• About Me
  • Contact
  • What’s in a name?

dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Will you welcome the little one?

24 Tuesday Dec 2019

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Revisiting this post because the children of this world need all of us to be active in healing the planet, restoring the sense of community, and protecting their vulnerable hope for the future.

dreamprayact

"Bethlehem at night," Flickr photo by Nancie Sill taken on January 17, 2011. Used by permission. “Bethlehem at night,” Photo by Nancie Sill taken January 17, 2011. Used by permission.

Life is a sacred gift, and all the world’s children deserve to grow up in safety and security surrounded by love. Sadly, far too many children fall victim to the violence of poverty, food insecurity, war, civil unrest, human trafficking, sexual predation, gun violence, and more. Yet these are all our children. The human family is one family in spite of all the forces at work to tear it apart. As Christians reflect upon a child who came into this world to bring peace, we must ask ourselves if we are ready to welcome all the vulnerable ones of this world into our consciousness. For it is only in opening our hearts to the suffering of the little ones that we prepare our hearts to receive the gift of this holy child we await at Christmas.

View original post 121 more words

Be

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

I’m missing the posts of my blogging friend, Sharon, which I haven’t seen in awhile! This post from a couple of years ago reflects her Bahai faith, and has an optimistic tone of lovingkindness to it.

A Leaf in Springtime

Nature Series Day 6.

Never before has the word Be carried so much light. Sharing with you one of my dearest and most sacred instructions for living.

SONY DSC

Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity.

Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face.

Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.

Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech.

Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men.

Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.

Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts.

Be a home for the stranger…

View original post 125 more words

Like a River Flowing

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

This coming Sunday we celebrate Peace Sunday at First United Methodist Church of Santa Barbara, CA. (http://www.fumcsb.org) We will sing this hymn as our opening hymn.

dreamprayact

WyomingWe sang this song at the close of worship this past Sunday using the familiar tune FINLANDIA. If you wish to use these lyrics in worship sometime, please let me know.

The peace of Christ is like a river flowing
from God’s own heart in healing streams of grace.
In all our comings and in all our goings,
God’s mercies lead us to a holy place.
Peace like a river flowing through our lives
reminds us what it means to be baptized.

This earthly home we share with one another
cannot withstand our hatreds and our fears.
So when we look and see a sister, brother,
we know Christ’s peace is also coming near.
May we now live into this hopeful dream,
a day made new in shared humanity.

This dream for peace seeks out the meek and lowly,
children of God by blessing and design,
created in the image…

View original post 31 more words

It’s not enough to be weary. #stoptheharm

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

I share these important words by a United Methodist colleague of mine, the Rev. Melinda Teter Dodge. We are involved in planning the October 10 event she mentions. It will be a celebration of marriage equality and a renewal of vows for those who were previously denied a wedding by the church because of the church’s official position forbidding same gender weddings. If you are in the Pasadena area (or San Diego or San Luis Obispo) on that day, please join us.
Also, since this is her first blog post on WordPress, here’s your chance to follow her or like the post or offer your words of support.
Grace and peace, Mark

pastorchixsta

Like you, perhaps, I am weary of the battle that is being waged in our church family.  And I am embarrassed that what so many of God’s people see and know as the United Methodist Church is that we harm people:

  • We charge clergy, bring them to trial and defrock them.
  • We excommunicate.
  • We silence burgeoning calls to ministry.
  • We injure our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters over and over again.
  • We alienate entire communities, families, and younger generations.

Yes, I am weary and embarrassed of this battle.  Moreover, my heart is extremely heavy knowing that I am part of a church, ordained by a church, that continues to injure deeply God’s people all the while proclaiming that we are following Jesus.

