Prayer
Light Not Overcome by Darkness
In this first week of Advent many of us are asking hard questions about race and justice. Many of us are trying to understand how we can repair the hurt and divisions in our nation and among our people. But others of us don’t seem to even be trying to understand the pain and view from the other side, more comfortable in a perceived sense of rightness.
At Church in Bethesda we begin Advent with the introduction to Jesus from John’s Gospel; it’s a cosmic intro like none of the other accounts. Here’s John, speaking of Jesus, John 1:1-5…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John begins to tell us about Jesus by going back to the beginning of the beginning with language that sounds very much like a creation narrative. John goes to the beginning of the beginning to make Jesus central in the creative power and meaning of God’s presence and work to bring the world into being. In doing so John calls Jesus the Word, the logos of God. The Word was of God, with God and was God’s activity.
This is a special way to present Jesus. Though we may think it easy to relate to Jesus as a baby in Luke’s Gospel, a child and a human being, I think John is doing a cool thing by calling Jesus Word. I think John is teaching us about Jesus by reminding us about ourselves.
Word.
Is there another species on the planet using words as we use them? We have the singular gift of speech and word, written and spoken. We tell stories, our stories. We write our stories down and share them. You’re reading my blog. I can’t help myself, I have to craft some words and throw them out there in the hopes that someone else will read, comprehend and maybe even appreciate them.
Jesus is Word just as he is light and life. This is a connection point to for us to the divine. One of the beautiful movements of John’s passage is highlighted later in these verses, John 1:12-14…
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus entered creation to bring us into the divine. He came into our world to raise us out of it and into the world beyond us, born of divine will. He was begotten so that we might be begotten again into newness. He came here and identified with us so we could be identified anew into the thereness of heaven’s will. This is story, word and meaning.
Our words have power and meaning just as the Word in John’s introduction was also the life and light of all people. Jesus will later call us the “light of the world” in Matthew’s Gospel, further emphasizing our shared role in his story of bringing light and life to our planet, to our people.
We relate to Jesus not only in our shared human infancy, but in our shared words of light and life, a shared mission and purpose in creation. We are a blend of human and divine, as was Christ, made so by Christ, and now continuing the great work of Christ begun at the beginning of beginnings.
The Work of Advent.
I know we usually talk about the waiting of Advent, but John reminds us that we stand singularly among creation as co-light and co-life with the Word and the Word’s work in Advent. Even in the first week, with only one candle lit, and the light seeming so small, the work moves on. Even in a broken world, in broken times, when the darkness seems so strong and justice so elusive, our words are still so needed.
Shine your light. Speak life. Believe. Own your begottenness and know that the darkness runs before your light. The darkness cannot overcome or commandeer your light. Even if some don’t understand and even if your own don’t celebrate your light, it must still shine. Your words must still be life giving and creative.
This is an Advent Season to embrace our calling. In the face of whatever frustration or disappointment or darkness we see, shine on in life and love! And let’s make our Advent prayer one of purpose and joy to our God, Psalm 19:14 adapted with John 1…
“May all the words of our mouths be life and light in the world,
and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing and part of your great work,
oh God of Creation, our Hope and our Divine Parent!”
AMDG, Todd
Yesterday I Prayed
Most of us rolled out of bed yesterday morning and reached for the nearest device that would link us to Tuesday’s election results. We saw the list of winners and losers. We felt like winners and losers.
And I prayed. I was both a winner and loser yesterday, my vote at times landed on a candidate who prevailed and at other times upon a candidate who will not lead us in the coming years. I would imagine that we all faced some wins and some losses as the ballots were tallied. We each will have issues and interests at stake in who leads us forward. We’ll all have hopes and we’ll all have fears.
Today, I’m still praying. Tomorrow, I’ll pray some more. Prayer is not a consolation prize or an escape from the realities of life. Prayer is the ever-present expression of what is timeless, what is transcendent, what is hopeful. Beyond the arguments, the political parties and caucuses, and all the maneuvering of the powers that be, there must exist a truth and a reality undiminished by our collective failure to express God’s love, justice, grace and charity to one another. It must.
