Borrowing Words Part 5

 

So, here we are at the end of another week.  We look back at all that has filled our days this first full week of June.  We notice the people in whom God showed up disguised as our life.  Like Abraham and Sarah, sometimes we entertain angels unaware in our lives or at we bump into God’s saints without that being on our calendars.  We look back at moments of laughter and times of frustration and moments when we were on cruise control ~ just putting one foot in front of the other.  And we know God was there.  We pray for God to open our ears, eyes, minds, imaginations, and life so God might get a word in edgewise.  We pray for holy pauses and deep breaths before we go offer preaching and pontificating convinced that we know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  We realize that we see in a mirror dimly, we don’t always have life all figured out.  But we want to, because others seem to have been given the owner’s manual, and we missed that day in school.  May God remind us that everyone is trying to paint the moving train of life.  That in a world of constant change that rearranges our carefully planned and plotted lives, God’s love is the ground of our being and God shelter us in the storms of life.  So take my life today, and let it be a blessing to those I meet.  Take this moment and this day, let me get caught up in praise.  May I realize that it is in You I stand and stay.  Let God’s love have the first, middle, and last word this day. Amen.  

Borrowing Words Part 4

 

A blessing for being human by Kate Bowler

Blessed are we, living in this small space,
in these bodies we now inhabit,
within the walls of circumstance,
in these short years and finite strength,
and with these eyes that see only so far.

We are fragile, contingent beings.

Yet blessed are we,
recognizing that it is our limits as well as our gifts
that can shape the natural contours of what is possible,
that guide us to what is ours to do.

Blessed are we when it is not our greatness that speaks, but our littleness.
For it is our vulnerability that is the truest thing about us,
the place where mutual connection is possible,
where competition ends and community begins.

And oh how blessed are we in our fragility and dependence and brokenness,
knowing that You, O God, hold all things together.

There is no cure for being human…but for each other, we are all good medicine.

Borrowing Words Part 3

 

God of Wednesday when we are in the messy middle of a week.

Our good intentions and plans from Monday morning were thwarted by interruptions and we had to throw them out the window.

Our re-start of Tuesday, new day/new me attitude from yesterday got turned upside down because of the words were heard and the moment we opened the newspaper.

So, here we are on this hump day, middle of the week.

Here we are with this mixture of moments when things went awry, and…and we know that somethings have also gone alright this week.

We celebrate that lunch from Monday with a friend.

We felt Your nearness, O God, as we took a deep breath on Tuesday.

And here we are with You right now on this Wednesday.

Remind us, O God, that we can always return and re-tune the instrument of our life to You.

Remind us, O God, that just as the sower in the Bible who scattered seeds willy-nilly and some of them actually took root, so maybe You are not asking us for a bumper crop of love every day from my life.

Remind us, O God, that sometimes reasonably happy is a good goal, perhaps even a holy one.

So may the prayers of our cluttered hearts this day be offered to You.

Untangle and untwist our random thoughts and scattered souls and emotions we are not sure we can really share, to find a moment of stillness with You.

Be thou our vision in this moment and every moment.  Surround and sustain us with a love divine all love’s excelling that comes unconditionally from You.  Let our lives sing out with joyful noise in adoration that You are with us and nothing separates us from Your presence.  Please, God, we are really counting on this to be true today.  Amen.

Borrowing Words Part 2

 

Although the author is unknown, and the prayer below has become associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, the Serenity Prayer has something to teach and tell each of us.  Slowly read these words savoring each syllable.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference,

living one day at a time;

enjoying one moment at a time;

taking this world as it is and not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.    

I love the opening three lines offer us a way to encounter and experience this beautiful and broken world.  That in every moment there are things we can change, things we cannot control, and we need the wisdom to know the difference.  In a recent podcast, a person said in every situation there are things that are mine, things that belong to another person (who I cannot change), and things that are God’s.  What is mine, theirs, and God’s.  Those are three good categories, because often what frustrates and flummoxes us is that we cannot change another person.  I am not in charge or control what the other person does or says or believes.  I can respond to what s/he says, but I cannot open that person’s head and re-wire their brain.  Or as Edwin Friedman wrote, “The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change.” 

What can we do?