What the world sees of our church right now is not the hours and hours dedicated to ending homelessness or malaria.  What the world hears of our church right now…

View original post 567 more words

Before Heading for the Exit

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Reflections, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

beloved community, blessing, Body of Christ, christian congregation, church, church membership, differences of opinions, diversity of viewpoints, genuine Christian community, grace, pastoral care, rituals for saying goodbye, shepherding a congregation

Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Here’s a topic most pastors don’t want to talk about – what to do when someone leaves your congregation. I don’t mean because they are moving out of the area or being relocated by their employer. We have rituals for saying goodbye to people as they make these life transitions, especially if they have been intimately involved in the life of the church. We acknowledge the pain in farewell and pray God’s blessing upon them. We celebrate the gifts and graces they have brought to our faith community and express our thanks. More often than not there is cake and ice cream! Grief, grace and gratitude mingle in such moments.

I am not referring to these expected partings when people are simply living their lives and for a time we are blessed to be in beloved community with one another and then their life circumstances change. I am referring instead to those occasions when people make a conscious choice to leave a church because they no longer feel in sync with the direction the church is moving.

It’s never easy. Maybe that seems obvious, but I just want to acknowledge the pain. For everyone involved. For those choosing to leave. For those being left. For those charged with spiritual leadership of a congregation. Even for those who are only minimally aware of what has happened. The sudden unexpected loss hurts. There’s no way around it.

You may have guessed by now. This happened recently in the church I currently serve. A couple who had been involved in many dimensions of church life for years informed us one Monday morning that they were withdrawing their membership, effective immediately. It is not an understatement to say that most church members who knew them were left in stunned disbelief when they heard the news. No one, not even close friends, saw it coming.

To their credit, this couple had fulfilled their annual giving, completed various assignments on committees, and tied up loose ends. They did not leave angry or maliciously. Over a period of some time they had simply determined that their spiritual path no longer lined up with the theological emphases they were hearing from their pastors or their denomination. It was not a decision they made lightly, and I have no trouble affirming them as a sister and brother in Christ.

Every pastor who has been at this work of shepherding congregations for more than a year or two has experienced this kind of significant loss. We each have our own ways of walking through the aftermath with those we are called to serve. My own pastoral response involved first going to visit this couple in their home, listening as carefully and lovingly as possible, praying with them, telling them they are loved and will be missed, and asking God to bless and keep them. Then of course, I needed to leave, not wanting to prolong the new reality that I was no longer their pastor.

I was troubled by one thing though, and I heard myself verbalize it in their home that day, saying something like, “One thing I am struggling with is my belief that a community that follows Christ is going to be diverse and have many gifts and viewpoints. There is room for all of us at the table of grace. We don’t have to be in agreement on everything to have community. In fact, an important part of our church’s role is listening and caring for one another in our differences so that the world knows it’s possible.”

My pastoral default position will always be to bless people as they choose other paths. However, that morning in their home I wish I had gone beyond blessing and been bold and alert enough to venture, “I think you may be making a mistake. I think Christ calls us to something more than finding like-minded people to be our community. It would be better if you didn’t leave because of differences of opinion. It would be better if you stayed and continued the hard work of being in community with people who don’t always agree on everything, because honestly, that is what you are going to find wherever you go.” Those are the thoughts that were left unsaid because they were not yet clearly formed in my mind.

Creating genuine Christian community is never going to be easy, but a good place to begin is with the shared commitment to talk things through before heading for the exit in search of greener pastures!

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson

If All Goes Well

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

I wrote this poem in 2004. It was inspired by Psalm 27:13, and a poem written by Juan Antillon Montealegre, of Costa Rica, found in the book Prayers for a Thousand Years.

If all goes well

Soldiers
will find no more enemies
and will come back home
Nations will talk
before picking up swords
Tyranny will tumble
Peace will prevail
Even toy companies
will stop producing arms

If all goes well
Politicians
will become leaders
who care more
about the common good
than their own

If all goes well
Religious folk
will grasp the truth
that God is God of all
not a provincial deity
to be trotted out
for self-serving interests

If all goes well
God will appear again
in the stars
waves of grain and water
in egrets, falcons, otters,
sacred waterfalls, clouded skies
God will show up
at the birth of a Muslim
the death of a Buddhist
in the aching breaches of
misunderstanding and mistrust
God will come to Bethlehem
to birth a dream,
to Jerusalem
to unwrap death’s dark shroud
in the light of freedom

