As our world ignites

Our country is burning, we saw it coming, it's been burning for years, now the flames are here. When we saw it coming we were shut up and ridiculed, outlawed and shamed.

Now it is hear and we have nowhere to go. We have to live in this space and our hearts are torn to pieces, together, right and wrong, rich and poor. This land will not recover from the state it is in. 

If we do not change it will cease to support us and we will be wasted along with the billions of living things.

As people flee from the ravaged landscape, losing their homes, groups are forming to help them find shelter. Refugees from our own country... maybe now we will see just how precious hospitality is. Maybe now we will have sympathy for Refugees...

As I approach the final pages of the book I've been reading, I came across these lines. I leave them here as a prayer for peace, for the love of mankind and in thanks to the Gods who remind us always to cherish life.

"The Greeks had a word, xenia - guest

friendship - a command to take care of traveling

strangers, to open your door to whoever is out there,

because anyone passing by, far from home, might be 

God. Ovid tells the story of two immortals who

came to Earth in disguise to cleanse the sickened

world. No one would let them in but one old couple,

Baucis and Philemon. And their reward for opening

their door to strangers was to live on after death as

trees - an oak and a linden - huge and gracious and

intertwined. What we care for, we grow to

resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when

we are no longer..."

(The Overstory by Richard Powers pp.620-621)