People's Prayers

Friday, April 12, 2024

Meditation in Eastertide ~ Friday, Week 2: Remember?

April 12, 2024 ~ Friday in Eastertide, Week 2

Frederick Buechner*

The time is ripe...not all the time, surely, but from time to time...to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember — the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.

O Holy Comforter ~
The calendar highlights the dates that are burned deeply into my heart with a mix of sweetness and sadness, mixed with smiles and tears. And on each of those dates I open the door to my inner room of memories and sit with them as if in a familiar attic. I sift through the virtual folders and boxes that hold remnants of the most meaningful people and times of my life that are now past. And on each of those days I need Your presence to surround me while winnowing through the highs and the lows of all that has been. Most importantly, please be here while I caress the remembrances of the all-too-brief moments with those now gone who I have loved and who have loved me. Remind me that in this room, there are no feelings of guilt or shame as You are with me and have always been, through all of my life. What is past is past, what is now is now, and, only briefly.
Fill me with Your peace from when I go from this room until it is time again to remember. Strengthen my resolve to walk more fully into today, loving and living into all that is now, and all that is yet to be. amen.

*Carl Frederick Buechner [1926-2022] was an American theologian, Presbyterian pastor, and author of more than 30 books in several genres such as fiction, autobiography, and sermons, and is well-known among readers of Christian meditation. He received the O. Henry Award and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award among many other honors.

All compositions remain the property of the owner of this blog but may be used with attribution and edited for local use as long as they are not sold or charged for in any way. For more information or comments, contact: Leeosophy@gmail.com

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Meditation in Eastertide ~ Thursday, Week 2: Still Alive? Now What...

April 11, 2024 ~ Thursday in Eastertide, Week 2

Viktor Frankl*

Here's a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:

if you're alive, it isn't.

~ Richard Bach**

Lord of Now, Lord of Forever, I'm still alive. Now what?

Some days it's hard work just to be alive. Other days go by so fast I hardly realize it. And then, someone you care about is suddenly gone and life takes on a new meaning, again. And just as suddenly it hits me: his/her/their mission is finished, whether s/he was ready for it to be or we who care about them were, it just is. And even if we can’t understand or figure out what someone’s life mission was, especially someone very young, even in our deepest grief we can seek a way to live in earnest, and in honest and loving purpose, because of their importance in our lives.

Again I’m here, as I begin once more to re-evaluate and re-discover how I can live as if You, Lord, were with me every moment [as You are]. When I do come to You, I remember that I can worry less about doing stuff and think more about just being present, conscious, aware, especially with You, and then my honest and loving purpose ~ my mission ~ will become clearer. Of course I'll keep doing but I'm seeing again that if I spend more of life working to love You with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, and my neighbors as myself ~ per Your instructions ~ that mission thing will take care of itself. Through that I will re-center my self, focus on being conscious in thought and action, movement and stillness, then perhaps more of what I do will then, simply, reflect the who I am continually becoming. Thanks for listening, as always. amen.

*Viktor Frankl [1905-1997] was a survivor of Holocaust Concentration camps in Auschwitz, Dachau, and Theresienstadt, and Bergen-Belsen. After graduating from high school he studied medicine and between 1928 and 1930, while still a medical student, he developed a number of youth counseling centers due to a rise in teen suicide. Recruiting pyschologists and psychiatrists, by 1931 there were no more teen suicides. Later he lost his father to starvation in Theresienstadt, his mother and brother to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and, his wife to typhus in Bergen-Belsen. After the war he headed the Neurology Department at the General Polyclinic in Vienna and established a private practice and continued to see patients until retirement in 1970. He earned a PhD in 1948 and was awarded a professorship in Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna. He was a visiting Professor at Harvard University, Southern Methodist University, and Duquesne University and was given an award by the American Psychiatric Association in 1985. He is the author of many books the most well-known of which is Man’s Search for Meaning.

**Richard Bach [1937- ] is an author best known for classic 1970s bestsellers: Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, and later, There’s No Such Place as Far Away, and more. His books carry a philosophical theme that our physical limits and mortality are merely appearance. An avid pilot and love of flying nearly cut his mission short in 2012 as his small plane landed upside down in a field and he was badly injured but recovered and continues to write.