If all goes well
if all goes well
as long as we, the people,
don’t destroy earth’s gifts
We will take our children’s hands
so they may feel
protected by gentle love
We will know the joy of laughter
the reality of tears
We will greet one another
with holy kisses
We will live now and always
in the land of the living
Together we will taste and see
the goodness of God

If all goes well
If all goes well

If all goes well

Words (c) 2004 Mark Richardson

If this World were my Classroom

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

I don’t normally “Reblog” someone else’s writing. I am making an exception because I want to share the unique perspective of Sharon, someone I only know through the blogging community, and yet I feel a connection with her and her family because of the transparency of her writing and photography. Her blog consistently offers a window upon the world that is full of wonder and questioning, gratitude and awe, and these are the very qualities that I try to cultivate in my own life. So please enjoy this blog post from my friend Sharon! Blessings, Mark

A Leaf in Springtime

SONY DSC

If this World were my classroom
I would greet each day as a lesson
I would treat each person as a teacher
And accept each moment as an opportunity to learn.

If this World were my classroom
I would sit very, very still
And pay close attention
So as not to miss a single thing.

I would peer excitedly
Into the pages of every new dawn
Like a newly opened
Gift. SONY DSC

With reinvigorated anticipation
I would learn
That radiant acquiescence
Is the secret to contentment.

If this World were my classroom
I would try not to run ahead in impatience
Neither be held back by my own unbelief
For I would see with new eyes.

If this World were my classroom
I would learn to recognise
The false masters
Of Vain Imaginings and Idle Fancies. SONY DSC

When I gaze at the scattering stars above
The wonder that grips my soul
Would…

View original post 152 more words

Thanksgiving Eve Prayer

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Prayers, Uncategorized, Worship Liturgy

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

blessing, Christ, creation, forgiveness, grace, gratitude, Psalm, source of life, thanksgiving

First United Methodist Church, Santa Maria, CA, USA

First United Methodist Church, Santa Maria, CA, USA

I will be sharing this Opening Prayer I wrote for our 13th Annual Ecumenical Thanksgiving Eve Service in Santa Maria, California this evening. We are the host church for this annual event involving about ten congregations. If you wish to adapt this prayer for your own use in worship, please feel welcome to do so. ~ Mark

God of all creation and Source of all life,
tonight we offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving.                                        Psalm 50:14
We bring ourselves, humble and broken though we may be,
to the altar of your blessing and grace.
We bring our voices, frail and hesitant though they may be,
in joyous praise to the One who gives us a new song to sing.                  Psalm 40:3
We bring our gifts to the One who is awesome,
who inspires fear in the rulers of the earth.                                               Psalm 76:11-12
We thank you for these moments we have together
to pause from the busy pace and endless noise of our lives
and simply rest in a spirit of gratitude for all you are to us.
We thank you that as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is your steadfast love toward us,
and that as far as the east is from the west,
so far do you remove our transgressions from us.                                    Psalm 103:11-12
We thank you for your deep compassion over your creation,
and the ways in which you constantly call us back to you.
Most of all, we thank you for your Son Jesus,
who came that we might have life and have it abundantly.                       John 10:10
Christ is the morning star who rises in our hearts,                                    2 Peter 1:19
the true light which enlightens everyone.                                                  John 1:9
Christ instructs us in your holy way of love,
and invites us into that perfect love that casts out fear.                            1 John 4:18
We pray this day for people and nations the world over
who need to be blessed by the bounty of your grace.
May our thanksgiving bring others closer to you,
O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.                                                         Psalm 19:14
There is no other rock besides you, O Lord,                                             Isaiah 44:8
our fortress in whom we take refuge.                                                        Psalm 18:2
So we join the multitude from every nation,
from all tribes and peoples and languages,
and all the angels standing around the throne
worshipping you and singing,
“Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”                                                  Revelation 7:12

Words (c) 2013 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Is God Judging America?

