All god’s children
All God’s children is the title of a song recorded by Belinda Carlisle. It was written by Paul Barry, Billy Lawrie and Mark Taylor.
The Dash Poem (By Linda Ellis) reminds all of us that we all are born, and we all die. The dash is the space between those two dates. The poem reminds one that how we live that dash is all that really counts.
I was thinking of the dash and the fact that we are all God’s children in the gym this morning as I listened to the conversation between Ezra Kline and the poet Tracy K. Smith. She says that “Poetry is about expressing ‘the feelings that defy language.” I was hoping that a poem might visit which could approximate my thoughts and feelings this Christmas morning.
Christians have chosen this date to celebrate the birth of their teacher and, for some, the Christ. They often focus on the fact that this unmarried couple, his parents, were forced to welcome Jesus in a manger; that he began his life as a homeless person and later ministered to those who are often thought “to be the least of them.”.
We are all “the least of them”. This is why Jesus talks about the fact that is very difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. He know, of course, that those of us who are privileged to have all we need and often more than we need can easily think we have this abundance because we worked for it and others didn’t; that we are deserving, and others are not; that others choose addiction, mental illness or hopelessness. The truth is that this human is privileged partly because I am a white male, I was not born with a mental illness and I had the ability to learn the skills which the community wanted/needed. I do not have an addiction or any other condition which keeps me from working. Being able, even during the pandemic, to be employed and, to afford housing, food, utilities, and even luxuries is luck - grace. It is unearned and undeserved. I am not more deserving than the person without these privileges and grace.
We all began as babies - in a manger or a mansion. Every homeless person: every person kidnapped by addiction; every person born into poverty without boots much less bootstraps, is one of god’s children. We are all the least of them equally deserving of unconditional love.
My intention today is to see that child when looking in the mirror; looking at and “seeing” the homeless person and “seeing” those in the one percent – those who hold 1% of the monetary wealth but are just in need of being held in the cradle of loving kindness as is each newborn.
Written December 25, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
All God’s children is the title of a song recorded by Belinda Carlisle. It was written by Paul Barry, Billy Lawrie and Mark Taylor.
The Dash Poem (By Linda Ellis) reminds all of us that we all are born, and we all die. The dash is the space between those two dates. The poem reminds one that how we live that dash is all that really counts.
I was thinking of the dash and the fact that we are all God’s children in the gym this morning as I listened to the conversation between Ezra Kline and the poet Tracy K. Smith. She says that “Poetry is about expressing ‘the feelings that defy language.” I was hoping that a poem might visit which could approximate my thoughts and feelings this Christmas morning.
Christians have chosen this date to celebrate the birth of their teacher and, for some, the Christ. They often focus on the fact that this unmarried couple, his parents, were forced to welcome Jesus in a manger; that he began his life as a homeless person and later ministered to those who are often thought “to be the least of them.”.
We are all “the least of them”. This is why Jesus talks about the fact that is very difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. He know, of course, that those of us who are privileged to have all we need and often more than we need can easily think we have this abundance because we worked for it and others didn’t; that we are deserving, and others are not; that others choose addiction, mental illness or hopelessness. The truth is that this human is privileged partly because I am a white male, I was not born with a mental illness and I had the ability to learn the skills which the community wanted/needed. I do not have an addiction or any other condition which keeps me from working. Being able, even during the pandemic, to be employed and, to afford housing, food, utilities, and even luxuries is luck - grace. It is unearned and undeserved. I am not more deserving than the person without these privileges and grace.
We all began as babies - in a manger or a mansion. Every homeless person: every person kidnapped by addiction; every person born into poverty without boots much less bootstraps, is one of god’s children. We are all the least of them equally deserving of unconditional love.
My intention today is to see that child when looking in the mirror; looking at and “seeing” the homeless person and “seeing” those in the one percent – those who hold 1% of the monetary wealth but are just in need of being held in the cradle of loving kindness as is each newborn.
Written December 25, 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
RSS Feed