Prayer for Hurricane Ian

 

We wake up this morning, O God, with the words of the Spiritual, "Precious Lord" humming in our hearts, "Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand.  I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.  Through the storm, through the night, lead us on to the light.  Precious Lord take my hand, lead me home."  

Hand-holding God, lead all who are in the path of Hurricane Ian right now.  Shelter us amid the storm, wind, damage caused, and fear that stirs in our souls at the unknown.  We continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Cuba, all who are without power and will be in the coming days, and especially those will face the worst of this storm.  

God grant us strength today and in the days to come.  Be with emergency personal, those helping at shelters, and everyone who is called to step up.  

I pray for every person reading this today.  May Your love enfold and hold each of us.  Precious Lord take our hand and help us hold each other in the days to come.  Amen. 

Prayer for Today

 

Prayer for today ~ 

God, today, we echo the ancient words of the Psalmist, "God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble."  We pray for You to be with our brothers and sisters in Cuba today as Hurricane Ian makes landfall.  We pray for Your safe shelter.  We pray for the whole Gulf Coast of Florida as we brace for the storm here in the coming days. 

We know how much life has felt like storm after storm recently.  From the pandemic to polarization to trying to keep on keeping on ~ we are tired, worn, and weary of the swirling winds of life.  We need Your presence, O God.  Help to calm our anxiety.  Help us to stay centered in Your love.  Help us find ways to reach out.  God meet us in this moment and let Your steadfast love continue to be with us in the days to come.

In the name of the One who walked through the storms of life, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

The B-I-B-L-E, Yes that's the book for me!!

 

Quick pop quiz on this Monday morning ~ I just heard you groan all the way here.  It will be okay.  In fact, you’ve already received an “A” just for continuing to read the meditation.  Nice way to start off the week, isn’t it?

 

The quiz has one question…what word or words do you associate with “Scripture”?  Or put another way, how do you describe scripture to others?

 

Wait, you think, that is TWO questions.  I can’t get anything past you this morning, can I? 

 

Seriously, put in the chat or come chat to me about how you approach Scripture. 

 

Some people find Scripture fascinating or confusing or frustrating or all the above.  Some believe Scripture is ancient or even irrelevant, a myth or fairy tale of another age.  Some hold Scripture at arm’s length, like a dangerous chemical that you don’t want to get on your clothes.  Some of our brothers and sisters have been hurt and harmed, wounded by Scripture.

 

Scholar Walter Bruggemann once said that as pastors we need to be careful when preaching so that the Bible and our sermons don’t join forces and overwhelm the people.  Scholar David Lose talks about how we all have impostures syndrome with Scripture.  We think, “Everyone else here clearly understands Scripture way more than I do.”  Scholar Barbara Brown Taylor write, “My relationships with the Bible is not a romance but a marriage, and one I am willing to work on in all the usual ways; by living with the text day in and day out, by listening to it and talking back to it, by making sure I know what is behind the words it speaks to me and being certain I have heard it properly, by refusing to distance myself from the parts of it I don’t like or understand, by letting my love for it show up in the everyday acts of my life.”

 

A love affair with scripture, wedded to the Word, looking to ancient wisdom that has guided and grounded people of faith for centuries, feasting on the Bible to feed and fuel our lives, and encountering the Bible as a testimony to the truth of God’s persist presence. 

 

I love Scripture and am a self-proclaimed, “Bible Nerd.”  I am endlessly curious about how these words stir…sometimes sting…my soul ~ awakening me to life that is beyond what I can consume on social media, binge watch on tv, or hear the talking heads debate ad nauseum on cable channels.  I believe we need a wisdom bigger and bolder than what we are hearing today around us.  

 

Beginning next Sunday, and in the months to come, we are going to go on an adventure through Scripture.  To be sure, like any good adventure, it won’t be all pony rides and chocolate rivers.  Part of any good journey is the risk, leaving the familiar.  Anytime we leave on vacation we know there may be delays and detours and disappointments when the ideal of the trip we planned doesn’t match reality of the trip we take.  We know about planes canceled, sitting in traffic jams, and the restaurant that had rave reviews online but was just, “Meh”.  And yet, along the journey there are breath-taking moments, serendipitous surprises, and experiences that make for great stories.  If you have ever wondered, “What does the Bible really say?”  If you have ever thought, “One day I will read the Bible cover-to-cover”.  If there is curiosity and the slightest part of your soul thinking, “Maybe, just maybe…”  Now is the chance.  Let’s go into the great unknown of sacred story where we will find hope, healing, and a Holy grace that is needed in these days.

