For this Election Day

For this Election Day, I am posting links to poems/prayers written by my spiritual teacher, Julie, of Light Omega, that speak to me of the spirit of America, who we are at our deepest truth as a nation, the future that beckons us.

The first is "The Face of Freedom" and is printed below.
The second is "I Am America - A Nation's Prayer"

http://prayersamerica.org/Contents.html

The third is "Degrees of Help", and can be found under "Flag of America & Other Poems", scrolling down a bit on the link above. ("The Face of Freedom" is also located there.)

BLESSINGS on the deepest truth and love that each person in the United States can access, in their voting on this day.

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THE FACE OF FREEDOM
I have seen the face of freedom
and it is no longer a battle cry,
but an embrace of love that desires
that men and women everywhere
shall live freely,
free from want,
free from neglect,
free from indifference,
free from despair.
That they shall become free to be
themselves, to fulfill the destiny
that their soul has chosen,
to bring the gifts to the earth that is
only theirs to bring.
This freedom does not come into being
for one or for several,
for the exclusion of any destroys the
very principle of freedom
which stems from the right to be oneself
that is accorded to all.
I have seen the face of freedom
and it is the face of the soul of each living being,
the shining beauty that dwells within
that is set free to shine outwardly,
unhampered by the desperation for mere survival
that prevents freedom from truly being free.
I have seen the face of freedom
and it lives within the heart of each one
as a birthright, a birthplace,
a home that is both the origin and the
destination of the embodied soul.
It is this freedom-to-be
that must replace the battle cry,
that must replace the exclusiveness
that has so long dominated the world
as we know it.
Instead, must come the knowledge
that I am only free if you are as well,
for the principle of freedom does not belong
to anyone,
not to a party, a person, a group, a class,
a political office, a gender, a skin color,
a place of origin,
a preference for this point of view or that.
No, the principle of freedom belongs to all,
equally, as a God-given right.
And so it shall blossom
in that day when the hearts of men and women
everywhere recognize that they are One
in body and in heart,
and must live as one so that all may be free.
In that day freedom shall be written within
each heart,
and it shall be the gift that each gives to the other,
so that all may live in a world that is newly created,
a world in which the light within becomes
the truth by which men live.