Note: Now, having entered a new year of life, my (vers libre-rendered) recommitment to myself and to the world.
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These are days, it seems to me, of hardened edges on human flesh (my own, I admit, and, I submit, everyone else) about things that matter; even sharper, our arguments of our existential positions and political opinions.
Each of us has become an army of one waging war against everyone else. In this, we, craving the comfort of like-minded company, search charred rhetorical battlefields for a sign of anyone waving a banner similar to our own.
Because I perceive and believe this to be true, these are days where and when we ought, we need to be softer of soul and gentler in heart. So (to be able and willing) to listen more and talk less. Quicker to learn more about views other than our own. Slower to air our convictions; our declarations oft fired (scorched?) more by passion than fueled by reason and formed and framed even less, far less by love.
Because I perceive and believe this to be true, these are days where and when it ain’t likely this state of things will change much. For, as I perceive and believe, we have lost our sense of our common humanity (for me, a believer in God, created in the Imago Dei) and, thus, our ability to treasure our shared dignity, without which mutual respect is but a memory.
So, I pray: Come, Holy Spirit, refresh us with the breath of the mists of that first dawn’s time where and when we lived in vulnerably naked innocence sublime. Amen.
© 2021 PRA
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 
Thank you Paul!! We certainly do wage war with each other, and very little in the way we treat each other is based on Love!! Passion isn’t always a good thing and when people go at each other using only their passion, really bad things can happen!! Countless people have been killed because while in the heat of passion sometimes over such stupid things, like road rage or citing in line!! I pray that the prayer you left us with will cause us to pause and treat each other with more humanity and love!
Love
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Loretta, as much I might (and do) pray for love to fuel and to rule our passions, given that, as I view human history, somewhere, someone always will seek to wage war to overpower (and, at times, destroy) others, then I continue to pray that I (and knowing how unlovingly passionate I can be!) will yield to the Spirit’s leading and guiding.
Love
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