Child’s Oración

Just like American children know “Now I lay me down to sleep” by heart, my Mexican students all know this child’s prayer for protection.  It is said on waking up or for sleep. My translation is after the poem.

Angel de mi guarda

Mi dulce compañía

No me desampares

Ni de noche ni de día

No me dejes sólo

Que me perdería.

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My guardian angel

My sweet companion

Don’t abandon me

Not by night nor by day

Don’t leave me alone

That I would become lost.

This was dictated to me by my students.

Here is a bonus adult prayer from an amulet for sale by one of the students:

Pliss!

Cuidame aunque no vaya a misa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Translation:

Please! [this is the English "please" spelled phonically by Spanish pronunciation rules--"Spanglish"]

Watch over me even if I don’t go to mass.

Focus on the Family prayer for rain works–sort of

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family is an organization that says forget that pesky biblical stuff about rendering unto Caesar–what Jesus wants is political conservatism.  So Focus on the Family put out a film asking people to pray for rain for the Democratic convention.

The film has since been pulled, but not before it had its effect.  On August 25, 2008, Hurricane Gustav formed. The next day it made landfall in Haiti, but from there moved slowly.  It didn’t make landfall in the U.S. until September 1, creating havoc in the schedule for the first day of the Republican convention.

Someone needs to remind Dobson of the Wiccan Law of Threefold Return, which means that whatever one does to another person or thing (benevolent or otherwise) returns with triple force.

Or, as my mother used to say, “Don’t point”.  When you point your finger at someone else, you have three more fingers pointing back at you.

Ramadan Kareem: a Ramadan Dua

I’ve been looking for a little Ramadan Kareem symbol to put in my widgets for the month of Ramadan, but I’m having some sort of problem opening my widgets. The best I can gather from the blogosphere is that that latest version of Firefox 2.0.0.7 is doing something to Javascript, whatever that is.

So until I can figure out what that is, or more likely until they can figure it out, here is something called a Ramadan Dua. [UPDATE: Link no longer active.] I’m not quite sure what a dua is, but this one seems to be a sort of prayer. I kind of like it, both for the Arabic and for the sentiments expressed.

Transcript

Dua is the following (Arabic):

Allah hooma inee auldubika

il hami, wa il hahden

wal agitee, wa kasal

wal toopamee, wa joobnahl

wal broohal, ghalabit il daimee al rijel

(repeat it)

English translation:

Allah, by you from all the ways

from all sadness, from laziness

from being helpless, from being coward

from fear, from being stingy,

from the overwhelming of the national debt, and from the oppression of men

I know I don’t have the Arabic exactly right, but if your Arabic is good enough to tell that, you probably know what it says already.

Ramadan Kareem.
2009 UPDATE: Audio for new dua and prayers |here|.This was for Ramadan 2008 but I have checked the links for 2009 to make sure they’re still active.