Do Not Be Afraid

                          God’s power to your weakness

                          God’s light to your darkness

                          God’s love to your loneliness

                          God’s care to your troubles

                          God’s Peace to your distress

                          God’s eternity Fill your life.     By David Adam

God of Life,

There are days when the burdens we carry are heavy on our shoulders and weigh us down, when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies grey and threatening.

When our lives have no music in them and our hearts are lonely and our souls have lost their courage,

Flood the Path with Light!                                 Amen.

                        St. Augustine

A Blessing for Those Who Care

In your caring for others
            God cares of you.
As you give your life to others
            God gives Himself to you.
As you pour out your love
            God pours out His love into you.
God bless you and guide you.
God strengthen and refresh you.
God give you courage and hope
            that His deep loving care
            is revealed through you.

                                    David Adam

After Annunciation

This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.

                                    Madeleine L’Engle  from A Cry Like a Bell

I arise, facing East.
I am asking toward the light,
I am asking that my day
Shall be beautiful with light.
I am asking that the place
Where my feet are shall be light,
That as far as I can see
I shall follow it aright.
I am asking for the courage
To go forward through the shadow,
I am asking toward the light.

                                                  Mary Austin

To the Breath of Life

Homage to you, Breath of Life, for the whole universe obeys you.
You are the ruler of all things on earth, and the foundation of the earth itself.

Homage to you, Breath of Life, in the crashes of thunder and in the flashes of the lightning.  The rain you send gives food to the plants and drink to the animals.

Homage to you, Breath of Life, in the changing seasons, in the hot dry sunshine and the cold rain.  There is comfort and beauty in every kind of weather.

The plants themselves rejoice in your bounty, praising you in the sweet smell of their blossom.  The cattle rejoice, praising you in the pure white milk they give.

Homage to you, Breath of Life, in our breathing out and breathing in.  At every moment, whatever we are doing, we owe you praise and thanksgiving.

Homage to you, Breath of Life, in our birth and in our death.  In the whole cycle of life you sustain and inspire us.

Homage to you, Breath of Life, in the love and friendship we enjoy.  When we love one another, we reflect your infinite love.

Men and women rejoice in your bounty, praising you in poem and song.  The little children rejoice, praising you in their innocent shrieks of laughter.

From the Atharva Veda

A Song of Christ’s Goodness

Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you;
you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.

Often you weep over our sins and our pride,
tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgment.

You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds,
in sickness you nurse us and with pure milk you feed us.

Jesus, by your dying, we are born to new life;
by your anguish and labor we come forth in joy.

Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness;
through your gentleness, we find comfort in fear.

Your warmth gives life to the dead,
your touch makes sinners righteous.

Lord Jesus, in your mercy, heal us;
 in your love and tenderness, remake us.

In your compassion, bring grace and forgiveness,
for the beauty of heaven, may your love prepare us.

                        Anselm of Canterbury , Canticle Q from Enriching our Worship

As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them,
As hawks rest upon air and air sustains them
So would I learn to attain freefall and float into creator spirit’s deep embrace,
Knowing no effort earns that all surrounding grace.

                                                Denise Levertov

Watching gardeners label their plants
I vow with all beings
to practice the old horticulture
and let the plants identify me.

Work, Love and Grace

In a frantic marketing economy
Of escalated needing and assumed scarcities,
Success in life comes only through
Profits and Acquisitions.

Mistaking more and more for comfort,
Afraid of ever gaining less and less,
In fear we will compress experience
Through panic into firm belief

That Grace is scarce,
That all Love is conditional,
That our best work must be
Applied to self-redemption,

But there is no scarcity of Grace,
No shame in poverty of style or place,
For Love redeems each life and
Good work is faith in action.

Act as if everything depended on you;
            Trust as if everything depended on God.