 

Prayer: God of words that open our sacred imaginations.  As we open Scripture, open us to the possibility and promise, grant us permission to be confused, question, share insights, and talk with others.  May we find both ourselves, others, and Your bigger, bolder story of life from “In the Beginning” of Genesis 1, to the final “Amen” in Revelation 22.  In the name of the One who is the Word made flesh, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

God of every season and second in life, September has turned a corner and is heading toward October.  Pumpkin spice everything is being promoted around us and Halloween candy calls out to us each time we go to the store.  There is much in this life, O God, that is good.  Thank you for sweet blessings and people who help us practice laughter’s healing art.  There is much that we need to grieve individually and collectively.  The pain that hovers and hangs in the air also sits on the shelves of our souls.  It would be so much easier, O God, to just place all of our problems on those people.  We confess we’ve convinced ourselves that things will be better when I am King or Queen of the world.  But You enter life, not with armies or force or even pontificating preaching, You enter life in subversively subtle ways that too often we miss.  Thank you, O God, for prayer practices that are a framework for focusing on You.  Thank you, O God, for moments of goodness and grace.  Thank you, O God, for emotions that are important information. Thank you for times we slow down with You to review our lives so that You help us tell a better story.  Help us today in all we encounter and experience to be open to You, Author and Conductor of the musical production of our lives.  Alleluia and Amen. 

Prayer Practice Part Two

 

Breathe and be aware of God’s presence.

Breathe and be aware of God’s grace and love.

Breathe in the Sacredness of your body all the way down to your feet and legs.  Exhale out the aches and pains.

Breathe in a hope that can feed and fuel our souls….breathe out our constant criticism, pointing out what is wrong.

Breathe in a love that is needed today…breathe out the fear that resides rent free in our hearts.

Breathe in a joy that brings a smile to your face…breathe out the wounds of words that fester in your mind.

Breathe and be.

 

Name aloud one person who shared and shine his/her/they light with you.

Name aloud one place where like Jacob you exclaimed, “Surely God is in this place and I didn’t know it”.

Name aloud one emotion in your soul and why you feel that way.

Name aloud another emotion in your heart and why you feel that way.

Now select one scene from the past few hours to replay on the movie screen of your mind.  What did you feel in that moment?  What did you say?  What did you hear?  Would you like to go back to let God edit that part of the story of your life? 

Where do you need God to sit in the director’s chair guiding you in the hours to come?

 

How might peace, joy, love, and grace find space to reside in you?

How might you share these gifts with others in real ways to help with the healing of a hurting world?

 

May this prayer practice fill you, bless you, and send you forth with God’s embrace surrounding you.  Amen.

Prayer Practice Part Two

 

Like a television re-run, we come back to the prayer practice of Ignatius, I want to encourage you to rewrite the prayer prompts in different words.  This is a great experiment to see if shifting the words slightly might reveal something new to you today.

 

○ Become aware of God’s presence.  Breathe deeply several times.  Perhaps if you have been sitting, you may want to stand.  Or go outside.  Or get up and go to a different room just for today.  Find a new physical position and place to offer this prayer.

 

○  Review the day with gratitude ~ as you look back with thanksgiving, name what gave you life yesterday.  What were one or two experiences/encounters that fed and fueled your soul?  We claim the good amid a world where there is pain because God is found in both.  This is your chance to say where you touched, tasted, and encountered the Creator, Author, and Source of life. 

 

○  Pay attention to your emotions.  Write down what is in your heart.  This prompt is to look around right now.  Be in this moment and attending to what is within you.  We can never fully exhaust or explore or know everything within us or around us.  I’ve heard it said, “Give up the thought that you know what happened.”  Our point of view is a view from a point; one way the light flows through the prism revealing God’s love, but NOT the only way.  We pay attention to this moment, where we are, so we can sense the current/movement of energy in our emotions.

