If you haven't seen The Perks of Being a Wallflower yet, please do. My friend and I met up for a movie to hang out and get ourselves out of the house, and in a cursory search of the movies out at the two theaters by us that fit with our timetable, we landed on this one (and at the $3 theater that starts showing movies after they have been out for a while but before they come out on dvd!). I remember one of my friends a while back had asked me if I had read the book, and even though I hadn't, she said I gotta watch the movie anyways. My friend and I were totally not expecting to walk into something so powerful. At least the feeling I had leaving the theater was to want to just hug all my friends. I'm not about to give the movie away, but the quote they make you ponder is "We accept the love we think we deserve." Each and every one of you deserves love from family and friends. No matter what wrongs you may have committed, we all deserve love and forgiveness. We may not find complete forgiveness from our fellow human beings, but love is an action we can choose. Something to receive and to give selflessly. And everyone has their pain and their challenges that they may not tell you about and they may try to ignore and/or overcompensate for. We have to take care to notice of the wallflowers because I'm sure we have all felt alone at some point, and sustained, unwanted aloneness can push one over the thin line between sanity and breakdown. Everyone's got at least a little bit of a mess in their lives, and I've felt that aloneness and I've felt that mess too, and we humans are pretty darn messy sometimes, but the least we can do is try to understand each other (perhaps especially the ones who seem quiet and weird... everyone deserves the chance to be loved and accepted).
Tonight I'd like to leave you with not your traditional Lord's Prayer, but another translation based on the Aramaic version that my church used today (find it cooky/hippyish if you choose, but you may find it beautiful too):
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
You create all that moves in light.
Carve a space for your Name to live.
Create your reign of unity now through our fiery hearts and willing hands.
Let all wills move together in your vortex, as stars and planets swirl through the sky.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Let each heartbeat release the weight of our mistakes and other's guilt.
Let us not be deceived by false illusions, but free us from what holds us back.
For from You comes the strength to act and the creative force in the Universe that renews itself endlessly.
Amen.
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