Benediction

Monday: Opening Prayer

For the morning light
and its irresistible dawning,
for your untameable utterances of life
in boundless stretches of space
and the strength of the waves of the sea
I give you thanks, O God.
Release in me the power of your Spirit
that my soul may be free
and my spirit strong.
Release in me the freedom of your Spirit
that I may be bridled by nothing by love
that I may be bridled only by love.

Celtic Benediction
J. Philip Newell

Dry

I am empty and dry. I feel like the leaves, my stem withering and threatening to fall.

I have had so many things I have wanted to say, but I just can't afford the output right now.

I miss fullness.

J

This Morning's Prayer

Papa,
would you lead us,
moment by moment,
to the Bread of Your Presence
that you have sent before us this day.
Would you give us the faith to see it
and the strength to receive
the Love you have laid before us.
I ask that everything you desire
will be birthed this day.

Amen.

Hello again!

It has been hard for me to blog lately. There have been things that hit me, I want to blog them, but the words and the time just aren't there. I am finding that I want to rely on others' words right now. So, I am noticing that I am sharing what I am reading a lot. Here is today's:

Closing Prayer for Monday Morning

"In the beginning, O God,
your Spirit swept over the chaotic deep like a wild wind
and creation was born.
In the turbulence of my own life
and the unsettled waters of the world today
let there be new birthings of your Spirit.
In the currents of my own heart
and the upheavals of the world today
let there be new birthings of your mighty Spirit."

J. Philip Newell
"Celtic Benediction: Morning and Night Prayer"

The Prayer of the Little Bird

"Dear God,
I don't know how to pray by myself
very well,
but will You please
protect my little nest from wind and rain?
Put a great deal of dew on the flowers,
many seeds in my way.
Make Your blue very high,
Your branches lissom;
let Your kind light stay late in the sky
and set my heart brimming with such music
that I must sing, sing, sing...
Please, Lord."

Carmen Bernos de Gasztold
Prayers from the Ark

Lord. The storm is pressing in close to our nest. I have lost my song... please, give me the song I need to sing to You in this moment. Help me to see that our nest is in the Ark. Please help me to see the Ark. Amen.

A Gift...

On Thursday, I met a blog friend at a Finnish bakery (we saluted you and smiled, Eija!!). Before meeting her, I received an amazing treasure from a bookstore nearby. The book is titled, Prayers From the Ark & The Creature's Choir by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold. Carmen was a Benedictine nun in France. Some people came across her poems while cleaning out a cupboard in her convent. They are lovely. Here are two of my favorites. The first is a recognition of how I have lived (and my desire to be free of it), isolated -- because of hearing loss and because of painful experiences in my life. The second is my desire, where I want to be... the part of me that yearns past the past...

The Prayer of the Goldfish

O God,
forever I turn in this hard crystal,
so transparent, yet I can find no way out.
Lord,
deliver me from the cramp of this water
and these terrifying things I see through it.
Put me back in the play of Your torrents,
in Your limpid springs.
Let me no longer be a little goldfish
in its prison of glass,
but a living spark
in the gentleness of Your reeds.

Prayer of the Goat

Lord,
let me live as I will!
I need a little wild freedom,
a little giddiness of heart,
the strange taste of unknown flowers.
For whom else are Your mountains?
Your snow wind? These springs?
The sheep do not understand.
They graze and graze,
all of them, and always in the same direction,
and then eternally
chew the cud of their insipid routine.
But I -- I love to bound to the heart of all
Your marvels,
leap Your chasms,
and, my mouth stuffed with intoxicating grasses,
quiver with an adventurer's delight
on the summit of the world!