Category Archives: prayer

Weeping With Those Who Weep

18 Thursday Aug 2022

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A Time for Weeping…


I have been feeling that this is a season for to “weeping with those who weep,” an injunction from Christian scripture. There is so much grief in the world, cosmic and personal. Then, as I got ready to write, an article appeared in a periodical for Christians, from a pastor, exploring just that practice. 20 pastors gathered together to explore what it means to weep with those who weep in their pastoral role in a time so filled with weeping–global, ecclesiastical, national, personal. (Christian Century, August. 10 2022, Mountains of Grief, Plantlnga, p. 12 ). I was touched and challenged by the very courage to gather together to be honest around such a poignant practice, and was further encouraged by the humility that characterized their gathered wisdom: no bromides, no one-size-fits-all answers, no pat solutions, no spiritualized responses that had been of use in another time and place.

So it was with that affirmation that I began to explore what that charge mans to me–a retired clergy person, who is living with great care about COVID, a threat to someone my age, and someone whose family has high risk health issues, yet someone who still has connections to those from a lifetime of accompanying so many on the journey of Spirit. In addition, right now, I am not given to actual liquid tears in the way I was at younger ages–teens, early motherhood, early ministry. How do I weep for the whole suffering world that God love? for the particular ones I have been given to love in my life?

This week we suffered a loss in our extended family. As in many modern middle class families, we were not close, either geographically or emotionally. Yet, along with John Donne, we had to acknowledge that “each…death diminishes me.” And that for those who were much closer, there was weeping–for what was, for what wasn’t, for “things done and undone;” we needed to pay attention. So how am finding ways to weep, metaphorically if not physically?

I begin by acknowledging that this is indeed a time for weeping. There is loss, there is pain, there is guilt, there is grief. I see and honor that–for myself and for the one who weeps, with the knowledge that each one grieves in their own way And I pray! I pray for peace and a comfort, for a sense of Holy Presence, for resources to be available for the weeper’s needs. Then, I pray for discernment as to my next action to that one: should I call. write, send a token? should I make a gift in memory of the loss? who might need or want to hear from me? would it be welcome or intrusive? If the weeping is for a death or great loss, the words and sensibilities that I might share cannot be words of advice or bromides or explanations, maybe rather remembrances of good times, affirmations and graces. Could I listen deeply and do nothing except be there, virtually or in person?

As this era of human life rolls out in these days of unknowing, I see more and more opportunities for me to practice weeping with those who weep. And I pray that I will be one who is able to respond to that need with trust, peace and grace.

Suspended in Time

10 Friday Jul 2020

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Among the hard things that have fallen out of this pandemical sheltering in place is the loss of ability to plan. So many squares in my day-runner are now neither full nor empty, just scratched with cancellations, and there are no future appointments down the weeks to replace them. A trip to see grands? an elective surgery? a dentist appointment? even lunch with the Tall Group? I feel stuck. Since I am used to planning for events, appointments and possibilities, I feel stuck many days!

I get some perspective when I reflect on how many people over the course of history and even in the present day are proscribed in their planning. Who could plan if they are incarcerated or under house arrest or in hiding? Who could plan when they set out, not knowing where they were going or who was taking them? Who can plan is their city is being bombed and occupied by hostile forces days after day? I have enjoyed a life that has afforded me so much latitude, so many choices. And I still have many of them! It’s just that the circumference of my choices has narrowed, and some days I chafe under the restrictions.

Therefore! today I am choosing to explore the edges of my time and space limitations:

  • how can I honor and use my body in the hours in which I have energy? walk the labyrinth, stretch my legs, play the piano, bathe my muscles? all of these I can do without harming myself or endangering others, and can let Spirit energy flow through me.
  • to what can I give my intelligence, to keep my mind flexible? so many resources are available through books, podcasts, blogs and newspapers, on-line or paper right now: daily news summary, a book on Native American philosophy and practice of living with the Earth, journeys with folks on pilgrimage–personal, memorial, spiritual, African-American spirituality.
  • to whom can I reach out in the many modes of communication at hand? friends who are isolated by health or circumstance, those in suffering or in mourning, those with whom I have allowed too much time to pass in our togetherness. Even with sheltering in place, I now have Face Time, Facebook, Instagram, e-mail, snail mail, text messages, phone; how amazing to be granted access to so many far and wide! And how freeing it is to choose one to express love, appreciation and grace.
  • in what ways can I deepen my experience of the Holy One and the worlds that have been created? how can my journey of Spirit broaden without being able to “plan my work, and work my plan”? I have precious time for silence, and therefore, for prayer of many kinds–gratitude, reflection, hope, compassion, lament and need. I can join praying congregations on-line, adapting to singing along with the soloists, saying words of liturgy with the congregation in Spirit without hearing other voices, listening to a Word that come though a screen. And I can use my communication platforms to work for justice and kindness through my giving, my encouragement and my prayers.

