“We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.” – Jimmy Carter
Flickr Photos
First Principles: We Must Adjust To Changing Times and Still Hold To Unchanging Principles
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Adjust, Changing Times, First Principles, Hold, Jimmy Carter, Unchanging Principles, We
Leave a comment
Thoughts On Kindness
In a world where so much can be had, perhaps the one thing we might best give to others and ourselves is intentional kindnesses.
Thoughts On Kindness by Michael Romani With loving thoughts and gratitude I embrace the world with the attitude That in seeking a new destination It is best to first put aside frustration Embracing my intention to create harmony Growing in my understanding as one of God's family As I look on intention's seven faces And am reminded of loved ones and beloved places Walking this path seamlessly never ending Intent on my creativity's intentional unbending It is time that I give and allow to form In making each creative step my new norm Manifested in this kindly time and hour It's in giving that we find our greatest power Being kind to myself and to all others I have found that all of life are my sisters and brothers As with the serene Heaven of my God above I am learning to become and be one with love Walking deep in the sacred sense of cooperation I have put aside the need for unreasonable competition Learning that love is the force behind God's will It's a spiritual vibration meant to divinely fill Softly spoken in the essence of divine intervention Watching as the formless becomes a concrete expression Awakening to the godly and goodly nature of beauty In that the goodness felt rises above any sense of duty Everything seen, touched and in my limited experience Is an aspect of God's force to be held in deference Where God is truth and truth is God, good in every way Sometimes the still silence is enough to say Ever expansive in our increasingly knowing We join with the universal mind and become ever growing The endless abundance of this universe is its true spirit To be what we are and hear and think bravely receiving it When we reach this path of intention walked in worship We find ourselves in the peace of finding right relationship (c) November 15, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Above, Abundance, All Others, Awaken, Beauty, Become, Brother, Competition, Concrete Expression, Cooperation, Creative, Deference, Destination, Divine, Duty, Embrace, Essense, Experience, Face, Fill, Force, Form, Frustration, Give, God, God's Family, God's Will, Good, Goodness, Gratitude, Grow, Had, Harmony, Heaven, Intention, Kindness, Know, Life, Love, Loved One, Manifest, Myself, Norm, One, Path, Peace, Photograph, Place, Poem, Poetry, Power, Receive, Right Relationship, Sacred, Say, Seamless, Serene, Silence, Sister, Spiritual Vibration, Step, Thought, Time, True Spirit, Truth, Understanding, Universal Mind, Walk, World, Worship
Leave a comment
Thought For the Day: Where There Is Hatred, Let Me Sow Love
“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” – Francis of Assisi
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Francis of Assisi, Hatred, Instrument, Lord, Love, Peace, Sow, Thought For the Day
Leave a comment
First Principles: A Strong Defense Is the Surest Way To Peace
“A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes detente attainable. Weakness invites war, as my generation – my generation – knows from four very bitter experiences. Just as America’s will for peace is second to none, so will America’s strength be second to none. We cannot rely on the forbearance of others to protect this Nation. The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security.” – Gerald R. Ford
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Armed Forces, Detente, Experience, First Principles, Generation, Gerald R Ford, Nation, Peace, Protect, Resolve, Strength, Strong Defense, War, Way, Weakness
Leave a comment
Moved By Authenticity
In this season of gratitude and humility, it is our prayer that we all be moved more by humility than ego and more toward love, away from hate.
Moved by Authenticity by Michael Romani In that container of love we call community We find our souls gain over personality Actively listening with divine respect To each in this world without neglect Step by step, we alter our way of seeing Until we find empathy and accept all humans being We take this journey as inner soul freeing Until we reach the point of peaceful being In our commitment to growth we learn to see Beyond the passions felt by you and me Learning that as a box of Crayola offer hues This world of ours offers a diversity of views With gratitude, we approach toward our arrival Having moved past the issues of bare survival Our glasses are no long half full or half empty But one that one that can be refilled with empathy And at last, we feel our peacefulness increasing While our stress and strains are ever decreasing What was once seen as a crisis of catastrophe Is now filled with the blessings of new opportunity There is new found empowerment in our humility As we choose to stand together as one family It is with this hope we now build community All souls begin to touch moved by authenticity (c) November 4, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Accept, Active Listening, Alter, Approach, Arrival, Authentic, Authenticity, Away, Bare, Being, Blessing, Build, Catastrophe, Commitment, Community, Container, Crayola, Crisis, Decrease, Diversity, Divine Respect, Ego, Empathy, Empowerment, Empty, Family, Felt, Free, Full, Glass, Gratitude, Grow, Half, Hate, Hues, Humans, Humility, Increase, Inner, Issue, Journey, Learn, Love, Me, Move, Neglect, Opportunity, Passion, Peaceful, Personality, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Point, Prayer, Refill, See, Soul, Stand, Step By Step, Strain, Stress, Survival, Together, Touch, Views, World, You
Leave a comment
Thought For the Day: Among the Things You Can Give and Still Keep Are Your Word, A Smile and A Grateful Heart
“Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.” – Zig Ziglar
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Give, Gratefful Heart, Keep, Smile, Things, Thought For the Day, Word, Zig Ziglar
Leave a comment
First Principles: Public Information Should Be Provided To the People To Keep Them Capable of Determining Their Own Destiny
“When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and — eventually — incapable of determining their own destinies.” – Richard M. Nixon
.. and again, we see that all the secrecy involving whistleblowers and alleged impeachable offenses, the ACA (that was voted in before it could be read and analyzed) and so on are against the long established traditions (and laws) of our nation. Everyone who is American or believes in our ideals should be mortified with what is transpiring and stand fast against its continuance. No person or persons are above the law – that includes the president and it includes the Deep State and their cronies in Congress.
