Category: Faith

Creativity, difficult times, Encouragement, Faith, Frank de Acosta, Inspiration, poetry

How Love Trumps Hate – A Poem and Photograph

Mona Alvarado Frazier
glass flask, alchemy, chemistry
Glass flask, photo by Marissa Anderson, flickr.com

 

Alchemy is an ancient practice shrouded in mystery. Its practitioners sought to turn lead into gold through a purification process involving heat.

The word “transformation” is a synonym for alchemy. So is “magic” and “power,” both which can describe love.

Love, an emotion, is also a quality we all need more of during these difficult times in our society.

This poem demonstrates the power of love, which trumps hate.

 

Alchemy of Love (Love trumps Hate)

Never lose grace in faith
Believing there is beauty
To be found in everyone
All of us at one time
Have walked in brokenness
Through the dark corridors
Of our hearts and minds
An empathetic kindness
Compassion without condition
Received from another
Can be the spark that turns
A lost, dark, wounded soul
Towards the healing of light
Mending frayed, fragile lives
Prayers reaching to embrace
The stranger as relation
Engenders the true power of love
I say this with humble gratitude
Knowing I have received love
Undeserved; given love, unrequited
We are called to walk a sacred manner
Believing there is alchemy in love

Reflection by: Frank de Jesus Acosta

This photo made the rounds on Facebook. Eric Gaines, a police officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, was standing at a bus stop on March 1 when a teenage boy stopped to pray over a homeless man. The officer snapped this photo.

Eighteen-year-old Stephen Watkins said he was on a bus home from school when a song he was listening to inspired him to get off at an earlier stop in order to bless a complete stranger.

“I prayed for him. I said, ‘God right now you’re using me to bless this man,’” Watkins told WJZ-TV. “Thank you for showing me this song.”

teenager, young man, praying, homeless man
Teenager Praying for a Homeless Man; photo from Facebook.

Life can be difficult, sometimes devoid of sense verging on hopelessness. Let’s chose compassion and love to make life a little better in our tiny part of the world. Maybe, just maybe, that gesture will travel and touch someone’s life like this poem and photograph did for me. Keep the faith.

Encouragement, Faith, Inspiration, Writing

Don’t Meltdown When You Feel Like Giving Up

Mona Alvarado Frazier

quote on not giving up

Have you ever had months or weeks when you just want to throw up your hands and give up? One of those weeks when not much made sense, you asked ‘why?’ and the gloomy clouds outside matched your mood?

Yeah, I had a month of those weeks in my writing life.

But a great thing happened in the midst of the dark. I didn’t have a meltdown because other people’s posts and words (which I stumbled upon) lifted me above the clouds; especially this week.

I want to share these words and say thank you to the writers/bloggers who I came across in the past seven days:

“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.” Anne Lamott

A revolutionary patience. I loved hearing hope described in that way.

“misery shared is misery halved, and joy shared is joy doubled.”

At Publishing Crawl, author Stacie Lee and Stephanie Garber gave encouragement with their post, Moving Beyond Rejection. My misery halved.

Bustle.com had an article on Octavia Butler’s Letter to Herself:

Octavia Butler's letter on writing, books,
Octavia Butler’s Letter to Herself-archives Huntington Library

Some humorous pet photos passed my way and the laughter lifted my spirits:

dog with eyebrows, humor, pets
Yeah, I got my eyebrows done. What do you think?

An angel appeared:(from Gerry Wilson’s blog).

brandonangel

12 reminders to live passionately  dropped into my email box.

And this past weekend I went to a woman’s worship service and Sunday service. The message from one: You can worship through your hardship.

The message from our ‘tell it like it is’ pastor: “Hard Life, Good God.” He spoke on the reality of trials, that they are unavoidable but purposeful.

Yes, it was ‘one of those months,’ but I heard the message loud and clear.

When we don’t know what to do pray, ask for wisdom, have faith, and believe.

I feel better already!