Daily Signet

The Holy has been revealing itself to humankind for a long time; in fact, it is doubtful if any concept has lived in the human experience—in the human witness—for so long a time as religious truth. It just won’t die. Where humanity is most human, this religious perception is more vivid and most intense. Where man is only homo faber (or less), this awareness may or may not obtain….Humanity did not exist until the sacred entered the material, the flesh, the animal and by synchrony became one with it. Homo faber, no matter how brilliant is just not enough….When the sacred entered this little creature, he or she became Godlike by the gift of speech (logos)—the third great gift of Grace. And religion was born. From the beginning, this was the true religion, no matter how much or how little was or is apprehended or comprehended. No matter how it is interpreted: in corn pollen in a burning bush or in a star…God is not more when He speaks again 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 thousand years later, over Bethlehem or in a cave outside Mecca or in the Deer Park or by Deer Creek.                                                                                                    

William Boast

Daily Signet

In the work world, when we eliminate an employee, we call it “firing them.” Normally, such a “firing” seems to result in a bankruptcy of esteem and hope, an unsettling sense of what else can go wrong and raises the question of where to go from here. But, I remember one company celebration, at which I met a former employee who had been fired in one of the company’s downsizings. I told him I was so sorry he had been let go. He responded by saying, “It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I didn’t like who I was becoming and I didn’t have the guts to do anything about it.” This guy was truly “fired.”

A firing can reveal a mercurial spirit—known in alchemy as the prima materia. Sometimes this spirit is represented by a salamander as the surviving element that emerges from the fire. Alchemists considered this element as a substratum that could transform baser metals into gold; it was the much sought-after philosopher’s stone.

I hope everyone in Christuman is fired—that we may be unhinged from our sources of comfort and be upended into seeing the salamander in the fire. I hope we get a swift metaphorical whack up the side of the head so that we see stars—that line of stars that runs along the spine and drops down into the craters of the mind. I hope we discover that we are priests to a soul that is bigger than each name and occupation and fears and American values and successes and failures. That somewhere in each of us, we are seamed with stars that can be revealed in fire by fire. The gift of God, of the imago Dei, of the imagining within you, is a gift of fire.                                      

Benjamin Martin

Daily Signet

I
the sacrificer
the sacrifice
the sacrificial altar.

What is the sacrifice
which saves the universe
which builds my new body
and sends me to be with God forever?

What needs to be poured upon my stones?

Not clarified butter
warm red blood
or bowls of gold.

But rather the darkened, unworthy portions
Of myself
Willingly brought to light by with faithful fire within
White hot
And brighter still                                                                                                         

Donna Piper Leichtling

On This Day…

St. Vitus: one of the 14 Holy Helpers, and after whom the affliction St. Vitus Dance is named (D 300)

Suijin Matsuri: Shinto rite to honor the Kami of Water

Daily Signet

And so we invoke 
the power of the Yang—
the generative power of beginnings,
the potentia—the potent—
in the moment.
And through its pollen, 
a new conception.
And through its force, 
an impetus to create.
And through its energy, 
a way of persevering.
And the mystery is 
in the bloom of perseverance.
Through this fierce 
wrestling of our angels—
new wine, new words, 
new birth, new spirit.                                                              

Benjamin H. Martin

Daily Signet

See that the Tree of Heaven has its roots in heaven and its blossoms on earth—transcendent in the immanent. See that the Tree of Earth has its roots in earth and buds in heaven – immanent in the transcendent. Blossoms and buds intertwined. Roll that over into a three-dimensional sphere of life and the roots of both trees, and the blossoms and buds are in the same place; heaven on earth and earth in heaven. Heaven in earth; the I Am in me. Earth in heaven; the earth of me in the I Am of me. Tat tvam asi. Thou art that.                                                               

Ben Leichtling

On This Day…

Harriet Beecher Stowe born 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, died 1896: writer and abolitionist
Works: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Quotes: “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” “It’s a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.”