Thank you for your service.

Thank you, all who have served in the military,including my niece Tara, my brothers Joe, Tony and Bernard, nephews Sean and David. National Guard, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard have been well served by you all.

God bless you and your loved ones always and make you all safe in his care.

The nobility of service to one's country is beyond the means of words to say, but all you who have served in the military must know this and believe it to be absolutely true, a truth of the heart without contradiction or the palaver of politics.

For those of us who did not serve in the military, we of course are and ever will be in your debt.

Thank you.

Rick Hilber, Veterans Day, 2012.

The Beloved of the Earth

The Beloved of The Earth


I see you Father at hand here
In the irridescence of this wash.
Father, creator God of all,
Spirit of the Irridescence, purify me.
As I splash water onto my face,
Your love song is stirring me.

Do share with me your moment’s delight,
Your timeless and untiring dismay
At the awakening of your Beloved,
The One who is resplendent,
Resplendent in all Her facets:
The dark contours of Her vales,
The shimmering of Her streams, and
The hoisting canopies of Her trees.

Beloved One awaken to me too,
So that We may celebrate together
Your gift to me of yet another day.

May all who bask in the dawn
Now sing too in praise of You
At the return of this, the light of day.

Provide nurture for all your creatures
In their time each dependent upon You.
May they do always, as we do now,
Continue onward in praise of You.

Each song of ours is lesser
Than that of bird calls, whoops, and wails,
Less too than the budding color of flowers;
Yet teach us how to praise You
Better than to sing wordy anthems.

Mother God,
God of First Peoples,
Permit us to be deserving,
Of this place we call home.

May the people of all nations
Care first for you our common Mother,
Whose care for us is at best
The key to peace and understanding
And the purpose of our being.

Let our care of Her be always
Our humble prayer of praise
To You the Father God of All.

© 2012 by Richard J. Hilber. All rights reserved.

Author Note.  The following poem I composed this morning
to honor my ancestor Marguerite, daughter of the Algonquin Nation. RJH.

Marriage Amendment in Minnesota is an Abomination which All should oppose

I have voiced opposition to amending the Minnesota Constitution to prohibit same sex marriages prior to today's blog (see this blog for the entry of November 11, 2011).  In good conscience and after much soul searching, I oppose this so called Marriage Amendment as ill conceived and mischievous in its intent and dishonest in terms of the discussions which we the people of Minnesota actually need to have (in our families, in our religious bodies, and in our legislature about laws affording safe haven for the child). 

Is this amendment really about values or clarification of values by citizens?  That it serve such a purpose is a bit of a stretch.  Why?

Because it is about an exclusion of minority of persons being excluded from the benefits and sanctions of marriage if the two persons to be married be of the same gender. 

Because if this is about the child, then tax advantage should go to the parent, parents, or foster parents who provide housing, clothing, food, and nurturance (inclusive of course of education), not just to those who happen to fit Minnesota's current legal definition of marriage as between persons of the opposite sex. 

Because if this is about procreation as a sanction of the human sex act, give everyone a free pass.  There is a slight correlation under the best of circumstances for that portion of matching periods of fertility of male and female egg and sperm donors.  Donors?  Yes, a homosexual couple can have a fertilization occur to procure the birth of a live child.  Go figure.

Because if I opposed this amendment on religious grounds, it would be to say that I think homosexual couples may not covenant with God (or the Divine Sacred) to be faithful and exclusive in their sexual and whole life commitment to one another.  That's a tad bit presumptuous for me to assert over another fellow human being to say the least, since I'm not God.  In terms of retarding sexually transmitted disease that would be a truly moral outcome of legitimizing same sex marriage, not banning it.

Yet, I'd like to argue for the moral law of tradition, but while that informs public policy and debate, it is most helpful when identifying the sins, omissions and commissions, which offend God.  I'd also like to say that if the State were to back off in sanctioning any marriage, it'd be more to the point of libertarian views of gun ownership, abortion, and de-regulation in general.  Maybe that is where this is going.  Not today.  Why?  Because this proposed amendment is not addressing that issue. 

Finally, I for one believe that the atheists, secularists, as well as Hindu, Christian, Jew, and Moslem traditionalists under our Federal Constitution can sanction which marriages shall be blessed and even to be encouraged by religion.  That's a different argument and again for a different day (and audience).

We should all regret the expenditure of public funds, private donations, and rancor this proposed amendment has elicited.  Ill conceived and unwarranted.  The Republican Legislature of Minnesota should be embarrassed to say it emanated from its "wisdom."

John Wesley on Guidance to the Voter

John Wesley’s Voting Advice




“I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them:



1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy:



2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against: And,



3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”



~ John Wesley, October 6, 1774