Surely

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I call to you

Listen to my voice

Be attentive to my supplicating voice

If you tallied errors

Who would survive the count?

But you forgive, you forbear everything

And this is the wonder and the dread

You are my heart’s hope, my daily hope

And my ears long to hear your words

My heart waits quiet in hope for you

More than they who watch for the sunrise

Hope for a new morning

Let those who question and struggle

Wait quiet like this for you

For with you there is durable kindness

And wholeness in abundance

And you will loose all our binds

Surely

Norman Fischer. Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms. NY: Penguin, 2002. 159.

Congenial idol?

We are your people and mostly we don’t mind,

          except that you do not fit any of our categories.

We keep pushing

                    and pulling

                    and twisting

                    and turning,

          trying to make you fit the God we would rather have,

                    and every time we distort you that way

                              we end up with an idol more congenial to us.

In our more honest moments of grief and pain

          we are very glad that you are who you are,

          and that you are toward us in all your freedom

          what you have been toward us.

So be your faithful self

          and by your very engagement in the suffering of the world,

          transform the world even as you are being changed.

We pray in the name of Jesus,

          who is the sign of your suffering love. Amen.

(In anticipation of reading Jeremiah 4-6/2000)

Brueggemann, Walter. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. 147.

Let This Be Prayer

O God, I do not know how to pray. Because I do not know what it means to pray properly, to pray in 
such a way as to serve or worship, I must offer what I have and can do as my prayer. And here it is.

 Let this posture be the prayer

Let this intention be the prayer

Let this very not-knowing be the prayer

Let this breath be the prayer

Let this resistance and discomfort be the prayer

Let this distraction be the prayer

Let this drinking of tea be the prayer

Let this eating of breakfast be the prayer

Let this hectic schedule be the prayer

Let this attempt at Remembrance be the prayer

Let the steps walked in silence across the parking lot be the prayer

Let the birdsong noted be the prayer

Let this poor journal-writing be the prayer

Let the vastness of the night sky be the prayer

Let worrying, and then dropping the worry be the prayer

Let chanting and dancing and reading be the prayer

Let dressing and undressing be the prayer

Let sleeping and rising and sleeping and rising be the prayer

Let missing someone be the prayer

Let memories and whispered calls for help for others be the prayer

Let opening the door and putting on and taking off shoes be the prayer

Let the keeping simple order be the prayer

Let the celebration of light and darkness be the prayer

Let warmth and cold be the prayer

All of it, not bad, not good, just as it is and wondrous all of it. . . .

          be the prayer

O God, in my helplessness, from nowhere, with nothing, let these poor prayers, as flowers, draw You

to the garden from which their fragrance arises.

                                        ~Regina Sara Ryan

Ryan, Regina Sara. Praying Dangerously: Radical Reliance on God. Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press, 2011. 19-20.

Hidden God, We Pray

Hidden God, whose depths are infinite,
Help us shed our outer layers in this silence.
Uncover the stranger that is within.
Living on the surface, seeing only what is visible,
can blind us toward the very thing we need to recognize. 
Rather than the condemnation we claim upon ourselves and others, 
guide us to deeper truths through which life emerges. 
Bring acceptance, clarity and peace up from the sacred chaos. Amen.

—Prayer by Janet Salbert

My Prayer

Help me see the good

and the bad,

O God,

as equal opportunities

to lean closer 

into your loving embrace.

Friday Five: Too Late!!

Many apologies for this very late Friday Five. Going out of town all day and not paying attention to the calendar, I mistakenly thought I was bringing next week’s FF. So here goes:

Have you ever been late? List five ways you have been late, remembering it is “Never Too Late To Love!”

1. Late with today's Friday Five AND yesterday's Thursday Prayer
I seem to be forgetting dates lately, as I am overwhelmed with the possibility of writing (or not) the three scholarly papers for the Master's Degree in Theology from Oblate School of Theology.

I have lots of excuses but no papers, not even the topics chosen. How will I ever get this done by the end of this semester? Panic.

So with embarrassment and apologies, I commit to pay more attention. (This is especially ironic considering the weekly book study group I lead, The Wisdom Class, is reading and discussing Awareness by Anthony de Mello.)

2. Late with piano practicing.
As I posted on Facebook yesterday, I sometimes forget such daily (so-called) disciplines as practicing the piano and centering prayer. If I just get started each time, I recognize how much I love doing these activities. . . .

