Can you identify location and date?

Share Your Favorite Fall Poem

Share a Fall poem with others.

I am particularly fond of Mary Oliver's poetry.  Her "Fall Song" from American Primitive (Boston/New York/Toronto/London. Little, Brown and Company. 1983) seems quite appropriate for these Fall days.  I quote from a few of the lines.

**
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows....

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out as the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay--how everything livers, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
**

Post 9/11 Thoughts and Forgiveness

Have any of you been stunned by the fact that the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 seems to have come and gone without much new reflection?  There was a burst of energy around the days immediately preceding and for a brief time afterwards. 

Maybe I have just missed those reflections but would certainly like to hear about them.

My thoughts on the occasion of the 10 year anniversary may not be new reflections.  However, they surround the difficulty of forgiving.   First, I think the only way to forgive is to give up the right to revenge.  Second, once we have given that up we need to clearly understand that forgiveness is in part a matter of conscience.  Third, when we forgive we offer a gift that enables us to discover freedom.  Fourth, forgiveness often seems outside my human capabilities.  That is when I look for another source to give me assistance in offering forgiveness.

The legacy of 9/11 must in part draw us to reflect on forgiveness.  What can draw us forward from 9/11 and not backward?

  

Rosary Beads as Necklaces Among Teens

News reports about the use and abuse of wearing
rosary beads in schools around the country

have stirred questions about freedom of religious

expression.  We have seen this issue arise in other

European countries regarding Islamic attire.

The latest case was in Nebraska.  School districts

and individual schools have responded to gang members wearing rosary necklaces not for religious expression but for identification of gang membership.  This has prompted the enforcement of dress codes that prohibit their use.  Those wishing to wear the now popular rosary necklaces as an expression of their religious perspectives  have been prohibited from wearing them.

Have there been any reports of this issue arising in our community?  Do you see a way to find common ground so that the legitimate and illegitimate use can be addressed?

http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/national/girl-banned-from-wearing-rosary-necklace

http://www.womenswatchinc.org/blog/school-bans-little-girls-rosary-beads/