That is where the second, less well-known, part of the prayer comes in ~ we take one day at a time, enjoy (note that word ~ enjoy ~ in the less-than-perfectness of this moment ~ don’t delay or defer your joy OR let your joy depend on someone or something else) your world today.  We receive the world as it is ~ to be an instrument of God’s peace to combine with the prayer from yesterday.  Finally, I love that phrase, “reasonably happy”.  What a GREAT invitation.  This isn’t about having the best…DAY…EVER!!!  Today is about being reasonably happy.  I don’t know who wrote this prayer, but I am going to say it was a wise person who knew that if you string together a few reasonably happy days, you get some pretty good weeks, and some pretty good weeks can add up to a more-than-acceptable months which can point you to an above average year which can be a wonderful blessing moment-by-reasonably-good-moment. 

May these words today open You to God whose supreme love will never let you go. Amen. 

Borrowing Words Part 1

 

Last week, we stepped into the stillness and silence ~ as God’s first language.  We explored and experienced and experimented with what it would mean to move beyond words.  This week, I want us to ground ourselves in the words of others.  Some of the prayers I will share this week have been shared over centuries…some are contemporary…a few are my own.  We begin with the prayer of St. Francis:

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Now, go back and re-read this prayer with a pause after each line to let theords sink in and sing to your soul.  Let there be silent space within you after each petition to ponder.  What does it mean to be an instrument of God’s peace today?  What would that look like, sound like, taste and be like?  Be as specific as possible.  Being an instrument of God’s peace looks like being understanding and speaking carefully at the meeting today.  Being an instrument of God peace means that I don’t let the mountain of despair stop me from hewing a stone of hope (to quote Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.).  Being an instrument of God’s peace means laughing because there is goodness in this world.

What does it mean to sow God’s love specifically for you today ~ be concrete ~ and with whom?  Who are people you anticipate meeting today with whom you can plant a seed of love in the soil of their souls?  Name the people aloud, even if you are not sure how you might sow love with that person, because that person always shows up in all our lives with wonderfully creative ways to annoy us.  Where can you forgive?  Where might you let go of the white-knuckle grasp on anger you have been clinging to and fanning the flames of frustration each day because that person’s existence infuriates you?  Can you say today, “I prayerfully release my anger and pray for pardon in this brokenness”?  Where can you share and shine the light of faith and hope and let loose your smile with reckless abandonment?  The more specific you can find ways to embody and embrace this prayer ~ the better.  May the melody of instruments known as our lives come together in the symphony of God’s still composing and conducting ways today. Amen.

Silence and Stillness

 

As we continue to explore stillness and silence, I encourage you to slowly and prayerfully read these words; then pause to let holy quiet settle into your heart, soul, mind, and body.

 

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven's answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night

I have tried you in fires of affliction
I have taught your soul to grieve
In the barren soil of your loneliness
There will I plant my seed

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven's answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night

I've taught you the prize of compassion
You have stood before the grave
Though my love can seem
Like a raging storm
This is the love that saves

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven's answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night

In your deepest hour of darkness
I will give you wealth untold
When the silence stills your spirit
Will my riches fill your soul

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven's answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night.

May God embrace your waiting and wondering, stillness and silence this day.  Amen.

Silence and Stillness Part 4

 

Another quote on silence to ponder prayerfully today.  “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Or you can think about the sacred pause between words.  Or taking a deep breath before between your response/reply to another person’s comment. 

Once again, we will practice silence and stillness with the Sacred.

Find your phone or a timer and set it to 5 minutes.

~ Breathe in a deep breath and slowly exhale.  Try to have your exhale be longer than your inhale.  This means if you inhale to the count of five, exhale to the count of seven or eight. 

~ Choose a sacred word (love, peace, shalom, sun, Son, Creator) as the symbol of your intention to be open to God’s presence and action within and around.

~ Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your openness to God’s presence and action within and around.

~ When thoughts start to compose to do lists or feeling agitation at why you are doing this or tension sits on your shoulders, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.

~ At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed with three or four more deep breaths.

As you reflect on the experience and encounter with the Eternal, how could this moment leave a lingering impression and imprint on your life today?  Sometimes at the top of a meeting agenda I will write, “WAIT”.  Anne Lamott says this stands for, “Why Am I Talking?!!?”  I like this reminder to let silence have a space at all meeting tables.  This reminds me to let others in the group talk rather than thinking I must be the authority on all things or have an opinion on everything!  May each of us find moments of holy waiting this day and in that stillness hear God’s original language of silence.