Daily Signet

I am a home. A living house that provides all nourishment to a growing, living being. Yet I do it completely unconsciously. Really, I’m not doing anything—and that is astonishing. Of course, I think about what I’m eating, or how much I’m exercising, but despite all my rational efforts, I cannot claim responsibility in the actual day-to-day creation of life that is happening inside of me. But the sense of place, of just being present, is overwhelming….

The Thanksgiving Service and message expresses our gratitude for the gift that is home—in all the different connotations of the word. I am humbled by the miracle of my body as a home as I sit in the doctor’s office listening to an unseen heartbeat. I am humbled by the miracle of my childhood home with the gifts of love and spiritual cultivation that manifested itself in very different ways in each of us. I am humbled by the miracle of my current home as I glimpse Nate as he reads and writes of his belovings and I wonder how we came to be together. And, I am humbled by the miracle of my spiritual home of Christuman whenever I sit at the table and wonder how it all came together. I am humbled by the ultimate home that the Earth provides, for which makes this very living possible.

While I do not understand how any of this came to be, the beauty is that I do not need to. In fact, I don’t need to do anything. Only be present in this place, recognize the creative force at play, the anticipation of a miracle. Thank you God for all of my homes!

Alexis Drabek

On This Day…

Baha'i Day of the Covenant

Daily Signet

We praise God in gasps and words of gratitude at his handiwork. We praise God for physical sustenance and comfort, for a world that can and may supply our physical needs and for the beauty and grandeur we see in God’s creation—a sprig, a spring; a storm, a squall; a desert, a snow; a forest, a fall.

We praise God in our deeds. We joy in the beauty and grandeur we see in our physical creations—a David, a Girl With the Pearl Earring, an Ode to Joy, a Sugar Plum Fairy, a Chartres, a Golden Gate, mashed potatoes with gravy, a chocolate blackout cake. We build our works for the sheer joy of creating beauty and living in its bosom. We praise God for making us creators in his image so we can strive to be human creators.

Ben Leichtling

On This Day…

Lope de Vega born in 1562 in Madrid, Spain: playwright, novelist and poet remembered for The Dog In the Manger, Punishment Without Revenge and The Knight From Olmedo. Died 8-27-1635
Quotes: "Harmony is pure love, for pure love is agreement."
“Dreaming of a tomorrow, which tomorrow, will be as distant then as ‘tis today."
“With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books I live without envy."

Isaac Rosenberg born in 1890 in Bristol, England: World War I poet and painter who was killed in battle 4-1-1918, age 28
Quotes: "l will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on."
"l can't look at things in the simple, large way that great poets do."
“Nothing can justify war."

Daily Signet

Bring us home, Oh Holy Spirit, bring us Home.
And, as we celebrate Home—
our place in the universe,
our axis mundi—
in our celebration,
we pray that it is so—
that we are Home to our origo,
that our origo is Home for us.
We pray that we are transformed into Home—
the atrium for the Word, the Word made manifest in us,
the Word articulated through us—
we pray that it is so—
that we serve as an atrium to Holy Spirit.
Bring us Home, Oh Holy Spirit, bring us Home. 

Amen.

Benjamin Martin

Daily Signet

O God,

In this tradition of Thanksgiving —
paying homage to our origins
and gathering friends into the
bounds and bonds of family,
we are grateful.

In this tradition of Thanksgiving —
meeting in the chapel of the home
and surrounding a table abundant
with the earth's harvest,
we are grateful.

In this tradition of Thanksgiving —
where this church fills us
with the inspired fruits of the spirit
and pours through us a light
to light our sacred lights,
we are grateful.

As we have been given
may we give back a thousand-fold.

Amen.

Benjamin Martin  

Daily Signet

When I sit at a CHI (Christuman Humanities Institute) table with you, and when we together besiege sublime works of human creativity as well as the scriptures of High Human inspired by Holy Spirit throughout the ages, here I behold the glory of the human being. Here I stand on the hallowed ground of deep human longing. Here is the ground of CHI where soul grows, where each Origo may spring clear.

Teri Martin