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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Tag Archives: healing

How Long?

28 Saturday May 2022

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Reflections

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

grief, healing, meaning, normality, psychological wounds, Time

Just enough time has passed
that people think I’m okay
that I’m myself again
back to normal
whatever that means
when in fact I’m a wounded warrior
a man who’s been in a battle
to cling to meaning
and to hope
and to a chance to heal.

How long is enough for such things?
How much time does it take
to believe you will be okay
maybe someday
in an unknown future
as the moon hovers mournfully
over the pieces of your life
littered across the ground
like dark humus
meant to rouse a dormant soul?

There may not be enough time.
How could there be?
Time is meaningless.
It’s here
it’s gone
it’s fragile
it’s tenuous
it’s mystifying
it’s merely a container
for the life you thought you would have.

That life has slipped from your grasp.
You’ve lost the one you loved.
You will not get her back.
There’s no normal anymore
or okay
or time enough
to heal the deep wound.
It remains.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
May 27, 2022
16 months

Blessing for When You Don’t Know Where to Begin

31 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Reflections

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

accepting joy, blessing, fears, grief, healing, loneliness, unanswered questions

Award-winning photo of Morro Rock by Dallis Day Richardson

Blessing for When You Don’t Know Where to Begin

This blessing isn’t sure where to begin.
So many steps are just steps in the dark. 
So much of life is shaped by uncertainty.
So many questions litter our paths.
Where to begin.

Where to begin in mending one’s shattered heart.
Where to begin in creating a life on one’s own.
Where to begin in accepting joy when it comes.
Where to begin.

Even if there are discernible first steps, then what?
At the core of being human the heart beats
with a force originating in the earth’s beginnings
where fire and water and soil and air collide
and explode into wondrous breathtaking life!
Is this the place where healing begins –
as you immerse yourself in this cosmic life force?
If so, where do you learn how to do this?

This blessing sees how often you lose your way
as you unsteadily chart a strange new path alone
without another soul truly able to guide you.
What could anyone possibly say?
They would be trying to piece you back together
into their vision of wholeness.

This blessing admits defeat when necessary.
There is no winning the wrestling match with grief
when it approaches with muscles bulging
and gaze focused squarely on your weaknesses.
It will pin you every time.
Every damn time.

Maybe though, just maybe,
this is precisely what you need –
a sweeping wide-ranging battle to live
with the very things you fear most –
loneliness,
meaninglessness,
being forgotten 
left behind
as the world moves on,
accepting undeserved joy –
as you spar with your muscled opponent
who looks surprisingly familiar,
like someone you’ve encountered before
but haven’t seen in years.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
August 27, 2021
7 months

Looking for You

03 Saturday Jul 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Reflections

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

grief, healing, heaven, life after death, love, marriage, sanctuary

Valentine’s Day 2011

I’m told you’re looking down on me from above,
but I don’t believe it.
I don’t want you looking down on me
from some lofty perch.
You never did that in life,
so why would you start now?
It’s odd to even think about you
hovering over me –
how high I’m not told –
viewing my life as a spectator,
watching me move from here to there,
seeing me make my mistakes
and not being able to prevent them, 
having little to do with me really,
other than to observe my days
and pray for the best.

In life,
this life,
you were always by my side
and I felt your deep presence.
You were my sanctuary – 
where love flourished,
where healing occurred,
where life was restored each day,
where hope never died.

On this side of the veil
I still look for you
in this sacred meeting place
where egos fall away
and love
without conditions
abides.

You don’t look down on me from above.
You look
as you always have,
into my eyes,
with a tenderness
too deep for words.
You draw me out
and love me,
unreservedly,
truthfully,
and that is a gift
that can only be given
from the inside.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
July 3, 2021

Blessing of the Unexpected

20 Sunday Jun 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Reflections

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

blessing, contentment, grief, healing, heart, joy, wellness

This blessing
is not the one you expect.

You
who wonder 
if a time will ever come
when contentment
comes calling again.

You
who limp through most days
on legs weary 
from carrying
the heaviness of grief.

You
who look for signs
amid the trees
and birds of the air
that there is yet some life
able to flourish
and fly.

You
who struggle
with even the simplest things.

You 
who have given up on the why,
and need to know how – 
how to be,
how to move,
how to breathe,
how to live.

The heart knows its way home.
It does.
The heart – 
your heart – 
has always hungered for wholeness,
has always delighted in joy,
has always longed for love,
has always looked for the truest way.

