Asking and answers


 

 

‘Prayer is asking, and prayer is sitting. Prayer is the breath. Prayer is not an answer, always, because not all questions can be answered.’

from Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community
by Pádraig Ó Tuama, p. xi
 


A prayer

    I know
that when the stress has grown too strong,
    you will be there.

    I know
that when the waiting seems so long,
    you hear my prayer.

    I know
that through the crash of falling worlds
    you’re holding me.

    I know
that life and death are yours
    eternally.

 
by Mother Janet Stuart (1857-1914),
from The Book of a Thousand Prayers by Angela Ashwin, #241
 


From the blog
Jesus, pray for us
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The Gift #2 : For the asking
 

From prayer and conversation to answers


Het Vredeskerkje (The Little Peace Church) in Bergen aan Zee, NL

 

For those looking for answers on how to be salt and light in the world, here are some wise words from Paul:

 

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

 

 


Prayer

O God, our Master in heaven,
make us fair and just in our dealings with others;
keep us persistent in prayer for them,
alert to their needs,
and constantly thankful;
open doors for us to proclaim the message about the secret of Christ;
help us to speak as we should, to make it clear.
Keep us wise in the way we act towards those who do not believe,
help us always to make good use of every opportunity we have;
let our conversation be attractive and inspiring,
and teach us how to give the right answer to everyone,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 
~ written by Michael Perry, and posted on www.jubilate.co.uk


From the blog
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Small talk
To Emmaus and back
 

In the school of prayer with Eugene Peterson

 

Here are some extracts on the topic of prayer by Eugene Peterson from his book, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer.

 
 

I

What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God. The psalms show us how to answer. (p. 6)

II

The practice of Christians in praying the Psalms is straightforward: simply pray through the Psalms, psalm by psalm, regularly. … That’s it: open our Bibles to the book of Psalms and prayer them – sequentially, regularly, faithfully across a lifetime. This is how most Christians for most of the Christian centuries have matured in prayer. Nothing fancy. Just do it. The praying itself is deliberate and leisurely, letting (as St. Benedict directed) the motions of the heart come into harmony with the movements of the lips. (p. 7)

III

All the psalms are prayers in community: people assembled, attentive before God, participating in a common posture, movement and speech, offering themselves and each other to their Lord. Prayer is not a private exercise, but a family convocation. … the believing community at worship, at regular times and in assigned places, is the base of prayer. All the psalms were prayed in such communities. … The primary use of prayer in not for expressing ourselves, but in becoming ourselves, and we cannot do that alone. (p. 18-19)

IV

Human beings are in trouble most of the time. Those who don’t know they are in trouble are in the worst trouble. Prayer is the language of the people who are in trouble and know it, and who believe or hope that God can get them out. (p. 36)

V

We do better to simply enter the sequence of psalms as they are given to us in the Psalms, go from one to the next, one day to the next, one week to the next, taking what comes, learning to enter into what comes, whatever, practicing a sense of the presence of God, deepening that awareness into colloquy* with God. (p. 108)

 
*  colloquy: dialogue, conversation, heart-to-heart


So I answered

Psalm 40:1-8, The Message (translated by Eugene Peterson)

I waited and waited and waited for God.
    At last he looked; finally he listened.
He lifted me out of the ditch,
    pulled me from deep mud.
He stood me up on a solid rock
    to make sure I wouldn’t slip.
He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,
    a praise-song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
    they enter the mystery,
    abandoning themselves to God.

Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God,
    turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,”
    ignore what the world worships;
The world’s a huge stockpile
    of God-wonders and God-thoughts.
Nothing and no one
    compares to you!
I start talking about you, telling what I know,
    and quickly run out of words.
Neither numbers nor words
    account for you.

Doing something for you, bringing something to you—
    that’s not what you’re after.
Being religious, acting pious—
    that’s not what you’re asking for.
You’ve opened my ears
    so I can listen.

So I answered, “I’m coming.
    I read in your letter what you wrote about me,
And I’m coming to the party
    you’re throwing for me.”
That’s when God’s Word entered my life,
    became part of my very being.
 


From the blog
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In the school of prayer with Michael Mayne
In the school of prayer with Ignatius of Loyola
 

Answer the call

A prayer

inspired by Genesis 12:1-7
 

Lord, help us answer your call as readily as our father Abram, that we might extend your blessing throughout our community. Remind us that the places where we find you become altars in our world.  Amen.

 
from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro, p. 91
 


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