Easter Prayer: Voice Still and Small
Voice still and small, as we turn inward we listen for you. Deep inside all, this Easter morning, open our hearts to hear you in the figure of Jesus.
Voice still and small, as we turn inward we listen for you. Deep inside all, this Easter morning, open our hearts to hear you in the figure of Jesus.
This prayer is designed to be woven into the song “Comfort Me,” #1002 in Singing the Journey.
Lead us to the love that holds us all and is with us always; the love that can help us through the messy and necessary life-altering work of building movements across beliefs, across difference, for change that can endure.
Ours is the work of creation. Ours is the work of inviting people into an irresistible movement, rooted in our belief that a new world is possible. And the center of our work is love, and joy, and the spirit of abundance.
Oh Spirit of Life and Love, fortify us with the wisdom and tenacity of our ancestors to continue toward the promise in the founding documents of our nation: a nation where all of us are created as equals and are endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Our faith also gives us hope. A faith that knows that transformation is a holy and sacred task, that affirms that the democratic process is a faithful act, that brings a generous heart and a lens of justice and liberation to all that we do, that values equality and equity and is centered in love.
Let our hearts be welcoming of multiple truths, not holding hard or fast to closed mindedness or judgmental thinking. What can we learn from each other in the richness of our differences?
We lift up those who fear that their hurts, their pains, are too insignificant for healing. May they know that their hurt and their pain is valid, no matter the size, and may they feel comforted in the knowledge that they are not alone and that they are loved.
Let us rejoice for those who safely passed through the shades of night towards the daylight of freedom.
Take a moment to breathe into the silence. Our breath is always with us. We can always come back to the breath, our anchor, our grounding, our freedom. Spirit of life and love, we are here not just minds and hearts, but bodies too. We human beings, spirit and body joined together. On this day we...
Sisters, I stand before you without homily or lecture or opinion. I stand here naked on the page. I stand here with my hands extended in helpless prayer. I will never know your pain. I will never know your agony of spirit. I will never know the dark nights of your souls. I will never know the...
God of many names and mystery beyond all our naming, Our time together today is a precious gift. We gather in the name of justice in love and service to a higher good. We gather in hope for a world where oppression of any kind is challenged. We gather to spark the fire of commitment lit in every...
May we reconnect to our life-giving, breath-freeing connection
Spirit of Life, We hold in our hearts the peaceful protestors of all tribes and faiths who are gathered at Standing Rock, protecting sacred water and land. They ask for respect, they ask for our government to help protect their sacred lands and the water that sustains their lives....
Spirit of Life, God of Love, I am entwined in your delicate web of mutuality. The life energy that makes me reach for the sun also moves me to become wrapped, like the strong bittersweet vine and the delicate sweet pea, around those I meet and love. Here in the tangle of my daily life I feel your...
Spirit of Life, God of Love, who are we to know how you moved over the waters when all was new? We were not there when you parted them and formed dry land. We didn't hear you cry with joy when earth gave birth to life, or when love began to grow in the human heart....
Today we gather with determination and commitment that is grounded in a profound sense of sorrow for those who have suffered and will suffer in the future because of climate change. As always, those who suffer most are the poor and marginalized....
The road of history is long, full of both hope and disappointment. In times past, there have been wars and rumors of wars, violence and exploitation, hunger and homelessness, and destruction of this earth, your creation....
Oh spirit of life and love, We pause for a moment on this snowy day to reflect on the changes one week can make in our lives. We celebrate the feast of Imbolc, the pagan holiday that heralds the coming of spring. Our hearts stir with the thought that lambs are being born, that the light is...
Prayers to be said on the four Sundays of Advent while lighting the Advent candle wreath.
Spirit of the divine masculine, grant us the strength to nurture in ourselves, and in every young person we have the privilege to know, the gifts of patience, curiosity, and compassion.
Spirit of life, help me remember that all animals belong. Bless the bats for eating mosquitoes. Bless the crows and buzzards for cleaning up the dead, and bless even the snakes, who keep the mice out of the rice. Each of them is important. And each does good in its own way. Blessed be.
As we repent in full body and form, secure our names and the generations to come as you have done through time. God who blessed the womb of life, save us once again.