This blessing may not be 
the one you expect.
Yet it is the one you receive – 
even as your heart aches,
and healing seems slow,
and days long.

This blessing
meets you where you are
and remains with you – 
in the silent spaces,
in the open wounds,
in the private pain,
for as long as you need.

This blessing knows
that even though it seems impossible – 
you will be well again,
you will be whole again,
in the fullness of time.

~ Mark Lloyd Richardson
June 2021

Let the birds sing

24 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Reflections

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

courage, death, grace, grief, healing, holy, joy, Listening, morning light

Let the birds sing
in early morning light

Let breezes sweetly whisper
through the trees at midday

Let clouds drift lazily
across a buoyant spring sky

Let the sun’s brilliance
gild rugged hillsides nearby

And let it all remind me
that this day is holy

Let friends call
and listen tenderly to my pain

Let strangers offer
a kind word or gesture

Let hours pass
and leave no trace of regret

Let this day unfold
with a gentleness born of grace

And let it all remind me
that this day is holy

There is no denying
this world looks different to me now
my future blurred by uncertainty
love’s healing work barely begun
and the cruel finality of death
no longer merely an idea

But let the birds sing in the morning
let friends be present by my side
let moments of contentment quietly come
let memories wash over me like a balm
let joy one day follow these days of mourning
let healing imperceptibly take root and grow

And let it all remind me
if I have the courage to see it
that this day indeed is holy

~ Mark Lloyd Richardson

Attending to the broken places

10 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Reflections

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

breast cancer, Cancer, grief, healing, woundedness, writing to heal

Eight years after her initial stage-4 breast cancer diagnosis, my wife Dallis, the love of my life, succumbed to this horrible disease. She made a valiant and determined effort to live, and thoroughly enjoyed all the remaining days and years she was given, and yet on January 27 of this year, she breathed her last breath with me and her daughter Wendy by her side. Since then, my emotions and frame of mind have been swinging wildly all over the place, and I write to give voice to the internal struggles I feel and to try to make sense of my place in the world now that she is gone. Here is something I wrote a few days ago, and then let sit for a while before sharing. I wouldn’t read it if I were you!

Attending to the broken places
(Just when you thought it was safe to read my writings)

Among the questions that grip me and won’t let go are:
How was it possible for her to leave me?
How could she say goodbye to our shared life?
How was she able to give up on our future dreams?

The very questions trouble me, 
for they sound like accusations.
They also sound unanswerable, 
and yet not considering them hurts too.

My intellect tells me that my beloved 
needed to choose personal agency
over the constant intrusions of medical necessity.
Her quality of life had deteriorated so much
that no other path seemed tolerable.

In a sense, she had no choice but to say to everyone, 
including those dearest to her,
enough is enough:
I don’t want to do this anymore.
I feel more like a bundle of problems to be tackled
than the living, breathing human being
who once found so much joy in being alive!

Still, the questions haunt me:
How was she able to pull it off?
Was my love for her too little to hold her here –
at least long enough
to bring her nearer to a time a healing,
to tip the scales toward life and wholeness?

And lamentably there are other unanswerable questions:
How did she think I would feel when she was gone?
What did she suppose would be left of me without her?
Did she not imagine how abandoned I would feel?

In case there’s any doubt,
this is me stumbling around 
in the murky land of self-pity and blame.
This is me doubting myself and the adequacy of my love.
This is, in other words, 
the ugly, petty underside of grief
where it’s all about me,
all about my struggle to breathe again,
all about my pain,
my sorrow,
my emptiness
palpable in every room
every movement
every decision
every discarded dream
every flood of tears.

So, I urge you to avert your eyes.
This is the pathetic, needy portion of grief.
There is nothing lovely here,
nothing beautiful,
nothing worthy of admiration.
Only sad proof of all the broken places 
where my wounded heart now lives.

~ Mark Lloyd Richardson
March 7, 2021

Contemplation: A Long Loving Look at the Real

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Contemplative Life

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

beloved community, Contemplation, God's presence, Gospel of John, healing, Inner life, Mystery, prayer, silence, wholeness

img-9914The obstacles to contemplation are graphically summed up in a comic strip – mother inside the house, looking out a window, her little boy sitting in the yard with his back to a tree:

Mother:“Ditto, what are you doing out there?”

Ditto:“Nothing.”

Mother:“You must be doing something! Now tell me!”

Ditto:“I’m not doing anything.”

Mother:“Ditto! You tell me what you’re doing!”

