The Poetry of R.E. Slater: Jul 23, 2025

"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

We All Are Related, by Sheri Kling

We All Are Related

by Sheri Kling

(Choral chant)
Fiery brilliance, cooling gas, condensing gravity
Atoms forming stars and carbon-fueled diversity
Earth with sky and oceans, molecules then multiply
Stardust is the mater of the cosmos and all life.

(Congregation)
We all are related, woven as threads in earth’s tapestry
A kinship creation, depending on all in deep harmony.
Internally formed by each other, creative and free
We all are related, wholly and actively.

The world is becoming, the future of God is luring us there.
Grace within chaos, the pow’r of the new, holiness bare.
The Singer is singing the Song we are yearning to share.
The world is becoming, process is everywhere.

God is embodied, Word become flesh, in all that we see.
Deeply incarnate in every bird, in every tree.
In the heartbeat of billions of bodies just wanting to be.
God is embodied, soul of the world, breathing in me.

All things have value, all the way up and all the way down.
God is redeeming the lowliest stone and the glorious crown.
Christ is the pattern in every atom around.
All things have value, whispering Spirit Sound.

We need liberation from seeing our world as dead-matter machines
All creatures as neighbors, a healing embrace, so held we are free.
Entraining our rhythms to the heartbeat of Life consciously,
We all are related,
In a world that’s becoming,
Where God is embodied,
And all things have value,
We are liberated, affirming the world we see.

“We All are Related” was just selected by the Catholic Climate Covenant for inclusion in the 2025 Feast of St. Francis resource for Season of Creation. Singing embodies new theologies.

The idea that "we are all related" is a concept with scientific and philosophical roots. Scientifically, genetics reveals that all humans share a common ancestor, and that our DNA is remarkably similar. Philosophically, various cultures, including some indigenous traditions, express a sense of interconnectedness with all living beings. The Lakota phrase "Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ" encapsulates this worldview, emphasizing harmony and oneness with all of creation.