A Prayer

Seek that which is higher than the world. Entreat the four winds and the stars and the sky to show you the true nature of all that is holy. Humankind is so small, so very insignificant. One being is a mere grain of sand on a planet made up of sand, the epitome of insignificance. But one being, one grain of sand, is not less deserving of the divine than any other.

Approach the sacred and consecrated with openness, the greatest openness you can muster. Approach that which is holy with open hands and open hearts, with ears listening for that which lies beyond the din of daily traffic. Approach the divine without expectation or demand. Approach the holy with a hope to catch a glimpse of what is pure and what is right. Look deeply seeking the balm for your soul.

I am not the first to have trod this path. Pablo understood. I use what is below without legal permission but I hope with spiritual permission.

Gautama Christ

The names of God and especially those of His representative

Who is called Jesus or Christ according to holy books and

someone's mouth

These names have been used, worn out and left

On the shores of rivers of of human lives

Like the empty shells of a mollusk.

However when we touch these sacred but exhausted Names, these wounded scattered petals

Which have come out of the oceans of love and fear

omething still remains, a sip of water,

A rainbow footprint that still shimmers in the light.

While the names of God were used

By the best and the worst, by the clean and the dirty

By the white and the black, by bloody murderers

And by victims flaming gold with napalm

While Nixon with his hands

Of Cain blessed those whom he condemned to death,

While fewer and fewer divine footprints were found

on the beach

People began to study colors,

The future of honey, the sign of uranium

They looked with anxiety and hope for the possibilities

Of killing themselves or not killing themselves, of organizing

themselves into a fabric

Of going further on, of breaking through limits without stopping

What we came across in these blood thirsty times

With their smoke of burning trash, their dead ashes

As we weren't able to stop looking

We often stopped to look at the names of God

We lifted them with tenderness because they reminded us

Of our ancestors, of the first people, those who said the prayers

Those who discovered the hymn that united them in misfortune

And now seeing the empty fragments which sheltered those

ancient people

We feel those smooth substances,

Worn out and used up by good and by evil.

Pablo Neruda