James Dillet Freeman: Poet Laureate of the Moon

 

 

While Rev Ed is on Sabbatical, we can enjoy some beautiful writings of reassurance and love by Unity authors.  Our first is by James Dillet Freeman who  was a poet and a minister of the Unity Church, a New Thought denomination. Freeman was born in Wilmington, Delaware. He was of Cherokee, Choctaw, English, and Irish descent.

 

Freeman was sometimes referred to as the "poet laureate to the moon" because his poems were twice brought to the moon, "a distinction he shares with no other author." His 1941 "Prayer for Protection" was taken aboard Apollo 11 in July 1969 by Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin, and a microfilm of Freeman's 1947 "I Am There" was left on the moon by James B. Irwin on Apollo 15. While James Dillet Freeman worked for Silent Unity and was a writer for the Unity magazine called Daily Word for most of his adult life, he proudly proclaimed on many occasions that he had never joined Unity, revelling in his independent nature and personifying a spirit present throughout Unity and the New Thought Movement.

 

I AM THERE

By James Dillet Freeman

 

Do you need Me?
I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.
I am at work, though you do not recognize My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I am, and then but as a feeling and a faith.
Yet I am there. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.

When you need Me, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me.

Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of “yours” and “mine.”

Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.
Empty your heart of empty fears.

When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I am in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there.
I am there because I have to be, because I am.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of Me does the world go forward.
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance. I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by. I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance. I am your peace.

I am one with you. I am.

Though you fail to find Me, I do not fail you.
Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never wavers, because I know you, because I love you.

Beloved, I am there.