Friday Prayer: What Name Shall I Call You?

O transcendant, almighty God,
What words can sing your praises?
No tongue can describe you.
No mind can probe your mystery.
Yet all speech springs from you,
And all thought stems from you.
All creation proclaims you,
All creatures revere you.
Every gust of wind breathes a prayer to you,
Every rustling tree sings a hymn to you.
All things are upheld by you.
And they move according to your harmonious design.
The whole world longs for you,
And all people desire you.
Yet you have set yourself apart,
You are far beyond our grasp.
You are the purpose of all that exists,
But you do not let us understand you.
Lord, I want to speak to you.
By what name shall I call you?


- Gregory of Nazianzus

Friday Prayer: Let it out

God,

You know the secrets of my heart. 

So, why do I have to pray? If you already know, I'd hate to put the Holy Spirit out of a job. 

Yet, the words pour forth. 

My concerns... my fears... my needs... my joys... my desires...

The foremost thoughts tumble out and they are slowly caboosed by the truths that I cannot hide from you. 

I cannot help, but pray. 

You can help and do. 

Thank you. 

Thank you. 

Thank you. 

Amen. 

RevGalPrayerPals: Friday Prayer

I cannot pray like Peter and I don't know that I want to preach like Paul.

Telling the love of Jesus is the desire of my heart, but it is tougher than I expected. 

I long for the balm of Gilead. I ask for a soothed soul. 

I seek the deep scent and softness of that balm and, in that experience, 

I so briefly feel the brush of wings- the Spirit, she hovers. 

On the day, O Lord, grant rest to my soul and respite to all who cry out to You. 

Amen, 

RevGalPrayerPals: Waiting for My Children to Sleep

Abba-

I sit here and wait,

Damp with sweat and tired...

Waiting for the stillness that means they sleep. Oh, so briefly, 

I am tired to the bone, but I dare not complain. 

So many friends long for this task, but does not need doing in their house.

Many grieve to wait this wait one more time. 

Some keep this vigil, accompanied by the hum of machines and hospital sounds. 

And some friends have a life without this wait, which is also fine. 

I wait and I listen and I feel a connection to all those...

And to You, who keep this watch every day, for the whole creation. 

Thank you. 

Amen. 

RevGalPrayerPals: Friday Prayer: Open-Ended

Breath of Life- within and without-

Holy is your name.

     Strengthen my desire for you. 

You are ever with me. 

     Increase my awareness of your presence. 

You know all my desires. 

     Receive the prayers of my heart. 

You are the peace that passes all understanding. 

    Favor me with a glimpse of that peace. 

Amen. 

Friday Prayer: For Racial Harmony

For Racial Harmony

God of all, in your love you made all the nations of the world to be a family, and your Son taught us to love one another.

Yet our world is riven apart with prejudice, arrogance, and pride.

Help the different races to love and understand one another better.

Increase among us sympathy, tolerance, and goodwill,that we may learn to appreciate the gifts races and ethnicities may share with one another, and to see in all people our brothers and sisters for whom Christ died.

Save us from jealousy, hatred, and fear, and help us to live together as members of one family at home in the world, sons and daughters of one Holy Parent who live in the liberty of the children of God;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Edited from the Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland 
(Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1994)

Monday Prayer: Gratitude

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. 


Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”  ― Thomas Merton

God, open my heart so that I may more fully experience your goodness in all around me- all situations, all people, all creation, in silence and in singing. Amen.

Monday Prayer: John the Baptizer

Holy Parent of All-

On this his feast day, we give you thanks for John the Baptizer. We praise your hand for his zeal and fervor, for his conviction and temerity, for his courage and his faithful action.

We are moved at his boldness in proclaiming Your kingdom.
We resonate with his hesitation at baptizing his cousin, Jesus- his Savior and our Lord.
We lament his death- too soon- at the hands of Herod and Herod's wife.
We thrill at his call to prepare, in the wilderness, the way of the Lord.

We want to be like him.

But then we don't.

Well, we'd like the same conviction, the same strength, the same courage, the same tangible experience of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

We would prefer not to die like him, not to be uncomfortable in diet or clothing, to speak truth to power  but without being terrified of what it will mean for our future.

Can we have one set of requests without the other?

No?

Reflection

Lord, make us like John the Baptizer and quickly, before we can change our minds.

Amen.