What is more elusive is a daily plan. Almost daily my “plan” gets derailed by “tyranny of the urgent:” road closures, doings in the neighborhood, news from near and far. So without a plan, confined to quarters, I rest in these sacred and wise words from the Psalmist:

  • my times are in your hands
  • THIS is the day that God has made,
  • I will bless the Holy at all times, praise shall continually be in my in mouth

In this time which feels hidden and fallow to me, there is still Spirit at work–in me, in the world, even when we feel stuck! Gratefully sighing!

A Prayer for Energy

31 Sunday May 2020

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You will receive Power…

Come, Holy Spirit!

Today we as a community acknowledge Your Presence in, among and through us! Our life and breath is dependent on You! So much of our own thought and action relies on You! Yet, my prayer today is in particular for that power, that energy, that is promised in Your coming.

I feel out of power, out of energy. This calendar year has brought a sequence of personal physical recovery, a worldwide pandemic, the dissolution of familiar landmarks and institution, the continual barrage of misdeeds and violence, the overlay of great gray loss of trust in process, in fairness, in justice. So today I ask that once again I will be infused with an awareness of Your power in me for the days in which I am living:

  • I need energy to continue to shelter in place, to be vigilant about protecting others and myself from the virulent virus that has swept through the globe.
  • I need energy to keep imagining ways for me to contribute to the healing of the world from the limitations of my age and stage, from confinement, from my location of privilege, with my shortcomings and inadequacies.
  • I need energy to listen deeply and continually to the pain–individual and collective–of the suffering of people I love, those given to my care and the many sectors of the community who have no helper, no advocate, no voice.
  • I need energy to reach out to those who are lonely, isolated, without a community, to bring the gifts of hope, grace and love to them that reflects Your love and presence to them.
  • I need energy to trust that with You there will be a way that “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

Come, Holy Spirit, breathe on me, breathe in me, give me Your power and energy for the living of these days!

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Advent 3: Love Evolving

16 Sunday Dec 2018

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My reflection on Mary, the mother of Jesus prompts this prayer on the third Sunday of Advent. which by some calendars is about Love:

O Holy One of Love,

I long to be as loving as Mary, when she first said yes to Gabriel, to be the bearer of the Light, persistent despite her anxiety, reaching out for friendship when she felt so alone, bursting forth with praise and gladness for the Light she knows in her body and spirit.

I would want to be as flexible as she was in adapting to her circumstances–long journey in discomfort, doing what was required amid fearful politics, reflective of all that kept coming her way.

I celebrate and would learn from her caregiving to her child, no matter how old he was, and her celebration of his emerging person, meanwhile speaking her truth to him as she understood it.

I pray for the tenacity and courage to stay with each of my beloved ones, as long as I live, even if means walking with them through heavy sorrow and broken-heartedness.

I pray that I will be supportive of the vision and journey of each one, even as they go on paths that are alien to me, even unimaginable.

In this Advent season I look back and give thanks for the Love that has brought me safely thus far, however imperfect, love that was patient, faithful, elastic, welcoming and celebrating. Keep teaching me by your Spirit to keep learning to Love as many days as I have been given to Love!

In the name of the One who is Love in Person, Amen


Advent 1: In the Dark

02 Sunday Dec 2018

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It is dark this year! Not just at the beginning of Advent, but it has been thus all year! So I offer a prayer in the Dark:

God, the world is dark at the beginning of this year. I am often anxious in the dark–of noises that frighten, of shapes that threaten, at memories that haunt. This year so much seems so much darker–the grief of the planet, the chaos in nations, the loss of hope in the community of peoples.

The lives of people I love are dark. Illness, loneliness, catastrophic loss,deep sorrow, frustration and boredom all cut hug swaths of attention, intention and aspiration, energy. They, and I, struggle to keep finding the light and the places where it can get in.

