Deep peace of God to you
I wrote the following prayer this morning during my devotional time and posted it on the Light for the Journey Facebook page. My mind keeps returning not just to the prayer but to the posture I suggest we adopt for the prayer. I realize more and more how much we all need not just prayers to pray, but actions that go with those prayers – actions that call us focus inwardly to meditate, rest, and listen, or actions that call us to move out and get involved in God’s world.
Let the deep peace of God fill you
This prayer also arose out of a time of walking round my garden yesterday after it had rained, the first time for about six weeks. The raindrops glistened on flowers and leaves, the air was fresh and fragrant, and everything seemed to have grown exponentially overnight. The sense of God’s presence was electrifying, drawing me into the wonder of God’s abiding love.
Let the deep peace of God be ever present to you
So, before you read this morning’s prayer take a moment to calm your spirit. Sit quietly in a comfortable chair, or go out and walk around your garden. Sit and imagine something or someone who calms and quietens your soul. Sit with the palms of your hand facing upwards, open to God. Take a few deep breaths in and out until you feel relaxed then say the prayer:
Let the deep peace of God
Penetrate your heart.
Let it flood your soul,
And overflow your spirit.
Let the deep peace of God
Fill you with hope and trust.
Let it bring you rest,
And surround you with tranquility.
Let the deep peace of God
Be ever present to you.
Let it guide you forward,
Into the embrace of God’s love.
When you finish sit in quiet for a few minutes more. Allow the peace and the love of God to penetrate deep within you. Perhaps you would like to write the prayer out and take it with you so that you can pause at intervals throughout the day to pray it again and allow it to resonate deep within your being.
Let the peace of God lead you to God’s love
The garden after rain – breathe in the fragrance of God
Yesterday I wrote and posted this breath prayer on the Light for the Journey Facebook page. Its popularity makes me realize that I am not the only one who appreciates these prayers. I wrote it after wandering around my garden following the first rain we have had for about six weeks. The wonderful fragrance that rain brought to the air with the hint of ozone and free of pollutants was amazing.
Lord Jesus Christ,
I breathe in the wonder of your love,
And say thank you.
I breathe in the fragrance of your life,
And say thank you.
I breathe in the joy of your presence,
And say thank you.
Thank you for love and life and presence.
Thank you for abundance and generosity and faithfulness.
Thank you for blessings that overflow.
I breathe in and am filled with the glory that is You.
I have talked a lot about breathing prayers in the past and use them frequently. This excerpt from Return to Our Senses gives a good summary of some of my thoughts. And here Lynne Baab talks about her encounters with breath prayers.
I love Richard Rohr’s understanding that the Jewish name for God – Yahweh – was not spoken, but breathed. Its correct pronunciation is an attempt to imitate the sound of inhalation and exhalation. We do that every moment: our first and last word as we enter and leave the world…. The one thing we do every moment of our lives is therefore to speak the name of God. (Richard Rohr: The Naked Now) Listen to him talk about this here.
Prayers like this make me realize my need to breathe in and out deeply at regular times during the day – filling all of my lungs with the essence of God.
Here is another beautiful breathing prayer by AB Simpson
And some of my own prayers:
Here is the first breathing prayer I wrote. It is still a favourite for me and one that I frequently use in seminars.
And another entitled in Faith and Confidence I breathe freely.
It is easy for us to take breathing for granted, unless we suffer from allergies, asthma or panic attacks. But that too can help remind us that breath is a gift from God. As I explain in my post Its Allergy Season but Don’t Hold Your Breath too Long, the breath of God in the bible gives us life, fills us with the spirit and enlivens the scriptures.
More recently I have learned that as we grow older we forget how to breathe properly. Intentionally pausing throughout the day to take deep breaths in and out is highly recommended by many medical experts. Hmm, maybe combining that with moments of prayer would be a good idea. I have also learned that there are many aspects of modern culture that restrict or inhibit our breathing – not just air pollution but fashion, especially women’s fashion often inhibits our breathing. High heeled shoes are a particular deterrent to poor breathing. And not surprisingly sitting hunched over a desk all day is also bad for our breathing.
So take some time to breathe deeply today. Perhaps you would like to use one of the prayers mentioned above, or try this Celtic style prayer which I will be using in our upcoming Celtic retreat Brigit and the Hospitality of God.
Breathe on us God of life,
Breathe in us Christ of love,
Breathe through us Spirit of truth.
Let justice reign,
Let compassion flow,
Let love reign over all.
Breathe on us God who cares,
Breathe in us Christ who reconciles,
Breathe through us Sprit who transforms.