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Affairs, Destiny, Determine, Distrust, First Principles, Ignorant, Incapable, Information, Manage, Power, Public, Richard M Nixon, Systematic, The People, Withheld
Leave a comment
In Sacred Witness
In this season of thankfulness and gratitude, poem #2:
In Sacred Witness by Michael Romani Then was a time for counting coup But along the way, I grabbed a clue That just maybe we should be less about glory In the revising of our global story The war paint faded into memory As we've lost too many to their immortality Legends spoken of in whispered tones Brought back in body bags or broken bones I have seen this all in sacred witness Temporarily losing my way in this test Becoming at once, a victim and an addict To the win and lose of perpetual conflict The only wars that have really ever been won Are the ones that have never begun The Hopi prayed for who we've wait for When we began to look inside, we found that door The door to co-creating our sense of community Recognizing each as part of God's family Tending the gardens of nurtured truth We find we've outgrown the ravages of our youth The lone wolf's time has faded into humility As we stumble out of the ways of brutality We now must learn what it truly takes to survive And must find right relationship to thrive Here on the shattered shores of our security We find our paths must endure post modernity The two edged sword of conflicts cut us all Until we surrender with our backs against the wall We have learned hard that there is no separation Not in this world of near complete integration In the aftermath of 9/11's iconic tragedy The implication becomes we must heal into unity We now must choose one of two differing paths With some variation, it's inevitable math We can stay convinced unto the ends of destruction Or, learn to build and nourish our construction Let's turn away from acting as embittered strangers In which we see the dark passages of dangers Instead let's move forward in empowered commitment Walking together in the light of love as we're meant (c) November 3, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged 9/11, Act, Addict, Aftermath, Back, Begun, Body Bag, Broken, Brutality, Build, Choose, Clue, Co-Create, Commitment, Community, Conflict, Construction, Convince, Coup, Cut, Danger, Destruction, Door, Each, Empower, Fade, Forward, Garden, Global Story, Glory, God's Family, Gratitude, Heal, Hopi, Humility, Immortality, Implication, Inside, Integration, Learn, Legends, Light, Lone Wolf, Lose, Lost, Love, Math, Meant, Nourish, Nurture, Outgrown, Passage, Path, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Post Modernity, Pray, Prepetual, Pth, Right Relationship, Sacred, Security, Separation, Shatter, Stranger, Stumble, Surrender, Survive, Test, Thankfulness, Thrive, Time, Together, Tragedy, Truth, Turn Away, Two Edged Sword, Unity, Victim, Walk, Wall, War, War Paint, Whisper, Win, Witness, Won, World, Youth
Leave a comment
Bearing Our Witness
Based in part on Acts 7:55-56:
Bearing Our Witness by Michael Romani Here we are to give our witness Showing in our walk out bit of fitness All in all given in strength and humility Testifying in life as part of God's family Prayerfully examining the steps of our walk To determine that each comports to our talk For we never know who will be there to see But be assured that all might learn of divinity Each breath we take should be one of integrity Earnestly showing our best in all our honesty To look straight in the mirror and like that face Knowing that a Christian life is what we embrace In doing this, we learn to walk a road less traveled As so much of the world around us come unraveled Being unafraid to go outside our comfort zone Following wherever we are led under the throne Would you be willing to endure the ultimate price Giving your life in willing and dutiful sacrifice Amazingly filled with the grace of our forgiveness This then is the deepest and truest form of witness As with the Apostle Steven we might be able to show The willingness of spirit and the assurance that we will grow Broken sinners who know our fullest sense of place And willingly take our Lord's yoke in His loving embrace (c) November 3, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Apostle Steven, Bear, Book of Acts, Breath, Broken, Christian Life, Comfort Zone, Deep, Divinity, Duty, Earnest, Embrace, Examine, Face, Fitness, Forgiveness, God's Family, Grace, Grow, Honesty, Humility, Integrity, Learn, Led, Life, Lord, Love, Mirror, Photograph, Place, Poem, Poetry, Prayer, Price, Road, Sacrifice, See, Show, Sinner, Spirit, St Stephen, Steps, Strength, Talk, Testify, Travel, True, Unravel, Walk, Witness, World, Yoke
Leave a comment
Thought For the Day: Do Not Underestimate the Power of Kindness To Turn A Life Around
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Act, Caring, Honest Compliment, Kind Word, Leo Buscaglia, Life, Listening Ear, Often, Potential, Power, Smile, Thought For the Day, Touch, Turn, Underestimate
Leave a comment
