Tag: Prayer

Praying for a different kind of darkness

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flameAdvent Prayer by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Oh God,
This Advent we come to you
bent over with an ache in our soul,
with muscles that have held rage,
with eyes bloodshot from tears,
for there is a darkness this year
that is crawling with monsters.
The creatures of patriarchy, white supremacy,
and Christian hegemony
are emerging from their shadows.
Arrogantly crawling into our schools,
our churches and social media.
They are emerging as weaponized water
against water protectors
who are freezing to death.
They are emerging as walls and registries.
And it isn’t going away. Continue reading “Praying for a different kind of darkness” →

Lead us beside and into the still Darkness

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candleA Prayer for Advent. Written by Wesley Morris

Our God – who moves in heaven – and Earth
We praise and bless your holy name
Author of night and day

Lead us beside and into the still Darkness.
Into the womb of advent, the place of preparation.
When the world condemns our effort to reveal the true life,
draw us near – one to another.
Whisper to us in our communion –
reminders that you are here.

In this season, we seek the gentle care of your instruction
To find your simple peace.
You are our best guide in these times.
Teach us to hold our concerns
In community
With beloved speech and listening.
Our hearts, though tossed and turned, find refuge in your complete shadow.

Your word heals a multitude of harms.
Prepare our minds for what we do not know

Lead us beside and into the still Darkness

As you have taught,
Amen Continue reading “Lead us beside and into the still Darkness” →

Christmas Beatitudes 2016

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carter.jpgBy Carter Heyward

Blessed are those who are kind, especially when it’s hard

Blessed are those angry for justice in situations of unfairness and oppression,

Blessed are the compassionate in times of hatred,

Blessed are those who speak honestly when pummeled by lies — and who seek truth when confronted by fake news,

Blessed are those who keep their courage in the face of belligerent bullies, Continue reading “Christmas Beatitudes 2016” →

Reflection on an Advent Morning

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

turkeys.jpgBy Joyce Hollyday

I know the contours of this land as intimately as I know the arc of Advent: the slope of the pasture and height of the ridge, the thick canopy of the pine forest and black deep of the pond. I walk every morning on an unchanging trail, secure in the embrace of these steadfast mountains believed to be the oldest in the world. Continue reading “Reflection on an Advent Morning” →

The Rim

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silver-rim—Rose Marie Berger

The meaning is in the waiting. —R.S. Thomas

Like a silver goblet, Advent
slips round again      passing through heat

and the End of Days      a darkness
too searing for the lip. Smiths

engrave the old year beneath
the rim.      Tradition keeps memory

gradual. The pedestal base round
as the new year      full of what lies

ahead. Is it hope? Or simply
the exodus of this generation
into the flames of the one coming.

What is Prayer?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

ed loringBy Eduard Loring, from the April 2016 issue of Hospitality, the newsletter of Atlanta’s Open Door Community

“I will never pray again. I have prayed and prayed and nothing ever happens. I am finished.” So said the 90-year-old grandmother last week when her grandson Mark overdosed on heroin. Mark’s father died 6 years ago from esophageal cancer. Face, mouth, throat deranged. Spoken word distorted. Unintelligible if more than one syllable. Tobacco kills. God forgives a repentant addict; God does not stop the side effects of the sin, though the power of Love’s prayer, and medicine, exercise and nutrition can mitigate the fury of the Evil One and her daughters Tobacco and Heroin. Often heal. Continue reading “What is Prayer?” →

Bathing Our Inner World

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EverythingFrom Brian McLaren in Everything Must Change (2009)

Prayer will cease to be a technique for enlisting God to help us ‘make it’ in the dominant system; it will instead become a way of bathing our inner world in the transforming presence of God, a way we seek to be shaped by the new framing story, the new reality, the good news, so that we can be catalysts bringing transformation to the dominant system.

Prayer

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ripple_effectby tommy airey

Prayer from the heart can achieve what nothing else can in the world.
Gandhi

We do not want to be beginners [at prayer], but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!
Merton
…………………..
Prayer is a pilgrimage into the deepest recesses of our being. It is being attentive to God’s active presence both with us and within us. The 15th century Indian contemplative Kabir wrote that “God is the breath inside the breath.” The Apostle Paul quoted the philosopher Epimenides as he sermonized the Athenians: “For in him we live and move and have our being.” God is that energy and power and inspiration that we draw upon to live and thrive. Continue reading “Prayer” →

The Context of Oppression

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Cone
From James Cone in A Black Theology of Liberation (1970):

Persons who live in the real world have to encounter the concreteness of suffering without suburbs as places of retreat. To be oppressed is to encounter the overwhelming presence of human evil without any place to escape…

…Who can ‘pray’ when all hell has broken loose and human existence is being trampled underfoot by evil forces? Prayer takes on new meaning. It has nothing to do with those Bible verses that rulers utter before eating their steaks, in order to remind themselves that they are religious and have not mistreated anybody. Who can thank God for food when we know that our brothers and sisters are starving as we dine like kings? Prayer is not kneeling, morning, noon and evening. This is a tradition that is characteristic of whites; they use it to reinforce the rightness of their destruction of blacks. Prayer is the spirit that is evident in all oppressed communities when they know that they have a job to do.