Monthly Archives: February 2012

Being the Peace that Others Seek – a Buddhist prayer for self-action during Lent

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When you have read this prayer, what will you do next?

 

Peace Around Us All

As we are together, praying for peace,
let us be truly with each other.
Let us pay attention to our breathing.
Let us be relaxed in our bodies and our minds.
Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.
Let us maintain a half smile on our faces.
Let us be aware of the source of being common to us all and to all living things.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion,
let us fill our hearts with our own compassion towards ourselves
and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that all living beings realize that they are all brothers and sisters,
all nourished from the same source of life.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.

Let us plead with ourselves to live in a way which will not deprive other living beings
of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life,
and of the sufferings that are going on around us,
Let us pray for the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.
  – Amen.

 

 

-A Buddhist Litany for Peace
The Venerable Thich Nhat Hahn

 

 

 

Trustworthy? – a prayer during Lent

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Oftentimes it isn’t a question of how much trust you put in the Universe, or the Maker, or whatever noun you use here. More likely it is the case of how much trust that Creator puts in you.

I am reflecting on a comment from a friend who said this week:

“I am so tired of the awful things these crazy religious people do and say that it makes me ashamed to be a Christian.”

I find no stress in the things those people do or say as much as I do stress out in the knowledge that these people do not have a clear understanding of the “Religion“(sic) that they profess. I wonder: given that many professed Christian people today pick up half-backed drips and drabs of ideas on what they (personally) think is right, stir that with a few out-of-context Biblical quotes (you know the ones!) and add the watering down of contemporary Biblical translations written for an un-reading contemporary society, and prayers that are long, rehearsed recitations of that pray-ers personal shopping list,

How much would God – the Maker – the Universe – trust them to follow – and seek – Universal Truth?

Being a spiritual person is very easy to do. Being a religious person is very difficult. Religion is not all perfect, and in a perfect world it is a constantly-evolving thing. Just as God evolves (no more plagues… no more earth-drowning floods… no more destroying cities with fire or turning people to salt), so must we, and so must our understanding of what “religion” means outside of our own experience.

Spirituality is a single effort. Religion happens in public (in communion, if you will.) To become proficient at both, you will (spiritually) break a sweat, and then your tongue will ache from the bite marks, and your ears will ring from all the listening instead of speaking. And at that end, while you are all sweaty, numb-tongued, and ear-ringing, somewhere in there you will find the God who is looking to find you. For those who believe in Born Again, realize that this salvation moment and subsequent baptism is not the end of the party. Maybe it’s too obvious for some to see that the term Born Again means a re-birth. It means a time to begin this new journey – to listen and learn, and to develop into the person to be loved (always) and trusted (more) by God.

For those who come from a tradition of Infant Baptism: As Dorothy Allison once said to me (and made me cry!)

You. Owe. Me.

In your early months of life when you were Baptized, a lot of people stood around and made promises on raising you up as a good and faithful and well-meaning person. I have done this many times over the years in our parish and take that obligation very seriously to do whatever I can to help that child grow up to be the best person they can be.

Review your church’s Baptismal Covenant. Check to see if the people around you are holding up their part of the deal. Look inside to see if you are holding up yours. I will entertain no arguments about this being something that was done on your behalf in infancy. I will hear no arguments from the other team saying that Infant Baptism is invalid. I will make it very simple for you: if you agree with the concept as it pertains to you, then you should review, take notes on what should improve in your life, and the lives of those around you. (see “communion,” above)

If you do not believe in such things and you consider it invalid, then please feel free to shut up, stop whining about how bad your life is, and use the door out of that mindset to find your own spiritual bliss.  It really is out there. Just keep in mind that the spirituality part is very easy. The religion part will make you work.

  • Will your meditations and your prayers and your actions through the 40 day desert of Lent lead you to a place of knowing-more?
  • Will you arrive at a point of understanding even a tiny bit  more than you did before you began?
  • Will these 40 days of contemplation and redemption land you even one step closer to being that person in whom God -Maker – Universe puts their almighty trust that you – at last – are seeking the better path?

So many questions, and so few days to come closer to your own answers!

- Keep the faith!

 

A prayer on the Trust of God, for Lent

 

God of Peace,
You have put your Holy Spirit
in our hearts.

Your spirit renews at every moment
your love for us.

And we wish to do
all we can
so that the trust you place in us
overflows
in love for others.

- Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Days and Bad – a Lenten call to prayer

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When we open our eyes and our feet hit the floor in the morning, we never know how the day is going to end up at the vesper bell – only that it is our day to take and use… our day to run and grow … our day to hold on and survive. In the middle of  those holding-on days it’s difficult for us to remember (or to believe) the words of the Psalmist, “This is the day the LORD has made; rejoice and be glad in it.”

The season of Lent begins easily enough for us, a bit like making New Years resolutions: we fill our fancies of the things that we are going to “give up for Lent” (most times not knowing why we are supposed to “give up,” and even more times not knowing that while we “give up,” we must also “take on.”)

For those of us who are still keeping track of such things by Monday of next week, we realize that the giving-up and the taking-on isn’t nearly so simple as we thought it would be. The fewer-still who are still with it the following week begin to wonder how they ever managed to do this in the past.

By the third week, we start pondering to God just how long 40 days can actually be!

Believe it or not: that’s the way it should be. Those who follow the practice step into 40 days of serious contemplation, days of contrition and forgiveness, and strive for some sort of spiritual renewal, be it great or small. Lent is a time for change, it is a time for “polishing the silver” of our spirit and our hearts before we venture into the long season that some folks call

Ordinary time.

We must become extra-ordinary people in very short order, so that we may see our way through that long summer season of practicing what we have read, learned, and felt while we were putting a spit-shine on our souls during Lent.

I have two different sentences of a call to prayer today, one for the good days and one for the bad days. I keep in mind when I’m in my meditation time that I rarely have a full day that is either one or the other. They are a glad mix of the two. Use them separately or together, as your meditations and prayers lead you.

- Keep the faith!

 Oh Lord,
Take heed to my words.
Listen as I cry.

 (- Alleluia)

There is joy, Lord,
for all you defend:
They will rejoice evermore!

(- Alleluia)

(inspired by Psalm 5)

Silver Fruit Upon Silver Trees – Prayer at Night

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This is a poem that our teacher put on the wall above her desk when I was in the third grade. On a large sheet of poster paper, written in huge square and readable letters, Silver sort-of watched over us most of the year. And not counting rudiments like The A-B -C Song, or nursery rhymes, this was the first “real” poem I memorized as a child.

I’ve carried the poet’s name – Walter de la Mare – with me all these years, I’ve read his oeuvre, and none of it has the same effect on me as this simple little poem about what the night time looks like. The words linger in my heart the same as Sandburg’s poem about Chicago and the fog “…walking in on cat’s feet.”

During the day – when we are awake – we fill the air around us with one type of prayer or another. Even the unexpected “Jesus!!” during a quick maneuver in traffic, or spilling a bit of food on our sweater. But at night: oh yes! we sleep and rest as much as there is sleep and rest to be had, and it would seem that the prayers walk around us like angels, like the moonlight in this poem.

The prayers see us.
Angels see us.
God sees us

Theirs is the vigil , then.  At night, when our prayers fall away to silence and sleep, this must be what happens around us.

Keep the faith!

 

Silver

by Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

 

 

 

Night – a final prayer at the closing of day

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As the skies move from daylight to dark, we come to the time of the day to hear my favorite words from the Book of Common Prayer, from the last prayers of the day – Compline.

The prayer that follows  is from the New Zealand Prayer Book and speaks to my … interaction, both good and bad … with the night.

Years ago when I was in Intensive Care in the hospital and coming through my first medical experience of coping with a condition over which I had no control, I feared the night. My body changed sleep cycles so that I would stay awake through the darkness and sleep during the day. It all seemed even more scary to me in its irrationality until one of my clergy pointed out to me that it was this fear that came from my loss of control.

It’s tough for people to go through that the first time. And it’s even more tough for guys to go through it. (See my other writings in this blog on “guys”)

Now – having gone through that challenge of the mind and the spirit – those hours are a welcome refreshment to me. Even on the sleepless nights, the hours of darkness are when I can settle down, away from the distractions I can see, and open my heart to welcome the rest of the quiet evening. When medical stress pops up and changes my sleeping cycles for me, I accept the change of my hours for what they are. I no longer live in fear of that night and that darkness, but feel glad for what I have done with my days, I find the rest I need, and I move through the hours, no longer the darkness as a villain – as a reminder of death.

I find in the hours of night a great peace that reminds me of how I felt as a child, settling on a comfortable pillow, under a cool sheet or a warm blanket, sleeping in great anticipation of another fun day to come.

Keep the faith!

 

Lord it is night:

The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.

In your name we pray.
- Amen