Category: Awe - A Prayer Diary

Fall foliage, praise God~

10/15/2015

Another post on my cottagebythesea blog, and then a few added comments.

“It’s beautiful.” Make the comment about fall foliage in New England and everyone agrees. Have you ever found someone who didn’t? I bet not. During my walks this past week I’ve been thinking about beauty and the idea that there is universal agreement that sun on the turning leaves is beautiful. 100%. Nobody neutral. There are other: sunrises and sunsets; sun on mountains. All from nature, all with sun. All exuding silence, solitude and simplicity.
Undisputed beauty generates from beyond the senses, beyond what my eyes see and what my mind can choose. It comes from deep inside where God (Truth, Soul, the Ineffable, our core, our essence, the Holy) is. Call it what you will, that place and part of us beyond the senses and intellect where the Good resides.

The universal beauty is from God. God’s creation without human meddling or fixing up. God’s creation is beyond judgment. “Be still and know that I am God.” Start with praise for God’s creation. Fall foliage reminds us to do just that. So do sunrises, which is maybe why I have over one thousand beautiful, unique sunrises on my computer and why I miss the cottage by the sea.
One more thought: sun…son..light…Jesus: I am the Light of the world.

Replacing fear with awe~

11/18/2014

In the psalms, whenever I read of fear connected with God, I always think awe.

The fear (awe) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever. Psalm 111.10

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear (are in awe of) him, and his righteousness to children’s children. Psalm 103:17

      The following verse has ignited awe in me and thus I want to share with you what God has done for me lately.

Come and hear, all you who fear God and I will tell you what he has done for me. Psalm 66:16

    I don’t deny that things happen in life that can strike fear—among family, friends, church, organizations, our country, the world. But the awe of God can lead us to new ways of thinking of and responding to the givens of earthly life.
      This past year God has done all kinds of wonderful things for me and life has continue to happen. The awe is that in difficult situations God seems to be easing me toward understanding and acceptance, and finally to love.
     “What can you do to bring love to this situation?” I hear God asking me.
    When I find myself judging, criticizing, gossiping, worrying and being anxious about things that aren’t my business, I don’t hear God at all. Maybe God only speaks through love.

Iona, the 'thin space'~

6/10/2014

The 'thin space'

I haven’t meant to be amiss about posting, but traveling and sporadic internet service have put me behind. I try not to stay behind in prayer, although I must admit that even that routine changes when I travel. For example, ‘the list’ hasn’t been front and center during my crazy journey from home to on Iona. On the other hand, gratitudes were with me on every plane, bus and ferry ride. Now that I am here I will get out my little post-it pad and write ‘the list’ to take with me tonight to the service at the Abbey.

This afternoon, after a dish of chowder, I walked to the Machair (the common land)—common for all who use it, which includes sheep, cows, and golfers. I passed the spot where fifteen years ago on my first visit to Iona, I stopped and knew that I was standing in ‘the thin space’; where heaven and earth touch and where God tells us not to worry about anything but to remember the lilies of the field. Today the Holy Spirit washed over me and cleansed me with gratitude.

Every prayer is important~

3/19/2014

I’m in awe of the number of people on my prayer list. Friends, friends of friends, citizens of the world. Do our prayers turn the tide for them? Will my friend get an all clear report on her thyroid condition? My daily ‘top ten’ list is selective, but it doesn’t mean others aren’t on the list in my heart.

     I have to assume that those of you reading this blog have your own list of ten. Yesterday 882 different people click on here. That adds up to 8882 prayers offered from just this little sampling of praying diary people. And what about all of your friends who pray but who didn’t read this yesterday to get counted? One could get discouraged by the enormity of prayer needs.

      But God is bigger, more mysterious, more omnipotent, and more loving that anything we can even begin to imagine, which is a good thing. Then there is lent where suffering is held by God, which is another good thing. And then there is Easter where suffering is released. And that is a very good thing.

      Oh, one more good thing: 8882 prayers is better than none. Every prayer is important. Don’t give up.

