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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Tag Archives: prayer

Prayer to a Great Blue Heron

27 Monday Sep 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in grief, Prayers, Reflections

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Breathing, fear, gratitude, grief, loss, paying attention, prayer

Prayer to a Great Blue Heron

You’ve met me twice recently by the lake,
with your elegant serene pose,
standing so still I almost didn’t see you.

The first time I was with a friend – 
someone who knew you,
whom I had asked to meet me.

I needed a friend – 
someone to interrupt the bleakness
of all this unwanted time alone.

I was afraid.

I was always taught not to show fear – 
a lesson in protecting oneself,
well-intentioned but poor advice.

For when facing down a soul
burdened with the harshness of grief,
there are times when fear is all there is.

Fear of crumbling into a million pieces,
fear of forgetting the touch, smell, taste
of your beloved in the passage of time,

fear of being hollowed out by sadness,
fear of being swallowed up by loneliness,
fear of losing purpose.

So many fears.

The next time I spotted you at the lake
I nearly missed you altogether.
You didn’t move or make a sound.

Yet there you stood as regal as before,
exquisite in your muted tones against the reeds,
blending in to this world of water and sky.

I stopped to breathe,
to wonder at your presence,
to say thank you.

Is this you accompanying me in my fear?
Is this you beckoning me to pay attention?

I pray that it is.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
September 27, 2021
8 months

A Prayer for Our Country

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, Peace with justice, Reflections, Worship Liturgy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

9/11, call of God, collective grief, God of love, healing of divisions, liberty, peace, prayer, social justice, wisdom

New York City 20th Anniversary of 9/11 Weekend Memorial

A Prayer for Our Country
On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of 9/11

“For Jesus, 
there are no countries to be conquered,
no ideologies to be imposed,
no people to be dominated.
There are only children, 
women and men to be loved.”
~ Henri Nouwen

God of expansive and generous love,
whose concern is the whole wide wonderful world,
especially the vulnerable and anawim (poor ones),
who hears prayers in countless languages,
who cannot be imprisoned in any one religion,
who took human form in a person of color,
in whom unity is discovered in beautiful diversity,
whose heart breaks anew each day
at the disease, death, and destruction
wrought by the creatures of earth,
hear our prayer.

We cannot claim you as our own – 
you are not an American God.
To do so is blasphemy.

Rather, you claim us as your own –
ordinary folks from all walks of life,
each one different,
yet more similar than dissimilar –
and you call us to live lives of genuine love,
caring for the least of these among us,
becoming persistent warriors for peace,
laboring to achieve justice for all,
seeking to be compassionate as God is compassionate.

So, while we identified some enemies
and misidentified others
in the aftermath of 9/11,
and then marched dutifully off to war,
thinking we could avenge the harm done to us
when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were struck
and a plane was forced down in a Pennsylvania field,
and so many innocent lives 
of loved ones with futures and hopes
were lost to us,
we were mostly serving ourselves, not you.

We pray for our country
on this anniversary of tragedy and resolve.
We pray for comfort in our collective grief.

We pray too that the discipline of duty 
might be turned to addressing our own troubles
before turning our fury upon others.

We pray that we begin to take seriously
matters of liberty and justice that affect us all,
directly or indirectly –
climate change,
income inequality,
equal access to voting,
racial profiling,
police violence,
wrongful convictions,
prisons built upon profits,
women’s health and reproductive choices,
equal protections for our LGBTQ siblings.

We pray for healing amid our deep divisions,
not so that we all think alike,
but so that we might again be able 
to talk meaningfully and honestly with one another.

Finally, we pray for the wisdom
to reclaim and redefine our nation’s core principles
to ensure the liberty and justice that is due to all.

Amen. So may it be.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
September 10, 2021

Drawn into the Deep

01 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Prayers, Worship Liturgy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Holy Spirit, prayer, spirituality, water of life, worship

Ocean-Bound.07.30.2006

A morning prayer for the Spirit to move us:

Tender powerful Spirit,
who goes wherever you will,
like a flowing fountain soothe us,
like a mighty river transport us,
like a mountain lake enchant us,
like a gentle rain wash over us,
like a boundless ocean draw us into the deep. Amen.

Words (c) 2019 Mark Lloyd Richardson

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

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

Sunlit Grace

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems, Prayers

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

artists, blessing, Community, grace, hope, journalists, love of God, love of neighbor, peace, poets, prayer, religious communities, truth

Red Bluff Church

Church on Red Bluff Road, south of Quesnel, British Columbia, Photo credit: blog Cruising Canuckistan

Bless the people
who labor for a better life
a better neighborhood
a better country
a better world,
who love family
create community
and give of themselves
so that seeds of hope
planted in places of despair
may be watered
and grow
and emerge as new life!