Ditto (to himself): “Good gosh!” (He tosses a stone.)(out loud):“I’m throwing rocks!”

Mother:“I thought it was something like that. Now stop it at once!”

Ditto:“Okay.” (to himself):“Nobody will let you just do nothing any more.”[i]

Thankfully, my Midwestern childhood gave me plenty of space to do nothing much and not feel guilty about it. Sometimes it was a long lazy afternoon of baseball in the side lot. Other times it was canoeing and fishing on the slow-moving Fox River. And when I was feeling especially adept at “nothing doing,” I would lie in the tall summer grass and gaze at the clouds in the sky and dream of what my life might be.

Then as I grew into adolescence and young adulthood I shed my doing of nothing in favor of the rule most Americans live by: “Only useful activity is valuable, meaningful, moral.” I was so eager to become an adult that at the age of 22 I simultaneously got married, started full-time church employment, purchased a brand new Oldsmobile, trained for a marathon, and began my seminary education as a commuter student. Always the over-achiever! It took about three years for my entire world to come crashing in on me (a story for another day)!

The prayer of Jesus in the 17thchapter of the Gospel of John feels remarkably intimate to me – like eavesdropping on a conversation between Jesus and the One he calls “Abba.” Jesus prays, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us”(17:21). “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, as we are one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me”(17:23).

This prayer recognizes a unity within community that is possible when we set aside our egos long enough to seek the Presence of Love that is the Word made flesh among us! Thomas Merton once observed, “Hard as it is to convey in human language, there is a very real and very recognizable (but almost entirely undefinable) Presence of God, in which we confront Him in prayer knowing Him by Whom we are known, aware of Him Who is aware of us, loving Him by Whom we know ourselves to be loved.”[ii]

How do we enter this contemplative way of being, this journey inward? How do we create enough space in the soul’s inner landscape to welcome the One who made us, the One who redeems us, the One who will sustain us until we are home?

When one is young one thinks one knows things! This was true for me when I jumped into adulthood with both feet. I knew I was called into pastoral ministry. I knew I was committed to my young wife until death do us part. I knew I was going to set the world afire. Then I became acquainted with Reality, and it was not overly impressed with my newly minted college degree, or my naive sense of call, or my obligatory marital promises. Indeed it called all of these into question!

I walked through valleys of disillusionment and despair in my twenties and early thirties as I experienced what felt like loss after loss. Ministry became drudgery, marriage a source of deep pain, and life a matter of survival. It turns out that all the books in the theological library were inadequate to meet my existential needs, and Reality set about to educate me on my utter dependence on God!

During this period in my life I wondered: How can I be more present to the Divine Presence in ways that will heal and bring wholeness? Am I able to step fully into the embrace of the One by Whom we are known, loved, forgiven, and brought to awareness of the richness of life?

Marjorie Thompson once wrote, “In contemplation we move from communicating with God through speech to communing with God through the gaze of love. Words fall away, and the most palpable reality is being present to the lover of our souls. When we let go of all effort to speak or even to listen, simply becoming quiet before God, the Spirit is free to work its healing mysteries in us: releasing us from bondage, energizing new patterns of life, restoring our soul’s beauty. Here we allow ourselves to be loved by God into wholeness.”[iii]

For years now a description by contemplative Carmelite William McNamara has spoken to me. He describes contemplation as a long loving look at the real.He calls it “a pure intuition of being, born of love. It is experiential awareness of reality and a way of entering into immediate communion with reality.” He explains that while it is possible to study things, “unless you enter into this intuitive communion with them, you can only know about them, you don’t knowthem. To take a long loving lookat something – a child, a glass of wine, a beautiful meal – this is a natural act of contemplation, of loving admiration.”[iv]

Walter Burghardt adds, “reality is living, pulsing people; … reality is the sun setting over the Swiss Alps, a gentle doe streaking through the forest; reality is a ruddy glass of Burgundy, Beethoven’s Mass in D, a child lapping a chocolate ice-cream cone; reality is a striding woman with wind-blown hair; reality is the risen Christ.”[v]“And so I am most myself, most human, most contemplative when my whole person responds to the real.”[vi]

When I was serving a small rural church in the desert, the parsonage was located just around the corner from the church. So I always walked to work, coming home for lunch, and again at the end of the day. My son Ethan was just a few years old at the time, but he knew my daily routine.

