Sunday Prayer 13A/Pentecost 7

O Lord our Governor, bless the leaders of our land, that we may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth.
Lord, keep this nation under your care.

To the President (of the United States - or insert proper titles for national leaders) and members of the Cabinet, to Governors of States, Mayors of Cities, and to all in administrative authority, grant wisdom and grace in the exercise of their duties.
Give grace to your servants, O Lord.

To Senators and Representatives, and those who make our laws in States, Cities, and Towns, give courage wisdom, and forsight to provide for the needs of all our people, and to fulfill our obligations in the community of nations.
Give grace to your servants, O Lord.

To the Judges and officers of our Courts, give understanding and integrity, that human rights may be safeguarded and justice served.
Give grace to your servants, O Lord.

And finally, teach our people to rely on your strength and to accept their responsibilities to their fellow citizens (and all humankind, all creation), that they may elect trustworthy leaders and make wise decisions for the well-being of our society (and all the world); that we may serve you faithfully in our generation and honor your holy Name.
For yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Amen.

From the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, "For Sound Government", page 822. Please adapt it to fit your nation and country, particularly if you are struggling as we are in the United States.

Prayer for our country

Almighty God,
bless our nation
and make it true
to the ideas of freedom and justice
and brotherhood for all who make it great.

Guard us from more wars,
from fire and wind,
from compromise, fear, confusion.

Be close to our leaders;
give them vision and courage,
as they ponder decisions affecting peace
and the future of the world.

Make me more deeply aware of my heritage;
realizing not only my rights
but also my duties
and responsibilities as a citizen.

Make this great land
and all its people
know clearly Your will,
that they may fulfill
the destiny ordained for us
in the salvation of the nations,
and the restoring of all things in Christ.

Amen

Anonymous

Jesus, where are you taking me?

Jesus, where are you taking me?
Into joy.
Into pain.
I am afraid,
but to do anything other than go with you
would be to die inwardly;
and to look for wholeness apart from you
would be to lose my true self.
So I come to you,
protesting and confused,
but loving you all the same.
You will have to hold on to me,
as we walk together
through this compelling and frightening landscape
of the Kingdom of God.

~~Angela Aswhin.

Ashwin, Angela. The Book of a Thousand Prayers. Ed. Angela Ashwin. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. 37.

Tuesday Prayer....

There are so many things to pray for, Holy One...
So much in the world....
The family who lost their child--a young soldier, to an IED....
The other family who is welcoming home their soldier after a year in Afghanistan....
The debt crisis...and prayers for wisdom for leaders in the US to be courageous and not stupid....
For those who worry about everything...
For those who are lonely and desperate....
For those who are so happy today, relaxing, free, on vacation, thank goodnesss....
For those who have no idea what is in their future...
For those dissappointed, by--whatever---
For those who are sad...
For those who are depressed....
For those who feel accomplished....
For....
(fill in the blank like a million times.......)
For this and everything and everyone we long to pray for but have not the words or thoughts...

O God, hear our prayer.
Amen.

Sunday Prayer 11A/Pentecost 6

Oh God, how are we to understand the tragedies
that befall your creation?
Humans inflicting pain on others -
economic pain,
emotional pain,
physical pain,
even the taking
of life.
Why all this violence?
Why so much anger?
Why?
How are we to pray?
What can we say?
We give it all to you.

To you, O God,
We incline our lives.
Giving you our silent
tears, the screams that cannot
leave our chest, the agony of
grief so deep we do not know
how to pray.
What are we to say?
We give it all to you.

With sighs too deep for words,
we give it all
to you.

Trusting in your Spirit
to do that which we
cannot.
To guide our lives
to turn our hearts
to transform this
broken world
and bring forth
healing,
as only You
can do.

We know not how to pray
but with sighs too deep
for words, Your spirit
births us whole, again.
Amen.

saturday: for peace

As more news pours out of Norway, and as violence continues in Syria and Libya and the Congo and Mexico and Colombia and in our own streets and towns, we pray for those who live in fear. We also pray for peace founded on justice to reign, sooner rather than later.

