Thursday, November 29, 2012

The silence that calls us to wholeness, part 2

O God,

I have called you the silence that calls us to wholeness. And yet my heart clamors for words--foolish, distracting words. Silence may well be the universal language of saints, sages and seers. And yet how unhappy am I to sit with an empty cup. A wordy wisdom, my mind races for a wordy wisdom. And yet, I shall never find you in the babbling of my idiot mind. You abide in the empty heart, but I would stop up the way with senseless chattering, lest what I fear most should grab hold of me and pain seize me. And yet you gather me up, the mess that I am. In your gaze, my heart is silent and free. O wordless one.

Amen.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The silence that calls us to wholeness

O God,

How do I address myself to you? You seem aloof, too subtle for this world that can be seen, touched, and quantified. If I imagine you, all I see is my own imagination. And yet, here I sit on this rolling planet, traveling in time and space. The universe is vast, and I am the product of endless cataclysms. My body is formed of stardust, the exhaust of an ancient super nova. I orbit the Sun in this rare garden paradise as my star swirls about a monster black hole, the darkness at the center of my galaxy. Who am I, but a complex and restless earthling? Somehow it is within me to ask, to wonder, to witness. It is within me to ask, who are you? And it is within me to answer, I am. I live in the crushing rock cycle. I wash away and find myself again in cycles of water and air, birth and death. Time will erase the memory of me, but you remain that which calls me into being. O God, you are the silence that calls us to wholeness.

Amen.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

You live in us

Here's my very latest. This song was an opportunity to reflect on the practice of communion. We gather in brokenness. We taste the bread and wine. And in this we may be blessed to see how Christ lives in each of us.

We gather in your holy name,

in brokenness, your body share.

O taste of bread and sip of wine,

You live in us!

Dwell with us / O my Beloved

O God be pleased to dwell with us

On this earth, in this life, now and forevermore

O my Beloved, bright you are!

Come, Holy Spirit, guide me

Here's a prayer I pray from time to time. It is based on a prayer from Mother Teresa.

Come, Holy Spirit, guide me

Come, Holy Spirit, protect me

Clear out my mind so I can pray

Pray, Holy Spirit, inside me

We are anointed

Here's a little Pentecost song I did with my daughter, Zoe.