Fill us with kingdom seeds,
Send us out in peace,
Let love reign over all.
Brian Sellers Petersen at Atlantic Street Family Centre for Food and Faith Steering Committee gathering
Tom and I have just taken a walk around our neighbourhood. It is wonderful to see vegetable gardens springing up all over, and to have a chance to say hi to the early morning dog walkers. Last Friday I got together with other members of the steering committee for Seattle Tilth’s Food and Faith Initiative to discuss ways to further encourage faith communities to reach out into their neighbourhoods.
It seems appropriate therefore that I have also been rereading the chapters The New Parish on Presencing and Rooting. To me these are core concepts of what it means to become the New Parish, but then again I am all into spiritual formation so that is probably not surprising. The ideas also flow well from my post yesterday, because imagining what the kingdom of God could look like in our communities and working to bring about kingdom change is at the heart of the type of spirituality we all need.
I continue to reflect on the type of spirituality these chapters highlight and what we can learn about the practices we all need to develop for the future. I love the concepts that Dwight, Paul and Tim explore here. Their emphasis on a spirituality that is community focused not individually based is wonderful. Their challenge to root this in a certain place together not only with our own faith community but with those of other faith persuasions is compelling and to a certain extent convicting.
1. Drawing people together for mutual times of listening, discerning and experimenting. As I am sure you are all very well aware this is the practice that is at the core of MSA. Our regular discernment meetings have profoundly shaped our organization over the last few years and will continue to define our ministry for the future.
2. Modifying lectio divina to include not only listening to scripture but also to our own story and the story of our neighbourhood. Again a very important practice that gets us our into the neighbourhood, looking listening, engaging people we meet and discerning what God is saying through these interactions. This is both an active and a reflective process and my one concern is that we do the action without taking adequate time to really listen to what God wants to say through the process. When we do listen, and again preferably with others, this is a powerful spiritual practice that shapes us, our community and our neighbourhood.
However I would add also listening to the story of our world. Our local communities to not function in isolation from other communities in this country and around the world. The pain and horror of war, poverty and disease are all part of the context we need to consider. Our spiritual practices of listening and discerning should open us up to the broken heart of God who aches for the restoration of our world .
3. Taking time for personal and community renewal. I know from my own experience that it is easy, even when involved in regular listening and discernment to get too busy and too focused on the work that is still out there to be done. Working towards the completion of one area of transformation before we start on another is not easy. Pausing to take time to reflect on the good things that have been accomplished and to renew and restore your own person – body, soul and spirit – is not easy in our society.
Affirmation and gratitude should be at the heart of our spiritual life – affirmation of others by us, but also space and time for others and for God to affirm us. Taking time for this affirmative process makes us less driven and less inclined to commit ourselves to more than we are capable of or called to by God.
So as you think about this today ask yourself these questions:
1. When was the last time your walked around the neighbourhood thanking God for the good things God is accomplishing that you have the privilege to be a part of?
2. When was the last time you paused to drink in the presence of God and heard the divine voice say Well done good and faithful servant.
And if you can’t remember take some time to do this today.
This morning I am sitting at my desk absorbed by the beautiful collage I was sent by Joyce Withrow who just finished reading my book Return to Our Senses. It incorporates the words:
Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the sight.
I am also sitting here thinking of the words I heard preached at church yesterday by Morgan Schmidt:
God is always about restoration and is working to make all things new. We just need to to wake up to it.
Morgan asked us to imagine with God what a restoration could look like in a world in which the problems are too big for us to cope with. And as I listened to the news this morning the problems were definitely too big to cope with – Israel invading Gaza, wildfires devastating homes and searing hundreds of thousands of acres in Eastern Washington, humanitarian crisis on the U.S. Mexican border, escalating conflict in the Ukraine, ongoing conflict in Syria, and Afghanistan. The list goes on and on and often we cannot cope with so much bad news.
Thy kingdom come we say each time we recite the Lord’s prayer but I wonder if we really believe it. We know we cannot fix the brokenness and sometimes we forget our dreams of what a restored world could look like. Sometimes we forget that God is building a kingdom of righteousness, and abundance, freedom and wholeness for all. A kingdom in which love is the language and peace and joy are everywhere.
What if instead of focusing on the suffering in our world we imagined with God what restoration could look like? What if we groaned with all of creation because of the brokenness of our world and shared the heartbreak of our God who longs to see all things restored and made whole?
And then what if we took note of the ways in which God’s kingdom is already breaking into ours,believing and affirming that any time good, love and beauty are expressed we encounter something of God. What if we allowed these encounters to attune us to imagine the kingdom in its fullness and then went out to bring more goodness and love and beauty into the world.