 

○  Choose one feature/moment (experience or encounter) of the day and pray from it. Does that moment bring joy or lament?  We do this so God might edit and help us tell a better story.  If I keep thinking that person did me wrong, I never surrender the red pen of editing to God who might have something to add.  This moment is an invitation let go and let God enter in with a wisdom and love to re-write the stories we tell ourselves.

 

○ Look toward tomorrow.  Where do you need God’s guidance in the hours to come?  In some ways, this prayer practices brings the past, present, and future together.  We’ve glance in the rearview mirror with gratitude and past experiences; at our side mirrors of emotions; and now we focus on the windshield of what is to come.  But we don’t just step on the gas to get on with life, we let God be the One to direct us.  Or as we say each week in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will, O God, be done.”  That is not my will.  That is not my to-do-list. Let God enter with a grace that can loosen and lighten how we walk into the events that are to come. 

 

As you close may you know peace, joy, love, and grace this day; and may you be peace, joy, love and grace to those you encounter.  Amen.

Prayer Practice Part Two

 

This week we are turning toward a second prayer practice from Ignatius of Loyola.  Remember, we return time and time again to practices, like a basketball player shooting free throws.  The point is not to reach some spiritual enlightened place where we levitate.  There is no finish line where we are awarded the prayer medal.  We return to examine and explore our lives because God shows up in our ordinary days.  Often, we miss the traces of God’s grace amid the blur of a frenzied schedule.  Prayer practices slow us down, so our souls can catch up, help us name and notice our relationship with God, others, and ourselves.  This is what Jesus said was the way to life ~ to love God with your whole being and your neighbor as you love yourself.  The more we name and notice God’s presence, we gain muscle memory or soul memory. 

 

The five invitations are:

 

○ Become aware of God’s presence.  Breathe deeply several times.  Settle into your body.  Place your feet firmly on the ground ~ it might be best to be barefoot or at least slip off your shoes.  Sit tall in your chair.  As you deeply breath, do a body scan.  Start with your feet and slowly work your way upwards stopping to check in with your legs, stomach, heart, shoulders, jaw, eyes, ears, and thoughts.  Notice where you are tight or tense; where there are aches; and where there is a looseness or lightness.  Direct your breath to each part of your body sending life-giving oxygen.  Remember Genesis 2 where God breathes in the breath of life.  Let that Scripture inspire you in this moment.

 

○  Review the day with gratitude. If you do this in the morning, review yesterday.  If you do this practice in the evening, you can rewind today. Name one or two thanksgivings.  Try to name a different gratitude than yesterday.  If you already gave thanks for family, bring to your mind and heart friends.  Focus on what happened in the last 24 hours that was uniquely a blessing for which you can be grateful.

 

○  Pay attention to your emotions.  Write down what is in your heart.  Remember from last week that emotions are energy in motion.  You can have more than one emotion at a time, they can even contradict each other.  Are your emotions different today than yesterday?  Or have yesterday’s emotions continued to radiate as you ruminate on what someone said or a festering frustration like a fire that keeps burning bright?  Name and notice your emotions. 

 

○  Choose one feature/moment (experience or encounter) of the day and pray from it. Does that moment bring joy or lament?  For example, if you are praying from the experience of a lunch you had yesterday with a friend, remember and relive that moment.  Taste the salad you ate, giving thanks for the farmers.  Hear the conversation again but stay open and curious.  If your friend said something that warmed your heart, ask why?  If your friend made a comment that made you uncomfortable, ask why?  Be an explorer of your own life in this moment, concerned less with conclusions and more with turning the prism of God’s presence to let the light shine through in a new way.

 

○ Look toward tomorrow.  Where do you need God’s guidance in the hours to come?  This may be a specific appointment or conversation, or a situation you’ve been facing for several weeks, or a decision you need to make.  As the psalms say, “As a deer longs for running streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.”  Where do you need renewing water in the coming day?

 

As you close may you know peace, joy, love, and grace this day.  Amen.

