CDC/ Dr. Frederick A. Murphy – This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #1833.
Yesterday the first Ebola case was diagnosed in the United States. Suddenly everyone is on high alert. People are being quarantined and I suspect that fear is growing. But in Africa the epidemic has already claimed over 3,000 lives and continues to spread. My heart grieves for all whose lives have been devastated because of loss of loved ones, and livelihood.
Coincidentally, SIM has declared this week (September 29th – October 5th) as a week to pray to end Ebola and have established a special website for that purpose. A big thank you to Lent and Beyond who made me aware of this and who are posting daily prayers with very specific requests and the names of officials and church leaders for us to pray for. The site is well worth a daily visit.
Please join praytoendebola.org and let us set aside this the rest of this week to pray especially for the people of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea who are facing the greatest outbreaks.
The following prayer comes from US (weareus) and their Ebola update page:
Prayers for West Africa:
God of our anguish, we cry to you
For all who wrestle with Ebola.
Grant we pray, peace to the afraid,
Your welcome to the dying and
Your comfort to those living with loss.
And, merciful Father,
bless those many loving hands
That bravely offer care and hope.God of healing,
whose Son healed those who were brought to him.
Hear our prayer for the peoples of West Africa
suffering from the Ebola outbreak.
Inspire and enable your church
to be a source of healing, comfort and hope to those affected,
and an agent for the education
and equipping of communities
to stop the spread of this disease.
For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
And please listen to this prayer posted on praytoendebola.org
Though we are troubled, we do not despair. Though we grieve, we are not without great hope. For two millennia, the Church has prioritized the sick and marginalized. We are called to do no less today.
May the God who answers prayer, the God to whom we pray, the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death so that we may fear no evil, may this God turn His face towards us and by His power and wisdom guiding all those involved, bring an end to the spread of Ebola. May He bring many who live without the knowledge of Jesus into relationship with Him. Updated prayer requests and other resources can be found at www.praytoendEbola.org and at Lent and Beyond
The United Methodist Church also has some good prayer points.
And from World Vision some good prayer points.
St Francis Feast Day is October 4th and many churches including ours, are getting ready for a blessing of the animals. I love being about to take our Bonnie dog to church and have her blessed and I know that this practice is growing in popularity. Each year, I post resources for both blessing the animals and for St Francis day so this year I thought I would combine them as many of us associate the two together.
Here are some of my favourite St Francis Prayers:
This prayer commonly associated with St Francis was not actually written by him as Daniel Horan explains in Living the Prayer of St Francis With All Creation but is still a good reminder of all he stood for.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
Or you may prefer this form to meditate on:
I particularly love this rendition written for International Women’s Day a couple of years ago: A Franciscan Prayer for International Women’s Day
Prayer for St Francis’ Feast
Francis, the destitute and lowly, enters heaven a rich man, acclaimed by the songs of angels!
Lord God, you made Saint Francis of Assisi
Christ-like in his poverty and humility.
Help us so to walk in his ways that,
with joy and love,
we may follow Christ your Son,
and be united to you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Francis, the destitute and lowly, enters heaven a rich man, acclaimed by the songs of angels!
The Praises of God
Lord God:
you alone are holy,
you who work wonders!
You are strong, you are great,
you are the Most High,
you are the almighty King,
you, holy Father, King of heaven and earth.
Lord God: you are Three and you are One,
you are goodness, all goodness,
you are the highest Good,
Lord God, living and true.
You are love and charity, you are wisdom,
you are humility, you are patience,
you are beauty, you are sweetness,
you are safety, you are rest, you are joy,
you are our hope
and our delight,
you are justice, you are moderation
you are all our wealth
and riches overflowing.
You are beauty, you are gentleness,
you are our shelter, our guard
and our defender,
you are strength, you are refreshment,
you are our hope.
you are our faith.
you are our love,
you are our complete consolation,
you are our life everlasting,
great and wonderful Lord,
all powerful God, merciful Savior!
Amen.
And for those who might like to read more prayers and what I have written in previous years for St Francis day.
Blessing of The Animals
This began as a Catholic celebration associated with St Francis of Assisi, but has become extremely popular for people of many traditions in the last few years. We are discovering more and more the benefits of pets in our lives and society so blessing them at church, in the synagogue or even in our animal oriented institutions, is not just a fun thing to do it is acknowledging their importance to both us and God.
Last year I wrote this post: God bless the animals which reflects on that and highlights some of the organizations that work with animals. In 2011, I highlighted the work of Episcopal Relief and Development and their free resource from which the liturgy I posted was drawn.