All compositions remain the property of the owner of this blog but may be used with attribution and edited for local use as long as they are not sold or charged for in any way. For more information or comments, contact: Leeosophy@gmail.com

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Meditation in Eastertide ~ Wednesday, Week 2: Are You Silenting?

April 10, 2024 ~ Wednesday in Eastertide, Week 2: Are You Silenting? '24

To ‘listen’ another’s soul

into a condition of disclosure and discovery

may be almost the greatest service that

any human being ever performs for another

~ Douglas Steere*

Well, Dear God, here's a big shocker for you ~

I do acknowledge that sometimes I am so busy thinking about what I want to say that I forget to listen to what someone else is saying! I'm still learning, slowly, to give others their air time even though I'm sure my response is the better comment and the most necessary. (Yeah, ok, I'll work on that thought, too.) I have experienced the rare moment when I feel listened to, as if what I think and say and feel are important to someone. Other times I can go on and on about my stuff trying to re-experience the feeling of importance. But when I'm working consciously to be more aware, I have had moments of just being present and listening to someone in need while letting whatever I wanted to say go away, unspoken. It is a moment that combines the graces of humility and respect.

I know that true listening is a gift of personal attention to the one who is speaking in words and/or emotion especially in these times of so much yelling at others to make a point. I also know that deep listening is a gift to myself, as with it I learn more about the person I'm with and myself, in my own needs and wants, how and if to express them, and how to let the conversation flow with little or none of my stuff.

I will strive to be more attentive to others and less attentive to what I want to say about it. And the best example I have as a pay-off is You, always here, always listening even when I ramble (like now). Thank You for that and, as You already know, it's hard for me to take my own counsel in this so I'll be asking You regularly for a little smack on the back of my head along the way, OK? amen.

Best advice for good listening:

DO Listen deeply to understand

DON'T Listen only with the intent to reply

*Douglas Steere [1901-1995] was a Quaker ecumenist who was professor of philosophy from 1928 to 1964 at Haverford College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and spent a year as a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Dr. Steere was significantly involved in Quaker post-war relief efforts in Poland, Norway, and Finland after World War II and was given national recognition by Finland in 1987. He held a PhD from Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar with two additional degrees from Oxford University. A prolific author, editor, and translator of books and articles on Quakerism and other religions, he was invited as an Ecumenical Observer at the Second Vatican Council.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Meditation in Eastertide ~ Tuesday, Week 2: Deserving?

April 9, 2024 ~ Tuesday in Eastertide, Week 2

It is a fact that people are always well aware of what is due them.

Unfortunately, they remain oblivious of what they owe to others.

~ St. Francis de Sales*

O Lord,
I am chastened by the recognition of how often I do the check-list thing and think about how to get all that I deserve. Then I look back over my life and worry that I might actually get all that I deserve...Please, God, spare me that, at least some of it!
Help me, again and always, to discover Your peace within myself, so that I can work to reflect it outwardly to others. Help me to measure my life in gratitude instead of my wants and expectations. Grant me the consciousness to spend more of my allotted days seeking forgiveness for my faults and forgiving others for theirs, rather than me judging us both harshly. I want to wake each morning, remember each noon, and when I lay me down to sleep, feeling and knowing the grace You bestow on us all. I want to look beyond myself and live into the gifts You have given each of us to use generously on behalf of all Your people.
O Lord, I am also chastened by the recognition that what good I think is owed to me in this life is exponentially less than what I owe You, Your People, and, Your Creation. It is past time for me to begin re-payment so I'll start today even if slowly. amen.

*Francis de Sales [1567-1622], a saint on the Roman Catholic calendar, was Bishop of Geneva but not allowed to live there as it was under Calvinist control. Of great accomplishment as a bishop, he is best known now as a mystical writer who championed the laity and provided gentle spiritual direction and counsel. His best known work is Introduction to the Devout Life, still read today, in which he emphasized charity over penance as a means to progress in spiritual pursuit whatever your station in life, from the wealthiest to the poorest. He did not define charity in terms of money but rather caring consideration in whatever way is available to us. He is said to have struggled with a short temper but through his writings we only know him with an inner calm and deep faith.