At the end of each morning or afternoon, as I crossed the intersection on my way home and set foot on Cedar Avenue, I would catch a glimpse of our rather plain looking white house. And almost without fail, the drapes in the front picture window would be slightly pulled back and a little head would be sticking up, just watching, waiting, knowing that his daddy would soon be home.

Then, when he saw me he ran out the door as fast as he could, across the front yard and into my grateful arms. I knelt down to receive my son, whose exuberant love astonished me. This is prayer– running to the One in whom we are known and loved and held in welcoming arms.

There were days when Ethan ran out that door with tears in his eyes because something had happened to make him sad or angry. But, you see, he still came running. No matter what kind of day he was having, he wanted nothing more than to be held in strong loving arms and to tell his daddy all about it. Are we this hungry for prayer?

What would it mean for us to cultivate silence within the rhythms of each day – sacred pauses, if you will – so that we might take a long loving look at the real? What would it mean to commune with God, receiving and returning the gaze of love, letting words fall silently away and simply being present? Others might equate it with doing nothing, but we would know this contemplation as time spent with the lover of our souls. We would let it all hang out – our hurts, our fears and struggles as well as our joys, our dreams and hopes, and allow ourselves to be loved into wholeness by the One who is Holy Mystery.

[i]Walter J. Burghardt, “Contemplation: A long loving look at the real,” Church, Winter ’89, p. 15.

[ii]Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, p. 44.

[iii]Marjorie Thompson, Soul Feast, p. 48.

[iv]Burkhardt, p. 15.

[v]Burkhardt, p. 15.

[vi]Burkhardt, p. 16.

Words (c) 2019 Mark Lloyd Richardson

God of Still Mornings

20 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Worship Liturgy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

God, God's mercy, grace, healing, Holy Spirit, hymns, praise, promise, silence, wholeness, worship

STV_losososca3jpg_crop_1433002852

Early in my pastoral ministry in Los Osos, California, I was already falling in love with the varied topography and weather patterns of coastal living, when I wrote this hymn text inspired by my new physical surroundings. It’s been sung a few times in worship settings since then, but I just this week shared the words with friends who are in a covenant group with me. I told them about this place I loved (and still do, though we don’t currently live here) and what was significant about it in the feeding of my soul. It was only as I searched for the text that I realized I had never shared it here in my blog.

“God of Still Mornings”
(May be sung to the tune of “Be Thou My Vision”)

God of still mornings draped softly in mist,
we sing your praises upon grateful lips.
Heirs of your promise you clothe us in grace.
Call us in silence as we seek your face.

God of flower’d bluffs swept by winds off the sea,
we pray your mercies upon bended knee.
Children of dust to the earth we return.
Call us in beauty your gifts to discern.

God of deep valleys brought forth by your hand,
we share your healing and with you we stand.
Bearers of love by your Spirit made whole.
Call us in witness of grace overflowed.

Words (c) 2001, Mark L. Richardson

To the God of many names

29 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Prayers

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

awe, compassion, creation, forgiveness, Future, healing, love, praise, prayer, salvation, wholeness

IMG_5508Prayer to the God of many names

May I reside in your boundless compassion,
and may my soul reach its wholeness in you.

May I feel awe in your generous creation,
and may my heart song rise in praise to you.

May I love with a fearless abandon,
and may I speak with a voice that is true.

May I trust with a heart that is healing,
and may forgiveness abound in me too.

May I hope in a future always open,
and leave the work of salvation to you.

O God of many names, hear my prayer.

(c) 2018 Mark Lloyd Richardson

An Ash Wednesday Prayer

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Prayers

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Ash Wednesday, blessed, Creator, doing justice, dust of the earth, God, God's image, grace, healing, holy habits, Lent, loving mercy, prayer, spirit, trust, walk humbly with God, wholeness

God of all creation,
you are gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and you abound in steadfast love.

Today as I enter the closet of my heart,
I discover a lifetime of memories stored there –
some I would prefer to forget and leave behind,
others that remind me how truly blessed I am.

Today I hear again your invitation to renewal –
I hear it with every fiber of my being,
having been created in your image,
formed of the dust of your earth,
enlivened by the breath of your spirit,
established in the strength of your grace!

In these forty days of Lent, it is my heart’s desire
to surrender old harmful habits that yield nothing,
and to take up new holy habits that lead to life.

May this Lenten journey return me to a place of trust,
where my fear is conquered by your holy unshakable love,
where I am healed and made whole in the aliveness of life,
where doing justice,
and loving mercy,
and walking humbly with you,
are the ways of being that matter most.

 Hands2a

Copyright (c) 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson

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