“Love, and do what you like.”  
           St. Augustine

Instead of telling friends you are leading the spiritual life, which sometimes makes people raise their eyebrows, you can say, “I am learning to love.”  It is the same thing.  Learning to love in the way Saint Augustine is talking about is the most difficult, the most demanding, the most delightful, and the most daring of disciplines.  It does not mean loving only two or three members of your family; that can often amount to building a kind of ego-annex.  It does not mean loving only those who share your views, read the same newspapers, or play the same sports.  Love, as Jesus puts it, means blessing those that curse you, doing good to those that hate you.

Most of us do not begin by blessing those that curse us.  That is graduate school.  We start with first grade—being kind to people in our family when they get resentful.  Eventually comes high school, where we learn to move closer to those who are trying to shut themselves off from us.  College means returning good will for ill will.  Finally we enter graduate school “ Return love for hatred.”  There we learn to give our love to all—to people of different races countries, and religions, different outlooks and strata of society, without any sense of distinction or difference.

Awaken Me

Risen One,
come, meet me
in the garden of my life.

 
Lure me into elation.
Revive my silent hope.
Coax my dormant dreams.
Raise up my neglected gratitude.
Entice my tired enthusiasm.
Give life to my faltering relationships.
Roll back the stone of my indifference.
Unwrap the deadness in my spiritual life.
Impart heartiness in my work.

Risen One,
send me forth as a disciple of your unwavering love,
a messenger of your unlimited joy.

Resurrected One,
may I become
ever more convinced
that your presence lives on,
and on, and on,
and on.

Awaken me!
Awaken me!

Adoration, one of the purposes of prayer, comes at that moment in time when we recognize the beauty of life, the graces of our own life—whatever its difficulties—the awesomeness of the universe, and the certainty that underneath it all lies a mystery beyond us. True, everything in this world is not right.  Some people live in relentless poverty, embarrassing tragedy, inhuman injustice. But in the center of us, we know it was not meant to be that way. And for that we can, whatever the present situation, sing Alleluia.

It Acts Like Love

                        It acts like love—music—
It reaches toward the face, touches it, and tries to let you know
            His promise: that all will be okay.

                        It acts like love—music and,
            tells the feet, “You do not have to be so burdened.”

                        My body is covered with wounds
                                    this world made, 
        but I still longed to kiss Him, even when God said,

            “Could you also kiss the hand that caused
                                   each scar,

                        for you will not find me until
                                    you do.”

                        It does that—music—helps us
                                    to forgive.

Rabia, 8^th c. Muslim woman poet

How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth,
With its swirling vaporous atmosphere,
Its flowing and frozen climbing creatures,
The croaking things with wings that hang on rocks
And soar through fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas…
How utterly rich and wild…
Yet some among us have the nerve,
The insolence, the brass, the gall to whine
About the limitations of our earthbound fate
And yearn for some more perfect world beyond the sky.
We are none of us good enough
For the world we have.

            Edward Abbey

Ahimsa is usually translated as “non violence,” but this is misleading and falls far short of the real significance of the word. When all violence has subsided in my heart, my native state is love. I would add that even avoiding a person we dislike can be a subtle form of himsa or violence. Therefore, in everyday terms, ahimsa often means bearing with difficult people.

In Kerala we have a giant fierce-looking plant called elephant nettle. You have only to walk by for it to stretch out and sting you. By the time you get home, you have a blister that won’t let you think about anything else. My grandmother used to say, “A self-willed person is like an elephant nettle.”

That is why the moment we see somebody who is given to saying unkind things, we make a detour. We pretend we have suddenly remembered something that takes us in another direction, but the fact is that we just don’t want to be stung. Whenever I complained of a classmate I did not like, my granny would say, “Here, you have to learn to grow. Go near him. Let yourself slowly get comfortable around him; then give him your sympathy and help take the sting out of his nettles.”

            Eknath Easwaran

The words of the Buddha offer these truths:

Hatred never ceases by hatred but by love alone is healed.
This is the ancient and eternal law.

Like a caring mother
holding and guarding the life
of her only child,
so with a boundless heart
hold yourself and all beings.

May I and all beings be filled with loving kindness.
May I and all beings be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I and all beings be well in body and mind.
May I and all beings be happy and free.