19 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

God's character, God's creation, God's judgment, gun control, James Dobson, mental illness, Newtown Connecticut, Sandy Hook, school violence

ANationShakenbytheSandyHookTragedysm_Slide_2012_12_16_17_25_PMA few days after the shooting of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, I saw an article about how one well-known religious figure interpreted the meaning of the event. I wrote my thoughts at the time, and put them aside for a while to see if time would soften my feelings about the callousness of his moralistic brand of thinking. Looking at this a month later, I stand by my words.

I am angry today. I am angry not only about the pervasive violence of the American culture and the gun lobby’s insistence that easy unchecked access to guns has nothing whatsoever to do with it, but also about how some religious figures publicly interpret tragic events like this one.

We are in a period of national mourning. There are still children being laid to rest by their families. There is a stunned recognition in the minds of parents everywhere that the unspeakable has happened in Sandy Hook, and could happen anywhere. There is shock. There is pain. There is a call for a national conversation on gun control and mental health and there is a cry for meaningful action to prevent these kinds of tragedies in the future.

The Christian Scriptures attest that God enters human life and experiences the joys and sufferings that accompany being human. God steadfastly loves creation. God is compassionate. God has a special place in God’s heart for the most vulnerable among us. God’s actions don’t necessarily correspond with the views of Christian apologists or evangelists. In fact, I am finally ready to say, after holding my tongue, that I suspect God has had quite enough of the stupid un-Christian rhetoric of people like radio host James Dobson, who attributed the Sandy Hook school shooting to a lack of God in schools.

Here are some of the thoughts Dr. Dobson expressed on his radio broadcast a few days after the Sandy Hook tragedy: “I mean millions of people have decided that either God doesn’t exist or he’s irrelevant to me, and we have killed fifty-four million babies, and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition. Believe me, that is going to have consequences too. And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that’s what’s going on” [Family Talk broadcast of December 17, 2012].

So let me get this straight – God, who created the earth and all life, including human beings in God’s own image, deliberately chooses to utilize the evil intentions of a mentally ill and troubled young man with access to high-capacity guns to kill innocent children and teachers in cold blood in order to make a point!

I want to keep as much distance as possible from this kind of toxic and moralistic theology as I possibly can, because if God ever really gets angry I don’t want to be standing anywhere near Dr. Dobson in all of his sanctimonious glory!

I am angry today because James Dobson and others like him malign the name and character of God whose tears were the first to fall as bullets rained down on the innocent ones!

Words (c) 2013 Mark Lloyd Richardson

A Psalm for a Spring Day

25 Friday May 2012

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

creation, hope, peace, praise, Psalm, spring

How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord of heaven and earth.

The flowers bloom in your gracious Light,
The trees spread their branches in praise!
Even the sparrow finds a home
At the altar of your spacious Care.

My heart delights in your Presence!
My soul sings of your eternal Glory!

You are my Guide through each day,
The Fountain of my persistent hope,
The Ever-flowing Stream of peace,
The Source of this amazing life!

How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord of all that is and ever will be.

Words (c)2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson

20120525-181542.jpg

← Older posts
January 2023
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Aug    

Recent Posts

  • New Recording 3
  • How Long?
  • Prayer to a Great Blue Heron
  • A Prayer for Our Country
  • Blessing for When You Don’t Know Where to Begin

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 558 other subscribers

Archives

  • August 2022
  • May 2022
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2020
  • December 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • May 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012

Categories

  • Centering Prayer
  • Contemplative Life
  • Dogs
  • grief
  • Guest Blogs
  • Justice
  • LGBTQ
  • pastoral integrity
  • Peace with justice
  • Poems
  • Prayers
  • Reflections
  • Running
  • Sermon portions
  • Uncategorized
  • Worship Liturgy

Blog Stats

  • 49,161 hits

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Sacred Pauses

aprilyamasaki.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • dreamprayact
    • Join 342 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • dreamprayact
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...