Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’ (Matthew 17:20)
A prayer by John van de Laar to engage your faith, and information about Thy Kingdom Come for your prayerful consideration.
Stay safe. Stay safe. Stay safe.
A Prayer
We may not be able to confront queens,
or challenge presidents;
We may not have the capacity to divert resources,
or uplift communities;
We may not have the voice to silence the noise of war,
or the words to negotiate peace between armies;
But, as we follow you, O Christ, we are able to do something.
And so, we pray that you would inspire us
to commit to and act on
the small difference we can make:
May we bring peace
through small acts of gentleness
and reconciliation;
May we bring wealth
through small contributions
and collaborations;
May we bring safety
through small acts of consideration
and acceptance;
May we bring wholeness
through small acts of care
and service.
And in the small ways, O God,
may our small difference make a big contribution
to your saving work in our world.
Amen.
— written by John van de Laar, posted on Sacredise.com
Thy Kingdom Come: 21 to 31 May 2020
Thy Kingdom Come is a global prayer movement that invites Christians around the world to pray from Ascension to Pentecost for more people to come to know Jesus.
Check out the website for more information on how you and your church can be involved. Resources available include a personal daily prayer journal and materials for families.
“Even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.
Rend your hearts, and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and filled with compassion and love.
In her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor makes a case for “lunar spirituality” and letting the darkness teach us what we need to know. She writes,
“Full solar spirituality … deals with darkness by denying its existence or at least depriving it of any meaningful attention … it focuses on staying in the light of God around the clock, both absorbing and reflecting the sunny side of faith.”
“… my spiritual gifts do not seem to include the gift of solar spirituality. Instead, I have been given the gift of lunar spirituality, in which the divine light available to me waxes and wanes with the season. When I go out on my porch at night, the moon never looks the same way twice. Some nights it is as round and bright as a headlight; other nights it is thinner than the sickle hanging in my garage. Some nights it is high in the sky, and other nights low over the mountains. Some nights it is altogether gone, leaving a vast web of stars that are brighter in its absence. All in all, the moon is a truer mirror of my soul than the sun that looks the same way every day.”
“Even when light fades and darkness falls — as it does every single day, in every single life — God does not turn the world over to some other deity. Even when you cannot see where you are going and no one answers when you call, this is not sufficient proof that you are alone. … darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day.”
Creator God,
may we see You at work in the rising sun every day.
May we see You at work in the rolling fog or the cloudy skies.
May we see You at work in the rain that falls upon the earth.
May we see You at work in the setting sun and the rising moon,
the stars that shine, whether we can see them or not.
May we know always that You are doing something new,
every moment, every day, every year around the sun.
Great is Your Faithfulness, O God,
as You faithfully renew us every day.
Amen.
Quote: “If prayer is lunar rather than solar, then everything changes. Prayer becomes a matter of reflecting the divine light into the world in whatever way that light is shining on you and in you at the time. It is not up to me to generate the light; rather, it is up to me to reflect divine reality in ways that are unique to me and represent the seasons and cycles of my life.” (Vance Morgan)
Also check out this article by Moshe Benovitz on the Jewish ritual of blessing the new moon.
With the current theme being HISTORY, I decided to devote a post to the 20 posts with the most views in 2019. Funny how many date back to 2017, the first year of the Prayer Matters blog.
Personally, I’m not surprised that Circle me, Lord scored high, both for its outline and examples of encircling prayer (especially the video).
Also, I’m encouraged that the thematic prayer sheets continue to be useful, as well as the series, “In the school of prayer” and “3 Prayers”.
Two prayers by Simon Bailey – written from a teenage perspective – expressing distress at the ongoing threat of nuclear war and violence and recognising the comfort that comes when we bring our fears to God who is “warm enough to take all [our] shivers away”.
#1
They say we can destroy the world
twenty times over with nuclear bombs –
it’s probably more by now.
I see those pictures of the mushroom cloud
and I shiver –
the world is too beautiful for that,
people are too beautiful.