Quoted by Jack Kornfield in The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace

“Ahimsa is not a policy for the seizure of power. It is a way of transforming relationships so as to bring about a peaceful transfer of power, effected freely and without compulsion by all concerned, because all have come to recognize it as right.”  Thomas Merton

Bearing with people is the essence of non-violence. To do this with a feeling of martyrdom, however, is not very helpful; we need to bear with people cheerfully. But this does not mean making ourselves into a doormat. Many people suffer from the misguided notion that the spiritual life means saying, “Yes, honey, whatever you want is okay with me. You say; I do.” Letting people take undue advantage of us is not helpful for them any more than it is for us.

We all know that with a selfish person if we yield an inch he will ask for a yard. With the selfish person, therefore, it is often necessary quietly to say no. Don’t accept a situation in which you are exploited, discriminated against, or manipulated. This is the great art of nonviolent resistance, where you love the person, you respect him, but you will not allow him to exploit you, because it is bad for him just as it is bad for you.

            Eknath Easwaran

Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved thee!  For behold, thou wert within me and I outside; and I sought thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon these lovely things that thou has made. Thou wert with me and I was not with thee. I was kept from thee by those things, yet had they not been in thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness;…I tasted thee, and now hunger and thirst for thee; thou didst touch me, and now I burn for thy peace.

Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my God, a spreading and limitless room within me. Who can reach its uttermost depth?  Here are men going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the movements of the stars, yet they leave themselves unnoticed!

                        St. Augustine of Hippo, whose day we celebrated Aug. 28

Ask Anything

            “Ask anything,”

My Lord said to me.

And my mind and heart thought deeply

   for a second,

       Then replied with just one word,

                        “When?”

God’s arms then opened up and I entered Myself.

            I entered myself when I entered

                        Christ.

And having learned compassion I

 allowed my soul

      to stay.

            Thomas Aquinas

From that which we fear, make us fearless.
O bounteous One, assist us with your aid.

May the atmosphere we breathe
breathe fearlessness into us;
fearlessness on earth
and fearlessness in heaven!
May fearlessness surround us
above and below!

May we be without fear by night and by day!
Let all the world be my friend!

            Atharva Veda XIX

Peace be to heaven, peace to the waters,
Peace to the plant and peace to the trees!
May all the powers grant to me peace!
By this invocation of peace may peace be diffused!
By this invocation of peace may peace bring peace!
With this peace the dreadful I now appease,
With this peace the cruel I now appease,
With this peace all evil I now appease,
So that peace may prevail, happiness prevail!
May everything for us be peaceful!

            Atharva Veda XlX

From the East House of Light
May wisdom dawn in us
So we may see all things in clarity.

From the North House of Night
May wisdom ripen in us
So we may know all from within.

From the West House of Transformation
May wisdom be transformed into right action
So we may do what must be done.

From the South House of the Eternal Sun
May right action reap the harvest
So we may enjoy the fruits of planetary being.

From Above House of Heaven
Where star people and ancestors gather
May their blessings come to us now.

From Below House of Earth
May the heartbeat of her crystal core
Bless us with harmonies to end all war.

From the Center Galactic Source
Which is everywhere at once
May everything be known as the light of mutual love.

Jose Arguelles

In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of no mater what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him, too, once more, and in each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life: toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terrorism, and of God.

            James Agee Let us Now Praise Famous Men

All you big things bless the Lord
Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria
The Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plain
Fat baobabs and shady mango trees
Bless the Lord
Praise and extol Him for ever and ever.

All you tiny things, bless the Lord
Busy black ants and hopping fleas
Wriggling tadpoles and mosquito larvae
Flying locusts and water drops
Pollen dust and tsetse flies
Millet seeds and dried dagaa
Bless the Lord
Praise and extol Him for ever and ever.

African Canticle

ARROGANCE

The weight of arrogance is such
 that no bird can fly
    carrying it.

And the man who feels superior
 to others, that man
   cannot dance,

the real dance when the soul takes God
into its arms and you both fall
 onto your knees in
gratitude,

 a blessed gratitude
      for life.