Prayer Practice Part Two

 

Two weeks ago, we engaged the wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola, a 14^th Century mystic.  We dove and dwelt in his five questions about being the fruit of the Spirit; living peacefully with God; striving for reconciliation not division; alignment (or integrity) of mind, heart, and soul; and faithful to Scripture.  I hope those guideposts have helped you over the last few weeks.  This week, I want to introduce you to another practice from Ignatius that can be meaningful each day.  Part of what I find helpful is the structure of the five prompts below give me a framework for prayer.  At the same time there is an openness and spaciousness within the prompts.  I see these questions as a compass rather than a GPS.  The invitations engage my sacred imagination and help align my head, heart, and soul.  Like the dynamic markings on a sheet of music that tell the singer to be quiet or loud; to sing slow or speed up or staccato; I believe these five invitations help us pay attention to God who is the conductor of life. 

 

Here is a second prayer practice from Ignatius:

 

○ Become aware of God’s presence.  Breathe deeply several times.  Settle into your body.  Place your feet firmly on the ground ~ it might be best to be barefoot or at least slip off your shoes.  Sit tall in your chair (I find I often slouch).  Now take in a deep belly breath.  Now breathe in so deep you can feel the oxygen all the way down to your big toe.  Let out an audible exhale sigh.  You may need to do this several times.

 

○  Review the day with gratitude.  If you do this in the morning, review yesterday.  If you do this practice in the evening, you can rewind the hours you’ve been awake. Name one or two thanksgivings ~ moments you felt your soul surge.  When did you smile or laugh or feel love wash warmly over you? 

 

○  Pay attention to your emotions.  Write down what is in your heart.  Remember from last week that emotions are energy in motion; but that they are data ~ not directives.  You don’t have to listen to every emotion, they don’t get to pick the radio station.  And you can have more than one emotion at a time, they can even contradict each other.

 

○  Choose one feature/moment (experience or encounter) of the day and pray from it. Does that moment bring joy or lament?  You don’t need to pick the most significant moment, or the first ones that pops into your mind.  Sometimes the best moment is one that at the time you might have missed initially or overlooked.

 

○ Look toward tomorrow.  Where do you need God’s guidance in the hours to come?  Name aloud.

 

As you close your prayer may you know peace, joy, love, and grace this day.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

God who finds us where we are, help us amid the clutter of our lives.  The color commentary and chatter of our minds can be like a needle stuck on a record player; the emotional heft of life can leave us weary; the states of our souls don’t often feel “well”.  Then, there are moments we feel a surge and swirl of life.  Smiles cross our faces, laughter escapes, and we are connected to another living soul.  This could be the squirrel scurrying across our yard, the shade of the tree, or the glimmer/glint of a friend’s eyes at lunch.  Thank you, Holy One, for emotional awareness and agility.  Thank you for times we dive and dwell with how it is with our souls.  Thank you for moments to pause, name, and notice what is really going on within us and around us.  Help us this day to continue to find ways to give voice to the diverse and distinctive ways You evoke emotions within.  For the hymns of Psalmist who teach and tell us that all emotions are holy and can be prayerfully sung to You.  Amen. 

The Emotion of Me and We Part Three

 

Breathe in today…may you notice and name what is in your heart…feel the energy of emotions.

Breathe in this moment…may you notice and name the weather pattern of your soul (is it sunny or cloudy or stormy?).

Breathe in right here and now where God is meeting all that is within you.  This means not just your intellectual thoughts or words, but those deeper emotions and energy and soul.

 

Breathe in acceptance and openness…breathe out disconnection and distrust that close us off.

Breathe in curiosity and connection…breathe out embarrassment and shame.

Breathe in frustration that tells you what is not right…breathe out the superhero within us that wants to save everyone and everything and fix the entire world.

 

Breathe and be…naming and noticing the energy of motion within you. 

Breathe and be…sitting with why you are feeling…stress/tense/awe/love/courageous.

Breathe and be…realizing that just as you can have more than one friend…you can feel more than one emotion at a time ~ even contradictory emotions. 

Breathe and be…how we let one emotion take the steering wheel of life, pick the radio station, and force us to go in the direction.