That is a perfect image to go along with today's mishap. It's a Bitstrip cartoon, which I discovered through several other RevGals on Facebook.

3. Forgotten appointment
Forgetting an appointment for a massage, my massage therapist called me up to remind me. I've seen her since 1995, and I appreciate our connection. This year she began to text me to remind me ahead of time!

4. Late with papers
This is the biggest laxity on my part that is plaguing me. Having grown up in a family where denial of alcoholism was major, I easily fall back into denial. That's the only way I can describe my lack of participation last semester--I blocked it out of my consciousness. During this time I celebrated the birth of our second granddaughter and visited her a lot. However, excuses don't help.

Another preoccupation was the gift of an Ipad for my birthday, and that is so much fun to play on.

My daughter AE gave me a funny book about the over-use of technology for Christmas (when all four children and their spouses were home!)--Good Night, Ipad! It is authored by "Ann Droyd."

5. Just late
As I have been writing this FF, I keep thinking of Saint Augustine:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

from The Confessions of Saint Augustine

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grace

Thanks & blessings be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessings to them
who share it
(& also the absent & the dead).
Thanks & Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine & robs
the taste from the salt.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & work of justice, of peace.

~ Rafael Jesus Gonzalez ~

(In Praise of Fertile Land, edited by Claudia Mauro

My Prayer

Give me the strength that waits upon you in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. Possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone. 

Thomas Merton
Source: New Seeds of Contemplation

From Inward/Outward. Subscribe here.    

If Prayer Would Do It

If prayer would do it
I’d pray.

If reading esteemed thinkers would do it
I’d be halfway through the Patriarchs.

If discourse would do it
I’d be sitting with His Holiness
every moment he was free.

If contemplation would do it
I’d have translated the Periodic Table
to hermit poems, converting
matter to spirit.

If even fighting would do it
I’d already be a black belt.

If anything other than love could do it
I’d have done it already
and left the hardest for last.

Stephen Levine
Source: Breaking the Drought

From Inward/Outward. Subscribe here.   

Beyond Words

Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, God,
I do not suppose You are very tied to titles;
You seem to revel more
in creating and loving
Than arguing like we do.

You are beyond any name,
Beyond this group or that,
Beyond ideas or any ability to
Control You by definitions.

You are the Utterly Free One.
You are the Eternal I
That always allows me to be a Thou
Whenever we meet.

You are the Speaker, I am the spoken,
So Love must be Your name!
Which is always beyond words.

~~Martin Buber

You Keep Us

You keep us loving.
You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you--
to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;
and most difficult of all, to love ourselves.
So thank you. . . for the loving time.

And in all this, you keep us,
through hard questions with no easy answers;
through failing where we hoped to succeed
and making an impact when we felt we were uselss;
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;
and through Jesus Christ and his Spirit,
you keep us.
So thank you . . . for the keeping time,
and for now, and for ever. Amen.

~~Iona Community, Scotland

Soul Weavings: A Gathering of Women's Prayers. Ed. Lyn Klug.  Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1996.18.

Let Us Pray

"Overwhelm us with your beauty, 

Lord and make us to shine like the stars."

Common Prayer: A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals

Keep Our Questions Alive!

It seems to me Lord
that we search much too desperately for answers,
when a good question holds as much grace as an answer.
Jesus,
you are the Great Questioner.
Keep our questions alive,
that we may always be seekers rather than settlers.
Guard us well from the sin of settling in
with our answers hugged to our breasts.
Make of us a wondering, far-sighted, questioning, restless people
And give us the feet of pilgrims on this journey unfinished.

~~Macrina Wiederkehr

Friday Five: Prayer

At the beginning of this past week, I attended a conference on contemplative prayer entitled "Turning to the Mystics" at the 2013 Summer Institute at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. The speakers were James Finley, author and former novice of Thomas Merton; Mirabai Starr, author, translator, and speaker; and Father Ronald Rolheiser, author and president of OST. We were encouraged to regularly sit in quiet to come to realize our union with the Divine, who continually loves us into being.

So for this Friday Five, let us share about our prayer practices, whether silent or not:

1. How do you pray?
Little (flash) prayers throughout the day; prayers for loved ones and others at bedtime; silent prayer sometimes; breath prayers (repetitive short prayers).

