Tag Archives: prayer

Secret

Today’s little Lenten story is a secret so I can’t tell it to you, but you can whisper it so that only your body and your breath and God and the cat can hear it.

Posted in poetry, prayer | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The priest

Leave your prayers here with me,   not because I can answer them –   you and I know better –   but to slip on like borrowed shoes   before I cross the threshold

Posted in poetry, prayer | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Did Jesus dream?

Did Jesus dream? Were his dreams oracular, spectular, unconsciously omniscient, encompassing future and past, nebulae and black holes? Were there days when night hung from his shoulders, unlight, leaden remnants of memory or premonition? Did Jesus delight in the absurdity of dreamscape? Was he … Continue reading

Posted in poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Lost in prayer

Sometimes when I pray the words scurry by like ants I watch their silent progress unregistered on the kitchen scale undulating in their trail unnoticed until they become a swarm indistinguishable one from the next  Sometimes there is one you see that carries five thousand times its weight … Continue reading

Posted in poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Sleep, prayer, grief, and Jesus

Jesus knew that he would conquer death and sin – he had told them over and again that he would rise – but he was grieved and frightened and anguished at the capacity of his human captors for violence. There is no contradiction here: it was from ourselves that he came to save us. That is why he advises his disciples, “Pray that you may not be tested.”  Continue reading

Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to grow a prayer life

We have been transplanted into a new and enduring reality. We know now that this new situation will last longer than any of us imagined at the beginning. If we are not to be choked up by the troubles or cares of the world, we need to take care of the soil of our souls, and the loam of our lives, if we are to continue as good mediums for God’s Word. Continue reading

Posted in current events, prayer, sermon, story | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A midweek prayer in the middle of the night

Flying dark with the bats, I send out prayers,
trying to locate God by their echoes. Continue reading

Posted in poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pray as though nobody’s listening

Oh, but what about those things that “our Father who is in secret” will see? And what will be their just reward? What is behind that other door, the one within our hearts and souls, which attempts to guard my guilt and my ungraceful, unpaintable, distressed and unfading mantras even from the sight of God, let alone myself? Continue reading

Posted in prayer, story | Tagged , | 1 Comment

On the need to pray, and not to lose heart

I pray so as not to lose that heart of God that keeps insisting that justice is possible, that mercy is reasonable, that resurrection is coming. I pray, not so that I can change anyone else’s mind, let alone God’s, but so that God, by her insistence and irritating persistence can change my own heart and mind, bringing them more in alignment with the will and word of God. I pray so as not to lose heart, to hear over and over and over again that widow’s word that God’s justice is eternal, preexisting, loaded with mercy, and final. Continue reading

Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, prayer, sermon | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

prayer incarnate

How did you pray, body and breath, those wilderness days beneath stars that made promises, sand through your hands counting moments since creation, each grain an erosion of the whole; how did you pray, body and spirit sticky with honey … Continue reading

Posted in meditation, poetry, prayer | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment