I tell you this:
if you had even a faint spark of faith,
even faith as tiny as a mustard seed,
you could say to this mountain,
“Move from here to there,”
and because of your faith,
the mountain would move.
If you had just a sliver of faith,
you would find nothing impossible.
Hope of the World,
You rise like a shoot from a stump.
You are the Resurrection and the Life,
springing forth from what was dead and forgotten.
You are making all things new.
May Your new life spring inside us
when we are numb from the world’s despair.
May Your new life shine a path for us
when we cannot perceive taking the next step.
May Your hope spark in us like a match struck
that cannot be put out,
and may we shine bright,
for the world desperately needs it.
We pray in the name of Christ,
who is coming.
Amen.
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.
For this season of long nights and often sombre days, a prayer by Cal Wick to open us up to God’s warmth and light, and the power of resurrection.
A prayer
Lord,
in the midst of Winter,
when the days are cold and wind can pierce
…. remind us of the warmth of your love.
In the midst of Winter,
when days are short, dawn comes late, and dusk arrives early
…. remind us that in the darkness your light still shines.
In the midst of Winter,
when the flowers of spring still lie hidden in the earth,
when leaves are off the trees,
and the world can seem bleak
…. remind us that Easter is but a short time away.
And when in our lives
we feel as if we are experiencing a season of winter,
reach out to us with the power of your resurrection
so that we may feel the warmth of your love
and see your light
that alone can take away the darkness of our soul.
Amen
~ written by Cal Wick,
and posted on Leonard Sweet’s Preach the Story website.
Some months ago I posted A liturgy of the morning by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Here is the companion piece, to launch our theme of the month, “Night”.
A liturgy of the night
On the first night God said: ‘Let there be darkness.’ And God separated light from dark; and in the dark, the land rested, the people slept, and the plants breathed, the world retreated. The first night. And God said that it was Good.
On the second night God said, ‘There will be conversations that happen in the dark that can’t happen in the day.’ The second night. And God said that it was Good.
And on the third night, God said: ‘Let there be things that can only be seen by night.’ And God created stars and insects and luminescence. The third night. And God said that it was Good.
And on the fourth night, God said, ‘Some things that happen in the harsh light of day will be troubled. Let there be a time of rest to escape from the raw light.’ The fourth night. And God said that it was Good.
And on the fifth night, God said: ‘There will be people who will work by night, whose light will be silver, whose sleep will be by day and whose labour will be late.’ And God put softness at the heart of the darkness. The fifth night. And God said that it was Good.
And on the sixth night, God listened. And there were people working, and people crying, and people seeking shadow, and people telling secrets and people aching for company. There were people aching for space and people aching for solace. And God hoped that they’d survive. And God made twilight, and shafts of green to hang from the dark skies, small comforts to accompany the lonely, the joyous, the needy and the needed. The sixth night. And God said that it was Good.
And on the last night, God rested. And the rest was good. The rest was very good. And God said that it was very Good.
3 prayers from ancients living in the 4th and 5th century to help us keep the faith in 2020.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Almighty God,
in whom we live and move and have our being,
you have made us for yourself,
so that our hearts are restless till they rest in you;
grant us purity of heart and strength of purpose,
that no passion may hinder us from knowing your will,
no weakness from doing it;
but in your light may we see light clearly,
and in your service find perfect freedom,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
O God,
be all my love,
all my hope,
all my striving;
let my thoughts and words flow from you,
my daily life be in you,
and every breath I take be for you.
Amen.
Lord, as I read the psalms let me hear you singing.
As I read your words, let me hear you speaking.
As I reflect on each page, let me see your image.
And as I seek to put your precepts into practice,
let my heart be filled with joy.
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”.
Come, let’s praise God together! For God is great, and worthy of our praise!
Let’s tell stories of God’s power and majesty,
His mighty acts throughout history: for God is great, and worthy of our praise!
Let’s remember the compassion He has shown toward us;
His mercy and unfailing love, generation after generation: for God is great, and worthy of our praise!
Let’s pass these stories along to our children and grandchildren,
so that they, too, may come to know and love our God. For God is great, and worthy of our praise!
from North & South exhibition, Catharijneconvent, Utrecht (Photo: Irene Bom)
Thank you to all who subscribe and visit the site regularly. According to my stats, in 2019 we had twice as many views and visitors as last year – visitors from 100 countries around the world.
For this post – the last in 2019 – I’ve selected excerpts from a paintedprayerbook.com post from 2014 in which Jan Richardson reflects on the significance of story and Jesus as storyteller supreme.
Elie Wiesel says that God created us because God loves stories.
When Christ came (in the fullness of time, the story goes), he came as the Word made flesh. A story in motion. And he went into the world with stories on his lips, weaving them everywhere he went.
A sower went out to sow. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers. There was a man who had two sons.
…
Jesus understood that in a world where it can be so difficult to know God, to know others, to know even ourselves, a story can offer a language, a doorway, a point of entry. He knew how a story can take us a little deeper into knowing, a little farther down the road in our journey of return.
…
What stories are you listening to? What stories are you telling? How do you attend to your own story? Where have you experienced being lost in a story, and being found? How might God be inviting you to look at your story with new eyes?
Blessing the Story
You might think
this blessing lives
in the story
that you can see,
that it has curled up
in a comfortable spot
on the surface
of the telling.
But this blessing lives
in the story beneath
the story.
It lives in the story
inside the story.
In the spaces
between.
In the edges,
the margins,
the mysterious gaps,
the enticing and
fertile emptiness.
This blessing
makes its home
within the layers.
This blessing is
doorway and portal,
passage and path.
It is more ancient
than imagining
and makes itself
ever new.
This post – originally inspired by the theme, Bright – has been on hold since August. It made more sense to wait and delay posting until Christmas came into view, the season of the church year when we traditionally think about bright things like choirs of angels and guiding stars. Only a few more days now.
Wishing you all a fresh encounter with the Christ child this Christmas.
O come let us worship and lift our hearts …
Not because the world is good and last week was awesome,
but because the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,
the God of the whole Earth.
O come let us worship and raise our hands …
Not because our lives are all sweetness and light,
But because even those who walk in darkness
can see a great light,
the Bright and Morning Star
O come let us worship and bow down …
Not because God gives us what we want,
But because God gives us what we need –
the holy child Jesus, God’s Unspeakable Gift.
