Prayer Diary

Infinity of God's creations

3/22/2019

What follows is the post on my cottagebythese.net blog the other day. I want to add a comment about de Waals comment about the gratitude we ‘should’ feel when we take the time to look at God’s creation. Every little piece of lichen brings wonder at the infinity of creations. When I realize that I am one of those individual creations, I am filled with unspeakable gratitude, wonder and humility.

From time to time I write about being in the NOW; it’s one of the ways that helps me be conscious of silence and solitude. I’m pretty HDHD, although such a diagnosis was not “invented” when I was in school (very grateful for that), so I need all these little helps to keep my mind and body quiet and attentive.
     Esther de Wall, in an article in Weavings (July/August 2002), gives a marvelous suggestion of how to stay attentive to the moment:
     i carry with me a magnifying glass—nothing elaborate—one that I can put in a pocket or carry on a string around my neck. Then, whenever I can, I walk slowly and stop and look at whatever it may be, and I find a whole other world—in a leaf, in a small stone, in a twig. But it need not be outside. In my kitchen I enjoy the texture of an orange or the grains of a bowl of sugar.
       What a marvelous time I had with my magnifying glass on my walk yesterday. In rereading her article on my return home, she told me more:
     This is the practice of seeing with detachment—seeing without wanting to own or to possess. It is seeing with total attentiveness, with delight, with wonder, with love, and with reverence. Such a mode of seeing brings with it gratitude for the amazing ingenuity and generosity of a creator God—a God who gives us a world that is rich and filled with wonder.
    I can’t wait to go out today. Or, I can stay in the kitchen.

Dwelling Places

3/20/2019

Dwelling Place. A comforting word, a holy word. God dwelling in us and we in God. A home of comfort, safety, peace, hope, and love.
Here are a few scriptures call us to dwellings. I gathered them together for a 98 year old friend who recently called to my attention to the comfort of the word.

You who dwell in the shadow of the Most High,
Who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.”
Psalm 91:1

"You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance, The place, O LORD, which You have made for Your dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established.
Exodus 15:17

"I have surely built You a lofty house, A place for Your dwelling forever."
1 Kings 8:13

O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house And the place where Your glory dwells.
Psalm 26:8

Why do you look with envy, O mountains with many peaks, At the mountain which God has desired for His abode? Surely the LORD will dwell there forever.
Psalm 68:16

"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have
told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:2

The people who were dwelling in darkness have seen a brilliant light; and on those who were dwelling in the region of the shadow of death, on them light has dawned."
Matt 4:16

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints or the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Psalm 84:12

Faith, HOPE, love

3/18/2019

The other day a friend told me he had little hope. In reflecting on our conversation, I realize that he has more hope for world peace than for his own inner peace. He works for justice and peace, but he can’t let go the wrongs that happened to him as a child.
     Faith, hope, and love. He is stuck on hope, the middle one, which is more active and comprehensible than faith. Can we have hope without faith? Probably not, because without faith, hope just floats about as a capricious whim.
    Love is the easiest to grasp. I love my family, my home, and my upcoming trip to Italy. But love without faith is also capricious, depending on how other people, material possessions, and situations effect me at a given moment. It is easy to grasp moments of hope and love when things are going well. But what about those times of distress, when they are overpowered by despair and fear?
    I want to tell my friend that if he pursues faith, hope and unconditional love will follow. But I can’t tell him how, other than to suggest what I and others have found helpful. The best I can do is listen to him and pray for him. Pray for God’s light and peace to shine on, through, and with him, whatever that might mean to him. I don’t know the details of his situation; in fact they can get in the way of my prayer. Let go, let God, is enough.

Prayer walk~

3/13/2019

This morning’s prayer walk, being in the moment.

It's time to go~

3/9/2019

I visited 93 year old Bob at the hospital last week. I sat holding his hand for about ten minutes. Then he spoke. He told me he didn’t want to keep me from my afternoon plans and would I please leave. Since it was hard to understand him, I reiterated what I thought he had told me and he said, “Yes, it’s time for you to go.” I told him I loved him, and left. He died twenty-four hours later. I wasn’t surprised.

