"If You Love, Love Openly" — Zen Story
Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.
Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain.
Several monks secretly fell in love with her.
John 3:16 — Aramaic Translation
John 3:16
For Unity so loved Diversity,
all the worlds of form,
that it brought you a child of Unity…
“The Scapegoat” by Greg Oosterhouse
There once was a man who lived an upright life. He loved His fellow man, He was slow to anger. He put Himself last, and never was one to cause strife. His life was lived humbly, He even was born in a manger.
SOURCE: Poem Hunter
Two Monks and Silence — Unknown
Two monks, walked together during a long journey home. After hours of wandering in silence the younger monk finally spoke. “Master”, he said, “I have been practicing silence as you’ve taught me…
The Master Carpet Weaver — inspired by Corrie ten Boom’s poem “Life is but a Weaving”
There was a a master carpet weaver so gifted that people would come from all over the world to buy his hand stitched, stunningly beautiful carpets.
For about a year his six-year-old granddaughter, who often pestered him to let her weave a carpet with him finally proclaimed, “I know how to do this!”
"The River" (excerpt) by Herman Hesse
I am only a ferryman and it is my task to take people across this river. I have taken thousands of people across and to all of them my river has been nothing but a hindrance on their journey. They have travelled for money and business, to weddings and on pilgrimages; the river has been in their way and the ferryman was there to take them quickly across the obstacle.
“Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
PLEASE SUPPORT MS. NYE’S WONDERFUL WORK
Maurice Frydman Poem (Title Unknown)
I am at the end of the tether
and can’t break the cord
All my going ahead
is a deceitful dream,
All my thinking not true,
all my feeling not pure,
Love (III) - by George Herbert
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
