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Praying the News

Last night in class my professor used the term “praying the news”. We were discussing the devastating effects of the hurricane and our various reactions. Drop everything and get in our cars and go help? Retreat into the overwhelm of our own end of semester worlds of papers and coursework? Pray the news? She offered the idea watching/listening/reading the news with a prayerful heart and noticing if there is a specific story that tugs on our hearts and then to hold that story in Light and prayer.

I’ve been praying in paint recently.

An expression of “praying the news” today.

The story of the babies in the NYU Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that had to be transfered during the hurricane has been lodged in my heart since the storm.  

Sitting with the loss and chaos,
the fear and uncertainty of the storm,
and the fragility and vulnerability of each tiny baby. 

Picturing Light and Warmth surrounding those that are vulnerable.
Offering honor and thanksgiving for the medical and emergency staff.
Honoring the tenacity and strength of human life–even the tiny-tiny ones.
Praying for comfort and healing for families.

O Holy One, hear our prayers. 

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A song for “International Day of Prayer for Peace”

Fearless Love by David Wilcox

I’m listening to this song today as one offering of prayer for peace…peace in our world, our communities, our relationships, and in each soul.

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“Stop Inspiring Me” Guest post from Bronwen Henry

Today’s guest post comes from a dear friend and colleague of mine.  After spending time following debates on women in ministry in her denomination, Bronwen found this poem arrived in her heart.  I thank her for her articulation and vulnerability in sharing her experience of God’s movement.

Stop Inspiring Me.

If you don’t want me to lead, stop inspiring me.

Don’t teach me the Bible.
Edit out Jesus’ Message.
Never let me see or read the gospel message, the great commission.
Don’t give me a job.
From a young age, don’t let me learn about the Lord.
Heck, don’t teach me to read.

If I am really a second class citizen,
stop inspiring me.

If you don’t want me to follow the Lord,
stop inspiring me.

If you don’t want me to help other people know the Lord,
stop inspiring me.

But here is the problem.

Even if you never read to me from the bible (or encouraged me to read it myself)
I would still know the Lord’s love.

Even when you disrespect women, and say that somehow their very gifts prohibit them from fully serving
I wouldn’t believe you.

I would know, deep down, that
no matter how you try to oppress me,
I am of value.
I am a child of God.

You can’t stop inspiring me.
Because the Divine is unstoppable.

And as much as I fight it. The divine keeps inspiring me.

Bronwen Henry is a mom of two, an editor for New Church Connection (www.newchurchconnection.org), and a member of a team developing small group programs that are for a new kind of Christianity. Bronwen delights in the exploration of different religions, and embraces that she has yet to master any herself. 

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Ego

“Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security…. You’ll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it’s got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn’t stand for that BS if I were you.”  — Stuart Wilde

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Please Call Me by My True Names By Thich Nhat Hanh

Please Call Me by My True Names

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

Because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second

To be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

in order to fear and to hope,

the rhythm of my heart is the birth and

death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the

surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes,

arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the

clear water of a pond,

and I am the grass-snake who,

approaching in silence,

feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,

and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old-girl, refugee

on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after

being raped by a sea pirate,

and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable

of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with

plenty of power in my hands,

and I am the man who has to pay his

“debt of blood” to my people,

dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes

Flowers bloom in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it

fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughs

at once,

so that I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart can be left open,

the door of compassion.

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In praise of the semicolon

In praise of the semicolonIn Praise of the Semicolon
Never put a period,
or colon or even a comma
where God put a semicolon.Unlike the settled-
before-its-time
periodor the colon’s
invitation to see all
possibilities

or the exclamation point’s
screaming, insistent
finality

or even the lighthearted
comma with its
sabbath pause

the outrageous
semicolon holds
us in the middle

without yielding to one
thing or the other.
It’s so easy to get lost

along the way where
there is so much
pushing and pulling.

God I believe;
Help my unbelief.
Amen; Life.

Terry L. Chapman

Thanks to https://www.facebook.com/EmergentVillage for this quote.

Or as Swedenborgian scholar Rev. Dr. George Dole puts it: “Written revelation is inevitably misunderstood and misused if it is regarded as exclusive or final. “
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On Prayer by Kahlil Gibran

On Prayer
Kahlil Gibran

You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains. But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
“Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth. It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.”

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Eternity is Now

This workshop looks at teachings in the gospels and in Emanuel Swedenborg’s book Heaven and Hell, pulling out five principles to live by today, embodying the vision that eternity IS now.

Video includes the presentation and the group feedback and discussion afterwards. Discussion also refers back to the morning worship service, which is captured in a separate video. 


Presented at Fryeburg New Church Assembly, August 2011

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“New Beginnings” or “Joy for the Star-Flinging God”

O Star-flinging God,
whose light dances across eternity,
     dazzle us into your presence
     this new year.
Open our hearts to the mystery of your love.

Awaken us to your presence,
     knit to the ordinary.

Reveal to us what is possible, but not yet present.

Heal us, that we might be healers.

Reconcile us to you and to ourselves,
     that our living might be reconciling.

Stop us often, we pray
     with news that is good
     with hope that holds
     with truth that transforms with a Word
          tailored to this trail we’re on.

May the word of your grace guide our steps
     like the sun by day
     and the north star by night,
     as we travel into the gift of a new year. Amen.

                                                     By Glenn Mitchell

These words reverberated through the room as we proclaimed them, praised with them, pleaded them, and claimed each phrase as our prayer.  Faculty, students, new and returning, gathered together on a sunlight morning, welcoming in the new year. I felt my fingers tingling and my spirit alive as I stood, my feet planted firmly and my heart soaring.  I felt a sense of coming home as I looked around the room to see faces that are now familiar to me, and the warmth of a community that in these short months has become one of mine.

Nestled in that sense of safety and belonging sprang up newness, an excitement, deep and giddy anticipation of God’s star-flinging plans for the coming year. I felt aware of the ways I’ve been changed and transformed since I last stood in this space and the hints and whisperings of experiences and transformations yet to come. I stood in awe, looking back at the way our Transformative Creator has led and provided, bringing me into eager and apprehensive contemplation of what’s to come. The movement that occurs though each small step, each choice to listen to the Still Small Voice, through waking up another day and saying “Use me today God. Lead me Lord, I will follow.” Awaken us to your presence, knit to the ordinary.

I felt strength as I heard a story shared. A story about a small sapling being planted, planted without stakes because “it’s the blowing in the wind that makes the trunk strong”.  And how here, a year later, that sapling is a small tree, having weathered ice and wind and rain, stronger and still reaching for the sky.  I felt the words, Heal us that we might be healers piercing me. The wounds that are fresh, and those that are stronger, more supple and wiser as they have been healed. Gratitude rose in me as I thanked God for the healing and the person God is molding me into through the dance of brokenness and wholeness.

And joy! Deep, rising, ringing joy! The wonder of your grace that guides our steps, the light that dances across eternity leapt in me as I sensed the dazzling of the Divine Presence working in the room, moving in me, flowing over the campus, reaching back and leaping forward preparing a way.  The truth that transforms with a Word, tailored to this trail we’re on.

The Word in the moment: joy.
Deep, grateful, dancing, sparkling joy.
Joy for the lightness and the darkness.
Joy for the grace and the pain.
Joy for the healing of the broken.
Joy for the leading and the living.
Joy for loving and being loved.
Joy for serving in wholeness and authenticity.
Joy for beauty and worship and bright flowers.
Joy for community and friends and humanity as a whole.
Joy for the star-flinging God,
who dances across eternity,
dazzle us into your presence in this new year….