Hymn of Gratitude in the Face of Hardships; a personal proclamation:

A deep breath and pause from worldly dynamics pulling us every which way…………I count my blessings here, in the midst of discouraging factors, applying the medicine of gratitude to bring courage and greater perspective to my circumstance. I share it to proclaim and also to encourage others facing adversity, find a gift of grace before you, right in the face of hardship:

I am poor in spirit. I am poor financially, and inhibited by an unknown profession. And I am wealthy in love, and wealthy in commitment and fidelity. My marriage, our home with each other, our daughter and animal family, is filled with more love and goodness than any castle could hold. The friends we have are for the long haul…like heaven sent to walk beside us! The nature, the earth we experience, here is as rich as any jeweled palace. We are set upon by the best medicine, any time we step outside and share in it. The rivers, the marsh, the woods and bluffs…even our yard offers encounters with abundance and peace.

Our neighbors, though loud and sometimes inharmonious, they too, on all sides and every direction, have offered us kindness and fellowship in small ways, despite any gruff differences in values and desires. We know each others names and make the sign of peace regularly with a word, a nod, saying, “I see you, good day.”

The deepest and greatest blessings in my life are Jeff (husband) and Samara (daughter), two souls whose love and presence here have drawn me further into the heart of the Divine than I ever could have gone. With them, I am continually renewed, inspired and showered upon with a teaching, healing Holy Love. Unconditional and imbued with an awe-inspiring purity.

Despite the monetary debt I drag from my education, that education has given me volumes of empowerment and tools to use and share for a lifetime. And after having experienced illness and its bedfellows, I have claimed health and its joys. With the grace of Reiki I am empowered and bear the inexplicable grace to empower. That one gift is the mustard seed in its fullness. Words fail in its significance.

I am free to practice awareness and yoga. The best things of living are mine. Truly, in every way the Divine Holy One is tending to little me as Beloved and Seen. I am humbled by the simple profound gifts given. All grace. All.

If I were to find a dance of gratitude for the wealth shared, its offering would never end. An eternal dance, Beloved God.

The real wealth is given and shared, before our eyes, despite crisis and struggling. May I always honor and realize that! With and for the Sacred Divine One Source.

Thanks be to God for all I am in His/Her Light. And all we become together. Alleluia.

May I always remember this, and find release from fear and the inertia of sadness. I pray to persevere in dwelling in gratitude and this knowing, and to act from and in response to this Goodness. I have nothing without the Divine Presence in my life. May this new season before us be informed with this awareness of foundational wealth, bringing us fortitude for the winter. This is counter-cultural and true. May we be filled with the responses fit for such loving care and graces given.

May any fears and worries or dangers be met with the depth of love and courage needed. Universal Christ, Faithful and True, open our eyes so we may clearly meet this now-the present moment- with your justice, your love and your right action. Holy one, all goodness is yours. Amen.

Palin’s Diss on Community Organizers and More on Her Political Record

Speaking at the RNC, Palin would have us believe that no one is qualified to be President of the United States, unless they have been a soldier AND unless they have survived torture with resilience. To be a soldier is a fine profession in itself, if the service is given with ethics at the forefront. And to survive torture with resilience is courageous and awe-inspiring. But, for that to be the only qualifier to lead this great country? Are you kidding? This is a master emotional manipulation!

Palin is Pro-Life, but has no problem sending our young children to war to die OR with sending our young people over to kill other country’s babies. She wants to keep feeding the war billions each year!!

Biden asks us to not talk about her personal family, and that is an admirable request. However, Palin’s beliefs and actions within her family would be inflicted upon us, not as beliefs, but as laws! The result would be that her laws would rob us of our beliefs!

She is not a maverick, and she is a carbon copy of Cheney (but with a beauty queen history). A diabolical combination if you ask me. (!)