2. How has your idea of prayer changed over time?
Like most people, my first idea of prayer was talking to God. There is nothing wrong with that, but in a relationship there needs to be listening, too. Learning about centering prayer through Thomas Keating brought me to try silent prayer which was furthered by reading, learning about Christ Centered Prayer and other forms of meditation.
I am coming to believe that feeling love for a person is a form of prayer, as is anything done in love.

3. Do you ever sit in silent prayer? How does it go?
I have an app on my Ipod and Iphone that is called "Equanimity" which is a timer for meditation which you can set yourself. It also keeps track of times of meditation. One time I had 93 straight days of continuous meditation, but I am rarely that consistent.

After attending that conference this week, I am nudged to meditate again each day. The ideal is twice a day, but my aim is at least once a day. I see that the encouragement of teachers, spiritual directors, prayer groups, and spiritual friends are essential for accountability and encouragement. 

4. Do you have any difficulties and/or pleasures in prayer?
Faithfulness is a problem for me. Monkey mind (many thoughts) plagues me.

Several things that James Finley told us at the conference help with those problems: 
We "abandon ourselves" when we stop the meditation, and we are "punitive" to ourselves when we say it wasn't good enough. And "Why do we treat ourselves like someone we don't want to be with?" Remember that "God loves us into being."

Pleasure: Facilitating and participating in a weekly lectio divina group for the past 15 years continues to reveal God's presence to me.


5. What is the best advice that helped you with prayer?
Sit for one minute faithfully, and God will grow the prayer.

Bonus: Share something about prayer or example of a prayer you like.

At the conference, Mary Earle who is an Episcopal Priest told us to to breath in thinking BREATHE and exhale IN ME.

Prayer

Ground of all being,
Mother of life,
Father of the universe,
Your name is sacred, beyond speaking.
May we know your presence,
May your longings be our longings
In heart and in action….—Casa del Sol prayer of Jesus

From Shalem Institute.

Your Silence

Your silence is full, irresistible;
your presence is joy unspeakable.
People drifting into mind
we lift to you and pray they find
health in sickness,
life in deadness,
strength in weakness,
light in darkness.
Their loss you bear, mysteriously;
Your peace you share, eternally.

~Anglican Church of Kenya, Our Modern Services (Nairobi: Uzima Press, 2002), p15

Serenity Prayer for CLUTTER

I used to pray the Serenity Prayer every day. Today Sue Fitzmaurice posted this clutter version on Facebook. I need to start saying this more than once a day. It seems meant for me, especially because my favorite color is green--AND I have too much junk in my house!

Give Us Compassion

Lord, have mercy. Have mercy on those in West, Texas who have had their world turned upside-down. Have mercy on those in Boston still struggling. Have mercy on those in Syria who are living in the midst of bombs and gunshots. Have mercy on those in North Korea who do not have enough to eat today. Have mercy on the 14.9 million children who have been orphaned by AIDS today. Have mercy, Lord Jesus. Have mercy. And in the midst of all of this, give us your heart. Give us the compassion that comes from You. Remind us that we ALL are in great need of your mercy, grace and love. Amen.

“Compassion- which means, literally, "to suffer with"- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, "What difference do you make?" but "What do you have in common?" It is not "excelling" but "serving" that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

From Renovare USA

From You

It is when we are still
that we know.
It is when we listen
that we hear.
It is when we remember
that we see your light, O God.
From your Stillness
we come.
With your Sound
all life quivers with being.
From You
the light of this moment shines.
Grant us to remember you at the heart of each moment.
Grant us to remember.

"Praying with the Earth" by John Philip Newell

Prayers Needed

Please pray for my husband's father, who is in extreme pain with various broken vertebrae in his back. His mobility, comfort and quality of life are greatly diminished.

When both my parents were ill and then died (in 1992 and 2002), I regretted not taking more pictures of them in their last years, while they were still healthy. Now I am wishing I had taken more pictures of Chuck's parents this past summer, when we saw them in Washington State.

Here is one of the few pictures I took in August 2012 in Bellingham. Although Avery is unhappy, her dad, grandpa and great-grandpa are in the picture. I like seeing the three generations of males together.

Chuck, Avery, oldest son DC, and Chuck's dad