Tag Archives: prayer

Feb15

Spiritual Friendship

Posted on by
Standard

Tilden Edwards wrote a book entitled Spiritual Friend: Reclaiming the Gift of Spiritual Direction. He is the founder of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, where many of my teachers studied.

Edwards spoke to my heart of a “calm trust in grace winding its opening way” through one’s life.

Grace has been winding its opening way through me. I stood in a small park last Spring and saw with fresh eyes each raindrop on the grass, the trees, and the lily pond as grace. A gift that was mine for the taking, created by unseen forces.

I walked around the pond and took pictures of water lilies and a small cottontail rabbit nibbling, undisturbed, on lush wet grass. It was an experience of grace.

pond-in-distance lily-and-bud bunnyThis year I have visited monthly with a spiritual director in between classes to become a spiritual director myself. “Direction” is a bit misleading; it’s more like a conversation about one’s spiritual life. How does spirituality shape the way I live in the world? What’s the reason for prayer?

Since August I have been more faithful (again) about daily meditation / contemplation / prayer / what have you. I’ve increased the time gradually all the way up to 22 minutes in the morning and about 2 minutes at night as I settle into restful slumber.

In the evening I take a series of three breaths and repeat as long as needed while I focus on being grounded, on being full of gratitude, and on God as Love. The three Gs make it easy to remember:

1) Grounded. I belong here and I can rest now.

2) Gratitude. For grace that came my way this day, for friends, for opportunities and challenges, I give thanks.

3) God. Let all abide in love. Let love guide our lives.

Gratitude in the morning for having seen a new day, and gratitude for the day as I drift off to sleep, are now the bookends of my daily life. How does grace “wind its opening way” through your life?

Jan1

Blessings for 2017!

Posted on by
Standard

Kristen Cervantes is a Student Pastor at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Waco, TX, while she continues her studies at Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth. We have weekly conversations that help us both grow in ministry.

When Kris responded to presidential election results, she posted these wise words:

I will not despair. Or rather, I will not only despair.

At times like this I really do wish I believed in a God who is an active agent in the world. But as I think of the gut-wrenching sobs I have heard, felt, held in my body and held in the circle of my arms, in my friends’ bodies, I don’t have that solace.

I have solace in the beauty and wonder of the world we share. I have solace in the deep emotion that means deep commitment to the continued work of building the beloved community for all, regardless of race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, citizenship status, ability, and all the other boxes we try to fit ourselves and others into. I have solace in the help and strength and brokenness and beauty and potential in every human body and mind and soul.

My church says it wants to ‘create a more just and loving world.’ I take solace in the knowledge that we do not stand, move, and struggle alone in this painful and difficult act of creation.

I will not despair.

The New Year is upon us! May you find your way out of despair and into community.

Jul8

Carry Water

Posted on by
Standard

The story of the world, the story of my heart, is captivated by warsan shire’s poem “what they did yesterday afternoon.” A few lines:

dear god

i come from two countries

one is thirsty

the other is on fire

both need water.

warsan shire was born in Kenya to Somali parents and was raised in London. You might already know that her poetry infuses Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Further into her poem above she spoke the truth when she asked of the world

where does it hurt?

 

it answered

everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.

She wrote these words two years ago but they apply today, this week, in this nation, in this world.

Violence has taken over so many places. This week’s headlines just in the U.S. include Baton Rouge; Falcon Heights, MN; Dallas; College Station (shots fired at a mosque). Add them to Orlando, Baghdad, Bangladesh, Medina, Ankara, Istanbul, and more, and more, and more.

This week Black men were suspected, accused, shot down; police officers targeted, Muslims fired upon. My heart hurts in so many ways. My mind doesn’t know how to make sense of it, except:

Except that we as a nation are so polarized that people at the far edges of many polarities are taking aim at The Other.

I am The Other. Each of us is The Other.

Until we can find a way to hear each Other

above the noise

above the rhetoric

above the line of fire.

The right to bear arms (well-regulated?) does not carry the right to kill wantonly.

Still.

Who is surprised when guns and innocence,

rage and impotence ignite and explode?

Civil Rights burst forth when violence was televised.

Today’s festering wounds erupt on ever-present, ever-vigilant videos.

We cannot unsee.

Who is surprised when fear and fury fire at will?

Wake up! We are The Other to those we would vilify in return.

Stay woke!

Until Black and Blue Lives Matter

Until Muslim and Jewish and Christian Lives Matter

Until Immigrant and Native Lives Matter

Until.The.Other.Lives.Matter

I am The Other.

i come from two countries

one is thirsty

the other is on fire

both need water

dear god, help us carry water to this hurting world

Jun15

Prayerful Questions

Posted on by
Standard

praying-hands

I wrote this before the horrid news from Orlando. Mass shooting, chaos, emergency responders, blood donors, prayer vigils. Love is Love, I say, but sometimes it is hard to hold on to that.