Breathe and be…how always leaning on one emotion can cause a rut in our brains and hearts and souls…but that we are created to feel more than words could express.

Breathe and let out an audible sigh.  Sigh louder.  Sigh so your neighbor can hear you.  In that sigh may there be all that is whirling and whipping within your mind, heart, and soul.  In that sigh may you open space for the composure and conductor of life to enter in with a melody of music. 

 

I invite you to go and listen to a piece of music that opens you to all the feels as a way of prayer.

The Emotion of We and Me Part 3

 

This week we are spelunking, exploring the experience, of emotions.  We are tapping into the original operating system of feelings.  We’ve engaged an exercise of being curious, asking why we feel what we feel.  Not just once, but several times trying to go deeper into the cave of feelings.  Yesterday we named and noticed that there are six main emotions that all of us experience in the course of a week, or day…or sometimes a rollercoaster of an hour.  I asked you think about times you felt fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise recently.

 

Those six do not exhaust all the emotions there are.  Some suggest there are over 400 emotions a person can feel.  You can feel calm, centered, content, eager, bliss, cynical, edgy, courageous, compassionate, curious, forlorn, embarrassing, powerless, remorseful, weary, and worn out.  I encourage you to click here for the Hoffman Institute for a list of the 400 emotions.  Read over the list, especially the ones in bold print, and ask yourself when the last time was you experienced that emotion.  When was the last time you felt:

Acceptance/openness

Alive/joy

Angry/annoyed

Courageous/empowered

Connected/loved

Curious

Despair/sad

Disconnected/numb

Embarrassed/shame

Fear

Guilt

Hopeful

Powerless

Tender

Unsettled

Grateful

Fragile

Stressed/tense

 

I pray this longer list might continue to guide us to feel the feelings that are stirring and swirling within every human right here and now.  Amen.

The Emotion of Me and We Part Two

 

Yesterday, I invited you to name and notice the emotions you were feeling…and to ask why you feel that way…then to ask why again.  To dive deeply and curiously into exploring and experiencing your emotions ~ to discover what is stirring or stinging within you.  Perhaps this is part of what Jacob was doing both when in his night vision of a ladder/staircase and when he wrestled with a being that we will hear next Sunday. 

 

What emotions stir within you this morning?

 

Paul Ekman says that there are six basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise. 

 

If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen the Disney movie, Inside Out, about a tween girl, Riley, who the audience is invited to see how the emotions of Joy, Anger, Fear, Sadness, and Disgust play out inside her mind/heart/soul.  Great movie ~ five out of five stars.  You should watch it…just as soon as you are done reading this meditation. 

 

I am not sure why Disney didn’t include Surprise, but still a great story about exploring what is in you.

 

When was the last time you experienced each of those emotions?  Maybe for you, it has been a while since you and joy went for an ice cream cone.  Maybe you try to dismiss or distance yourself from anger.  I grew up watching The Incredible Hulk on Friday nights.  The main character, scientist Bruce Banner, was played by Bill Bixby.  People would often ask me if we were related.  “Sure,” I would think, “Just talked to Uncle Bill to thank him for sending me the new Hulk toy.”  If you remember that show, the mild manner Banner would often say to someone, “You shouldn’t make me angry.  You won’t like me when I am angry.”  Because when Banner got mad, he would transform into the Hulk (a giant, green being with super strength).  During the transformation, Banner’s normal size clothing would get ripped and torn as the bulging Hulk emerged from within.  The guy must have spent a fortune on brown pants and white shirts!  The show taught me to be careful with anger…that it could be destructive and turned me into someone I didn’t want to be.  Now, I realize anger also can tell me when one of my values is being stomped on or stepped over.  I get angry when I hear racist or homophobic remarks, because I deeply believe all people are created in God’s image! 

 

Too often, we haven’t always taken the step to ask, why am I feeling what I am feeling.  Rather we just let loose with our emotion (the energy in motion) and if you have a problem with that, that is a you problem.  Remember, our emotions are data, not directives.  To be curious about why we feel what we feel and when we feel it and with whom we express those emotions. 

