Dear God:Today, I am thankful for Walt Whitman's rules.
Recently, I rediscovered the following quote from Walt Whitman. It was part of an obituary for a well-known community activist who died after a long battle with cancer.
I first studied these words during my freshman year at UCLA. An idealistic college student, I internalized many of Whitman's wise and soulful "rules." Now, nearly 34 years later, his recipe for a good life still inspires me.
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
~Walt Whitman, 1855, preface to Leaves of Grass
Incidentally, Leaves of Grass is one of my very favorite poems.
For this blessing, I am grateful.
Amen.
Photo: Red Rock Canyon, taken during this morning's hike
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