For the following, I offer credit to Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1996)

What is the purpose of prayer?

How could God pay attention to such insignificant creatures?

Are we just talking to ourselves, our inner wise spirit?

How do we know prayer is communication with God?

How do we know that it’s God?

Questions take us deeper into faith

. . . away from belief in our beliefs

. . . to believe in a God who is more than our beliefs can say.

It is possible for a good prayer not to address anyone by name. After yoga classes with Jogi Bhagat, he closes with prayers and we repeat each line after him.

May all be happy.

May all be healthy.

May there be no distress on earth.

May there be peace everywhere.

May all our actions lead us to make this happen.

May it be so.

Jun9

Our bodies, our lives

Posted on by
Standard

So much sorrow, anger, trauma, and pain has been filling a closed Facebook group of over 500 women ministers. Earlier this week a ministerial colleague posted about her rage after the rapist at Stanford was convicted of three felonies and was sentenced to merely 6 months–so as not to disrupt his life further.

The floodgates were opened by survivors of sexual assault. Within 24 hours, well over 130 women shared personal stories of rape and violation from as early as 3 years of age well into mature adulthood.

When I was told about this online conversation I read it all at once and finally commented about my own experiences. I was numb, but my eyes kept “leaking.” I didn’t feel like going to yoga but did anyway, and I wept silently through most of it (with one break just to blow my nose). For the closing Shavasan meditation I had trouble lying still and felt more tears leak out.

I needed time to process. Solitude, a walk, prayers, a comfortable bath, music. My personal story of abuse took place decades ago, when I was just a little girl, but I can remember the horror. I am one of hundreds of colleagues and millions of women all over the world who have been used for someone else’s heinous agenda. Every day, every night, every second.

Sexual violence is only one expression of trauma. Is there anyone in the world who has not been traumatized by something? Abuse, alcohol, neglect, misuse of power, and economic brutality join a long list of ways humans can hurt each other. On top of that are the ways survivors are ignored, disbelieved, and even blamed for the crimes of others.

Sharing stories of violence is not easy. Many of us spend countless hours in therapy to do just that. Could we create safe places to share deep emotions? Could we offer rituals of healing and wholeness? Our bodies, our lives, our hearts.

Aug12

Unknowing

Posted on by
Standard

prepare to dive

 

I am diving into a three-year course of study through Formation in Direction, FIND. First assignments have us plunging into both eastern and western Christian spirituality, and into personality types (beginning with our own).

The Cloud of Unknowing, written by an anonymous Christian mystic in 14th century England, captures the state of my progress.

Unknowing whatever I thought I knew about God, the unknowable.

Unknowing whatever logic gets in the way of silence.

Unknowing where FIND will take me.

Anonymous begins this book by telling the reader not to read it aloud or copy it or quote from it. Its lessons about contemplative prayer belong to one reader at a time. Until I have read the 75 short chapters and actually followed their instructions, I cannot know the whole of it, nor can I explain it fully by sharing it in part.

How delightful! This unknowing!

As I travel this unknowable path toward an unknowable God, I will come here to this blog from time to time to drop pebbles of uncertain origin. They might help me find my way home. The stones on my desk are inscribed with individual words:

Spirit

Courage

Balance

Walk

Always Say a Prayer

For now I shall claim them as my touchstones and solid companions to help me find my way home. Let the Unknowing begin!

Aug5

A Spiritual Life

Posted on by
Standard

Breathe

A couple of weeks ago I read these words by Werner Herzog:

We need constantly to renew our relationships–

to the houses we live in,

to our friends,

to our own bodies

–all the time, every day.

I have become more diligent lately about going to yoga 2-3 times a week. It’s a gentle yoga with more attention to the breath than to the reach of the body. Focus on the breath and the body will follow.

A spiritual life means movement, not “just” prayer, writing, reflection, conversation. Thus are we invited to more mindfulness in everything we do for ourselves–food, drink, exercise; and more mindfulness in everything we do for the world–labor, chores, advocacy, volunteering, and otherwise getting out of our chairs.

The invitation has been here all the time. Mixed in with the rest of life’s debris we didn’t even notice the plain looking wrapper. But let your imagination open it. Notice the care with which it was created–the perfect choice of color and style, the quiet and open-ended invitation. There’s no deadline (other than death), no promises, no begging.

Just a possibility, waiting.

Dec20

Flesh and Skin

Posted on by
Standard

“The Practice of Wearing Skin,” a chapter by Barbara Brown Taylor in her book An Altar in the World, has me weeping (as has every chapter in the book).

