All Hallow's Eve

On this All Hallows Eve, I give you a reading or two to start the process of thinking about those saints who have touched our lives, to reflect that we are not alone on our journeys (both literal and of the spiritual nature).
Tomorrow (All Saint's Day) will contain another liturgy to celebrate the saints in our lives.

Blessed Be

Rev. Joel

The Larger Circle
~ Wendell Berry

We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other's arms
And the larger circle of lovers, who hands are joined in a dance,
And the larger circle of all creatures,
Passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance,
To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments.

They Are With Us Still
~ Kathleen McTigue

In the struggles we choose for ourselves, in the ways we move forward in our lives and bring our world forward with us,
It is right to remember the names of those who gave us strength in this choice of living. It is right to name the power of hard lives well-lived.
We share a history with those lives. We belong to the same motion.
They too were strengthened by what had gone before. They too were drawn on by the vision of what might come to be.
Those who lived before us, who struggled for justice and suffered injustice before us, have not melted into the dust, and have not disappeared.
They are with us still. The lives they lived hold us steady.
Their words remind us and call us back to ourselves. Their courage and love evoke our own.
We, the living, carry them with us: we are their voices, their hands and their hearts.
We take them with us, and with them choose the deeper path of living.
(Let us name those who lend strength in our lives.)

Happy Earth Day

I was doing some reading over the lunch hour when I read the following quote. As I thought the theme fitting for Earth Day here it is:
"We know, then, that the conflict between the human and the natural estates really exists and that it is to some extent necessary. But we are learning, or relearning, something else, too, that frightens us: namely, that this conflict often occurs at the expense of _both_ estates. It is not only possible but altogether probable that by diminishing nature we diminish ourselves, and vice versa."*
This quote from Berry reminded me of something I once read from James Wharram (the catamaran designer) stating that it is easier, and cheaper, to adjust ourselves to nature, than to adjust nature to ourselves.
Hope you get to spend some time enjoying Earth Day.
*Wendell Berry. Home Economics. Counterpoint. 1987. 10.

Ash Wednesday Quote #1

When asked how seriously to take environmental issues brought about by events such as Earth Day, Wendell Berry replied, "I don't think we can take it seriously until people begin to talk seriously about lowering the standard of living. When people begin to see affluence, economic growth, unrestrained economic behavior as the enemies of the environment, then we can take it seriously. But people are saying, 'Give us everything we want and a clean environment,' and this isn't a possibility."