            John of the Cross

Sweet Spirit of Sleep, who brings peace and rest to weary bodies,
Empty us of aches and pains,
for we struggle as seeds through unyielding earth.
Bring to us the timeless nature of your presence—
the endless void of our slumber.
            Make us aware of the work we can do while in your time.
            Make us to know our dreaming,
            where past and future are reconciled.
Come let us honor sleep, that knits up
the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life,
sore labor’s bath, balm of hurt minds,
great nature’s second course,
chief nourisher in life’s feast.

            Congregation of Abraxas

Good Jesus, the water of your teaching flows in silence. Your gospel is not poured into our ears by an eloquent tongue, but is breathed into our hearts by your sweet spirit. Your voice never strains nor shouts. You do not force us to hear you. You ask only that we open our hearts to you, and in tranquility your love enters our souls.

Aelred of Rievaulx, 12^th c.

Happy is he who opens his heart to you, good Jesus, for you enter and rest there. You bring the midday of heavenly light to the troubled breast, calming every emotion of the heart with the rays of divine peace. You make a bed within the soul with fragrant spiritual flowers, and you lie upon it, so that the soul is filled with the knowledge of you and the joy of your sweetness.

Aelred of Rivaulx, 12^th c.

A BLESSING FOR THOSE WHO CARE

In your caring for others
            God cares for you.
As you give your life to others
God gives himself to you.
As you pour out your love
            God pours His love into you.
            God bless you and guide you.
            God strengthen and refresh you.
            God give you courage and hope
that His deep and loving care is revealed through you.

            David Adam, Vicar of Lindisfarne

Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, England, Patron of Arts, Mentor to Abbesses, 651

            BLESSED TRINITY, we praise you for Aidan’s gentle compassion and for his example of servant leadership.  We extol Aidan’s encouragement of the arts that led to the creation of the Lindisfarne Gospels.  We especially celebrate his willingness to mentor strong women of faith like the Abbesses Bega of Bees, Hilda of Whitby, Ebba of St. Abbs, and Ethelreda of Ely.  Guide the leaders of our faith communities to follow Aidan’s example so that men and women may use their diverse gifts to glorify you.  For we pray in the name of the Creator of the universe, Amen.

“She Who Prays”

A GREENING PRAYER

            Godde
keep me always
greening

keep me rooted
in the dark
keep me turning
to the light

keep me well
and deeply watered
keep me bending
with the winds

keep me growing
beyond fences
keep me leafing
budding blooming

keep me fruiting
keep me yielding
ever blessing
everything

keep me healing
calm and able
keep me still
as stillness calls

keep me always
greening
Godde

Blessing me just as I am,
Each new day blessing what I do
Incline my heart into your ways of love

AMEN AMEN
LET IT BE SO

AWARE

When I opened the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.

            My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversation had ended
just before you arrived.
            I liked
the glimpse I had, though,
of their obscure
gestures.  I liked the sound
of such private voices.  Next time
I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open
the door by fractions, eavesdrop
peacefully.

            Denise Levertov

Most gracious God, for our salvation you were born and manifested in a human body: Help us see your likeness in women and men of all nations, races, and cultures, that we may rejoice in our diversity and live together as one; in the name of your Child, our savior Jesus Christ, given to us this holy day [night.]  Amen.

            (source: St. Athanasius, 4^th c.) from “Women’s Uncommon Prayers”

For Those with Addictions

God of wholeness, we lift up anyone who is or has been addicted to any kind of substance.
For those whose addictions started innocently as a result of a doctor’s prescription, have mercy.
For those who wanted to belong so much they paid too high a price, have mercy.
For those who wanted to blot out the intolerable pain of living, have mercy.
And for those who just wanted to have some fun, have mercy.
For those who are not yet in recovery, guide them.
For those who are recovering day by day, strengthen and support them.
For anyone in a relationship with a recovering or active addict, help them to detach lovingly.
For we pray in the name of Jesus, who when faced with a life-or-death struggle, wrestled with it, and then made the hard choice, for the love of God and us, his sisters and brothers. Amen.