If God became flesh (as Christians believe) or if God can be found within and among us (as I believe), then God loves the body. Each body. Lovely and irregular.

This idea links directly to a sweet, captivating story I saw yesterday of a father who tells his toddler daughter that she has a beautiful body–two strong legs on which she can walk and run, ears to hear voices and birds, a brain that can think and figure things out, a belly where food is digested to keep her healthy, and so on. [I can’t find the story! Can anyone else find it?]

The tears come because I have rarely loved my body and it never crossed my mind that God did. Taylor points out some reasons why we have a hard time loving our bodies: the Greek division between body and soul; the divide Descartes made between nature and reason; Protestant disdain for matters of the flesh; Freud and his sexual nonsense (my word, not hers); modern science that objectifies bodies and bodily functions; and an overlay of public sex from Victoria’s Secret to twerking.

I was terrified when Daddy made me touch him. I was ashamed of my body and the way it grew. I am embarrassed by the way it looks now. I am slothful when it comes to exercise and nutrition. I don’t like that it’s getting older and gray and sagging. I am loathe to admit these things semi-publicly.

But my body carries me around with some ease. It houses my brain and digests my food and allows my fingers to type. It feels pain, expresses empathy, and gives me access to sight, sound, touch, taste, and sometimes smell. It can do ordinary things like plant bulbs, read An Altar in the World, enjoy a cup of coffee, distract myself with email (stop it!).

God loves all that. God understands the shame, embarrassment, and slothfulness, and loves me anyway. Maybe it pisses God off that I don’t love my body well enough to care for it. New meaning to the prayer excerpt, “There is no health in me.”

My starting place this morning is to love my body as it is. While writing that sentence, I thought and wrote and scratched my head and shifted in my chair. My stomach growled. Then my mind turned toward gratitude. Taylor recommends that we pray in front of a mirror, naked (gulp), and give thanks for our bodies instead of rushing to cover them up. [Don’t children love to run around naked and sometimes even run outside that way?]

It is time now for me to change from comfy pj’s to comfy clothes to go get my package delivered yesterday to the apartment office. Naturally I will be properly clothed. But first I shall pause before the mirror and give thanks. Look how it can bend and stretch. Admire the shapes and scars. Wriggle fingers and toes and count them all like our parents did.

Isn’t that a good way to start the day?

Nov28

Second (spiritual) Childhood

Posted on by
Standard

I seem to have entered my second childhood, spiritually speaking. Earliest lesson that I remember from Sunday School: God is Love.

Decades have gone by; theological studies; ponderings. For many years I have labeled myself a Panentheist: in short, God infuses the cosmos and also transcends it (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism).  Maybe that was my grownup way to understand God as Love that flows through us yet is greater than all, the Love that abides.

I have spent time in prayer. Always before, it was meditation or silent reflection. It is more likely now to be addressed to God, a surprise even to me!

How shall we find God? Tony deMello says it by looking at creation in a special way. If you look at the sky you might see clouds and the angle of light and outlines of trees and vast stretches of blue, but it becomes beautiful with that special way of looking. You will seek God in vain until you know God is not an object but a special way of looking.

As I go about the rest of this  Thanksgiving Day I will remind myself to see God and to see Love. My husband and I will go to a church potluck where there will be all kinds of people with whom I have a range of relationships. I will tune in to Love and look for God in each person.

For each of you, I am grateful. May our hearts swell a little more through the art and practice of Love.

Aug9

Prayer to Raise the Wage

Posted on by
Standard

Some version of this I spoke at the March to Raise the Wage on July 24 in downtown Houston.

Let us pray:

God of many Names, let your presence be known.

Mystery of Life, fill our hearts this afternoon.

Our minds are full of the stories presented here today. They represent but three of the millions of low wage workers who must choose between paying the rent and feeding their families.

How closely linked we are—rich, poor, and in the middle. Poverty, wealth, power and powerlessness are interconnected and each of us is a part of that web of life.

We give thanks for all who advocate for a living wage, that they may be heard by employers, by communities, and by policy makers.

We call for fair pay so that full-time workers can live above the poverty line. A job should pull people out of poverty, not keep them in it. They’ll have money to spend on goods and services; money to save for emergencies; money to invest in education for the kids and for their own retirement.

We call for change in policies and managers who abuse their workers, that they will rise to a higher standard of decency and respect.

We call upon ourselves as consumers to hold companies accountable for the ways they treat their workers, and to work toward legal remedies.

We call upon you, God of our Hearts, Spirit of Life, to keep us united.

We pray all this in the name of all that is holy and whole.

Go in peace, Salaam, Shalom, İSí se puede!