Whenever we share communion we say the words Do this for the remembrance of me. I think Jesus knew how easily we would let go of his dream of a renewed and restored world. He knew how quickly we would become disheartened when things did not change as we wanted them too. But at the communion table we are encouraged to train ourselves to live as Jesus lived and to imagine and live into the kingdom day by day. We are challenged to commit ourselves to God’s dream of a world made knew and to do the little things we can to see that come into being.
This morning’s post is written by Leroy Barber the global executive director of Word Made Flesh. I am reposting this from his recent newsletter firstly because the sentiments in the letter so touched my heart. The question they raised in my mind is How can we support and be hospitable to people of colour wanting to work in missions? I am also posting this because I will be speaking at the Word Made Flesh staff conference in a couple of weeks and am excited about meeting people I have corresponded with but never met who are so dedicated to helping the world’s poor. It is fellowship with people like these that keeps me sensitive to those who are disadvantaged in our world. They encourage me to grapple with hard questions that keep me on the path that God intends me to follow.
I think I am a bit angry today. I know I should be used to the story, but it always hits me like a ton of bricks when I am faced with the reality. We have a great group of interns for the summer. They are committed young people who are beginning a journey and are looking to commit their lives to living out justice. They come to learn, offer their gifts, and explore the possibilities of doing ministry like this for the rest of their lives. I love the process. It’s not always easy or neat but incredible through all of it.
We have a diverse crew this summer, something we desire, and work hard for as an expression of our faith. We want everyone to be able to serve. The difficulty lies in the fact that we are locked into a system of support raising, and inevitably it rears it’s ugly head as it’s already doing this summer. The persons of color, though highly qualified people, don’t have the networks to support even a summer. This is a reminder of the legacy of injustice of the brokenness of our systems that favor privilege. Mind you, God continues calling young people from all backgrounds. This inherent injustice merely points out the brokenness of our system and how far removed it is from God’s heart. The God of Justice, keeps calling all people and our broken system keeps hurting them.
This summer reminds me of the hard places Donna and I have found ourselves while trying to raise support, raise a family, and answer the call in our lives. We chose to keep at it, but the tax we paid as people of color in missions was great. Extra jobs on the side, sleepless nights, and at times, months without pay. It is my desire to change this for young people of color starting out on this journey.
I want to believe that 25 years later we can do better. Diversity is, of course, important because many of the communities “served” are communities of color and people need to see people like them in roles of leadership and service. Not to mention that by excluding people of color, we are missing out on a greater understanding of who God is. Since we are all made in the image of God, the more diversity we have, the more of God we see.
This month marks one year for me at Word Made Flesh. Throughout this year, I have had the opportunity to visit people around the world and encounter some great local leaders. Leaders that are doing excellent work in their communities but for whom personal support raising is not an option. There are usually no middle class uncles, aunties, churches, or parents to send monthly gifts. Yet the work they do each day as social workers, teachers, and executive directors is vital to the life of the community.
This month I ask that you send a gift to support our interns of color. That you recognize the leadership they bring and the sacrifices they make. I challenge you to give generously. Your gifts will not only help our interns, but will also support local and leaders of color around the world.
Leroy Barber is an ordained Christian minister who has dedicated more than 25 years to eradicating poverty, confronting homelessness, restoring local neighborhoods, healing racism, and living what Dr. King called “the beloved community.” He is currently the Global Executive Director of Word Made Flesh, an international organization that works among the most vulnerable of the world’s poor. He serves on the boards of Mission Year, The Simple Way, The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), and the Christian CommunityDevelopment Association (CCDA). He is the author of three books: New Neighbor: An Invitation to Join Beloved Community (Mission Year, 2008); Everyday Missions: How Ordinary People Can Change the World (Intervarsity Press, 2012); Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White: Who’s More Precious In God’s Sight? with Velma Maia Thomas (FaithWords/Hachette Book Group, 2014). Leroy has been married to Donna for the past 29 years and together they have five children.
This morning John Birch of faithandworship.com posted this prayer on the Light for the Journey Facebook page. It is such an apt prayer for this time that I thought I would repost it here.
Thinking particularly of that tragedy in Ukraine, but encompassing so many others…
We pray for all whose lives
have been touched by tragedy,
whether by accident
or a deliberate act.
For those who mourn,
immerse them in your love
and lead them through this darkness
into your arms, and light.
For those who comfort,
be in both the words they use
and all that’s left unspoken;
fill each heart with love.