For dragonflies, butterflies, Caterpillars on leaves, Lizards, wild turkeys, and tigers and deer, We give thanks! For sunset and seashells And starfish and sand, Octopus, jellyfish, and hammerhead shark, We give thanks!...
In this familiar place, listen: to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs, shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around Know that each breath, movement, the glance meant for you or intercepted holds a life within it....
Dear God, hear and bless Your beasts and singing birds; And guard with tenderness Small things that have no words...
In this heartbreak what we carry forth is our humanity in newly revealed form—our hearts tender and delicate.
Turn toward the thaw, and turn toward the rebirth of spring with New Hope.
Spirit of Life and love, God of many names and yet none at all Our hearts are stretched thin. We see and hear the devaluing of people of color, of those with disabilities, of women, of immigrants; this list, incomplete as it is, is exhausting. And yet, we hold fast because we carry hope in our...
Holy One, our hearts are weary; are tired; and are breaking. Our hearts are stretching as they are pulled and pushed, bruised and battered by all the suffering and brokenness and pain. Our ears are ringing—ringing with harsh words, with yelling, with gunfire that echoes in our streets and takes...
Spirit of Life and of Love, Holy One that reaches wide to encompass all beings, Hold us to Yourself in this moment. We come to this place carrying so much in our hearts. Around us we hear the laments of a broken world, Torn by fire, storm and strife, Crying, “I too have suffered. I too have been...
So much undone. So much to do. So much to heal in us and the world. So much to acquire: a meal a healthy body— a fit one— a lover a job a better job proof we have and are enough just around the corner of now. And up against it the reality of all that falls short and the limits of today. We honor...
Spirit of Life and Love, we gather today under smoky skies, Aching from the onslaught of the daily news, Our spirits weary and sore, Our nerves jangling with every loss of power, every alert on our phones Our thoughts this morning are with the firefighters and all those whose bodies continue to b...
Remembering to breathe and to breathe deeply and then once more, to take the breath in and let the breath out, we pause, poised as we are, at a point of risking, at a possibility of courage: #metoo. Risking vulnerability Risking pain Risking being known Risking being not believed Risking being...
In the days ahead, many of us will gather with family and friends, people with whom we may have long and complicated relationships. It helps to prepare. Let us enter into the spirit of prayer or meditation. Dear Spirit, Great Mystery that has blessed us with Life, help us to feel grateful....
Gracious God, Is it the glitter? Some people think it's the glitter that makes the Pride parade like heaven. Pearly gates and streets of gold - surely heaven has as much glitter as a Pride parade. There’s definitely enough glitter there to make a person believe that the Pride parade is like...
This is a prayer for when words fail, for when they are not big enough or small enough to slip into the little cracks left in our hearts by life’s unbearable pressures....
It has been a difficult week in the news, and as always, we have silent personal struggles in the midst of everything else. And so I invite you into a spirit of prayer....
Spirit of Life, love which holds us, We gather in reverence and thanks for You. We are grateful for the gift of another breath, and for each moment of connection, beauty, and truth. Cry with us in our pain for our world. Remind us that we are loved, just as we are. Remind us that we are connected...
We pray for the three Jewish congregations who meet at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. We hold those taken too soon in our prayers even before we know all of their names – 11 people so far....
We are broken, O God. We are broken. We gather in vigil again to mourn the death of school children and school teachers. Death and violence are the reasons that draw us together in sorrow, in anger, in anxious grief and loss....
Eternal Spirit, from whom all things come and to whom all things return, We gather this morning in community seeking to live in the harmony. Each of us here gathered lives out our lives knowing our own story, our own private melody. Life – at its highest and its sweetest – is a sharing. Life is...
Gracious God, We are not supposed to talk about hearing voices in our head. That’s how rumors get started. But there’s a voice, a familiar stranger, that we can’t seem to turn down or turn off. One that says we’re a mess, a mistake, a fool, a fraud. That voice says everyone else has it...
May we find love in this place: love in our hearts, love for the broken-down, love for the lonely, love for those yet to feel whole, love for those in-between, love for those out of our reach. May we find love, add love, and be love in this world. Amen.
Spirit of Life, I have witnessed a loud love, an out-loud love, that challenges me. I did not recognize it at first— the rumble of an ocean I had long been under. But here it is right now and it looks just like the whole world could be. It doesn’t play nice; why should it when nice has only ever...