 

I encourage you today to explore the six emotions of fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise playfully and prayerfully. 

 

And may this holy experiment be an experience of the One who crafts and creates us to be aware and awake to our feelings.

 

Prayer: God, when You continue form and fashion us, You install software in our hearts that could feel the energy of emotions.  Help us, like the Psalmist and Lamentations, name and claim our emotions as one way to connect with You, ourselves, and others.  In the name of the One who wept, laughed, and felt all the feels of life, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

The Emotion of Me and We

 

Yesterday I made the comment that Jacob was carrying more emotional and relational baggage than a Boeing 747.   Today we build on that image ~

When you examine and explore the “we” inside every “me”, the relationships that can define you (and sometimes feel like they confine you), we are trudging through emotional territory. Perhaps over the last few weeks you have felt a surge or swirl of feelings.  I felt moments of nostalgic joy when preaching about my friend, Jeff.  Other times, I felt clouds of anger when naming some of the people whose words wounded me.  I have been reminded that humans are capable of great care as well as hurt and harm.  Sometimes the words we hear from another cause our hearts, like the Grinch, to grow three sizes; other times people hide knifes in their comments that cause a thousand paper cuts to our souls. 

 

On the most basic level emotions are energy in motion (e-motion).  Feelings fuel and feed us in a certain direction.  When we are angry, we can lash out at others, passing along the pain.  When we are lonely or hurt, our shy souls may curl up in a ball in the corner inside and we not have the energy to go anywhere or do anything.  Just as we memorized multiplications tables in schools, so many of us internalized messages about emotions.  I grew up hearing that some emotions are good.  For example I was told it was good, desirable, to be happy.  Other emotions not so good, I am glaring at you, grumpy or mopey.  You may have been taught or caught that you have to push down or ignore your feelings.  You may have been told by your mother, “We don’t talk about that in polite company.”  I can remember being told that, “Big boys don’t cry.”  As a culture we tend to overemphasize thoughts (even as brain research tells us that our memories are often not as reliable as we’ve been led to believe).  We deemphasize emotions as being untrustworthy.  The bottom line is, as Susan David says, “Emotions are data not directives.”  Emotions point out what is important and our deepest values.

 

Susan David gives us a great exercise.  Take out a piece of paper and write down one emotion you are feeling right now. 

 

You may be feeling:

Tired ~ or Excited ~ or Anxious ~ or Angry ~ or Joy ~ or Surprise

 

Now, ask why you are feeling that way:

Tired because you were up last night composing a snappy comeback to a comment a person said.

Excited for a lunch with a friend today.

Anxious about an appointment or conversation.

Anger at a headline you read.

Joy at the sound of a bird singing or the taste of coffee.

Surprise that you have all these emotions at the same time.

 

Now, ask why again!  Be curious and willing to go deeper than skimming the surface with your emotions.

 

Tired that the person who said that thing seem to grate and get under your skin.

Excited that your lunch friend who you haven’t seen since COVID.

Anxious about what the doctor might say.

Anger that the polarization and hurtful things people say.

Joy that there is beauty in the world too alongside the hurt.

Surprise that was so many layers to emotions ~ like layers of paint in a home from the 1800s.

 

Today, pay attention to the emotions, that is the energy in motion, where what your feelings are guiding you and how your emotions are impacting your so-called objective/neutral brain.

 

Prayer: God, You craft and create us with a heart, heart, and soul, You invite us to love You with our full selves.  Help us today be aware and awake to the emotions, the energy stirring within us.  Help us find alignment with our thoughts, feelings, and breath.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

Our prayers this morning go to our sisters and brothers in UK mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth.  May God's comfort and care embrace and enfold all those who hearts are heavy.

This coming Sunday, September 11, we will sing the hymn, "God of Grace and God of Glory" as our opening hymn.  Here are some additional verses I wrote inspired by that melody and music:

God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your power. 

Infuse us with Your wisdom, bring the fruit of life to glorious flower. 

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, steep in Your love empowered,

filled with Your grace we are empowered.

 

God of presence and God of peace, we need Your wisdom more than ever. 

