Daily Signet

October 20, 2023 / Alan Bucknam

I am here.
I do not know what to expect when you take Your lips to me
and blow Your Word through me
as though I am an instrument
giving music to Your will,
Your passion,
Your hope.

I do not know what to expect when those outside of me
participate with the inside of me
in this vow of service.

I accept the Call to be the intercessor
between what I know is possible
and what I have done until now,
between the light I know can be attained
and the light I have been able to bear unto this day,
between what can be born out of me
and what I have tried to create in days gone by.
I do not know what “I do” and “I will” and “I must”
mean to those I love and who love me,
nor do I know where “I do” and “I will” and “I must”
will take me or not take me.

And yet, this day, I affirm my answer,
an answer that seems
as if it were spoken
long before I was born
and has worked its way unto now.
Hear my answer, O God.
I do. I will. I must.

From the Christuman Ordination Service

On This Day…

Sikh Installation of Scriptures as Guru Granth

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categories / Mystery of the Quest

Daily Signet

October 19, 2023 / Alan Bucknam

At the completion of reading The Odyssey in a Christuman book group, a concluding remark was made: "Live the vision the gods have for you."

When you set off on the right path, the gods will walk with you and help you. If your vision is pure, you will see the gods helping you.

Athena says, at the end of the journey, when Odysseus is about to go berserk, "Odysseus, command yourself."

Remember your vision; keep faith with your vision. Command yourself to do the right thing, the thing that is on the sacred path you have been given. The right thing, your Soul's Errand is primary, everything else that might be an impediment or a distraction must be cast away.

Ben Leichtling

On This Day…

Hindu Dasara: celebration of the victory of good over evil. Prayers are said and food offerings to the gods are made in homes and temples, and outdoor fairs and parades held which prominently feature effigies of the demon, Ravana. These effigies are burned each evening on great bonfires.

Leigh Hunt born in 1784 in London, died 1859: critic, essayist, poet remembered for: Abou Ben Adhem, Jenny Kissed Me and A Night Rain in Summer
Quotes: “Colors are the smiles of nature.” “The groundwork of all happiness is health.”

John Le Carre (David John Moore Cornwell) born in 1931 in Poole, England: famous for his novels of espionage and for his character George Smiley, such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Quotes: “A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” “Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.”

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categories / Mystery of the Quest

Daily Signet

October 18, 2023 / Alan Bucknam

Life is not about perfecting your personality—it’s about, well, life. It’s not about saving anything or anyone; it’s about being alive. It’s not about being comfortable, not on any level—physically, spiritually, emotionally—for often, we are most alive when least comfortable. The point is not to identify the good or the bad, the right or the wrong, the highly or the lowly evolved; the point is to embark—each moment choosing: “Oh either be dead, or not be dead.” Each moment seeking out sources of vitality, discerning the alive from “the living but already gone.”

To answer the call to embark involves more than getting on a boat or a plane. You can travel a long way by any number of means of transport and yet, never really embark. No one embarks without crossing a threshold and no one crosses a threshold burdened with baggage.

Teri Martin

On This Day…

Shinto day of thanks for water

St. Luke, physician, evangelist and martyr, 1C

Ntozake Shange born in 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey, died 2018: playwright and author: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf and Spell No. 7
Quotes: “When I die, I will not be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves.” “I found god in myself and I loved her, I loved her fiercely.” “Where there is woman, there is magic.”