From: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org (good-noise-digest) To: good-noise-digest@smoe.org Subject: good-noise-digest V7 #39 Reply-To: good-noise@smoe.org Sender: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk good-noise-digest Monday, December 27 2004 Volume 07 : Number 039 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Counting Our Blessings [ThePsyche@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 14:13:51 EST From: ThePsyche@aol.com Subject: Counting Our Blessings Happy New Year to all. I am thankful for this community of music lovers. Wishing us all more peace and less war for the coming new year. Namaste, Paula, the music junkie Counting our blessings A prayer of thanks for gifts December 26, 2004 LET US GIVE THANKS today for those who have provided us with beauty to celebrate--the artists of clay and cloth, of paint and words, the artists of ink and stone and liturgy: all who have prepared for us this holy place, this center of life this day. WE GIVE THANKS today for the artists among us who transform our world with graceful touch and allow us to breathe the freshness of creation's dawn. LET US GIVE THANKS today for the reminding words of Coomaraswamy: "The artist is not a special kind of person, but every person is a special kind of artist." And so WE GIVE THANKS today not only for the artists among us, but also for the artists within us; not only for the artists whom, fortunately, we have, but also for the artists which, wondrously, we are. LET US GIVE THANKS today for the Word of God, the word of creation, who has spoken our world into being, a poem of God's love. WE GIVE THANKS today that with God, our words, too, become the poetry of creation--speaking worlds for each other to share, in love and promise and trust. LET US GIVE THANKS today for the Spirit of God, the breath of God's own life, breathed into us that we may live. WE GIVE THANKS for this time today and for all the times given us to catch our breath, to renew our spirit, to breathe again deeply of the Spirit of God. LET US GIVE THANKS for silence, the full quiet of mystery and wonder and fulfillment, the source of art and prayer, and the seed of speech and song and music. WE GIVE THANKS for the silence that must go before creation, the silence in which the word is born, the silence which nourishes and renews us. LET US GIVE THANKS today for our world, for wood and stone and water and fire; this world that calls us to artistry in vision that we may see it, to artistry in touch that we may know it, to artistry in use that we may respect it, to artistry in expression that we may transform it. WE GIVE THANKS for this world in which and of which we are made, and with which, if we have wisdom, we may be one. LET US GIVE THANKS for tools, the means by which we unveil and shape and transform; tools of cutting, modeling, melting, weaving, tools of seeing and exploring. WE GIVE THANKS for those artisans who use tools well, knowing them, respecting them; through tools extending themselves that all of us may see and live more fully. LET US GIVE THANKS for imagination and wonder, for that dance of our minds that moves among things, changes our way of seeing them, sees them as they are instead of the way we would prefer them to be. WE GIVE THANKS for those who keep our imagination alive, who delight in the unexpected, who show us new things and old things in new ways. LET US GIVE THANKS for poetry and for music--the sounds of remembrance and celebration and life; the threads that weave our lives together with those we love and with those who have come before us and those we shall leave behind. WE GIVE THANKS for those who play and for those who sing, who speak to us and for us, who lift our lives on tunes and who give us voice when our own words fail. LET US, FINALLY, GIVE THANKS for each other, the artists of each other's lives, who accept the raw materials of humanity, frailty, hesitation and error; and who, with the tools of compassion and trust, guided by a vision imparted by the Word and an energy born of the Spirit, shape us into the children of God. WE GIVE THANKS for those who care for us and care about us, who respect us, who make us new and keep us whole--the artisans, with God, of our humanity. Michael O'Hare ------------------------------ End of good-noise-digest V7 #39 *******************************