Franklyn Monk is in Oklahoma.
Category: Blog
Midnight Rider
The Hardest Part Is People
A long time ago, stranded alone in a midwestern hellscape I never wanted to be a part of to begin with, before I hit rock-bottom, I joined a UU congregation.
One day we had a guest speaker and he laid this on us:
Dearest God:
The hardest part is people.
May we face them
without rancor or disappointment.
May we see the pain behind their actions
rather than the malice;
the suffering rather than the rage.And in ourselves, as we struggle
with the vise of our own desires –
may we be strengthened to a quiet heart,
to a quickened empathy, to act
in gratitude rather than need.And may we be reminded
that each time we close our hearts
to another’s, we add to the darkness;
May we be helped to always follow kindness and to always see that ours is the calling of possibilities.Let this be our prayer, guiding us toward that which is unknown but shaped by our faith.
Amen
Twine Tree for my great niece or nephew
I’ve just completed this twine tree for the nursery of my yet to be born great niece or nephew! Love ya, kiddo!
It’s taken two weeks of laying down strand after painful strand of twine, and blood, and contemplation. It was exhausting and bloody, but I learned a lot of myself and the creative process. I’m sure the experience be bleeding into my poetry pretty soon.
Speaking of which, I have to go, I have to prepare for a reading tonight. I threw together something new, rewrote something old, and might throw in something else. But I don’t know how long I’ll have the stage for. Makes it difficult to plan. I’m nervous, but I’ll survive.
PZ Meyers on capitalism and religion
The religion of capitalism poisons everything, and when you combine it with the religion of religion, you’ve got a hopeless case.