"You're a good one."

Dear blog,

            As I ponder what to share. What is worth sharing, I wonder? Will it be good or helpful for anyone to hear, or know, or read?

Words seem so cheap, so many people use them like counterfeit currency, flinging them around, sending out their broadcast without any stop. Trapping ears, and minds, and souls, when they could use their words with such grace, and goodness.

To use words to free captives, instead of create them.

To use them to open doors.

To use words to release burdens. 

To ease fears, instead of create them.

To use words in the service of love, and unity, instead of using them for division, and disharmony. 

To speak.

To also have the courage to be silent.

And know have the wisdom to know which is best.

            Oh,

            How to have a healthy relationship with something that has been used for so much ill?

            To use words as gifts. 

            Presence. 

            It strikes me how many times we use God's breath in so many ways that feel tainted.

            When our words could be used for so much good.  

            When words could heal, and mend bridges, and ignite the darkness with the fire of spirit.

            I wonder sometimes, how to best use them, realizing that most words, even if true, only few could hear. Only a few would fit them.

            So I keep them tucked away in my soul's library, and take them out, and look at them, and then pick a few out, and use those, and put the rest away.  

            Keeping them for another time, like a seamstress measuring the size of those in front of her, knowing that many of the dresses she has sewn would be best saved until they fit soul's who have grown into them.

            Yet, as I take words out, and look at them.

            The truth is.

            The truest, most beautiful thing we can say to anyone---a word that fits every size, and shape, and color, and creature, with no exclusion is, "You're a good one."

            So you need not sew too elaborately if you know who needs clothes.

           There are so many who have tattered garments, that need a patch, or a little button.

            "You're a good one," is a universal patch. It's true. So everyone's ears prick when they hear their real name.

            A good one.

            This word has got everything covered.

            This is a simple word everyone knows, and everyone understands.

            "You're a good one."

            I tell this to my cats, and they come running. "Come my good ones. Come. Their ears prick, and respond so quickly, it always amazes me."

            I'm sure they're just thinking of the milk I'll feed them. But still, they respond so well, as if they too know that they are good ones.

            I decided to try this out with my goats the other day, instead of chasing them.  

            "Come my good ones," I called to the goats.

            There was a goat already in its pen. I patted it, and cooed, and gave it treats. "Oh, you're such a good one."   

            Yes.

            They know this.

            "Oh, good, one, good, good, good one!"

            All the goats got jealous, and came, some one at a time, some two, or three at a time.

            But once they started coming they came.

            Last month even one got baptized----followed me and my sister right into the canal. Splash. We had to rescue it. 

              So the goats came.

            The good ones, and the Billy goat too, with his stinky beard, and greedy eyes.

            They formed quite a crowd around me.

            These good ones.

            And so, as hungry goats come, and go in your life, remember to say, "You're a good one."

            This diffuses hot fuses, and puts out fires that burn too hot.

            "You're a good one."

            Remember that underneath all that skin, and bones, and perhaps some very crunchy bits, is a soft good one at the center.

            They come, when they hear their name. For underneath all the lies, the universal truth cries out beyond the exterior, "I'm a good one!"

            "You're a good one."

            It helps to superimpose this mantra on old, and young, and those who seem anything but a good one. And it's not all easy, at times, and not always does it work.

            And somtimese I have to remind myself, that I'm a good one, too.

         People can feel the truth of this, their inner knowing, rings like glass when someone brings to light the good, shines out the good. 

             I'm a good one.

               Rightly so.

            And so are you.

            A good one.

            A good one.

            A good one.