Daily Signet

A New Song

If I am to sing with hallowed sounds that move through my far reaches, 
it will only be to the extent I am made new.
The new reaches beyond what others have sung unto times 
measured into holy breaths that burst into growth and leap into joy.
An unbounded focus of spirit intoned upon this place, this time, this body of mine, 
must find its own voice, its own song. 
Oh sing, my God through me that I might exalt what lies hidden within me.
So brief my days.
So eternal my joy.
Oh sing, my God, through me a gloria of life drawn to me;
a gloria of life drawn from me --a new song sung unto the Lord with joy. Amen.

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Walt Whitman born 1819 in New York, died 1892: poet, essayist, journalist
Works: Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric
Quotes: “And your very flesh shall be a great poem.” “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” “Re-examine all that you have been told --- dismiss that which insults your soul.”

Daily Signet

There is an old fable about a traveler on the Mongolian steppes who was surprised by a rampaging tiger. This traveler ran for his life, but the beast kept gaining on him. Finally, in desperation, the traveler leapt into a dried up well, but this alas, roused a dragon sleeping at the bottom of it. As the traveler fell, he was alert enough to grab onto a single, slim branch growing from a crack in the bricks. There he clung for his life—tiger above him roaring, dragon below snapping its jaws. His arms grew tired and he knew it was only a matter of time before the tiger swiped at him from above or he fell to his death below. Yet, he held on. And he was even beginning to hope for a way out when he noticed two mice—one black and one white gnawing away at either side of the tender branch he clung to. Surely, he would die soon. Then a glint of sunlight fell on the wall of the well. The traveler’s eyes widened. There on a leaf of the branch were drops of honey. He felt a rush of joy and with the few moments he had left, he calmly stretched out his tongue and tasted the precious sweetness.                                                               

Teri Martin

On This Day…

Countee Cullen born 1903 in New York City, died 1946: Harlem Renaissance poet
Works: The Harlem Renaissance, Caroling Dusk, My Soul’s High Song
Quotes: “So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, and wait and tend our agonizing seeds.” “I have a rendezvous with life.” “Your love to me was like an unread book.”

Daily Signet

I have this image of joy borrowed from the movie “Immortal Beloved,” an image of a nine-year-old Beethoven floating on his back, naked in a pond on a sultry summer night, staring up into the magnificence of a star-populated sky. The “Ode to Joy” swells in the background as the camera pans back from a close-up of the boy into a 5,000 ft. view where suddenly Beethoven is indistinguishable from the other stars reflected in the water. At once he is swimming in stars and is a star; in one sense, he is swimming in pure joy.                        

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Baha’i remembrance of the Ascension of Baha’u’llah into heaven

G. K. Chesterton born 1874 in London, died 1936: writer, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay-theologian, biographer, literary critic
Works: Orthodoxy, The Man Who Was Thursday, Heretics
Quotes: “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”

Daily Signet

At the table, I say “Thank you, thank you, thank you”, “Make me yours”, “Blessed art Thou Oh Lord our God who bringeth forth bread from the earth”….As I life my glass, I say, as does Rachel Remen in My Grandfather’s Blessings, “’L’Chaim—to life’. Not as a prayer for something I don’t have. I have life. L’Chaim is not merely a celebration of life when life gives me good things. No matter what difficulty life brings, no matter how hard or painful or unfair life is, life is holy and worthy; not only worthy of celebration but also worthy of choosing. L’Chaim means that, in the face of all that life brings, I still choose God’s gift of life – joyously.”

Make a joyful song unto the Lord, for we have tongues. Make a joyful dance unto the Lord, for we have feet.                                                                            

Ben Leichtling

Daily Signet

Christuman teaches the importance of the Mind of the Heart, rather than thinking and reasoning to find truth. The Upanishads share this: Love, the first seed of the Soul. The truth of this the Sages found in their hearts; seeking in their hearts with wisdom, the Sages found that bond of union between Being and non-being.  

And from the Enneanean: The perfect synchrony of the profoundly rational mind and the intensely passionate heart, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, makes the Human. Reason alone is an enemy; passion alone is an enemy.

We must go beyond names, labels and separateness to the Unity of the One….Our focus on thinking and reasoning leads to worry, sadness and desperation. The mind of the heart and the focus on oneness leads to eternal joy.

Keep the mind Pure, for what a man thinketh he becomes.

From the Tittiriya Upanishad:  And then he saw that Brahman was Joy: For from joy all beings have come, by joy they all live, and unto joy they all return.

God is love and love is joy. All the universe has come from love and unto love all things return.                                                                                            

Barbara Dalberg