked
and suffered for the cause of love and joy.
We give thanks and celebrate.
Amen
It is timely that we give thanks
for the lives of all prophets, teachers, healers,
and revolutionaries, living and dead,
acclaimed or obscure, who have rebelled,
worked and suffered for the cause of love
and joy.
We also celebrate that part of us, that part
within ourselves, which has rebelled, worked
and suffered for the cause of love and joy.
We give thanks and celebrate.
Amen
We shall be careful / Michael Leunig
We pray for the fragile ecology of the
heart and the mind. The sense of meaning
So finely assembled and balanced and so
easily overturned. The careful, ongoing
construction of LOVE.
As painful and exhausting as the struggle for truth
and as easily abandoned. Hard fought and won
are the shifting sands of this sacred ground, this ecology.
Easy to desecrate and difficult to defend,
this vulnerable joy, this exposed faith,
this precious order. This sanity.
We shall be careful. With others and
with ourselves.
Amen.
heart and the mind. The sense of meaning
So finely assembled and balanced and so
easily overturned. The careful, ongoing
construction of LOVE.
As painful and exhausting as the struggle for truth
and as easily abandoned. Hard fought and won
are the shifting sands of this sacred ground, this ecology.
Easy to desecrate and difficult to defend,
this vulnerable joy, this exposed faith,
this precious order. This sanity.
We shall be careful. With others and
with ourselves.
Amen.
Guide our dreams / Michael Leunig
Dear God
We give thanks for the darkness of the
night where lies the world of dreams. Guide
us closer to our dreams so that we may be
nourished by them. Give us good dreams
and memory of them so that we may carry
their poetry and mystery into our daily lives.
Grant us deep and restful sleep that we
may wake refreshed with strength enough to
renew a world grown tired.
We give thanks for the inspiration of stars,
the dignity of the moon and the lullabies of
crickets and frogs.
Let us restore the night and reclaim it as
a sactuary of peace, where silence shall be
music to our hearts and darkness shall
throw light upon our souls. Good night.
Sweet dreams.
Amen
We give thanks for the darkness of the
night where lies the world of dreams. Guide
us closer to our dreams so that we may be
nourished by them. Give us good dreams
and memory of them so that we may carry
their poetry and mystery into our daily lives.
Grant us deep and restful sleep that we
may wake refreshed with strength enough to
renew a world grown tired.
We give thanks for the inspiration of stars,
the dignity of the moon and the lullabies of
crickets and frogs.
Let us restore the night and reclaim it as
a sactuary of peace, where silence shall be
music to our hearts and darkness shall
throw light upon our souls. Good night.
Sweet dreams.
Amen
We give thanks... / Michael Leunig
We give thanks for places of simplicity and peace.
Let us find such a place within ourselves.
We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty.
Let us find such places within ourselves.
We give thanks for places of nature's truth and freedom of joy,
inspiration and renewal, places where all creatures may find
acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places in
the world, in ourselves, and in others.
Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them
and let us create them. May we mend this outer world
according to the truth of our inner life
and may our souls be shaped and nourished
by nature's eternal wisdom.
Amen
Let us find such a place within ourselves.
We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty.
Let us find such places within ourselves.
We give thanks for places of nature's truth and freedom of joy,
inspiration and renewal, places where all creatures may find
acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places in
the world, in ourselves, and in others.
Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them
and let us create them. May we mend this outer world
according to the truth of our inner life
and may our souls be shaped and nourished
by nature's eternal wisdom.
Amen
God help us / Michael Leunig
God help us. With great skill and energy
we have ignored the state of the human heart.
With politics and economics we have
denied the heart's needs. With eloquence, wit
and reason we have belittled the heart's wisdom.
With sophistication and style, with science and technology,
we have drowned out the voice of the soul.
The primitive voice,
the innocent voice.
The truth.
We cannot hear our heart's truth and thus we
have betrayed and belittled ourselves and
pledged madness to our children. With skill and pride
we have made for ourselves an unhappy society.
God be with us.
Amen
we have ignored the state of the human heart.
With politics and economics we have
denied the heart's needs. With eloquence, wit
and reason we have belittled the heart's wisdom.
With sophistication and style, with science and technology,
we have drowned out the voice of the soul.
The primitive voice,
the innocent voice.
The truth.
We cannot hear our heart's truth and thus we
have betrayed and belittled ourselves and
pledged madness to our children. With skill and pride
we have made for ourselves an unhappy society.
God be with us.
Amen
God reach us / Michael Leunig
God accept our prayers,
Send us tears in return.
Give freedom to this exchange.
Let us pray inwardly.
Let us weep outwardly.
This is the breathing of the soul.
This is the vitality of the Spirit.
For this we give thanks.
Amen
Send us tears in return.
Give freedom to this exchange.
Let us pray inwardly.
Let us weep outwardly.
This is the breathing of the soul.
This is the vitality of the Spirit.
For this we give thanks.
Amen
Love and fear / Michael Leunig
There are only two feelings, Love and fear:
There are only two languages, Love and fear:
There are only two activities, Love and fear:
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results, Love and fear,
Love and fear.
There are only two languages, Love and fear:
There are only two activities, Love and fear:
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results, Love and fear,
Love and fear.
Our lives like dreams endure
by Cedric Wright
Our lives like dreams endure
and reach out over the universe
Nothing real is to itself alone
There are side streams to rivers
there are overtones to thought.
Great love reaches out
and is involved in
the world’s purposes…
A song of the rolling earth (excerpt)
by Walt Whitman
...Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?
those curves, angles, dots?
No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground
and sea,
They are in the air, they are in you . . .
The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth,
the masters know the earth's words and use them more than
audible words...
To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb Great Mother
never fail...
Say on, sayers! Sing on, singers!
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost,
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,
When the materials are prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.
...Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?
those curves, angles, dots?
No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground
and sea,
They are in the air, they are in you . . .
The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth,
the masters know the earth's words and use them more than
audible words...
To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb Great Mother
never fail...
Say on, sayers! Sing on, singers!
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost,
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,
When the materials are prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.
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