Father, it’s so wrong – and so frightening.
Jesus told us to love our enemies –
I don’t think you can love your enemies with a bomb.
It’s such a mess but somehow, somewhere
we have to turn round and really say:
‘We want to live in peace together.’
So send your Spirit to remind our leaders
how beautiful things are,
how beautiful their ‘enemies’ are,
to remind them to keep telling themselves:
‘We want to live in peace together.’
There were wars and riots on the news tonight,
Father, and now I’m very frightened –
bombs and killings and rows don’t seem too bad
in the daylight, but it’s dark now …
I don’t let other people know I’m frightened
of the dark but I am.
I’m scared of lots of things –
evil spirits and heights, being beaten up,
of pain and dying,
and even looking silly in front of my friends.
Now I’m scared of going to sleep in case I dream.
Be near me,
Be a warm presence round me
and a light inside me.
You know what it’s like to be very scared,
so you can help me now.
I’m nearly shivering with fright,
so help me to know you are in charge,
you know what darkness is,
you are brighter than the darkness
and warm enough to take all my shivers away.
Together we pray
Each week, from late September until late November, new prayers written by people from across the Church of Scotland and our partners will be shared on the Church of Scotland website.
Here’s a thoughtful meditation by Ann Bell Worley, based on Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles headed for the city of Babylon.
The meditation is taken from the Cities and Towns issue in a series of publications on faith and ethics produced by Baylor University (and available for free download).
Meditation: “Babylon”
Not simply an evil territory
or a dirty word,
as we are prone to believe.
But a place where God’s people were sent
in exile
on purpose
on mission
to offer their culture
to the culture there
in love.
For God so loved the world.
Like Israel in exile, still we hope
for our homecoming in the city of God,
where there will be no more tears.
Let us hope not
in closed communion
in isolated sanctuaries
apart from the Babylon-world.
Rather let us hope
in the fullness of God’s love
in the life of the cities and towns
where we work
and love
and worship
and play.
And remember
that God so loved not only us,
but the world.
Let us hope for Babylon
as we hope for ourselves.
Let us embrace
its people
its buildings
its streets
and fill them with the beauty
of God’s temple.
Let us hope
with doors wide open,
welcome the city in
and pour ourselves out.
For God so loved the world.
Check out the Baylor University’s Christian Reflection Project for materials on other areas of life where faith and ethics intersect – to inform your thoughts and your prayers. Also a great resource for group discussions.
Note: Besides articles, there are also study guides provided, for example this one on Consumerism.
But you are a chosen people,
set aside to be
a royal order of priests,
a holy nation, God’s own;
so that you may proclaim
the wondrous acts
of the One who called you
out of inky darkness
into shimmering light.
Pentecost weekend I had the privilege of representing our Presbytery at the dedication service of Colomba Le Roc Retreat – a truly ecumenical celebration.
As part of the “Blessing of Colomba le Roc and all present” at the end of the service, I used this benediction by David Adam:
Benediction
The Father of many resting places grant you rest;
The Christ who stilled the storm grant you calm;
The Spirit who fills all things grant you peace.
God’s light be your light,
God’s love be your love,
God’s way be your way.
The eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit
shield you on every side.
Amen.
How can I tell of such love to me?
You made me in your image
and hold me in the palm of your hand,
your cords of love, strong and fragile as silk,
bind me and hold me.
Rich cords, to family and friends,
music and laughter echoing in memories,
light dancing on the water, hills rejoicing.
Cords that found me hiding behind carefully built walls
and led me out,
love that heard my heart break and despair and rescued me,
love that overcame my fears and doubts and released me.
The questions and burdens I carry you take,
to leave my hands free – to hold yours, and others,
free to follow your cords as they move
and swirl in the breeze,
free to be caught up in the dance of your love,
finding myself in surrendering to you.
How can I tell of such love?
How can I give to such love?
I am, here am I.
In light of the resurrection, here’s a different take on the word, “dust”.
A poem: Dusting
by Marilyn Nelson, 1946
Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.
For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.
My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.
