Prayer Diary

Covenant Leader at church

9/30/2024

My prayer as Covenant Leader at church on Sunday.
Dear God,
A beautiful fall weekend; your creation.
And we are also your creation, beautifully and wonderfully made in your image, your image of love.
Lead us to make choices that extend your love and beauty out into your created world. Lead us to be co-creators with you, you who sent us Jesus who shows us the way.
Let us listen and pray on these words he gave us:

You did not choose me, but I chose you to bear fruit, fruit that will last so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Help us, God, to know what to ask so that we may love one another.
Amen

Loving as Jesus loves--a challenge

9/21/2024

I keep returning to love, the fundamental truth of my Christian faith.  "God loves everyone" This includes people I don't like and don't agree with, with women who birth children and women who don't, with people who refer to themselves as 'they' instead of 'he' or 'she'. This includes everyone, even you, even me.
I don't intend this blog entry to be a political comment, but the politics that currently surround us is encouraging me define my faith and the actions I should take. Thus, as someone who tries to follow Jesus, I am intrigued with Jesus response in Matthew's gospel  (22: 36-40)  to the lawyer  who asked:
     "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"  He said to him, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
     In Mark's gospel (12: 28-34) a scribe asks the same question. Jesus' response is similar, but ends with this:  "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
     What more do we have to do than love God and love neighbor as self? Fr. Thomas Keating suggests:
      "A new commandment characterizes the Christian faith which carries the insight of the scribe a step further. It is to love one another as Jesus has loved us….The new commandment is to accept others unconditionally: that is to say, without the least wish to change then."
       Much to pray on!!

Expecting temptations until my last breath

9/2/2024

A great work for a man is repenting of himself before God and expecting temptations to his last breath. Monks of Callistus

Growing up in a UCC church, I didn't hear much about repenting. It was something that John the Baptist talked about, but then Jesus came along and taught us to sing, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
Saying your sorry was much easier to understand than repenting, and so that's what we did. Sure, we had temptations, such as taking an extra cookie from the cookie jar, but expecting such temptations until we died, was neither a thought nor in our Sunday school curriculum. After all, "Jesus loves me."
I still attend a UCC church. I still knows Jesus loves me, and I still say I'm sorry. And now I expect temptations until my last breath.

Practicing passivity in place of activity

8/30/2024

While on retreat at the SSJE monastery last month the brother with whom I was receiving spiritual direction suggested that I consider taking some time to live with passivity, not activity. What? Be passive? Not active? I had no idea how to express this idea, much less live by it. Then he gave a card with this message
After immense activity one passes into a phase where passivity is the only way. I pray that you may be finding this passivity as—the way in which the soul serves GOD, not by doing this or that but by passively receiving the great stream of His love and compassion.
-Michael Ramsey (Archbishop of Canterbury)

It has taken me a month to ease my way into this idea of what passivity might mean for me. To even consider being passive, doing nothing, is a challenge. And yet, I rather like the possibility, offered to me by two Christians that I respect and trust. So why not give it a try--sit and be. How's that for a start? A form of meditation.

Feeling joy, a fruit of the spirit~

8/24/2024

'Joy' is the second of the fruit of the spirit that Saint Paul shares in his letter to the Galatians. I love joy! "Joyful Leaning in Kindergarten" was the title I chose for the book I wrote for teachers. And now as a Christian I am feeling joy at the direction Kamala Harris wants to lead this country.
I don't mean to get political. No, I just want to stay faithful to what Jesus calls me to do. To quote Barbara Brown Taylor: Wash feet. Give your stuff away. Share your food. Favor reprobates. Pray for those who are out to get you. Be the first to say, "I'm sorry."

Is it necessary--To talk, to have an opinion about everything?

8/9/2024

8/9/24 Here is what I shared on my cottagebythesea.net blog. What follows is my prayerful response.
Every year one of my daily readings reminds me of the three sieves, a set of questions attributed to Socrates, who reportedly asked an man who was about to tell him a story if he had put it through the test of the three sieves.
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?

I'm wondering what percent of the stories and information passed along among family and friends fit through such a sieve. I'm wondering about my little world, just little me sharing stuff, passing along information, letting folks know what going on. When I consider this, or for a moment actually practice it, I sense that I become rather boring, uninteresting, and passive. I have little to say; I disappear, at least from the social scene.
   Hmm, it's rather appealing.
     It's what monastics do. I observe that the brothers at SSJE follow something similar. They don't talk very much; they listen. Their primary communication is with God.
      When someone talks, it takes practice and commitment not to respond with more talk, which usually includes giving an opinion. Some people need to talk in order to figure out what they believe about a given topic; they need a dialog, a conversation with someone else. Others prefer writing.
    Thought and language. As a kindergarten teacher I get that. But let's put that aside. Perhaps some of us don't need to have ideas and opinions about everything. Perhaps we long for less to put through the sieve. When we start to put 'Is it necessary?" through, perhaps we might consider, "Is the topic even necessary?" Conversation with God doesn't need a sieve.

Silence at SSJE

7/29/2024

It was silent and it was a retreat from my daily life. Three nights following the Daily Office with the brothers at the Society of Sain John the Evangelist, an Episcopal brotherhood in Cambridge, MA.
Here's what I learned, not from being told, but by observing the monks as the offered hospital to me and ten other guests.
LISTEN
Listen to others, talk less, don't give an opinion unless specifically asked for one. Hear God speaking through others, to you, to them, to God's kingdom

Silent retreat at SSJE

7/25/2024

I am about to visit my 104 year old friend Ruth and then head on into Cambridge for a silent retreat at the monastery of Society of St. John the Evangelist. For four days I will follow the daily office along with the brothers in the chapel, eat with them in silence, and have spiritual direction with one of them. I will sit in silence, praying and meditating in the chapel; I will walk along the Charles River. The only reading material I am taking with me is a small journal and my Bible. Jesus tells me only to take what I need.

Iona Hope

7/17/2024

Sometimes I have to make a big reach in choosing a photo to accompany the quotes or messages on my blogs. I consider not adding one at all, and leaving it only to words. But that feels to cerebral, defying the mood and message I want to convey. Today is definitely one of those days. And so I have chosen photos from my July 2022 visit to Iona, photos that I included in the little booklet I created about Hope.
When times are challenging, let us remember Emily Dickinson's message-

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

Self-control: Fruit of the Spirit #9

7/10/2024

As a Christian, self-control means following Jesus. Believing that I can't do this alone means giving up my own self-control so I can release God's self-control.

I did as promised, I had self-control, and commente on each fruit of the spirit as listed in Paul's letter to the Galatians.
… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, patience, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. Galatians 5:22-23.