Creator of all,

you look with great love on all your people
of whatever race, culture and religion.
We ask you to bless us this day
and send your Holy Spirit upon us
and upon all the diverse peoples of our world:
the Spirit of peace and justice,
of understanding and reconciliation.
May people of violence
allow themselves to be touched
by the plight of those who suffer,
and may your Spirit help broaden the horizons
and deepen the understanding of us all.
We make this our prayer
through Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Amen.

prayer by Nicholas Hutchinson, found here.

To pray for Norway with the World Council of Churches, click here.

Friday Prayer: from C.S. Lewis

Master, they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream
--One talker, aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! The wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The Listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talking, thou are One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

Amen.

Thursday Prayer

O immeasurably tender love! Who would not be set afire with such love? What heart could keep from breaking? You, deep well of charity, it seems you are so madly in love with your creatures that you could not live without us! Yet you are our God, and have no need of us. Your greatness is no greater for our well-being, nor are you harmed by any harm that comes to us, for you are supreme eternal Goodness. What could move you to such mercy? Neither duty nor any need you have of us --but only love!

~~Saint Catherine of Siena


Chervin, Ronda De Sola. Prayers of the Women Mystics. Ann Arbor: Servant Publications, 1992. 88.

Wednesday Prayer..

I have been with my parents these past two weeks, helping them sort through their home of 40 years so that they can move to a more accessible home, across the state, closer to one of my sisters.

In the sorting, I found a book called "Apples of Gold"--given by another sister  to my mother on her birthday in 1979--32 years ago!  It's a collection of modern proverbs organized around the Fruits of the Spirit.

I liked the following passage in the Goodness section:

We search the world for truth, we cull
The good, the true, the beautiful,
From graven stone and written scroll,
And all old flower-fields of the soul;
And weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read. 


May you experience today all the goodness that is brimming from the books of our Mother's soul.
Amen.

Tuesday Prayer

I  don't have much scripture committed to memory, but the following is one that is rolling through my heart a lot lately.   I am pretty sure it is from a Psalm, and I am pretty sure this is a "karla-phrase"--close but not quite the NRSV version.  As it rolls through my heart and soul, it is a song learned long, long ago.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases-
God's mercies are new every day....
They are new every morning,
new every morning, 
Great is thy faithfulness, O God, 
Great is thy faithfulness. 


Today,
I am oh so grateful for the tender mercies that are new every morning.

Peace, and mercy and faithfulness be yours today.  Amen.

Prayer for a Summer Day

O God, giver and sustainer of all life, we thank you for this new day- this new summer day. Be with those who will have no place of respite in the summer heat. Help us to care for those who long for a sheltering cool place.

Bless those in need of rain with cool showers so that they may have a rich harvest. Guide us to be good stewards of the resources that you provide us.

For those who are enjoying the pleasures of vacation, may their travels be safe. May their hours be truly recreating. And for each of us Lord, grant a measure of your mercy and a fervent sense of your call to care for your world and each other. Amen

Sunday Prayer: Proper 11A/Ordinary 16A/Pentecost +5

Sweet Spirit of Sleep, who brings peace and rest
to weary bodies,
Empty us of aches and pains,
for we struggle as seeds through unyielding earth.

Bring us the timeless nature of your presence -
the endless void of our slumber.

Make us aware of the work we can do while in your time
Make us to know our dreaming,
where past and future are reconciled.

Come let us honor sleep, that knits up
the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life,
sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds,
great nature's second course,
chief nourisher in life's feast.

amen.