All compositions remain the property of the owner of this blog but may be used with attribution and edited for local use as long as they are not sold or charged for in any way. For more information or comments, contact: Leeosophy@gmail.com

Monday, April 8, 2024

Prayers of the People: Unexpected Dinner Guest ~ 3rd Sunday of Easter '24 Yr B

For Sunday, April 14, 2024, Readings: Acts 3:12-19, Psalm 4, 1 John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36b-48

And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. [Acts 3:16]

Many are saying, "Oh, that we might see better times!"...You have put gladness in my heart...for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety. [Psalm 4, 6a, 7a, 8b]

You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins...Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. [1 John 3:5-6a, 7b]

...Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, "Peace be with you"...Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." [Luke 24: 36b, 45-48]

How much easier it was for the Disciples when Jesus returned fully alive again, and able to speak to and eat with them, answer their questions in person, and explain the plan. In those "simpler times" all they really had to deal with was fear for their lives in an adverse political climate, uncertainty in their futures, and the continuing disbelief and wonder of what they were actually experiencing.

So much for simpler times. There are so very many today, in this country and around the globe, who are facing daily violence and lethal persecution just for being who they are and what they believe, without having a visible Jesus in their midst. And who of us are certain about what the future holds; a future that could change dramatically and instantly?

We can only rely on the Scriptures to tell us how things were so that we also may try to believe as the original disciples did. Yet given our familiarity of the readings, how much do we hear and think about now? How can we bring those Scriptures alive and into our consciousness anytime, anywhere, any season?

The season of Eastertide, joy-filled as it is meant to be, abounds with reminders of our responsibility for ongoing repentance. Repent is such a bristle-y word ~ didn't we finish with that in Lent? Short answer, no! The word has been loaded with negative and fearful connotations for millennia. It quite simply means to turn toward, a change of mind. Anglican Bishop, Author, and New Testament/Early Christianity Scholar tells us that when we fail to reflect God’s image, “The technical term is sin, whose primary meaning is not “breaking the rules” but “missing the mark, failing to hit the target of complete, genuine humanness…the gospel…calls us to obedience, contains the remedy: forgiveness, unearned and freely given…” Metanoia is the word from the Greek for repentance but far richer. Rooted in metamorphosis or transformation, it calls us to stop, turn around and follow the path through the Light of Christ.

Whether we are complacent, distracted, or knowingly neglectful, we all turn away from the call of Jesus and the attention to our faith from time to time, briefly or for longer periods. After a while, something may trigger a tiny longing that may grow deeper into wanting to reconnect for the soul-fulfillment of faith and worship. Perhaps a death in the family or among friends, a personal diagnosis, or a sudden realization of our own aging and mortality, or something as lovely as Christmas or Easter through the eyes of a child. How then to turn toward Christ once more?

Here's a quick first step, an easy prayer-form. It may even sound trite but no one but you need know. Simply call out the name of Jesus and he's there, with you, immediately.

That's it ~ and, you can even sing it! Pick out a love song in rock, soul, rap, heavy metal ~ whatever suits you. Any love song can be directed to Jesus. Some of you might know the lyrics to that old James Taylor song: Just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I'll come running, to see you again! Click here to sing your prayer: James Taylor - You've Got a Friend and he'll be there, yeah, he'll be there. And what you feel inside will show outside and that will be your witness and your proclamation that repentance is the key to the forgiveness of our sins, leading you to turn toward Christ with strengthened faith, trust, and a new spiritual lease on life. Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall! Invite Jesus to join you for a meal! You may, unexpectedly find He’s already with You. By the way ~ He likes broiled fish.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Jesus, our Christ and our Peace, as You stood among the disciples then, You stand among us still calling us to the actions of hope and love that will purify our souls. Release us from the doubts and temptations that lure us from Your presence that, by our repentance and relationship, we may dwell in the spiritual safety of Your love and forgiveness.

O Lord of Wonders

RESPONSE: Strengthen our faith and trust

~ Jesus, our Christ and our Peace, as they chart the course of our lives on our Planet, in our Nation, and in our Community, infuse our elected, appointed, or self-declared leaders, with wisdom, compassion, and the ways of justice, truth, and mercy. Fill us with the courage and grace to know that You are in our hearts as we hold them accountable. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

O LORD of Wonders