When I pray I beg for wisdom and for graciousness to inhabit the winners and losers of Tuesday’s contests. I beg for wisdom to overwhelm them all. I pray for the Spirit of the Divine to overlay them, even if they do not recognize the source of their growing empathy, mercy, grace and courage.
We keep moving, praying and hoping. I know what issues and values I have at stake in these many new leaders, and in the old leaders who will continue in their positions of power and influence. I know what many of you, a diverse group of people I dearly love, have at stake in these leaders. But we cannot let our fear ever extinguish our hope. We cannot allow our disappointments or even our victories to erode our commitment to justice, mercy and equity for all people.
I hope we’re surprised and not surprised. I hope that in the coming months and years we realize more justice, more equality, more joy, more freedom, and more of the rich life that we have to share. I hope that we see less poverty, less disease, less violence and less hatred, beginning in the halls, offices and rooms of our own Capitol. I pray that the good stuff God brings us is surprisingly beyond what we can today articulate or hope. And I hope we’re faithful enough in our anticipation to not be too surprised.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. To the greater glory of God. This is my daily prayer, inscribed upon my flesh with ink, that God’s glory grows and abounds in this world. This is my prayer because I am convinced that God’s glory is found in our love, grace, mercy and service to one another. Now and always, world without end. Amen.
AMDG, Todd
Prayer For My Enemies
A Prayer For My Enemies
God of unbridled love
and steadfast affection
for all of creation,
I desire your will in my life.So I pray for my enemies
asking you to bless them
with peace and wisdom,
with joy and goodness.I have in my sinfulness
offended others with my words
and hurt others with my actions.
These may think me an enemy.Personal choices I have made,
for my own faith and vocation
with no intention to offend any,
may lead some to be my enemy.Circumstances of my birth,
my nationality and ethnicity
being things beyond my control,
may still cause some to revile me.For all of these I pray,
For all those I have hurt,
For those who hate my choices,
For those hating what I am.I would beg that healing
come to any I have injured;
I pray for their peace
that they would be whole.I pray peace for all unlike me
who dislike my choices and life,
that they would know joy
and I could better serve them.I pray for those who hate
the very thought of who I am,
who believe me a burden,
that they might see you in me.May we be reconciled
until no more enemies remain
and in your enfolding peace
we reflect your light. Amen.
AMDG, Todd
a brief hymn of peace
I offer you a brief hymn of peace from my morning prayers… be blessed, today!
“some days i simply stop
and sing the old hymns
songs well worn
bells long rung
history
faith
connection
stories
fate
reflection
and i sit
with God
sinners
saints
and we are not
undone.”
AMDG, Todd
Believing in Your Goodness
I’m not only trying this month to write about my belief in your goodness and my desire to be your pastor, but I’m also reading. One book I’m spending time with is Eknath Easwaran’s “Original Goodness,” his book on The Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. His book “Love Never Faileth” is also amazing.
Here’s a just a snip that I read while on a long walk, yesterday, and a doodle I did this morning in my prayer and reflection time.
“When I was growing up in South India, just half an hour’s walk from my home was a lotus pond so thickly overlaid with glossy leaves and gleaming rose and white blossoms that you could scarcely see the water. One of the Sanskrit names for this most exquisite of flowers is pankaja, “born from the mud.” In the murky depths of the pond a seed takes root. Then a long, wavering strand reaches upward, groping through the water toward the glimmering light above. From the water a bud emerges. Warmed by the sun’s rays, it slowly opens out and forms a perfect chalice to catch and hold the dazzling light of the sun.
The lotus makes a beautiful symbol for the core of goodness in every human being. Though we are born of human clay, it reminds us, each of us has the latent capacity to reach and grow toward heaven until we shine with the reflected glory of our Maker.”Eknath Easwaran, “Original Goodness” 1996, pages 10 & 11
Be blessed in your day, my friends, for you are good.