(Prayer from Congregation of Abraxas, in "Earth Prayers from Around the World" edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon; HarperOne: 1991)

Saturday prayer: intersection of the timeless moment

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

~from TS Eliot, Four Quartets: Little Gidding 1~

Psalm 139

Lord, I ask for peace, clarity, hope, and faith to fill the lives of each of us this day. We cannot manufacture these things--but help us to receive them as gifts from your Sprit. Amen

Thursday Prayer Thought

We are one, after all, you and I;

together we suffer,

together exist,

and forever will recreate each other.

~~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Peace Prayers: Meditations, Affirmations, Invocations, Poems, and Prayers for Peace. Ed. Carrie Leadingham, Joann E. Moschella, and Hilary M. Vartanian. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992. 27.

Wednesday Prayer..

Help.....
Thank you....
Amen

Backstory:  Once a month, someone from our congregation shares their "spiritual story."   I remember being struck when a single mom shared that her prayer life consisted of these two phrases, peppered throughout her day.  This is the way she prays.   I then remembered that somewhere, in one of Anne Lamott's books, she writes something quite similar about these two prayers.   Today feels like one of those days to me, for not just me, but for many of my beloved, including all of my virtual friends. May God help us in whatever we are facing, and indeed, gratitude abounds for the riches and risks in life. 

Tuesday Prayer

You are singing, little dove,
on the branches of the silk-cotton tree.
Andt there is also the cuckoo,
and many other little birds.
All are rejoincing,
the songbirds of our god, our Lord.
And our goddess
has her little birds,
the turtledover, the redbird,
the black and yellow songbirds, and the hummingbird.
These are the birds of the beautiful goddess, our Lady.
If there is such happiness
among the creatures,
why do our hearts not also rejoince?
At daybreak all is jubilant.
Let only joy, only songs,
enter our thoughts!
-Son of Dzitbalche

Sunday Prayer/Proper 10A/Pentecost 4

For all the blessings of this life,
we give thanks to You, Creator God.
For: families, friends, colleagues,
neighbors, and strangers, who nurture
us, that the love of God may grow
within. That Your love, your Word,
like a seed, may grow to produce
in us, good fruit.

May your love, be like a seed, taking root and growing strong.

For the leaders of various nations
and cities, that they may lead with
strong hearts and gentle hands and
generous spirits, with compassion
and mercy, with wisdom and grace.
May they reflect your will guiding
all their actions and decisions.

May your love, be like a seed, taking root and growing strong.

For those who serve in harms way,
those who live in dangerous places,
those who live in areas of war and strife,
those who live in fear, those who worry
about employment, bills, food, and
struggle just to find dignity in life.
May your grace bring peace and safety
to all people, one to another.

May your love, be like a seed, taking root and growing strong.

For those who suffer from any illness,
or dis-ease - of mind, body, or spirit.
Restore these, and all those we carry
in our hearts, to fullness of health.
Health as only you, O God, can bring.
May your mercy shower each of us
with healing mercy and love.

May your love, be like a seed, taking root and growing strong.

For those who are dying, and
for those who have died. Send
forth your comforting love.
Give solace to those who mourn.
Console those who grieve.
May your grace surround us
like a mantle upon our heads
a shawl upon our shoulders
a hand, to hold our hand.

May your love, be like a seed, taking root and growing strong.
Amen.

Saturday--alive through love

"In my vision I saw something small. No bigger than a hazelnut, it lay in the palm of my hand, round as a ball. Looking at it with the eye of my understanding, I wondered, 'What is that?' I was given to understand it is everything in creation. That this minute thing lasted at all amazed me. It was so tiny, it looked like it would suddenly vanish into nothing.

"Concerning this tiny, hazelnut-sized cosmos, I received this answer in my soul, 'It lasts and always will because God loves it.' I saw then that everything's alive through God's love. The little thing I saw that seemed like it could vanish into nothingness because of its insubstantiality, this little thing is why our hearts and souls don't know perfect peace.

"We seek rest here in this very little thing, in which there is no rest, and we don't know our God, who is almighty, all wise, and all good--God is the only true Rest. That's why no soul is at rest until it scorns as nothing all created things.