Too often we stumble and faulter trying to be seen by others as clever. 

Realign us to Your way, compel and hold us with You to stay;

be with us in all we say today.

 

God of challenge and God of growth, sometimes we’re not sure where to go. 

Too many words, emotions, or thoughts like a hurricane wind in our that blows. 

We need Your calm, centered love to be discovered and awake to Your glow,

that we get caught up in Your flow.

 

God of blessing and God who sends us, led us now into this day. 

Let us share and shine our light, we need grace that helps us play. 

So cause us to be alert to all the ways Your love is displayed,

so that every moment we may stay/pray/and feel Your ray!

Pause

 

Breathe in God’s presence today…for God feeds and fuels our lives with love that will not let us go.

Pause

Breathe in God’s strength today…for God’s presence here can guide all that we face in the hours before us.

Pause

Breathe in God’s blessing and peace today…for you are blessed to be a blessing.

Pause

Breathe in this moment…with all its sharp shards and sacredness…this one moment.

Pause

 

Breathe out the bitter taste of words someone said, or you spoke, so that you might make room in the soil of your soul for the fruits of the Spirit.  Galatians 5 says the fruits are:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. 

Pause

Breathe out the pain of wounds and wants, so that your life can sing, “It is well with my soul.”

Pause

Breathe out the anger and frustration at others, breathe out the polarization that divides us, so that you may give thanks for the “we” inside your “me”. 

Pause

Breathe out bumps and bruises that cause our hearts, heads, and souls to be out of alignment, let God enter adjusting us to be whole and wholly in God’s embrace. 

Pause

Breathe out the confusion and complexity, so that the wisdom of Scripture might be heard in new and fresh ways.  For God says, “Behold I am about to do a new thing now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19).  How can you and I beheld to behold this promise and possibility today?

Pause

May each inhale and exhale, each breath today bring you a sense of joy, peace, love, and contentment to be blessing to others.  Amen. 

Prayer Practice ~ Discernment

 

The power of a prayer practice is that it is never one and done.  There is no finish line with a prayer practice.  Just like you can never say, “Well, I finished the internet…or Netflix,” so too you come back to a prayer practice to deepen your dance with the Divine.  The questions from yesterday are a deep well that we are called to draw water from each day.  So, I offer the questions to you again.  However, I am going to re-phrase them so that the light of God’s love might move through the prism of these prayerful ponderings in new ways:

 

Where, when, and with whom might you share the fruits of the Spirit today?  Name the person aloud. How and from whom might you receive/taste/be fueled by the fruits of the Spirit today?  Galatians 5 says the fruits are:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. 

 

What is the weather pattern in your soul today?  Is it cloudy, stormy, or calm/clear?  Become a meteorologist for your soul, heart, and mind today.  Is there a chance of bad weather at that meeting you are going to today?  Do you need to pack extra patience for that doctor’s appointment?  Is there pain that casts a shadow you can’t seem to let go?  Survey what is stirring within you right now.

 

What is one way you can be part of the ministry of reconciliation today?  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18, that we are given a ministry of reconciliation, relationships, connecting the me with the wider we.  That is not just for pastors, but the priesthood of all believers.  How might you embrace and embody these words today?

 

Do you feel aligned this morning in head, heart, and soul?  Or does something feel out-of-whack?  What is it?  Is there some lingering problem that keeps stirring in your mind?  Is there a comment someone said stuck on a loop that you keep replaying/repeating?  Or maybe it is an interaction from Monday that weighs you down?  Do a body scan seeing how it is in your head, heart, and soul.  You may want to have a piece of paper to write down what you observe.

 

What line from scripture might guide you today?  You might select Psalm 23 or Psalm 121 or Psalm 100.  Or you might hold in your heart the passage from this past Sunday, Genesis 25.  Let the wisdom of the Word sink and settle into your soul to feed and fuel your life today.

 

I pray it is helpful to hear how you can slightly twist and turn the questions of Ignatius each day as a prayer practice throughout the month of September.  God’s light can shine through these questions each day with a prism of rainbow colors lighting our way.

 

May you today know joy, love, peace, and contentment…and may you share those who others as you are able.  Amen.