| Prayer | Before us it is blessed, behind us it is blessed, Below us it is blessed, above us it is blessed, Around us it is blessed as we set out with Christ. Our speech is blessed as we set out for God. With beauty before us, with beauty behind us, With beauty below us, with beauty above us, With beauty around us, we set out for a holy place indeed.Prayer Walks, Traditional Navaho Prayer |
| Meditation | To learn the scriptures is easy, to live them, hard. The search for the Real is no simple matter. Deep in my looking, the last words vanished. Joyous and silent, the waking that met me there.From Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, ed. by Jane Hirschield, 1994 Harper Collins Publishers, p. 124 by Lal Ded (14th c.?) |
| Affirmation | God says, “You are church.” I feel it, in my body, the movement in my solar plexus when I say, “church.” If Jesus is the Word, and the church is the body of Christ, and we are one with Christ’s body through communion, then church is our body, too. Therefore, my body is church, My body is temple, and it is good.by Allison Addicott |
| Prayer | God of seed and growth and harvest, creator of need, creator of satisfaction; give us, we pray, our daily bread, sufficient and assured for all. Give us also, we pray, the bread of life, and we shall have a care to feed the hungry, and to seek for peace and justice in the world. Help us, then, to remember and to know that you are our life today, and every day; you are the food we need, now and forever. God, give us work till our life shall end, and life till our work is done. Look kindly on our world, our God, as we suffer and struggle with one another. Look kindly on your Church, driven by the same necessity; and may the light we have seen in Jesus illuminate and brighten all the world. Amen.Give Us Today Our Daily Bread, from Zealand Prayer Book, 1989 Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Harper Collins Publishers, p.125 |
| Meditation | What Do sad people have in Common? It seems They have all built a shrine To the past And often go there And do a strange wail and Worship. What is the beginning of Happiness? It is to stop being So religious. Like That.Stop Being So Religious by Hafiz |
| Affirmation | Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for.from The Color Purple by Alice Walker |
| Prayer | Save me, O God, from the temptation to be less than fully human, less than the child of God You created me to be. Save me, O God, from the temptation to view my sexuality as a curse, rather than as a precious Gift with which You have blessed me. Save me, O God, from those who seek to heal what does not need healing, who seek to further wound me by making me think I am a mistake, rather than made in Your image. Save me, O God, from easy and simplistic theology, which seems to offer security but really offers shackles and blinds the soul from knowing You in all Your complexity, beauty, and wonder. Save me, O God, from everything and everyone that would distract me or dissuade me from living into Your calling on my life. Amen.Midnight Prayer by Darrell Grizzle |
| Meditation | I will praise God, my Beloved, for she is altogether lovely. Her presence satisfies my soul; she fills my senses to overflowing so that I cannot speak. His touch brings me to life; the warmth of his hands makes me wholly alive. His embrace nourishes me, body and spirit; every part of my being responds to his touch. The beauty of her face is more than I can bear; in her gaze I drown. When she looks upon me I can withhold nothing; When he asks for my love all my defenses crumble; my pride and my control are utterly dissolved. O God I fear your terrible mercy; I am afraid to surrender my self. If I let go into the whirlpool of your love, shall I survive the embrace? If I fall into the strong currents of your desire shall I escape drowning? But how shall I refuse my Beloved, and how can I withdraw from the one my heart yearns for? On the edge of your abyss I look down and I tremble; but I will not stand gazing for ever. Even in chaos you will bear me up; if the waters go over my head, you will still be holding me. For the chaos is yours also, and in the swirling of mighty waters is your presence known. If I trust her, surely her power will ot fail me; nor will she let me be utterly destroyed. Though I lose all knowledge and all security, yet will my God never forsake me; But he will recreate me, in his steadfast love, so that I need not be afraid. Then will I praise my Beloved among the people, among those who seek to know God.Psalm by Janet Morley, alt. |
| Affirmation | How God answers the soul It is my nature that makes me love you often, For I am love itself. It is my longing that makes me love you intensely, For I yearn to be loved from the heart. It is my eternity that makes me love you long, For I have no end.by Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207?-1282?)From Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, ed. by Jane Hirschield, 1994 Harper Collins Publishers, p. 90 |