AMDG, Todd
Prayer Intention: Finding Rhythm
This morning at Church in Bethesda we’ll be talking about prayer that cultivates vision in our lives. A component of that kind of prayer is what we’ll call “rhythm.” Rhythm is all about intentionality that becomes part of the daily flow and life of a person. It’s not just a habit, but part of one’s identity… it’s an extension of hope and joy. It’s an expression of relationship with God.
Rhythm begins with intention. I want to see and to move. I want to grow and to be. I want my feet to move a certain direction and my soul to dance along in step. I want to bring sacred space and time into my daily life and envision God’s kingdom in my words and actions. We aren’t wind-up robot toys that God sends chattering across the table top of the world until we fall off and spend our last struggles kicking against the tile floor. We’re invited to enter into God’s movement of grace, light, forgiveness and peacemaking. We are gifted with an amazing invitation to move in a grace-filled rhythm through the years of our life.
So, what are our dreams of the kingdom and how will we play that song in our lives? This is not about want we want to get, but what we are called to be. There are many ways to start tapping out a rhythm and growing this music in our daily walk. Here are just a few ways to begin building intention and rhythm into our prayer life that I’ve found helpful:
- The Weekly Prayer Intention page here at this site is intended to help make a prayerful rhythm through each week.
- Loyola Press offers a daily 3-minute devotional.
- The classic My Utmost for His Highest is online.
- Did you know that you can follow along with Pope Francis’ monthly prayer intentions?
- Sacred Space is an amazing online and daily resource.
- You can find many published prayer books and guides for making a rhythm of daily prayer and devotion.
- Really, just ask the internet what people are doing for daily, weekly or monthly rhythms in prayer, and see if any of it fits into your faith and life!
Make your own! Perhaps it’s time that you spent some effort this week on creating your own daily intention or special rhythm of prayer. What is that spark of desire when you think of your place in God’s kingdom and the Spirit’s movement in the world? What are key words or values for you? What are special images or metaphors for the way you feel God moving in you and leading you into the lives of your neighbors?
Last summer I wrote a daily prayer that flowed from my own rhythms of life but also was an expression of how I wanted to shape the rhythms, and it has continued to be a daily prayer for me… “Let me love. Let me learn. Let me serve.” There’s nothing new in that prayer. I didn’t invent any of the words.
Still… I feel that God calls me to do these three things, to become a person of loving, learning and serving in greater and deeper measures. I hold those intentions close. I let them tap out a rhythm for my words and actions. I try my best to let them lead, in my daily dance.
What is your calling? What do you hear? How does God’s love and grace challenge you in making a daily rhythm?
AMDG, Todd
trying to find some words #NaPoWriMo 04/15/2014
hate be gone
hate be done
for we renounce you
we deny you
and the death
in which you revel
will never be
victory
hate
you have no hope
you birth
no future
we will
withstand you
we will
outlast you
when you are
a sick memory
a stain
upon our past
we will sing
a new song
beyond
your prison
because walls
of hate
will not stand
for long
and the peace
for which
we pray
will come
sung
upon the strands
of the love
we share
neighbor
friend
human
beloved
dark hatred
will be scattered
weak and undone
before love’s flame
I always begin things like #NaPoWriMo with high expectations and lots of energy – but it’s never long before I run out of words. So I start to strain to make some poems and my frustration mounts. Usually I end up a bit indignant that I would so arbitrarily be asked to make a poem a day. But that’s just silliness. I volunteered to be part of the exercise, I just didn’t think I’d have so many days of dryness when no words come to me when called.
And then the news comes on, and I see things like the hateful shootings, the murder of our Jewish neighbors in Kansas, a hateful crime I suppose was meant to stain their holiday. I want to scream. I want to deny that this still happens. I want to deny that anyone can be so broken as to choose such hate and it’s bile, it’s loss, it’s theft, it’s shame.