"When the soul becomes the nothing God wants the soul to be--for love--when it wants instead to possess the Lord, who is everything, then it can accept spiritual rest"

~Julian of Norwich, Revelations~

A Prayer for Self Acceptance

God, I am fallible, and only human. Sometimes I fail.

My best efforts are not always enough. My best intentions and judgment can be wrong and my sincerest beliefs can be flawed.  I am fallible and only human.

Today I ask that I may have the courage to accept my limitations.
May I have the flexibility and insight to change my mind.
May I have the openness to see the truths in beliefs that are not my own
I am only human, but I seek to grow in wisdom and understanding.

May this new day bring me deeper awareness of others and myself.

Amen.

Abby Willowroot

Thursday Prayer

God, lover of us all,
most holy one,
help us to respond to you,
to create what you want for us here on earth.
Give us today enough for our needs;
forgive our weak and deliberate offences,
just as we must forgive others
when they hurt us.
Help us to resist evil
and to do what is good;
for we are yours,
endowed with your power
to make our world whole.

~~Lala Winkley

Winkley, Lala. The Book of a Thousand Prayers. Ed. Angela Ashwin. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. 36.

A Wednesday Prayer, just because....

Just because you invite us in,
at all times..
to rest in You,
to let you love us,
to let you help us to remember we are never alone....
we give you thanks.  

Just because you welcome us,
we still forget,
and yet you never forget....
that You created us,
that You long for us
to be all that You have made us to be.

oh, just because You love,
and just because we sometimes forget,
and just because we even sometimes remember,

We give you thanks.
Just because.
Amen.

The Spirit of Aloha

Hawaiian Teaching of Aloha

from “Tales of the Night Rainbow”

by Kaili’ohe Kame’ekua p. 19

Aloha is being a part of all and all being a part of me.

When there is pain-it is my pain.

When there is joy-it is mine also.

I respect all that is as part of the Creator and part of me.

I will not willfully harm anyone or anything.

When food is needed I will take only my need,

and explain why it is being taken.

The earth, the sky, and the sea are mine to care for, 

to cherish and protect.

This is Hawaiian-this is Aloha! 

This Is My Song

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are ev'rywhere as blue as mine.
So hear my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

This is my prayer, O God of all earth's kingdoms,
your kingdom come; on earth your will be done.
O God, be lifted up till all shall serve you,
and hearts united learn to live as one.
So hear my prayer, O God of all the nations;
myself I give you; let your will be done.

Text: Lloyd Stone, 1912-1993, sts. 1-2; Georgia Harkness, 1891-1974, st. 3
Text sts. 1-2 © 1934, 1962 Lorenz Publishing Company. Text st. 3 © 1964 Lorenz Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Sunday Prayer Proper 9A

Holy and Gracious God,
we give thanks for all
the blessings of this life.
For, the degree to which we
know freedom and justice,
for the leaders of our nations
for the those who strive to
bring peace into the world,
may we know your mercy and
act with compassion.

We give thanks
for family, friends,
and those care for us.
May we know your love
in them, through them.
May those we know and
love, be safe this day,
protected from all trials,
comforted in strife,
healed in illness of
mind, body, or spirit.

We give thanks
for this earth, the various
lands we live in and on,
for water, that it may be clean
for those who need water,
for those struggling with
drought, wildfires, forest fires,
or an over abundance of water,
may they know balance and relief.

We give thanks
for food, that all may be well fed,
that those who are in need, will be
satisfied, that those who have
plenty will share, that all will
filled and nourished.

We give thank
for our health, and ask your blessing
on those who suffer for any cause.
May they be comforted.

We give thanks for the gift
of Jesus, your love in the world,
who comes to share our burdens,
that they may be light.

Amen.

Your Grace is Enough

it's been a crazy week for many people I love, so this week I needed a little reminder. Thanks to Chris Tomlin for providing it.