The houses are clean and white, and great trees stand among them and spread over them. The fields lie around the town, divided by rows of such trees as stand in the town and in the woods, each field more beautiful than all the rest. Over town and fields the one great song sings, and is answered everywhere; every leaf and flower and grass blade sings. And in the fields and the town, walking, standing, or sitting under the trees, resting and talking together in the peace of a Sabbath profound and bright, are people of such beauty that he weeps to see them. He sees that these are the membership of one another and of the place and of the song or light in which they live and move.
Great Spirit,
give us hearts to understand;
never to take from creation's beauty
more than we give, never to destroy wantonly
for the furtherance of greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the
building of earth's beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.
Give us hearts to understand that to
destroy earth's music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us
to beauty; that to callously pollute
her fragrance is to make a house of stench;
that as we care for her, she will care for us!
Amen.