Monday Prayer: A Scholar's Wish (Or a Pastor's)

God help my thoughts! They stray from me, setting off on the wildest journeys. 
When I am in church, they run off like naughty children, quarreling, making trouble. 
When I read the Bible, they fly off to a distant city, filled with beautiful women. 
My thoughts can cross an ocean with a single leap; they can fly from earth to heaven, and back again, in a single second. 
They come to me for a fleeting moment, and then away they flee. No chains, no locks can hold them back; no threats of punishments can restrain them, no hiss of lash can frighten them. 
They slip from my grasp like tails of eels; they swoop hither and thither like swallows in flights. 
Dear, chaste Christ, who can see into every heart and read every mind, take hold of my thoughts. Bring my thoughts back to me, and clasp me to yourself. 

Amen. 

"Celtic Prayers". The HarperCollins Book of Prayers, 1993. p. 95

Monday Prayer: For Those Who Mourn (Dirge Without Music)

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Thursday Prayer

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

Wednesday: Mary May

Well but there was more than this:
Spring’s universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfèd cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoo call
Caps, clears, and clinches all—

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation. 

Image above: Mary, the Holy Mother of God by Melissa Strickler.

Words above from The May Magnificat by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89). Read the entire poem HERE.
 
- from Episcopal Café Art Blog

Monday Prayer: Memorial Day

God of peace and reconciliation-

We ask that your holy light would shine this day on:

All those men and women of this country who gave their lives in wars and conflicts, who died in many and various ways, who may or may not have agreed with the cause, whose lives brought greater freedom and whose lives are part of regrettable history. May they rest in your peace.

All those men and women of other countries- who had families, hopes, and dreams- who may have fought willingly or were coerced or manipulated, who saw a greater good or who felt a sense of hopelessness. May they rest in your peace.

All those men and women of all countries who died for peace, who refused to fight, who hungered and thirsted for righteousness, who died hoping for an end to violence. May they rest in your peace.

On this day, may we remember that war is not inevitable. Death is an enemy- of yours and of ours. Grant us the resolve to be dedicated to the cause of peace.

Amen.

Wednesday Prayer: In Stress

Good morning, God

Today I need to remember
that I am not the pure center of the universe

and that you are sitting in that chair next to me

no matter the unexpected frustrations the day may throw at me

you are there

you will advise me on the best way to catch the Big Crazy Thing

you will cheer for me when I dismount the beam where I am balancing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Image: Bruce Bane

Tuesday Prayer: God has your back.

...I will go before you
and level the mountains,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know it is I,
the Lord,
the One who calls you by your name.
Isaiah 45: 2-3.

Amen.

Monday Prayer: After the Fire

God of Pentecosts-

We have received from you an inheritance of fire, not of ashes.

You have breathed your Spirit into us and we have been born anew.

And now our raised hands look for your purpose.

Our feet look for your path.

We look to spend our inheritance as fools for your grace,

As fools in your grace.

As fools by your grace.

Amen.

Thursday Prayer

"Lord Jesus, come into my heart; pray in me and with me; so that I may learn from you how to pray."

~Mother Teresa

Wednesday Prayer: Conscientious Objector

May 15 is observed by many as International Conscientious Objector's Day.  

Conscientious Objector

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

a Tuesday prayer...

...for this real-ness of life,
I give thanks.

...for the torti cat watching me pray this prayer, with half open eyes, purring loudly, waiting for me to finish so that she might jump on my lap,
I give thanks.

...for the delicious dinner out last evening, complete with coconut tofu sticks and fig and gorgonzola pizza and vegan shepherd's pie, with good wine, and amazing, amazing women who make Sunday School happen at my church,
I give thanks, and PRAISE, and awe.

...for the tiny two and half year old child who touched my glittery scarf two nights ago and said, "I loooove your scarf" and then took off his sandals to run barefoot through the room,
I give thanks, and smile.

...for the 15 and a half year old blind, deaf, loud, incontinent poodle snoring at my feet,
I give thanks, (and pray for patience)--

Sometimes, I think, I need Your presence.
And then I remember,
in the real-ness of life,
you are Everpresent.

Sometimes, I wonder what the heck it is I am doing here, where the heck am I going,
and then
You remind me,
to Be All Here.
In the real-ness of life.
and,
I give thanks...
and remember to consider the lilies.

Amen.

Monday Prayer: Lord, grant us eyes to see

Lord, grant us eyes to see
Within the seed a tree,
Within the glowing egg a bird,
Within the shroud a butterfly:
Till taught by such, we see
Beyond all creatures thee,
And hearken for thy tender word
And hear it, "Fear not: it is I."

             - Christina Rossetti