reflection for January 21, 2009

  New Beginnings

  Blessings

  Spirit of Life, bless us as we enter this new time,

  and as we bless one another in peace.

  In this time of hope we wish to affirm life for all.

  We commit ourselves again

  to bring your hope of freedom

  to all who suffer despair.

  Fill us with a thirst for your justice

  and teach us to move beyond

  reliance on empty promises and false hopes.

  Spirit of Life, renew our vision of a different possibility,

  a different world.

  Open the eyes of those who are fed

  to the cries of the hungry.

  Move the hearts of those who are whole

  to offer healing to those who suffer.

  Turn our eyes inward and outward

  to the beauties within and without.

  Help us to care for your presence

  in the sap-filled plants, in the soaring birds,

               in the murmuring ocean,

  in the gurgling streams with their families of fish,

  and in our own hearts,

  often broken sometimes healed.

  Spirit of Life, renew our dreams.

  Help us to attend to your voice

  and to know your call amid all the others.

  Repair our dreams for the future

  when they have become ragged.

  Bless all the women of the future,

  and grant them loving and listening friends and family.

  Open for them a way of peace

  so that their children and their children's children

  may receive an inheritance

  of womanly grace and hope.

  Amen, We Pray. Amen

  (Hildegarde of Bingen)

 

  From: Praying with the Women Mystics

  Selected, compiled, and interpreted by Mary T. Malone

 

    

Reflection for January 14, 2009

     I thought I'd lost you. But you said I'm imbued

in the fabric of things, the way

wax lost from batik shapes

the pattern where the dye wont take.

I make the space around you,                                            

and so allow you shape; and always

you'll feel the traces of that wax

soaked far into the weave:

the air around your gestures,

the silence after you speak.

That's me; that slight wind between

your hand and what you're reaching for;

chair and paper, book or cup;

that close, where I am: between 

where breath  ends, air starts.

             from: Where You Are, a requiem poem by Mark Doty 

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I

ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take

the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there 

your hand shall lead me, and your right hand hall hold me. If I say, "Surely the

darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not

dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

         -from Psalm 139

Reflection for January 7, 2009

WISE WOMEN ALSO CAME

Wise women also came.

The fire burned in their wombs

long before they saw 

the flaming star in the sky.

They walked in shadows, 

trusting the path would open 

under the light of the moon.

Wise women also also came,

seeking no directions, 

no permission from any king.

They came by their own authority,

their own desire, their own longing.

They came in quiet, spreading no rumors,

speaking no fears 

to lead to innocents slaughter,

to their sister Rachel's 

inconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came, 

and they brought usual gifts:

water for labor's washing, 

fire for warm illumination,

a blanket for swaddling.

Wise women also came,

at least three of them,

holding Mary in the labor,

crying out with her in the birth pangs,

breathing ancient blessings into her ear.

Wise women also came, 

and they went, as wise women do,

home in a different way.

In this and every season 

may we see them

the wise ones

who come bearing gifts to us.

They cloak themselves in garb that rarely draws attention,

but they are there 

at the edge of the shadows,

in the margins of our days,

on the threshold of our awareness

offering what we most need.

Give us eyes to see them now,

before they have left 

to go home in another way,

before we glimpse

their departing shadows edged in gold

and smell their spiced perfume

lingering behind them 

in the air.

From: Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas by Jan  L. Richardson  

Reflection for December 31, 2008

A year is nothing but the amount of time it takes for the earth to go completely around the sun before it begins the trip all over again. The completion of a year, then, is not a sign that things are ending. It is surely much more the realization that life repeats itself unendingly. We have a chance to do everything again, better this time, more comfortably this time, more joyfully this time.
Songs of Joy, Joan Chittister


On meaning, as we age:

A burden of these years is that we might allow ourselves to believe that not being as fast or as busy as we used to be is some kind of human deficiency.

A blessing of these years is that we can come to understand that it is the quality of what we think and say that makes us valuable members of society, not how fast or busy we are.
The Gift of Years, Joan Chittister

Reflection for December 24, 2008

The Meditation this morning was a reading of the story,
My Father’s Gift
by Frederick Waterman.

Julian Cell wishes Blessings and Peace to all!

Reflection for December 17, 2008

ONE WORLD
Celtic Woman
I hear a baby crying,
A sad sound, a lonely sound.
I want to take her in my arms,
And then I dry away all her tears.

I see a boy who's frightened,
A young boy with old eyes,
I long to say you're welcome here,
You can be happy now that you're warm
We're all a part of one world,
We all can share the same dream...
And if you just reach out to me,
Then you will find deep down inside.... I'm just like you,

Loud voices raised in anger,
Speak harsh words, such cruel words,
Why do they speak so selfishly? When we have so much we can share.

So let your hearts be open,
And reach out with all your love,
There are no strangers now,
They are our brothers now,
And we are one.

We're all apart of one world,
We all can share the same dream,
And if you just reach out to me,
Then you will find, deep down inside,
I'm just like you....

We're all a part of one world,
We all can share the same dream,
And if you just reach out to me,
Then you will find, deep down inside...

I'm just like you....
I'm just like you....

Reflection for December 10, 2008

Preparing a Space

…The season of Advent is a season of preparation, a time of getting ready for what lies ahead. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says of John the Baptist, “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ ’’ And in another Advent reading, Isaiah proclaims to us, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). While both Matthew and Isaiah draw our attention to the horizon from which the holy one will appear, they also draw our gaze to the path itself.

The season beckons me to ask, what am I preparing for? What is the way that is being prepared within the wilderness of my life? What does it mean for my own life to become a path, a way of welcome for the Holy One? How do I give myself time to notice the ways that the path unfolds before me and within me? What are the acts of preparation that bring delight to my life? Whom do I ask or allow to help me prepare?

Chances are, if we don’t enjoy the process of getting ready, we won’t enjoy the event we are getting ready for. If we become so consumed by getting Christmas right—the right present, the right cards mailed to the right people at the right time, the right dishes for Christmas dinner—we risk missing the surprising ways that God prepares us in this season. As we open to God’s guiding in these Advent days, we may discover that the space being prepared for the coming birth lies within our own selves.

^{Jan L.Richardson, NIGHT VISIONS: searching the shadows of advent and christmas, United Church Press, 1998}