            “She Who Prays”

The church is called to be an agent for change and bearer of the Christian message of reconciliation.  Sadly the church itself has often been stricken with strife that imperils its true nature as the one body of Christ and damages our witness to a world in need of reconciliation.  Christians have no option but to be reconcilers.  Such is our calling.  It requires a spirituality that is tuned to God’s intention for the church and its witness in the world.

Denise Ackermann from “I Have Called You Friends: Reflections on Reconciliation in honor of Frank T. Griswold”

Spiritual direction for our future is informed by spiritual reconciliation with our past.  Who we are, what we are, however it is we’ve gotten to be where we are, God knows, God lures, God loves.  I would call this God’s “conditional love.”  Life is inescapably full of conditions and circumstances, changes and chances, and God’s love for us is there and present in it all.

Curtis G. Almquist, SSJE from “God’s Conditional Love: The Inner Work of Reconciliation” in I Have Called You Friends

AL’ASMA’ AL-HUSNA, “THE BEAUTIFUL NAMES”

Holy One of One-Hundred Names, three of which are Compassion, Love, and Mercy,

We acknowledge our offenses against you and your creation.

In our attempts to be holy, too often we have listened to others instead of trusting our own God-given instincts.

We have accepted distorted images of women for so long that we no longer recognize the godly goodness of our own voices.

We have tarnished the unique God-shaped image that you so tenderly created inside each one of us, female and male.

We confess that, at times, we have not loved you or our neighbors;

We have not loved ourselves nor have we loved Creation.

We are rarely able to receive your all-encompassing love.

Instead of fanning the flames of your love in our midst, too often we have quenched the divine sparks.

Instead of allowing your Holy Breath to swirl around us feely, sometimes we have tried to trap the breeze in a box to be used for our purposes.

We ask you to blow away the cobwebs of temptation and to blot out the stain of our offenses.

We pray that your light may shine through us, and we may be all you created us to be.

We hope that we may reflect your Glorious Harmony in the world.

We ask this in your many names, O God of One Hundred Names, but especially in the name of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

            From “She Who Prays”

Our Churches are Like Big Families

Lord, we thank you that our churches are like big families.
Lord, let your spirit of reconciliation blow over all the earth.
Let Christians live your love.
Lord, we praise you in Europe’s cathedrals, in America’s offerings,
And in our African songs of praise.
Lord, we thank you that we have brothers and sisters in all the world.
Be with them that make peace.
Amen.

            From “An African Prayer Book”

Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyaa of Iraq, Sufi (Islamic) Mystic, 801 (1895 after Hijra)

ALLAH AL-ASMA’ AL-HUSNA, GOD OF THE BEAUTIFUL NAMES, we praise you for your servant Rabi’a and for her great love of you.  At a time and place when most women married, she had the courage to choose you instead.  We also appreciate the legends that describe the light of your sakina, or presence, that surrounded her head when she prayed.  Rabi’a’s love poetry to you, her heavenly bridegroom, encourages us to develop an intimate relationship with you, too.  May we love you as she did.  For we pray in the name of the God of love.  Amen.

All are Kings and Prophets

Do you not realize or understand your own nobility?  Each of those who have been anointed with the heavenly chrism becomes a Christ by grace, so that all our  kings and prophets of the heavenly mysteries.

            Saint Macarius from “An African Prayer Book”

Amos, Prophet, Advocate for Social Justice, 8^th century BCE

GOD OF MERCY AND JUSTICE, we praise you for your prophet Amos and the powerful message you gave the world through him.  He spoke your words of justice for the poor even though he was denounced and exiled for it.  Thank you for Amos’ example of speaking for the poor and his courage in challenging the religious leaders of his day.  Empower us, as you did Amos, to stand with those without power or voice in our society.  For it’s in your holy name we pray.  Amen.

            From “She Who Prays”

THESE TREES

What have these trees to do with me?
Trees that bloom and fade and leaf along my way.
Trees I look upon with regularity.