Words came back to me, today, after a week or so of not answering my call. Today, I protest the hate. I deny the killing stupidity and waste. I renounce any and all of the ignorant paranoia and fear. I call out to the humanity that is buried under the weight of such darkness.
I pray for the families affected by that hateful touch. I mourn with them, though not as them. They have been broken apart and touched so forcefully by the killing hatred. May their peace be restored and love wrap them in the divine embrace.
AMDG, Todd
a prayer for #NaPoWriMo 04/08/2014
I’d like to share a prayer that I composed for the opening of today’s session of the Montgomery County Council, delivered in Rockville, MD. It was an honor to open the session and wish everyone an amazing day.
for the energy
to face our tasks
for the wisdom and knowledge
to make decisions
for the creativity and imagination
to overcome obstacles
for civility
in our discourse
for peace
in our communities
for joy
in the service we will
provide to our neighbors
for all these things
and every needful blessing
to accomplish the work of our day,
we pray. amen.
04/08/2014
I’m kinda geekin’ out here… I composed this blog in Chrome on my iPad. I haven’t had a ton of luck with such an exercise in the past, but it was fairly seamless, today. Woot!
AMDG, Todd
A Morning Prayer, adapted from Psalm 51
“Have mercy on me, God.
As is the way of your great and enduring love
look away from my mistakes and forgive me.
Wash me in the stream of your compassion.
When you purify me I become clean,
clean and without any need to fear,
without any need to feel guilt ridden.
This day, take my heart and renew it,
and make my spirit strong and steadfast.
Always let me be the residing place
of your Holy Spirit.
And I will turn the joy of your presence
into service to my neighbors.”
An adaptation from Psalm 51, first as a communal prayer for our church family, and then for a single voice. The communal voice is found below…
“Have mercy on us, God.
As is the way of your great and enduring love
look away from our mistakes and forgive us.
Wash us in the stream of your compassion.
When you purify us we become clean,
clean and without any need to fear,
without any need to feel guilt ridden.
This day, take our hearts and renew them,
and make our spirits strong and steadfast.
Always let us be the residing place
of your Holy Spirit.
And we will turn the joy of your presence
into service to our neighbors.”
AMDG, Todd
Meditating with Saint Christopher
I’ve been meditating on the story of Saint Christopher. It’s got my imagination fired up and my soul is energized by the images and icons of service that he represents. You can research the story here or here or here, as a few places to start. The story is readily available.
For some it will sound very odd to be meditating with or on a Saint. I didn’t grow up with the Saints, so I understand… it’s been a relatively new thing in my life, for about 6 years now, to read about and explore the lives of the Saints. My recent prayers, focusing on the short litany, “Let me love. Let me learn. Let me serve.” have brought me to the study of St. Christopher. Well, that and finding a sweet St. Christopher medallion at a flea market. =)
This Saint’s story is one of honest searching for a king worthy of serving. It’s a story about one’s strength and giftedness being used as a blessing to others. It’s a story that shows how we aren’t all the same in our coming to Christ or in our following of Christ. I like the story a lot. It’s a story of the divine in the mundane, and reminds me of a quote from Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
Don’t faint when you realize that we aren’t sure if he lived in the 3rd or 4th Century. Don’t give up on him because of the interesting divergence of details among the myriad traditions. The story of Christopher is not scripture, so we aren’t looking in it for that kind of divine revelation… but we can find in it divine vibrations… we can find in it a picture of humanity that points us to the divine.
Who can’t relate to the redemption of Christopher? Who can’t relate at some time in life to physically standing out, by our stature or appearance. Who can’t relate to seeking someone worthy of our service and fidelity? Who among us doesn’t live next to “raging rivers of life” that force us to journey together? I like the story. It inspires me.
I want to be a Christopher. I want to serve with fidelity and strength. I want to be a useful neighbor in the world. I want my service in this life to be service to the One who gives life. Perhaps one day we’ll each get across this river and wipe our tired brow, and sigh real big, and look around and say, “Dude, I just barely made it through.” And our Christ is going to high-five us and say, “No way. We rocked!”
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