We ask this through Jesus Christ,
whose own suffering brought us life,
here and for eternity. Amen
©John Birch, http://faithandworship.com
Having just read this prayer, I turned to my scripture readings for the day which included Psalm 31. This psalm and particularly verses 14 & 15 But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God. My times are in your hands; and the final verse Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord have been my scriptures I return to throughout my life. Part of the scripture is on the cover of an old bible.
Reflecting on that gave birth to this prayer:
Lord our trust is in you alone.
In a world with much despair and trouble,
where people are famished for hope we turn to you.
Make us strong to comfort those who are in despair.
Give us hope to encourage and strengthen those in trouble.
Send your unfailing love to surround those who are in harms way.
Comfort the comforters,
Mourn with the mourners,
Protect the innocent,
Draw us all into the shelter of your wings.
©Christine Sine
This morning I read this interesting article 10 Ways You’re Making Life Harder Than it Has to Be. Some of what it said did not seem to apply to me but it got me thinking about what I do in my own life that complicates life and adds pressure to my days.
Part of what I realize is that how we make life harder than it should be depends on our personalities. Those of us who are easily distracted complicate life by moving in too many directions at once. Those who tend to introspection complicate it by navel gazing and feeling we are to blame for everything bad that goes on around us. This is where tests like the enneagram or Myers Briggs can be helpful. They help us know ourselves so that we identify more clearly the ways in which we complicate life.
Anyhow here is my rather self revelatory list of how I make life harder than it should be. What would yours look like?
1. I expect too much of myself. Believe it or not I grew up thinking I was lazy and so have always felt guilty when I am not moving frantically in many directions. Developing a rhythm that balances work and rest, solitude and community, spiritual and secular, has been both challenging and essential. It has required a lot of discipline as well as education – education that convinces me that this balance is essential. Trusting in God and believing that God does not expect me to be busy 24/7 has been one of the most important lessons I have learned in the last few years.
2. I expect others to know what I am thinking. It took me a long time to realize that other people cannot read my mind and that they don’t necessarily interpret my actions in the way I expect them too. This, I think, is partly a cultural thing. Like making a cup of tea for a visitor. For me it is an act of hospitality I never expect people to refuse. If they do I feel insulted. For others who have different cultural values it can be an imposition. This type of thinking applies in so many areas – how we express love, affection, how we spend money, use our time, or relate to others are all translated into expectations on others. I agree with what the article I read above commented: Unmet expectations will be at the root of most of your unhappiness in life. Minimize your expectations, maximize your joy. I would add learn how others interpret your actions and help them understand you – that too maximizes your joy.
3. I let the internet steal my time. This is a common problem today and one that has led to many addictions and much waste of time. How often do you check your email, Facebook, twitter, instagram or other social media sites? How often do you go off at tangents reading articles, playing games, checking up on what your friends are doing? Some of these habits are hard for me personally, others I have watched in my friends’ lives. It wastes time or more bluntly IT STEALS TIME FROM US. At the beginning of the day I like to frame out my commitments in my head. Writing them down is even better. Working out when to be on the computer and when to close it and put it away are some important boundaries I am still learning to apply.
4. I let work not God set my agenda. When I don’t start my day focusing on God, allowing the spirit of God to sweep over me, to relax and calm my spirit my stress level increases exponentially. That is part of the reason I write prayers and often post them at my desk so that I can come back to them throughout the day. All of us need God pauses, yet we rarely take them. This always reminds me of what a friend who spent time in a monastery told me after his experience. He said: I thought that pausing for prayer throughout the day would be restricting, but instead I found it to be liberating. No matter what I was doing at certain times I had to stop, put down my tools and pray. Nothing was allowed to get in the way of my times with God. How many of us have that same conviction. What do we allow to get in the way of our times with God?
5.I don’t take time to be grateful for what I have. It is easy in our consumeristic society that always makes us feel we do not have enough to focus on what is missing in our rather than on the blessings of what we have. I have mentioned before that an important part of journalling each week for me is asking the question. What am I grateful for? Recently I have added another question Where have I caught glimpses of the kingdom of God? These questions have changed my perspective on life and on the world around me in ways I never imagined possible. They have transformed my attitudes in so many places that I am sometimes astonished by the change in myself. As a teenager I was prone to depression, and felt the world was against me. Gratitude and thankfulness, catching glimpses of what God is accomplishing makes joy and faith bubble up from within me.
So how do you complicate your life? What increases your pressure? Steals your time? Robs you of joy? Take some time today or this week to find out. Let me know. Writing down and sharing our struggles and challenges is half of the battle in overcoming them.
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