Good Often Works Best In Secret

The most quoted parable in The Gospels
has to be the parable of 'The Good Samaritan'.*

What could be more subversive
than asking the wealthy and righteous
-the people who can't see their own hypocrisy-
through what we would call 'fiction'
about the ritually unclean, the dirt poor,
and outsiders, folks who do good deeds
to maximize the limits on their lives
rather than 'because they want to',
and not out of self seeking zeal?

When thrift and efficiency drive them
then the poor don't need to see the rich
and ignorant to give more and be better.

Good works best with less piety.


*Luke Ch 10 verses 25 to 37

If Words Failed Us

more often, but our actions held value,
the world would be a less wordy place.
No animal I have known has ever felt
totally unable to communicate
whilst so many humans (myself included)
make deserted feasts of words-and worlds
-for talking up how to be bad listeners.

Some animals respond very well to music.

Practical Spirituality*

I like walking on my own in the country.

Every time I go I take a bag with me

to collect the rubbish I see in the verges,

the plastic bottles and chip containers

and drink cans strewn in the hedges.

Every time I pick one up there are

two voices in my head, one of them

says "How dirty is that? Put it down!

Did I rear you so that you would not

keep yourself clean?" and I disobey it.

The other voice comes from the planet, 

on which I try, and fail, to walk lightly

it says "Thank you for leaving me more tidy".

*the only time I am at ease with the word

'spiritual' is with the word practical before it.