Thursday, February 18, 2016



For Spirits Dear



 When we ignore the call of our compassion
Our faults with pow'r do act through our inaction,
When we await a war of mass destruction,
When species die in mass extinction,
When the weather grows weird,
When the world avoids fear,
And denies all evidence
That horror is clear,
That horror is near,
By invoking
The unreason
Of darker times
And the blind consensus of selfish minds.




There’s toxic stew thats brewed within that cup of lead,
The acid of despair and sweet denial’s poisoned air,
A draught for those who’d let the world be dead.
Drink not from lead, but try the golden cup instead.
Beneath the cloud of growing pow'r,
Our life
is frail.
But we
can still
avoid the fail
By drinking from the spirit found within the golden grail.

 


Let us sing the call
To build it here:
The Holy Grail
For spirits dear.
Become the love,
That stone by stone
Becomes the Holy Home,
A Temple to the Light of Truth,
A Temple to the Truest Love,
The Love
That fits
The Golden Rule.
The Narrow Path that travels to
And through the sunlit gardens beyond our cave.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Ethical Foundations

There is such a thing as global ethics.

It should be incorporated into every culture to the extent that it is not. It should be accepted by every culture as a basis for critique of that culture.

Each of us is born as a being that experiences desires. In this we are equal. If God created us this way, then God created us as equals. If evolution leads to our existing this way, then evolution resulted in our being equal in this respect: we all experience desire.

Ethics has to do with pursuing good and being good. To understand ethics, one needs to understand how "goodness" is related to desire.

Desire provides us with cares and concerns. We have cares and concerns because we have desire.

Sometimes desire is experienced as unsatisfied. We call this suffering. Sometimes desire is satisfied. We call this enjoyment. Sometimes we experience desire as something that is in the process of being satisfied. Because we desire this process, its presence provides enjoyment and its absence provides suffering.

We give the names "good", "bad", and "evil" to certain aspects of things. The same thing can have (and usually does have) both good and bad aspects. We give the name "good" to the three kinds of aspects that things can have, all of which are related to desire: (1) the presence of things we desire, (2) usefulness for obtaining the things that we desire, and (3) the kind of consciousness that has desires. We give the names "bad" and "evil" to three aspects of things: (1) the absence of the things we desire, (2) hindrance to obtaining what we desire, and (3) the destruction or absence of the kind of consciousness that has desires.

Ethics has to do with being the kind of being that respects those conscious beings who have desires by making ourselves into tools for well distributed minimization of suffering and well distributed maximization of enjoyment. This is how we treat others the way we would want to be treated.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Love's Dream


Let us dream love’s dream




A
Dream
The song is flowing forth,
To wake and heal the hearing heart
To let Life’s rhythms work
And let the spirit
fly
Upon
Its Wind.




A dream
The song would flow
more perfect in these veins. 
And move us fast to do the work
For children here and far away,
For generations not yet born,
 For millions,
Billions,
Trillions.
 Forevermore.





A
Dream
To grow the healthy tree
To be a healthy tree
To give the fruit
to feed
The
Future
Multitude





A dream
To be the morning sun,
To find a way across the hues,
Providing food for forest growth,
Not refusing, but still diffusing down
To leaves that grow in darkness deep.
A dream of leaves still singing songs,
Dancing, and seeking strength
To stop
The bugs:
The bugs
That feast
 Upon our roots.




A
Dream
That Truth’s
Bud will bloom
Again and again
In you, and in me.
I am responsible.
Therefore,
I am.



I
am,
A need 
 to sing,
To be clear as a mountain spring,
A light that runs upon the waves,
A gift to the river,
To be
A voice
Still singing.




I am
Most truly who I am
When I am my better spirits,
Whispering  winds upon my neck,
 A wish to ride on winds of better spirits,
Calling me out, again and again.
My purpose has come.
My lungs
are filled,
My voice, 
It is raised
To sing of love.




Real love. True love.
The love that fits
The Golden Rule,
The discipline
Designed
By love
To make
Love real and true.



 

Let it be our lamp,
An anthem for our age.
 Let us listen with our better spirit.
And then, with wings upon the winds
Let us sing.
Let us soar.
Let us flee the abyss.





 
By the Golden Rule,

Love’s
Empathy
Breaks the idols of our age,
With hammers in our hearts,
Love pounding out the beat
Behind the rhythm starts
To crack
Our fault:
Our fault
That lets
Us fall,
And fall,
And fall,
And fall.



So,
Let there be light.
Divide the light from the dark.
Let the song go on.
Again,
Again,
And again.





Our purpose has come.
Our lungs are filled.
Our voices are raised.





Let us sing.
Let us be light.
Let us be bright.
Let us be clear as a mountain spring,
And sing the mind
 To reason’s height,
And find the way
From wrong
To right.













Hope


The children look to us.
Their children look to us.
And their children look to us.
The untold millions of generations
Will not see life if we should fail
To save their world… 
Pray,
Hope,
Open
Our
Eyes.
Be
Our
Light.
Show
The
Way.
Make
Us whole.


                                                
The
Song
(The Hopeful one).
Standing strong,
A Lonely voice
Sings on
With hope.
Our hope.
Our song.




 
 
Let the chorus breathe and swell
To make us wake and dream
The disciplined spirit of love
That fits the Golden Rule.
Let our chorus swell,
To shatter
The shell,
That is
the spell,
Of the dark’ning dawn.


Let’s do love’s work
And sing hope’s song.
Let me be joined with thee
In spirit’s truest family:



The Unbounded We.






The Three Cups


DREAD


 Today’s the Day of Dark’ning Dawn
When terrors grow as powers grow,
 Our powerful faults threaten all we know.
And so, it is today the Day of Dark’ning Dawn
When famine awaits the end of combustion,
When all is exhausted by our consumption,
When we await a war of mass destruction,
When species die in mass extinction,
When the weather grows weird,
When the world avoids fear,
And denies all evidence
That horror is clear,
That horror is near,
By invoking
The unreason
Of darker times
And the blind consensus of selfish minds.




HOPE 


There’s toxic stew thats brewed within that cup of lead,
The acid of despair or sweet denial’s poisoned air,
A draught for those who’d let the world be dead.
Drink not from lead, but try the golden cup instead.
Beneath the cloud of growing power,
Life is frail.
But we can hope
To save it all
By drinking of the spirit found within the golden grail.




LOVE

Let us sing the call
To build it here:
The Holy Grail
In spirit near.
Become the love,
That brick by brick
Becomes the Holy Home,
The Temple of the Light of Truth,
The Temple of the Truest Love,
The Love
That fits
The Golden Rule.
The Narrow Path that travels to
And through the sunlit gardens beyond our cave.