April 12 Daily Feast, Elder's Meditation, THINK on THESE THING

April 12 - Daily Feast

Something small so often comes to rescue us at a crucial point of making a mistake. How very much we wanted to react violently - to respond in the same manner in which we were approached. But somewhere deep inside, a gentler voice asked, "What is that to you?" Why be the other half of disagreement? Even an animal is smart enough not to run into a place where it can get tangled in a trap. Most arguments are traps of one kind or another. But relax right out of it. Let go, and realize that what is happening should be avoided like poison. The atiyosdi, the argument or disagreement, is on the other side - leave it there. The best revenge is to refuse to fight - and it brings to mind what someone said, "If you argue with a fool, you will end up being one."

~ I will fight no more forever. ~

CHIEF JOSEPH

'A Cherokee Feast of Days', by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Elder's Meditation of the Day April 12

"Dissimilar things were fitted together to make something beautiful and whole."

Nippawanock, ARAPAHOE

Sometimes we look at something close up and it appears to be ugly; but then we drop back and look at it as a whole and it is beautiful. If we look at an insect close up, it may be ugly, but if we drop back and look at the whole insect it becomes beautiful. We can drop back even more and observe what its role and purpose is, and the insect becomes even more beautiful and whole. How are we looking at ourselves? Are we focused on something ugly about ourselves, or are we dropping back and looking at ourselves as a whole? We all have purpose, and we are all beautiful.

Grandfather, today, let me see the beauty of the whole

'THINK on THESE THINGS'
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Two qualities so well liked in people are brightness and warmth, both parts of the sun. Sir David Brewster was a Scottish physicist of the eighteenth century. His study of the material world and its phenomena called the sun glorious, "the center and soul of our system, the lamp that lights it, the fire that heats it, the magnet that guides and controls it, the fountain of color which gives its azure to the sky, its verdure to the fields, its rainbow-hues to the gay world of flowers, and the purple light of love to the marble cheek of youth and beauty."

What more beautiful qualities for any human being to possess than to have a soul at the center of its system, to light the appearance, to warm the feelings, to guide and control it through its colorful moods, and to let it rise as high as the azure skies and as wide as the gay world of flowers. But better yet, to be most beautiful with the purple light of love. What more to be given than the same qualities of the sun - by one Creator.

To live we need more than light, we need warmth. We need more than strength, we need grace. And more than all these we need love. There can be no greater joy than to see our respect for each other - the warmth and grace and love that bind together people in mutual concern.

Only when we can lay aside our personal feelings, our self-concern and worry of our own gain, can we join in true communion and fellowship with others. And to feel a sense of belonging is necessary to humankind.

It is the nature, not only to be liked and wanted, but to like and want others. And in this relationship find not just warmth but light, not only grace but strength, and in all of these find love.

"Walk in the light and thou shalt see they path, though thorny, bright; for God, by grace, shall dwell in thee, and God himself is light" - Barton.