“Holy friends challenge the sins we have come to love,
affirm the gifts we are afraid to claim,
and help us dream dreams we otherwise would not dream.”
-Dr. L. Gregory Jones
Monthly Archives: September 2012
a prayer for healing
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
we enjoin your divine mercies.
Lord, why do we suffer?
Why do we hurt?
Shall our only answer
be the eternal abyss of the cosmos?
Shall our only answer be the whirlwind of unknowing
which engulfed Job?
Why do the wicked flourish,
while the righteous waste away?
I am left speechless, left with the words,
“I will trust in you, my God.”
God, we ask for the sending of your healing Spirit,
who came to us through Jesus, as he breathed upon his disciples.
This Spirit gathered your people,
to be warmed by the fire of divine presence.
By this warmth, may (name)
be healed and taken into your care.
Like the blind man whom Jesus healed,
may (name) become a sign
of your glory, calling you the Anointed One,
the one who also anoints us and points us to the love of God.
Grants us your healing peace.
Amen.
-Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
the courage to come
Come, ye sinners,
poor and needy,
weak and wounded,
sick and sore.
Jesus ready
stands to save you,
full of pity, love and power.
He is able,
he is able
he is willing,
doubt no more.
He is able,
he is able
he is willing,
doubt no more.
-Joseph Hart, Come, Ye Sinners
in it with us
“God became one of us,
not to erase every shadow or to
undo the difficulties of humanity,
but to be with us in the midst of it,
to transform our spectrum of darkness
by bearing a truer depth of light,
and to enlarge us with the joy of
expectancy until the fullness of time
when every hope has come to pass.”
-Jill Carattini
love (III)
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
-George Herbert
tears caught in his palm
After the last plan fails
After the last siren wails
After the last young husband sails off to join the war
After the last “this marriage is over”
After the last young girl’s innocence is stolen
After the last years of silence that won’t let a heart open
There is love
Love, love, love
There is love
And in the end, the end is
Oceans and oceans
Of love and love again
We’ll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms
Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we’ll look back on these tears as old tales
-Andrew Peterson, After the Last Tear Falls
peacocks for pilgrims 