See where your heart takes you~

2/28/2019

I’m tired of talking and thinking about prayer. When I say that I mean, stop talking and thinking prayer. Let go of different meditations and ways that others have written about. Do what my heart tells me to do when I shut my eyes, take a few deep breaths, and settle into God’s presence. That’s all I’m going to say about it. See where your heart takes you.

Praying to let go of fear

2/23/2019

I’m back again, grappling with the news. What am I grappling with? Fear.
    Fear, the title of Bob Woodward’s recent book, sums up whose fear I’m talking about. Everyone’s! Trump’s and all his allies; me and all who are of my persuasion.
    I know that I can only manage my own fear, but how can I do that when I hear of hate talk that includes guns?
      “It’s all about guns, stupid,” I tell myself. But does that mean I get a gun, fight fire with fire, fight guns with guns?
     No! As a Christian, I know better than that.
     Thankfully, after acknowledging my fear, God appears and I hear, “It’s all about love, stupid.”
     I pray that I can pray for my enemies, which means praying that love enters everyone. Everyone includes those with guns, and people like me, who aren’t violent in physical ways, but who are violent in their judgments and in their anger of those who doesn’t agree with us.

The Shack revisited

2/19/2019

The other day four of us from church gathered to watch the movie, The Shack. I had read the book when it first came out in 2007, but I couldn’t get into it. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit personified as regular everyday people felt too literal and dogmatic, too defined and limiting for my United Church of Christ upbringing.
Watching the movie twelve years later, however, opened my heart. I was ready to let go of the complexities of the Trinity and receive its simple, unified message of love through my willingness to choose to forgive, trust, and hope--Hard to do but the model of support is there.
Christianity (and Judaism) is a faith of the Book. We know about Jesus through stories told in the four Gospels. It make sense, therefore, to build on those gospel stories through the stories of others.

What if everyone prayed for peace?

2/13/2019

I am one of the many (at least 100, maybe 200) intercessors with the Iona Community Prayer Circle. Every two months I receive the prayer requests for Group One, the group to which I am assigned. There are twelve groups and approximately 12 requests per group.

    I am also one of thirteen intercessors (from all over the world) who have agreed to receive emergency requests that come into the head office in Glasgow and can’t wait until the next group mailing.
    Over the years we have become prayer friends, praying for needs that go beyond the Community requests, namely for our friends and families and sometimes for ourselves. It is heartwarming to receive the different words that someone from Australia or Scotland use to ask God for help or give God thanks.
    Recently an intercessor from England offered this: I am getting somewhat elderly (85) and have mobility problems so am no longer able to play an active part in church/community life, and feel that intercession is a small offering I can still make.

      As far as I am concerned, this is no small offering. It may be one of the most consequential and vital ways an older person (in fact, anyone) can contribute to peace and love in the world. What if everyone prayed for peace?

My morning reading

2/2/2019

My morning reading includes a daily section from Around the Year with Emmet Fox (1952). Fox was so wise, so forward thinking. I could quote him every day, and never run out.
     Fox affirms my belief and coming to know that God has called me to pray for people. I continue to reread and ponder the following. I encourage you to do so, as well.

    Prayer does change things. Let us be perfectly clear about this. Prayer does change things. Many people say that prayer is a good thing because it gives us courage and fortitude for meeting our troubles. They say that prayer often gets a man out of difficulty simply by giving him self-confidence which he would otherwise have lacked. Of course, this is not spiritual Truth. The fact is that seeing the Presence of God where the trouble seems to be does not merely give us courage to meet the trouble; it changes the trouble into harmony.
    Prayer heals the body by changing the tissues, and it does this by first changing the mind which forms them. Prayer brings man his salvation by changing his nature fundamentally; not by making the best of him as he can be. The body, the environment, the universe itself, is plastic to our thought; and it always reflects our sincere belief. Emmet Fox (1886-1951)