The prophetic and practical wisdom of women – that the gift of life comes with the responsibility to love and protect it wherever we find it, regardless of particular identifications within borders of race, religion, gender and class – has never waned.
Vision and conscience are its continuing signs; hope and anger its dissonant emotional tones. The anger is induced by the vast evidence of the waste of the lives of many and the feast of life reserved for the privileged few.

Page 160, wise women: over 2000 years of spiritual writing by women. edited by susan cahill, 1996

I look for the lord

Our wealth has wasted all away,
Our pleasures have found wings;
The night is long until the day;
Lord, give us better things –
A ray of light in thirsty night
And secret water-springs.

Our love is dead, or sleeps, or else
Is hidden from our eyes:
Our silent love, while no man tells
Or if it lives or dies.
Oh give us love, O lord, above
In changeless paradise.

Our house is left us desolate,
Even as thy word hath said.
Before our face the way is great;
Around us are the dead.
Oh guide us, save us from the grave,
As though thy saints hast led.

Lead us where pleasures evermore
And wealth indeed are placed,
And home on an eternal shore,
And love that cannot waste;
Where joy thou art unto the heart,
And sweetness to the taste.

p. 152, the 19th century, wise women, edited by susan cahill

790

Nature – the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child –
the feeblest – or the waywardest –
Her admonition mild –

In forest – and the hill –
By traveller – be heard –
Restraining rampant squirrel –
Or too impetuous bird –

How fair her conversation –
A summer afternoon –
Her household – her assembly
And when the sun go down –

Her voice among the aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket –
The most unworthy flower –

when all the children sleep –
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps
Then bending from the sky –

with infinite affection –
And infinite care –
Her golden finger on her lip –
Wills silence – everywhere –

circa 1863
The 19th century, wise women, susan cahill editor

THERE ARE THREE KINDS OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD

MY JOURNEY OF FAITH

One night a man had a dream. In it he was walking along a beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of foot prints in the sand, one belonging to him and the Lord. When the final scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back, at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints, and realized that they came at the hardest and saddest times of his life. Bothered about this; he questioned the Lord, saying, ”Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me all the way.

But I have noticed that during the most difficult and burdensome times in life, there is only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why that when I needed you most you would leave me.

The Lord replied, ”My dear child, I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.
Author and source unknown

1. I walk, down the street
   There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
   I fall in.
   I am lost… I am hooeless.
   It isn’t my fault.
   It takes forever to find a way out.
2. I walk down the same street.
   There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
   I pretend I don’t see it.
   I fall in again.
   I can’t believe I am in the same place.
   But it isn’t my fault.
   It still takes a long time to get out.
3. I walk down the same street.
   There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
   I see it is there.
   I still fall in… it’s a habit.
   My eyes are open.
   I I know where I am.
   It is my fault.
   I get out immediately.
4. I walk down the the same street.
   There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
   I walk around it.
5. I walk down another street.

CHILD WITHIN, page 125
Copyright Portia Nelson, 1980

MUDDLED MIDDLE ME

MUDDER ONLY

We can send our thoughts in the form of a prayer, or we can simply think a blessing or possitive thought…
Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie, p. 45

Send love letters

Making the time to take pen in hand and express our thoughts is valuable.

It requires concentrated thought.

Journey to the Heart, Melody Beattie, p. 45

Don’t let other people put thoughts in your head.

Respect the power of words and thoughts, both your own and others.

How easy is it to to be unaware of the process, to walk around with other people’s words in our head, taking them as truth, taking them as your own, letting their ideas about us control our lives and our beliefs.

“Words are powerful. Don’t let other people put them in your head. And choose carefully the words you speak to them.”