Here are some other good resources I have found for litanies on blessing animals:
- St Francis Blessing Liturgy by Rev. Robert Morrison and Rev. Richard J. Fairchild.
- Meet me at the corner has a good introduction to blessing of the animals for kids.
- Ritualwell.org has a beautiful Jewish animal blessing
Do you know of other resources that we should add? Please comment below.
Time to reflect:
Make yourself comfortable. If you are at home, sit in your favourite armchair. If you are at your office, close the door. Cut out as many distractions as possible. Focus on your breathing. Take a deep slow breath in from the depths of your abdomen and hold it for a moment. Then breathe out slowly. Relax your body and your mind.
It has been a busy week with much noise and activity. Even as I sit in my office the road and air traffic fills my world with noise that easily distracts me. Physical silence is elusive, but in the depths of my soul I know I can find a place of calm and silence at any time.
Let us start this morning by listening to Simon and Garfunkel sing their classic Sounds of Silence
Finding the silence that comes from a soul at rest and at peace is a remarkable thing, a gift from God, but a gift that must be received from the hands of God and then opened in the presence of God in order to be fully appreciated. A pause, a few deep breaths to centre myself on God, a deliberate relaxing of my muscles and suddenly I feel the embrace of God’s enduring love.
Read the prayer above slowly, focusing on the words and their message. Listen to the Simon and Garfunkel song. Sit quietly in the presence of God; breathing in and out slowly again.
What is your response: As you try to sit quietly in the presence of God what distracts you? What pulls you out of that inner silence and fills you with anxiety, fear or despair? As you focus on breathing in and out the essence of God how does it make you feel?
Now say YHWH slowly in synch with your breathing, (YH breath in; WH breathe out) savouring each syllable and the breath it draws into and out of your body. Breath holds the essence of God. Imagine it flowing into your lungs. oxygenating each blood cell and spreading out through your body. Imagine as you breathe it is the love of God; the peace of God and the stillness of God in which you can hear the quiet whispers through which God so delights to speak. Read the prayer again and listen to the music. Relax your body as you breathe out, and imagine the music flowing with your breath down through your body into the ground.
What is your response: Sit in that inner place of silence and rest for a few moments. What is God saying to you in the silence? What are the faithful promises God has reminded you of? What are the new places of trust God is making you aware of? Write these down. Consider leaving a comment below that might enable others to enter into this silent place of God’s embrace.
The art of leading spiritually
Last week I published a post on Leadership as Spiritual Direction. It has made me think a lot about what I feel a good spiritual leader looks like. Our modern idea of leadership, even of Christian leadership is often a very hierarchical model, based on power and prestige. Success is often judged by growth in numbers rather than in spiritual maturity. Sadly this is the model that most of us know and adhere to without even thinking about it.
Most of us aspire to be leaders. We want to be noticed. We want to feel successful. As Christians we want to know that what we do makes a difference in God’s world. I wonder however if in our striving towards these leadership goals we sometimes miss God’s purposes for us as leaders.
To know how to become good spiritual leaders we need first to understand the purpose of leadership not from the perspective of the secular world or even from the perspective of the religious community but from God’s point of view. A good place to start is with Jesus‘ last prayer to his disciples before his betrayal and crucifixion.
I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one – as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.(John 17:20-23)
As far as I am concerned, spiritual leadership is not a job but a journey. It is a journey into intimacy with God. It is a journey into the kingdom of God. It is also a journey into the company of others. Spiritual leadership is not about individual success, in fact I am not sure that it is about individuals at all. Spiritual leadership is about community, about enabling others to become the people God intends them to be so that together we can become the community of shalom that God intends us to become.
Jesus invited his disciples into a journey towards unity with God and with each other. The challenges of listening together, struggling together and praying together moulded them into a richly diverse loving community that resounded with the Spirit of God and as a consequence turned the world upside down.
No wonder Jesus spent more time developing a community of followers than he did preaching. Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin explains: “…the center of Jesus’ concern was the calling and binding to himself of a living community of men and women who would be the witnesses of what he was and did. The new reality that he introduced into history was to be continued through history in the form of a community, not in the form of a book.”
Early Christians believed that to live by the law of love that Jesus called them to required community because we cannot practice love in isolation.
They reasoned that as the essential nature of God is love and because it is impossible to practice love in isolation, God the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – must be a model of perfect community, a perfect harmony of loving relationship.
Gilbert Bilezikian in his book Community 101, further elaborates this understanding. “Since God is Trinity he is plurality in oneness. Therefore, the creation in his image required the creation of a plurality of persons. God’s supreme achievement was not the creation of a solitary man, but the creation of human community.”