Bless the artists and poets
who see what might be
with a piercing clarity
of what now is.

Bless the journalists
who ask uncomfortable questions
and expose inconvenient mistruths
in their dogged pursuit of truth.

Bless the churches and mosques and synagogues
that dot the prairies, hills and valleys
of this precious landscape,
breathing a spirit of prayer and goodness
into the shared life of their communities.

Bless truck driver, crop picker, waiter and cook.
Bless coal miner, windmill farmer, and solar installer.
Bless single mother, newly married, aging couple, and widowed.
Bless teacher, student, leader, and follower.
Bless dreamer, shaper, thinker, and friend.

Bless the fraying edges of relationships,
the absences and separations,
the losses and heartaches,
the holy disruptions,
the sacred silences of peace.

Bless it all, Creation’s Lord.

Let the sunlight of your grace
shine upon poor and rich alike
exposing the treasures nearest each beating heart –
love of neighbor,
love of God.
Bless the whole world, we pray –
no exceptions.

 
Words Copyright (c) 2017, Mark Lloyd Richardson

Christ of the Lakeshore

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems, Prayers, Reflections

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

creation, glory of God, hope, Jesus Christ, Lake Tahoe, nature, prayer, Waters of life, world's suffering

FullSizeRender

Zephyr Point Presbyterian Conference Center, Lake Tahoe

Christ of the lakeshore,
come beside me this day
as my eyes soak in
the blueness spread before me
geese gliding effortlessly
inches above placid waters
slender pencils of pine
garbed in glorious green
a light blanket of snow
draped over neighboring peaks.

Christ of the lakeshore,
come beside me this day
as my ears take in
the songs of the birds
the lapping of the surf
the laughter and crying of a child
the soft whispering breeze.

Christ of the lakeshore,
come beside me this day
as my heart lets in
the pain of the world
of immigrant and refugee
the poor
the houseless
the lonely
the pushed aside
the wounded
the broken-hearted.

Christ of the lakeshore,
come beside me this day
that my praying
my dreaming
my hoping
my longing
may be in conversation
with yours.

Words (c) 2017 Mark Lloyd Richardson

In the Garden

14 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems, Prayers, Reflections

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Disciples, Garden of Gethsemane, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, Holy Week, Jesus, Passion of Jesus, prayer, silence, suffering

Through the trees large

Photo credit: Joel Olives, “Through the Trees,” Flickr.com Creative Commons, May 6, 2008.

And Jesus said, “Sit here, while I pray.”

All we must do is sit.
All we must do is recognize this as a time of prayer.
All we must do is stay awake to the present danger.
All we must do is not walk away from the suffering.
All we must do is listen in the stillness of the garden.

Some leaves rustle as a small animal stirs nearby.
A breeze disturbs the branches of an olive tree.
A fellow disciple quietly coughs in the cooling air.
Our own breathing is labored from the hasty night walk.
The fluted song of an owl floats down from the hillside.

All we must do is sit.

Words (c) 2017, Mark Lloyd Richardson

An Advent Prayer for All God’s Children

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Prayers, Worship Liturgy

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Advent season, Bethlehem, birth of Christ, earth stewardship, hope, human dignity, incarnation, light of Christ, prayer, suffering, Word made flesh

children-photo-by-susan-barrett-price-creative-commons

Photo by Susan Barrett Price on Flickr Creative Commons

God of all the seasons of life,
here we are in Advent –
a season of expectant watching and waiting –
and we are aware of the grand struggles
playing out on this earth …
… struggles for human dignity
… for freedom from oppression
… for sustainable living
… for responsible stewardship of this precious earth.

Holy and mighty God,
you speak of a day when we will know
that Christ is near, even at the door.
You warn us to keep awake
and not succumb to the sleepiness
of casual accumulation and comfort.
There is so much need around us
our eyes and hearts cannot contain it.
So many of the world’s children
whom you love
suffering
through no fault of their own.

In this holy season,
while the world dances transfixed
before the dazzling lights of commerce,
we are invited
to sit in wonder beneath a brilliant nighttime star,
to seek the true light that shines in the darkness,
to follow where the child of Bethlehem leads,
to listen anew to the Word made flesh.

Draw us up short, Lord,
from any pretensions of piety we may have,
and surprise us again by the miracle of hope,
that this child who is to be born
may remind us of all the world’s children
who carry within them your image
your life
your love
your light!
Amen.

(c) 2011 Mark Lloyd Richardson

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