The Summer Day - by Mary Oliver

The Summer Day
by 

Mary Oliver
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Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

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TPO's comment:
I like the serenity in this poem. I am happy that "idleness" is cast in a very favorable light. Living in the moment and then from moment to moment makes very good sense to me now in my old age.

Trust and Reliability - by Raymond Beyda

Trust and Reliability

by
 Raymond Beyda *

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The interested buyer sat opposite the eager salesman in the car showroom. The model had been chosen and the color and options selected. Now it was time to establish the final price and the terms of payment. Both parties were eager to close the deal. The salesman then asked the crucial question, "How's your credit picture?" The common business term, "credit picture", is an accurate, complete representation of a person's reliability in meeting one's obligations. A person is the artist who paints his or her own credit picture. The portrait may be beautiful or ugly depending on how one dealt with previous commitments.

In personal relationships credit is also an important factor ­except one might call it credibility or trust rather than credit. When you want some one else to trust you -- you are in effect asking them to believe in something that no one can see ­your reliability. You can communicate trust and emotionally bond with another person. You are really asking the other person to act on a feeling that can't be proven logically or scientifically.

The same way that your credit with a lending institution builds with each transaction in which you the lender perform as promised so too a person commands the trust of another increasingly as action demonstrates reliability. Today when it becomes difficult to do what you said you were going to do: ­stop! Put in that extra effort to deliver as promised. Tell the truth, deliver on a regular basis and be consistent in your relationships with others. It only takes a minute to give that extra push but it will make an invisible bond appear as a beautiful portrait of none other than your self.
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* Rabbi Raymond Beyda : "Invisible Trust" ...
www.torah.org