As I age I notice more darkness in me–my response to my limitations, with less patience for the change and decay in the world, my feeling less powerful to make a difference, fewer days in which I can persist.

Yet I am sure and I trust that You are in the dark too, with me, and in the world. Along with the psalmist, I know that “my darkness is not dark to you!” When I lift up my head and look around, I see that there are glimmers of Light shining–in communities that gather to rescue, save and preserve; in churches that act on their convictions to care for the poor, widows and children; in generous souls who keep on with their acts of great love and their constant presence to those in pain, whether it is received with grace or not.

So today I light my first candle of Advent to add both my witness to the Light in which I trust, and to signal my commitment to be a bearer of that Light in to the places that I go. I light it to remember that as the gospeller John tells us, You the Light are the Light of God and the darkness cannot put it, or You, out! By Your Spirit I can fan my sparks of hope, despite the “encircling gloom,” despite the ugliness that passes for common discourse in these times, no matter the catastrophe of the hour.

As I write this, the radio begins to play, “Lux Aeterna,” by Morton Lauridsen, Eternal Light. Yes, Light of the Holy, You never are extinguished, even in times of deep darkness.This Advent, while feeling blanketed by darkness, I am joining Your Light for the world, even as we wait for your coming again in the world.

Amen

 

 

Seasons of Love

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

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hydroponicgarden“Tis the season…” June begins a plethora of seasons for me. As one whose days were at one time calibrated to the academic year, I am now am witness to and living into seasons determined by other factors–age, mobility, family evolution and political whimsy. Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a season for everything, a time for everything under heaven. But I wonder if the writer could have imagined the kinds of seasons that I am encountering as a person, a woman, a mother and grandmother, a church member and a citizen.

For a decade or more June for me began the season of the General Assembly of the larger church to which I belong. I went to each gathering, either to participate in deliberations or to teach seminary students about both the Spirit and the instrumental working of the larger church. Hope and feelings ran high and love, every spare minute was booked and accounted for, perspectives were shared and challenged. It was a time of high adrenaline and intensity with a steep learning curve with people to whom you belonged but had never met. I have enjoyed observing from home how GA continues to change and adapt and become the next thing, with new players, new sensibilities, new energy this year. But my season at GA is over. I now take the role of the Prayerful Observer, trusting that the same Spirit that brought energy, imagination and love to the gatherings I attended does so still.

While in academia June began the season of travel–faraway places like Spain, France, Germany, and The British Isles or parts of our own country like New Orleans, New England or New Mexico. Airplane, train and car were all at our disposal, and I loved the exploration, the introduction to new things, and the unfailing beauty of the unknown. I am fascinated as I follow the peregrinations of beloved ones around the world this year–Bhutan, Amsterdam, Nairobi, the Holy Land, France and Iceland. Yet for the time being this is not a season of travel for me. Surgeries, illness, needs of those for whom I care and my awareness of my aging body have kept me tethered to my home space. For now I am an Armchair Traveler, squealing with delight at picture of glaciers and waterfalls, opening wide eyes at beauty in museums and mountain ranges, laughing aloud at happy faces mugging and clowning in exotic lands. And I pray for open eyes and hearts for each one along with safety and protection.

What season is it for me this June? I am discovering day by day what it might mean to be a Prayerful Observer and an Armchair Traveler. I am centered in praying without ceasing: I can’t march downtown, but I can send contributions from my computer, along with my thoughts and prayers. I can’t attend the rallying meetings around the neighborhood, but I can mail in my ballot, and encourage others to do the same. I can’t bring a casserole over, but I can offer words of encouragement and send cards of joy to “encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, and be patient with all of them,” (I Thess. 4:14). And to bring the patience home: to be a peaceful, non-anxious presence in my own immediate sphere, stretching to the elastic and episodic needs of those in recovery, in waiting, in moving through change.

It is a quieter June than past ones, but I am seeking to welcome it, invite it one, and savor the way the Spirit comes to heal, to bless and to give joy!

 

Spiritual Clutter

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

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images-2The liturgical year comes to an end this week, and I am struggling with what  am experiencing as spiritual clutter in my heart and mind: too many books, too many websites, too many blogs from others, too many fraught conversations. All of these sources are good, some even brilliant, but the sheer number of them is crowding out my ability to listen for the Word of the Holy One to me day by day.