Lastly, denouncing citizens and Obama, who are community organizers serving the greater good, as not doing real work is reprehensible. Community organizing is a foundational value in this country. One that serves the poor and elderly, as well as children left in the fray. How can Palin and McBush stand before us and the world, vehemently disrespecting great service while building their platform on McBush’s service?

These double standards and viciousness towards American citizens, who work earnestly to help others, is the same venom and disregard we’ve seen for the past eight years. This is a display of empty manipulative values, ready to walk on good people to get to the next big power hold.

For more evidence, Mudflats latest entry continues to illustrate Palin’s sorry lack of values; here is a snippet:

“…remember when Palin told the Alaska State Legislature through her new attorney Thomas Van Flein that she wouldn’t be around to testify because she’d be too busy? And remember when Van Flein said that she shouldn’t even be investigated by the Legislature at all, but rather by a 3-person panel which she herself appointed? And remember when she filed ethics charges against herself to force this plan to happen?”

Read Mudflats entire post HERE.

Visit my2bucks.wordpress.com HERE for another insider’s view of Sarah Palin .

Here is a quick summary of the letter written by Anne (link above), who has known the way Palin ‘the Barracuda’ works, personally, for 16 years:

Tax cuts are for businesses, residents will bear the tax burdens. (The working poor will be grind-ed into nothingness. Let alone what will become of a disappearing middle class.)

Her city had zero debt, she gave it 22 million dollars of debt in exchange.

She wants to drill for oil in the Nature Reserve and will NOT invest it towards alternative energy.

She likes to spend any surplus for her own desires and directs others to borrow money for basic needs.

Opinions that differ from her own are not tolerated and compromise is not either. She judges ideas, not by their merit, but by who is doing the talking. For example, verbatim from the letter provided in the link above:

“While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected
City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from
the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents
rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s
attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew
her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the
Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.”

Palin created a working situation in which everyone hired owed her and was forced to work outside of ethics in order to maintain loyalty to her. This is a practice in abuse of power. Which is accentuated now that she is running for VP, and thinks she is beyond the law and should not be investigated at all. A lot like the Bush administration.

She has a reputation as a back-biter, with a habit of humiliating those she’s after, thus the expression, ‘Barracuda’.

She favors business profits over protection of wildlife, such as salmon (doesn’t want to put standards on industry or on fishing limits), polar bears (more for hunting interests, turning a blind eye to global warming) and beluga whales (again for special interest groups rather than for the preservation and balance of a species and the planet). The McCain/Palin ticket has the values of a thief and pirate in regards to our resources and our childrens future.

For more, link to to the original letter.

Brutal arrests at the RNC and an Insider’s look at Palin

A difficult part of this week is in seeing evidence of our civil rights, yet again, being obstructed and/or taken away. This being done in the name of Homeland Security and for the sake of business.

There are stories of police in St. Paul using excessive force, brutality and keeping Veterans for Peace and CODEPINK away from the Republican National Convention grounds altogether. There is even report of people being raided at their homes because they are known to protest.

Visit TruthOut.org for insightful, experienced coverage of the excessive force used by police at the RNC in St. Paul by Michael Winship.

Another excellent site covering these violations of our Democracy is Dandelion Salad here at WordPress, and especially the article written by Bruce Gagnon, as he reports on site at the RNC, check out these facts, because you won’t see them on the evening news tonight—-HERE http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com.

To the other difficult part of the week, as much as some may be impressed by John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate, I am so not. Palin’s beliefs are not even a little aligned with mine. Nor would I ever vote for a person based solely on their anatomy. That would be a travesty.

To know more about Palin, such as, an “insider’s view” of her, I would recommend you visit AKMuckraker’s Alaskan view of the Republican running mate at http://mudflats.wordpress.com.

Start with the post entitled, “What was McCain thinking?”  Too many good posts to choose from actually.  Thanks mudflats!

Many thanks and support go to the thousands of protesters in Minnesota right now, in prison and out, and to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, who are bravely protesting (in their own way), and helping to keep many of us sane and hopeful.

with gratitude and yes, hope,

Chandra