He goes on to explain that this last prayer of Jesus with his disciples is a prayer for community. “The oneness that Jesus prayed for was not mere unity. It was the oneness that reaches deep into the being of God and finds its source in the relationship between Father and Son. Jesus is asking for the restoration among humans of the oneness that had originally been entrusted to them in creation, a oneness made in the image of the oneness within the Trinity.”
This understanding of God and of God’s purposes for us invites us to rethink everything including the function and form of leadership. In fact it turns our leadership models on their heads.
Spiritual leadership is not about our own advancement or success. The central purpose of spiritual leadership is to become co-creators with God in bringing into being a community that is at one with God and with each other. Together we can shine with the presence of Jesus and model the love of God in such a way that others are drawn to believe in God.
This doesn’t require a charismatic out in front personality that hopes everyone will catch their vision, follow and obey. It requires a community that is willing to journey together into the ways of God. It recognizes that leadership is a function of the whole community. As we listen together, discern together, struggle together and pray together we learn to grow together into that restored community of love and mutuality which does indeed reflect the image of the oneness within the Trinity.
What do you think?
On Monday I posted a meditation reflecting on the words Every season has its beauty. The words keep revolving in my mind. I taste them on my tongue and savour them in my thoughts. I look for the beauty of God in a fallen leaf. I see it in the clouds and in the mountain skyline. Our world is alive to the glory and beauty of God.
As I walk around the garden and drive through the city, I find myself looking for the beauty of new gifts God is unveiling too. As I talk to friends and strangers I am wondering – what season are you in? What are you afraid to let go of? What new things are you embracing with joy?
Out of my reflections has come this prayer/poem
Every season has its beauty,
Fresh from the hand of God.
Look for it.
Listen to it.
Savour its goodness.
Every season has its beauty.
Remember what is past,
With joy and not regret.
Anticipate what is to come,
With hope and not with dread.
Every season has its beauty.
Embrace the new gifts of God,
And live into their blessings,
Full measure, pressed down,
Running out all over.
Christine Sine https://godspacelight.com
We have just passed the equinox, that time of the year when night and day are of equal length in both northern and southern hemispheres. Equal yet not the same.
autumn leaves – Seattle
Here in the northern hemisphere we are heading towards winter. Outside my window the leaves are slowly changing from green to gold and red. Heaters have replaced fans and swimwear has given way to winter coats in most stores. We are hunkering down, waiting expectantly for the first icy blasts.
Flowering Australian wattle
I watch in envy however as my Australian friends post photos of wattle and New Zealanders revel in the flowering of the kowhai tree. For them the hot, sun bathed days of summer are just around the corner.
My global connections remind me that even when change occurs it is not the same for all of us. There are often only fleeting moments when we seem to be living in the same world – equal parts night and day, light and dark. Then suddenly we realize – some of us, like those who live at the equator are not changing much at all, others seem to be going in totally different directions and their viewpoints are diametrically opposed to ours. The hard thing to come to terms with is that this might be OK with God. And I am not talking just about the seasons here.
It is natural for us to want to convince others that we hold the corner on truth when it comes to faith. Perhaps our faith journey has moved us from conservative to liberal theological viewpoints. Others have journeyed in the opposite direction. Some have moved right out of the accepted realms of Christian faith. For others faith has grown and blossomed out of adamant atheism. We struggle with guilt and grief because we cannot convince them of our perspective.
penstemon
When I first moved to Seattle, I struggled to garden appropriately. I wanted to plant the wrong seeds and plants at the wrong seasons. I wanted to grow hibiscus and bougainvillea when I should have been experimenting with rudbeckia and penstemon. It took years for me to adjust to the new rhythm of the seasons and fully appreciate the beauty of these plants.
As I contemplate the changing of the seasons today I find myself wondering. Can I trust that God is still at work when someone I love is going in the opposite direction from myself? Is it possible that God has many rhythms of life, many pathways that are acceptable that I need to appreciate?
What do you think?
The last few months of the year are always a busy season for events here at the Mustard Seed House and we have some exciting possibilities coming up that I wanted to make you aware of.
October 18th Andy Wade will facilitate a Justice At the Table seminar. I am very much looking forward to this event which always challenges and inspires me.
November 15th I will facilitate a contemplative retreat day: Stop the Madness – Return to Our Senses for Advent. We once again invite you to prepare for Advent and Christmas by refocusing your life on what really matters. Take time to renew, refresh and restore your priorities. Make this an annual event and re-establish God’s rhythm for your life.
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