Monday, October 19, 2009

Prayer of Peace

Ilchi Lee presented this prayer at the Opening Ceremony of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations on August 28th, 2000.

I offer this prayer of peace
Not to the Christian God
Nor to the Buddhist God
Nor to the Islamic God
Nor to the Jewish God
But to the God of all humanity.
For the peace that we wish for
Is Not a Christian peace
Nor a Buddhist peace
Nor an Islamic peace
Nor a Jewish peace
But a human peace
For all of us.


I offer this prayer of peace
To the God that lives within all of us
That fills us with happiness and joy
To make us whole
And help us understand life
As an expression of love for all human beings.
For no religion can be better
Than any other religion
For no truth can be truer
Than any other truth
For no nation can be bigger
Than the earth itself.



Help us all go beyond
Our small limits
And realize that we are one
That we are all from the earth.
That we are all earth people
before we are Indians, Koreans, or Americans.
God made the earth
We humans have to make it prosper
By realizing that we are of the earth
And not of any nation, race, or religion.
By knowing that we are truly one
In our spiritual heritage.

Let us now apologize
to all humanity
For the hurt that religions have caused.
So that we can heal the hurt
Let us now promise to one another
To go beyond egotism and competition
To come together as one in God.

I offer this prayer of peace
To you the almighty
To help us find you within all of us
So that we may stand proudly one day before you
As one humanity.
I offer this prayer of peace
With all my fellow earth people
For a lasting peace on earth.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

We Launch from the Sea

"Flying Fish"
A poem by Carl Sandburg


I have lived in many half-worlds myself … and so I know you.

I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel.

I leaned so … and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now … and then under the water and out again … a fish … a bird … a fin thing … a wing thing.

Child of water, child of air, fin thing and wing thing … I have lived in many half worlds myself … and so I know you.





Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Prayer for Beauty

"I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within."
--Socrates

Emerson, Truth, and Beauty


"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Message of Our Times

Let the Angel Trumpets herald the message:
"Equal rights for all!"



It's well past time....

Friday, October 9, 2009

The Four Limitless Meditations

May all beings have happiness
And the causes of happiness.


May all be free of sorrow
And the causes of sorrow.
May all never be separate from the sacred happiness
That is sorrowless.
May all leave attachment to dear ones and aversion to others
And live believing in the equalness of all that lives.

Metta Prayer



May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to the light
of their true nature.
May all beings be free.


Saturday, October 3, 2009

Putting People in Nature

"When out with his camera the photographer must feel whether he wishes figures in his landscape or not. He must say to himself, 'This view wants a figure exactly there, and it must be a light figure or a gray figure or a black figure.' For the life of him he may not be able to say why he wants a figure there. It is sufficient for him to know that its addition will make his photograph more satisfactory. If he has patience and waits long enough the figure will come. Then his friends will say, 'What a lucky snapshot; how well that figure comes there; an artist could not have put it in a better place.'"
--Frank Sutcliffe




Friday, October 2, 2009

Two Points of View

"The sun reveals untold beauties. ... Words cannot express or describe it. But the truthful camera tells the tale, and tells it well."
--Andrew Joseph Russell

"The sun is very troublesome: It forces, it imposes. Slightly overcast conditions allow you to move freely around your subject."
--Henri Cartier-Bresson


Bees in Decline?