Pray right now~

1/14/2014

Sometimes there isn’t much I want to write about on this prayer diary blog. Like right now. I ask myself why that is so, since prayer is so central to my life. At the moment the answer that comes is that prayer is beyond words, that sometimes to talk about it detracts from its sacredness. Like right now. That instead of writing about prayer I want to be praying—for two friends who are having surgery on Thursday, for the mother of three who had to stop breast feeding because she’s scheduled for a double mastectomy, for…. Like right now.

Museum of Russian Icons, Clinton, MA

12/30/2013

No words necessary. Just gaze and pray.

Another best Christmas ever~

12/26/2013

Written Christmas Eve.

December 24th. Family has arrived. We have eaten comfort chicken soup and apple pie. The dishes are done, presents wrapped. We have retreated to our resting places. All is calm, perhaps like it was in the stable after Jesus was born but before the arrival of the shepherds and wise men.

I have memories of many Christmases and tonight I miss family members. But I’m content with the solitude after the social time with those who could make it this year. In fact, I wonder if I’ve ever experienced such genuine Christmas solitude before? Regardless, like every year, this is turning out to be the best Christmas ever.

A Christmas message from Joan Chittister…

12/24/2013

      Every year of life waxes and wanes. Every stage of life comes and goes. Every facet of life is born and then dies. Every good moment is doomed to become only a memory. Every perfect period of living slips through our fingers and disappears. Every hope dims and every possibility turns eventually to dry clay. Until Christmas comes again. Then we are called at the deepest, most subconscious, least cognizant level to begin once more to live newly again.

     Christmas brings us all back to the crib of life to start over: aware of what has gone before, conscious that nothing can last, but full of hope that this time, finally, we can learn what it takes to live well, grow to full stature of soul and spirit, get it right.

     There is a child in each of us waiting to be born again. It is to those looking for life that the figure of the Christ, a child, beckons. Christmas is not for children. It is for those who refuse to give up and grow old, for those to whom life comes newly and with purpose each and every day, for those who can let yesterday go so that life can be full of new possibility always, for those who are agitated with newness whatever their age. Life is for the living, for those in whom Christmas is a feast without finish, a celebration of change, a call to begin once more the journey to human joy and holy meaning.

Joan Chittister from In Search of Belief

visionviewpoint@benetvision.org

A spark of grace~

12/4/2013

Here at the cottage, with the gift of time, I’ve been thinking and praying about grace. It’s all a mystery-- prayer, faith, hope, blessings, gratitude, as well as despair, suffering, affliction, tragedy. I start with the mystery, but once I acknowledged all of it, I find some peace, and yes, even grace. The basket of grace, so it seems, holds joys and concerns, health and sickness, pleasure and suffering. Grace embraces the entire human condition. Grace makes okay whatever happens.

    Theophan the Recluse, a 19th century Russian monk, speaks of ‘a spark of grace’ that appears in our hearts. In writing about the Jesus Prayer, he suggests that although prayer itself does not produce the spark, it can help us receive it. Yesterday I received that spark.

     In The Hermitage Journals: A Diary Kept While Working on the Biography of Thomas Merton, John Howard Griffin writes about both his and Merton’s awareness that that God was seeking them. In paraphrasing Merton, Griffin says, “I am here, not because I come here seeking God, but because God wants to find me.”

      Griffin continues, “’I am here where Christ wants to find me.’ That is enough. No seeking, because there in the surrounding silence all that would otherwise be loneliness is filled with Christ, filled with that ravishment.”

      A spark of grace for me. Here I am, trying so hard to find God, laboring to let God in, thinking that I control God, when just maybe God is trying to find me, let me in, control me. Here I am in this beautiful place, surrounded by silence, solitude and simplicity. This is God’s place, not mine. God has invited me in. “Surely God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.”

Baptism: 'God shows no partiality'~

10/28/2013

Do you know the power of two or more being baptized together? It is part of the Roman Catholic tradition and can be traced back the early church. In my UCC church, however, it is usually one baptism a Sunday. But yesterday two babies, born six months ago within a few weeks of each other, were baptized together: the son of our pastor and his wife, and the daughter of a young couple in the church.

There was so much ‘God is still speaking,’ energy in the sanctuary, with equal attention given to each baby. At the close of the baptism, my pastor carried the little girl and introduced her to the congregation while a deacon carried his son to do the same. Scripture tell us that ‘God shows no partiality,.’