I am attracted to every shiny word and image about people’s journey of Spirit that I see. What does this young woman have to say? what insights do these theologians have to bring? how are these spiritual teachers expanding the parameters of deep conversation? and who are the latest voices to come to sit in at the table of conversation? Most of these sources are worthy, provocative and helpful. Theirs are insights and perspectives that challenge and enrich my own study and experience so far. But what I am finding is that for me right now, the engagement of “more” is crowding out the “one thing necessary” that Jesus flagged for Martha and Mary, that time of listening deeply, musing, pondering, letting the Word dwell in me richly, truly, madly deeply. I read quickly, so I can absorb lots of words in a record amount of time, but I am noticing that my rapid speed and prodigious quantities of written material are making it hard for me to hear a Word. I remember the seekers who went to the Desert Ammas and Abbas to ask, “Amma, give me a word!” Rarely were the responses given in more than one or two sentences. When that Word was given, the seeker was to go into her own life again to ponder, to meditate, to contemplate what that might mean for her in the location she was given to live.

As I take the turn into Advent next week, I want to  attend to the one thing necessary. It will mean ignoring and tuning out some very glittering images and plangent siren calls of What’s New, What’s Exciting and What’s Different. It will mean turning down the volume on the shrieking headlines and news updates of the hour. It will mean choosing an Advent practice wisely, and then sticking with that, and only that, while I give myself the time and space to reflect on what comes up for me. It will mean committing myself to the parts of my practice that I skate over quickly–the silence, the journal writing, the focused prayer. And keep my eyes and ears focused on the one thing I intend to do.

I have already begun removing things from my basket in my prayer place. That book I nearly finished but didn’t can go to another stack of awaited reading. That diary that is more about quotidian activities than the heart of the matter can come to my reading chair for later. That journal that is really completed can be replaced by a new one that is eagerly waiting with me for a Word. And my timer can keep me rooted and breathing in my prayer place as I listen for the Word.

My late spiritual director, Betsy, often quoted C.G. Jung, saying ,”The Good is the Enemy of the Best.” The good clutter all around, so readily accessible to me, is in this moment the enemy of my best hope for getting a clear channel of connection to the Holy One who is waiting to teach and direct me in these days fraught with bafflement. outrage and grief. My invitation is to un-clutter, sit still and keep my heart, eyes and ears open.

I look forward to what will come in this Advent of attention.

When I Do Not Know What To Pray

16 Saturday Sep 2017

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These past days have been very challenging to the way I pray. I have beloved ones in harm’s way, and I pray for their safety. And I am aware that thousands of others are in the same harm’s way, and I pray for them. I hold close some of those dear to my heart going through deep waters with health, economic and relationship issues. They are part of national and global systems which do not give them the support and the resources they need, so I am pressed to pray for them too. The captions on the day’s reporting don’t amuse, just depress even further. How do I pray? And I am coming up on a Big Birthday after a year of being bumped by things that slowed me down, another call to prayerfully re-imagine myself for the next stage!

I then remember an old Celtic prayer called the Caim Prayer, designed to be of use when nothing else–words, icons, intentions–don’t seem to be. The Lindisfarne Comunity of England suggests that I pray the following prayer while drawing a circle around myself, using the right index finger as I pray, symbolizing the encircling love of God:

Circle me, Lord,/ Keep comfort near/and discouragement afar./Keep peace within/ and turmoil out./ Amen.

This feels as if it could be a beginning, a centering of myself in the Mystery, finding a place to get my equilibrium, a place to stand, some equipoise. Then the community prayer book offers some alternative readings into which I can insert particular names and situations:

For the ones in the path of the hurricanes, those known to me and those unknown: Circle them, Lord./ Keep protection near/and danger afar.

For those facing the inexorable changes in the structure and systems in which they work: Circle them, Lord./Keep hope within, /keep despair without.

For the one who is navigating complicated medical procedures and diagnoses: Circle her, Lord. Keep light near,/ and darkness afar.

For the one who feels caught between a rock and a hard place: Circle him, Lord./Keep peace within/ and anxiety without.

The Eternal Triune God shield all of them on every side.

The question is raised: do these prayers work? I don’t believe that “working” is something prayers are for. The Caim Prayer is a prayer for Presence, for awareness, for hope, no matter the reality, no matter the circumstance. It focuses divine, mysterious attention on a world where the rain falls on the just and the unjust, in which we have sorrow, in which we have no permanent abiding place, in which we are waiting for the Holy One to bring all things together.

