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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Tag Archives: healing

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

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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

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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

That We Might Be Healers Too

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems, Prayers

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

abundance, creation, God's goodness, harmony, healing, hopefulness, justice, Kauai, mindfulness, Pali Coast, relationship with the divine, sacred value of life, trust, wholeness

Pali Coast

Pali Coast, Kauai

The world of your creating is beautiful, O God.

You are master sculptor of imposing mountain ranges,
rugged seascapes, luxuriant valleys, bubbling volcanoes.

You give thought to the birds of the air,
the cattle on the hill, the sea creatures and crawling things.

You orchestrate the sights and sounds of creation
to be a harmonious symphonic masterpiece
that all might know the abundance of your goodness.

There is no detail you leave unattended,
no part of this world beyond your concern.

And amazingly,
you are mindful of human beings –
made in your image,
made for relationship,
made of dust and water,
made of breath and hope,
made of dreams for becoming,
made to live at peace,
made to create,
made with a spark of divinity,
made with a twinkle in your eye,
made to hold and to heal,
made to trust,
made from a deep abiding love.

Our burdens begin
when we misplace our mindfulness of you.

Anxieties follow
when we forget who it is who holds our lives.

Troubles mount
when we boast that this is all meant for us.

Sorrows breed
when we ignore what you intend for our wholeness.

Heal us.
Shake us from our complacency.
Renew in us a vision of life’s harmony.
Restore in us a thriving hopefulness.
Stir up in us a righteous anger at injustice.
Prevent us from doing any more harm.
Call forth from us what is beautiful and true.
Lead us back to our sacredness.
Heal us, we pray, that we might be healers too.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
(c) 2017

Emmanuel

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Peace with justice, Poems, Prayers, Reflections

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Christmas, compassion, creation care, Earth care, God with us, healing, hope, human suffering, justice, Mystery, mysticism, peace, wholeness

NASA Cloudy Earth medium

NASA Cloudy Earth, Flickr Creative Commons

What was spoken through the prophet is fulfilled:
Look! A virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will call him, Emmanuel.
(Emmanuel means “God with us.”)

 In bomb-shattered cities
children unable to play freely in the streets

In poverty-wracked slums
families struggling to put food on the table

In violence-plagued neighborhoods
the young learning early that life is cheap

On tear-soaked refugee trails
people desperately looking for a way to freedom

On vulnerable island shores
communities fighting the futile battle against rising sea levels

In the midst of everyday pain,
in the grip of widespread suffering,
the promised one comes and takes up residence among us.

Emmanuel – God with us in our deepest need.

There is no one left out of this divine scheme,
no one whose accident of birth disqualifies them,
no one whose skin color lessens their sacred worth,
no one whose race or gender changes their standing before God,
no one whose religion or lack thereof alters God’s affection for them.

God’s concern is with the whole.
God’s dream is that we all will one day see:
What affects one affects all.
Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
Suffering is never isolated or contained.
We weep with those who weep,
our tears mingling with the tears of divine compassion.

God with us—
the whole human race,
the whole soul-stirring creation,
the whole beguiling mystery of what it means to be alive.

God with us—
in our search for wholeness,
in our poverty of spirit,
in our labor for peace with justice,
in our reaching out with hearts and hands to help,
in our holding on tenaciously to hope.

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

 

God of Earth and Sky and Sea

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Prayers, Worship Liturgy

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Tags

comfort, compassion, creation, faith, forgiveness, healing, hope, prayer, Prophet Isaiah, reconciliation, season of Advent, Shepherding God

DSCN0779

A Prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent:

God of earth and sky and sea,
God of rich and poor and in-between,
God of lost and God of found,
God who is like a shepherd to us,
we walk the path of Advent awakenings,
mindful of your call to repentance and change,
thankful for your offer of mercy and grace.
You are ever before and behind us.
You are the one constant amid a sea of change.
You are the shepherd who feeds his flock,
the one who gathers the lambs in his arms (Isa 40:11).
You long for us to receive your word of comfort.
You announce that our penalty is paid,
that we are free to live with godlike compassion,
that we are empowered to bring comfort to the world.
Still we turn away,
and walk in paths that suit our own interests,
and fail to welcome the one who is different,
and justify our prejudices with Scripture verses.
Forgive us our sins, and change our hearts, O God.
In this time of waiting and watching,
we pray for all who need the comfort of your presence,
for all who need the comfort of your Church.
To those who are sick or in pain, bring wholeness.
To the lonely and discouraged, renew hope.
To the grieving and troubled, speak comfort.
To any who struggle with self-judgment, extend your grace.
To any who are exiled from your Church, awaken their faith.
(We silently bring our prayers for particular persons now.)
Make of us your forgiven and reconciling people.
Use us to welcome others into your kin-dom.
Stir up within us the faith to trust you with our blind spots,
our shortcomings, our very lives.
And even though our lives are transient like the flowers of the field,
feed us with your word that stands forever (Isa. 40:8).
In the name of the Christ who comes among us to heal and to save. Amen.

Words (c) 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Inhabiting a Common and Precious Space

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, LGBTQ, Reflections

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

beloved community, Bishop Reuben Job, do no harm, grace, healing, LGBTQ inclusion, marriage equality, repentance, social justice, United Methodist Book of Discipline

"Reach" Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

“Reach” Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Methodists have a way of envisioning and living out our faith that is expressed in three simple rules:

  1. Do no harm
  2. Do good
  3. Stay in love with God

Bishop Reuben P. Job describes the first rule in such a way that we can see its potential to change the world one relationship at a time. We live in a time of intense culture wars, political battles, religious squabbling, and international tensions. We see the huge scale of harm being done in the world through both careless and deliberate acts, too often by people of faith and religious institutions. So it helps to hear Bishop Job describe the first simple rule as an “act of disarming, laying aside our weapons and our desire to do harm.” Healing the world requires change from within the human heart as well as outward behavioral change.

For years now the United Methodist Church has been doing considerable harm to our LGBTQ neighbors, family members, and friends. We have had language in our guiding document The Book of Discipline that marginalizes a whole community among us. A day will come when the language will be removed and the church will repent of all of the harm it has knowingly or unknowingly done to peoples’ lives. Especially painful is the legacy of young people who have felt rejected by the very church that exists to nurture love for God and one another.

Bishop Job writes that the act of disarming and seeking to do no harm is revealing in other ways: “We discover that we stand on common ground, inhabit a common and precious space, share a common faith, feast at a common table, and have an equal measure of God’s unlimited love. When I am determined to do no harm to you, I lose my fear of you; and I am able to see you and hear you more clearly. Disarmed of the possibility to do harm, we find that good and solid place to stand where together we can seek the way forward in faithfulness to God” (Reuben P. Job, Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, Nashville: Abingdon Press, © 2007, pages 23-24).

We, the people of the United Methodist Church, need to remove language from our Discipline that continues to harm individual lives as well as the heart of our spiritual community. We need to listen deeply and intently to the stories of our LGBTQ neighbors, family members, and friends, about how the gospel is being misrepresented in our broken institutional life. We need to look deeply and intently into our own hearts for the places we are armed with weapons of fear, mistrust, and judgment, and seek God’s help in laying those weapons down. We need most of all to repent of the harm the church has already done to persons of sacred worth and commit ourselves anew to manifesting the beloved community where God’s justice and righteousness reign!

We inhabit a common and precious space. Let us begin to act like it.

God, in your grace that exceeds our imaginations and confronts our complacency, hear our prayer.

Words © 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo © 2014 Dallis Day Richardson

In the Stillness Find Grace

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Centering Prayer, Reflections

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Centering Prayer, contemplative prayer, grace, healing, peace, Public prayer, Reign of God, silence, spirit

Meditation Chapel at La Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara, California

Meditation Chapel at La Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara, California

Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.

Our hour of centering prayer in the small Meditation Chapel tucked among the oak trees was nearing an end recently when our facilitator, Jeanette, said words to this effect.

I am always grateful to be able to sit prayerfully in silence with others. It is a community of prayer that lends support and peace to my life. Centering prayer is a contemplative form of giving your intention to God, and allowing your body, mind, and spirit to simply be in the presence of the Holy. It’s not about forming words or thoughts, like so much of the prayer I am asked to do in my work as a minister. Even though I am conscious of trying to let go of the need to say the right words or the best words when I pray in public, there is usually a sense that someone (not least of all myself) is measuring those words for an adequate expression of faith.

In centering prayer I let go of any need to satisfy others and simply sit in the stillness that is able to fill the cathedral of my inner being. Even when thoughts arise and distract me from my prayerful intention, I do not worry that my prayer is inadequate. I am aware of the Spirit welcoming me again and again into life and joy.

Jesus said, “The Reign of God has come near.”

For me, one of the most powerful settings for God to release the healing balm of grace is in a contemplative community praying alongside one another.

Words (c) 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson

A Dog’s Last Will & Testament

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Dogs

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

canine companion, Christmas, healing, loss, Pomeranian, poodle mix, rescue dogs

bailey 3A year ago, just a few days before Christmas, my wife Dallis and I walked into a dog rescue organization “just to look.” We walked through the kennels, and in one we saw four small dogs. Three of them were jumping and barking as you might expect. The fourth one sat there quietly in the chaos and looked at us with eyes that said, “Well, are you going to let me out, or what?” We asked to see him. Then we walked him on a leash, and he didn’t seem to have a clue about that. But he was trusting and he liked to be held. So we took him home on a “trial basis” — no papers signed, no promises, no nothing! Within half-an-hour our hearts were hooked.

It had been almost a year since we lost our Pomeranian named Sadie, who died suddenly of congestive heart failure at the age of just eight years old. Our hearts were still a little tender. But Bailey entered our lives just before Christmas, much to our surprise, and helped in the healing process.

I ran across the piece below written by an unknown author that helps me to remember that the grief of loss is soothed by finding another pet to love.

bailey 2
Bailey was initially found wandering the streets of our city. He was in bad shape. He was held at the county shelter right up to the day before his time on earth was scheduled to expire. But the strange and wonderful serendipity of him entering our lives is that we initially thought we were “rescuing” him, and it turns out that he “rescued” us. He came into our lives right at the right time, and he makes us laugh at least once a day!

Here’s the piece titled, “A Dog’s Last Will and Testament,” author unknown. I imagine Sadie, who wasn’t all that crazy about other dogs, approving nonetheless of us finding another canine companion to share our home. Some of her toys and beds remain, and Bailey now enjoys them.

Before humans die, they write their Last Will & Testament, and give their home and all they have to those they leave behind.

If, with my paws, I could do the same, this is what I’d ask…

To a poor and lonely stray I’d give:
My happy home,
My bowl,
My cozy bed,
My soft pillows and all my toys,
The lap which I loved so much,
The hand that stroked my fur and the sweet voice which spoke my name.
I’d will to the sad, scared shelter dog the place I had in my human’s heart, of which there seemed no bounds.

So when I die please do not say, “I will never have a pet again, for the loss and pain is more than I can stand.” Instead, go find an unloved dog; one whose life has held no joy or hope and give MY place to him. This is the only thing I can give … the love I left behind.

bailey 5

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