Belief Gilli Smyth I I will give thanks for life every day of my life and sing songs of joy to be blessed with life I will follow her path - the rightness of her doings floods my heart with happiness - all this she has done She has given me belief in myself so I no longer fear the emptiness within She has sustained me in moments of great anxiety because I know there is more than vexing routines She gives me the enthusiasm to transform my daily life by making the negative positive She has presented me with dangerous people and shown that goodness and kindness can overwhelm sadness and greed II Little children shall be respected and listened to as people in their own right - and animals as wise beasts and teachers No longer oppressed by cruelty and sorrow All the beauty I have seen in the darkness of the night shall be set out on her table for all to feast on I shall never feel a stranger in a foreign land because I will see her in every person She is our mother but she is our father and our brother and our son too She will not allow strife between us because of the shape of our bodies but reinforce the love in our hearts She will help us restore all the good things that are female that we almost don't believe in anymore - because they have been so putdown Let us augment each other and our brothers and not diminish each other at all I will praise you for being my brother and the doing will take care of itself And for my sister the doing will show the fullness of your being I will try to carry her message everywhere but if I am weak and afraid she will lie down with me till I can go on I may not succeed to love all the strange and different kinds of people I meet But I will never stop trying I know this is now her work and I will never doubt it again III I will not be overshadowed by other people's sadness but help them to change it into a learning process I hope that everywhere I will leave people happier for having been with them And try to eliminate bringing them sadness through my own negativity All that I do I do through her and I am blessed that she considers me a good enough vehicle All I can do is polish the lamp of myself for her and this will always be my duty and my work I will use what she has given me of beauty of face and body to enchant and make enjoyable the moment I will greet people like a song and a paean of praise especially on the telephone So that hello Dr Rubenstein becomes a hymn of joy and I will smile into his sad soul so that the afternoon will seem a little brighter She has helped me to make people feel loved even though I may often fail Glory be to the shine on the afternoon telephone and the moment in the milk bar and belief in miracles And that the improbable best can always happen - she has made me feel worthy of it in order not to reject her blessings She helps me not to become complacent by always providing the unexpected twist All my experiences harsh though they were were teachings to learn true compassion and abandon one-upmanship IV My heart has seen the glory of her coming She does not need ceremonies or rituals but enters directly into our hearts and is She has no secret knowledge and ordained priests - her holy book is the blade of grass Her wisdom is in the eyes of a child - her cathedrals are the tallest trees The lore of the elders is in the beginning and we all know it Justice is the living out what we have done so we learn She softens this wherever she can so that harshness is as small as it can be Her law strikes gently to stop us hurting each other and to avoid punishment wherever possible And the offender restores the offended by his own hand She will help to make the earth a paradise around us so that the hell of unhappiness will gradually disappear And we will not encourage it at all by believing in it and looking at violent porn videos But hope they will become more and more unpopular as people respect women and enjoy their lives more We will not go half-heartedly to politics or bullfights but see them as naked aggression and ameliorate them We will dispassionately show what harm patriarchs and bigoted church leaders can do us Without judgment - let their actions be as fully seen and realised as all hypocrisy everywhere For our mother who art in every mother father child son and daughter Glory be to all these realities based on goodness and kindness for ever AMEN