And so I keep circling my heart, and the hearts, minds and bodies of the world with this prayer, even while I send checks, make phone calls, advocate for justice, listen to stories that need to be told. Another hurricane is forming, another visit to a doctor is scheduled, another tear in the seam of the broken world needs mending. So I continue to pray, Circle…and all of your beloved ones…. Lord./ Keep us all in the circle of your care.

 

The Caim Prayer is found in Volume I of Celtic Daily Prayer, from the Northumbria Community. 2002, Harper Collins, Page 297.

Personal photo from an exhibit of art from central western Africa displayed at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer for a Summer Wednesday

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

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I pray a prayer of celebration today for a joyful wedding anniversary in our family. Twenty years ago no one could have imagined or anticipated the over-arching health, love and creative children that have grown in this marriage, open and inclusive to the welfare of others. My prayer is one of deep gratitude and hope for continued shaping a life of love together.

I prayer a prayer of lament today for an unwelcome diagnosis for another in the family. No one could have imagined or anticipated this invasion into a healthy life, and even now we don’t know what it means, what it will look like, where the journey will take us. My prayer is first, that God in mercy will continue the healing toward wholeness already begun, and that each of us will know how to participate in that healing, through tears, laughter and love.

I prayer a prayer of urgent petition for peace and justice today for this country, buffeted about in division and question about where truth can be found. No one could have imagined or anticipated this liminal place in which we wake every day to new surprise, and can’t count on things that were true yesterday being the same today. My prayer is that people of great compassion and will speak truth to power, speak the truth in love, and know when to speak and when to keep silence for the healing of all people.

I pray a prayer for  an awareness Holy Presence–in me through the frustrations of technology, through the quotidian mysteries of caring for my dwelling and the people in it, through the extroversion I adopt to go out to meet people, through the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart as I listen to the One standing behind me, saying “This is the way, walk in it.”  I could not have imagined or anticipated that at this point in my life, this would be a day on which I found myself, living in light and darkness simultaneously, trying to navigate a clear path between mundane and epic concerns, living intentionally and consciously, sorting out what things have my name on them and what things to let go.

But this is the day that the Spirit has made…I pray to rejoice, to weep, to do good, love mercy and walk humbly with whomever I encounter…for God’s sake!

 

 

Come. Holy Spirit

04 Sunday Jun 2017

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Come. Holy Spirit! Today we celebrate your presence in our lives, in the Church and in the world.

I pray to meet you in the depth of my heart where I am so prone to fear and anxiety, so quick to forget that I am committed to Hope, to Love, intending to believing and acting on the principle that “all will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

I pray to let you heal me–body and spirit–of those wounds and scars that are left over from old memories, early traumas and the hurts and slights that keep popping up in the course of my daily rounds.

I pray to feel your energy surging in my recovering body, in my brain that too often forgets things these days, in my praying spirit that bogs down with the enormity and complexity of this sad world.

I pray to allow your wildness keep opening my heart to finding ways when there seems to be no way, to taking in the most unlikely ones who cross my path, to putting the resources I have to the healing of the fragments of this world where I can make a difference, however small.

I pray for the wounds of so many in so many places, with its accompanying fear that we can’t know where terror will break out next. I pray that You will keep up Your powerful attack on the minds and wills of those who are heartless, greedy and self-serving only, and transform their hearts to ones of compassion and caring. 

I pray for Your Presence in the created world, that as it struggles to survive and thrive, you will teach me how to cooperate with that healing, with Your power to give me words and actions that will preserve and respect the beauty and sustainability of Earth’s resources.

I pray for Your Wisdom for all people of faith as they wrestle to know how to be observant of their commitment to You in times and events that are muddy and messy.

I pray that You, Holy Healer, will touch the bodies and spirits and minds of those who suffer, and where there is despair, replace it with hope and peace.

And for all those areas for which I have words but can’t get them out, and for those things deep inside me for which I have no words, Spirit, turn them into creative and cogent expressions of my heart to the Holy–for what is loving. joyful, peaceful, kind and generous, and faithful in my walking and talking, singing and dancing, working and giving, hoping and living each day with imagination, energy and love.

Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

 

 

 

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