THE THANK YOU BUDDHA

FROM AN ANGEL RIDER

Thanks to Nancy for sending along this poem. She says the Angel Ride made her think of this poem by Marge Piercy.

To be of use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

SPEAKING OF FAITH: 'THE NEW MONASTICS'

I encourage you to tune into this Sunday's NPR program Speaking of Faith about a growing movement of people called the new monastics. These are ordinary people who nurture virtues like simplicity and imagination and who are engaging the great contradictions of our time— beginning with the gap between the churches they were raised in, the needs of the poor, and the "loneliness" they find in our culture's vision of adulthood. The program will feature author Shane Claiborne, who says on his website:

Each of us is created for community, and in the image of community. And yet everything in the world tried to rob us of this Divine gift. The life of the simple way is the story of that struggle to love and to be loved. The most radical thing we do is choose to love each other... again and again. If you are a seeker of the Way, may our story feed you hope... or at least keep you from making all the same mistakes.

Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett is public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. Each week, Tippett probes the myriad ways in which religious impulses inform every aspect of life and culture, nationally and globally. Speaking of Faith fills an important and neglected need in American media by addressing the intellectual and spiritual content of religion head-on, illuminating the ideas and practices that form the headlines from the inside

Click here to find a channel near you.