Tag: open

What The World Needs

Spirit of Life,
You who urge the spring salmon upstream
and the geese back to their nesting grounds:

There is so much pain in our world.

It is tempting to shut our eyes
and shut our hearts
just so we can survive.

But what the world needs
is for us to keep them open.

Help us keep our eyes open
to the suffering we see.

Grant us the strength
not to turn away,
but to move toward
those beings and places
where our love is most needed.

Help us open our hearts.

Help us know
that it is when we are most open
to your movement through us
into our beautiful and hurting world
that we will feel the most joy.

Help us open our hearts to joy.

Blessed be.

 

What We Can Choose

Spirit of Life, Mystery Beyond Mystery:

“This being human is a guest house,”
says the poet, Rumi,
“Every morning a new arrival.
Welcome and entertain them all…
Be grateful, because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

 

We may never plumb
the depths of the mystery
of our life on Earth.

We may never know
why things happen
the way they do.

But we can choose our response.

We can choose
to open our hearts
to what is.

We can choose
to make meaning
from what we are given.

We can choose to create beauty

We can choose to heal brokenness

We can give thanks
for the beauty
and the brokenness,

and we can trust
that we are held,
always,
in love.

Blessed be.

Open Our Hearts

Spirit of Life,
You who body forth
as our starry universe
and this luminous,
blue-green planet:

Now is our hot blue and gold time,
when the air smells of oaks
and pines and dry grasses,
crickets sing all night,
and the rivers get lower and warmer.

Grapes swell with the liquid sunshine
that delights our tongues
sunflowers and zinnias bloom
in glorious colors
and zucchini plants run riot in the gardens.

Help us ground ourselves
in all this beauty
so we can open our hearts.

Help us open our hearts so wide
and so deep
that they can fill with
an entire ocean of love.
Help us feel the joy of that love.

Help us open our hearts so deep
and so wide
that they can hold all the pain
of this suffering world,
and soothe it with our love.

Help us open our hearts to one another.
Move through us as compassion
for all those who fear
and all those who mourn.
Move through us as celebration for all
who are experiencing great joy.

And help us know who we really are:
each a beloved, essential being,
all part of one great
living breathing changing shining whole
whose nature is love.

Help us open our hearts to love.

Blessed be.

Channels of Love

Spirit of life, Great Immensity of Love
that holds all:

This life can be so hard.
There is so much pain,
so much suffering
everywhere we look.

How can we stand it?
How can we manage?

Perhaps by being here, together.
By breathing together.
Perhaps by singing together.
By taking action, together.
Perhaps together we can find our power.

Spirit of Life, when we feel small and helpless
Help us know the great power that is ours
if only we will open ourselves to it

Help us open our hearts and our minds–
help us open our whole beings!–
to the suffering that is here,
so we can meet it with love.

May we be such enormous vessels of love
such enormous channels for love
that neither hatred nor cruelty
can survive in our presence.

May we walk on this earth beaming with love
shining with love
bringing love into every situation we meet.

May we know our shared life
as one opportunity to love after another.

Spirit of life, source of all love:
We thank you for this life that we live.

Blessed be.

Blow Loose Our Preconceived Notions

Spirit of Life…
Spirit of Love…
That Which Holds All…

Open our hearts.
Blow loose our preconceived notions,
like the winds blowing loose old leaves.

Help us be ready to learn
new things from one another, here.
Help us be ready to learn
new things from others, elsewhere.

Help us let the stories of others
fall on our hearts like rain—
sometimes sinking in to water new growth,
sometimes flooding,
and washing away rigid structures
that we used to protect ourselves
from painful truths.

With our hearts open and ready to grow,
may we join hands and build a faith
that honors and heals the world.

Amen.  All our relations.  Blessed be.