Anticipation whets my eye;
My trees stand branch to branch in groves

Or stark against the stretching sky,
Alone in lonely silhouette.

Greedy, I seek them;
My gaze leaps out to feast on hope,
Assessing health and growth,
Buds opening, leaves glowing,

In all ways beautiful to see.
What have these trees to do
With me?

            Nancy Adams-Cogan

We thank you for the spiritual power which gives us new birth.  You have given us the courage to change our minds, to open our hearts to those we despised, and to discover we can disagree without being enemies.  We are not winners and losers, but citizens who push and pull together to move the nation forward.  We thank you for the Good News that you will always be with us, and will always overcome:  that love will conquer hatred; that tolerance will conquer antagonism; that cooperation will conquer conflict; that your Holy Spirit can empower our spirits; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

From South Africa, National Service of Thanksgiving, May 1994  in “An African Prayer Book”

ILLUMINATED TEXT

Tense,
clenched,
driving mile
after mile through
a drizzly night under
the darkest phase
of moon
I am

Startled by
a sudden gift
a cloud of fireflies
surrounds the shell
of my good wagon. 
They light my sight
then fall away
behind

And I return
to pondering as I go
abstracts of Godness
on the yellowed tablets
of inherited mindsets
rewriting Thee
and Thou
enroute.

Rejecting old address
forms for a Divine Patriarch
far off somewhere in space
and the rules for praying
properly that rise from
deepset roots of fear

disuised as hope,

I know
that Love is
Light breathing.
The road is dark
but the moon
rises.

            Nancy Adams-Cogan

Friend, you lie quiet,
watching the dawn light color your heart,
dreaming of healing for your hurt body
laying there unanswerable to your will.
You breathe deep and your breath has two sides;
inside and outside. You are on both, being breathed.
The future approaches. You will heal or you will go back to being God.
Which will you do?

Oh by all that is beautiful—
May it be that you live!
May your body heal happy and whole!
May energy fill and delight you!
May we join the dance your presence gives!
May you live!

And if you die?
Oh dear self, by all that is beautiful,
Know that you are Safe! Everything is All Right
Forever and Ever and Ever!
The most wonderful, exquisite, familiar
Truth is what is True, and welcomes you.
It will be very easy.

You lie quiet now, praying.
A great healing is coming and you want to be ready.
The colors of your heart blend with the light of the morning.
You are blessed.

Elias Amidon from “Prayers for Healing”

Your Holy Spirit Blows Over This Earth

(Language has been changed.  “Men” has become “people,” and the pronoun for Holy Spirit is using the feminine, as in Hebrew and Greek and in the Orthodox church.

On your last days on earth
you promised
to leave us the Holy Spirit
as our present comforter.

We also know that your Holy Spirit blows over this earth,
But we do not understand her.
Many think she is only wind or a feeling.
Let your Holy Spirit break into our lives.
Let her come like blood into our veins,
so that we will be driven entirely by your will.
Let your Spirit blow over wealthy Europe and America,
so that people there will be humble.
Let her blow over the poor parts of the world,
so that people there need suffer no more.
Let her blow over Africa,
so that people here may understand what true freedom is.
There are a thousand voices and spirits in this world,
but we want to hear only your voice,
and be open only to your Spirit.

            Prayer from Ghana in “An African Prayer Book”

The Rainbow of Thy Peace

O bless this people, Lord, who seek their own face
under the mask and can hardly recognize it….

O bless this people that breaks its bond…

And with them, all the peoples of Europe,
Al the peoples of Asia,
All the peoples of Africa,
All the peoples of America,
Who sweat blood and sufferings.

And see, in the midst of these million waves,
The sea swell of the heads of my people.
And grant to their warm hands that they may clasp
The earth in a girdle of brotherly hands,
Beneath the rainbow of thy peace.

Leopold Sedar Senghor, a noted French poet and essayist was president of Senegal, West Africa, in the 1960’s, from “An African Prayerbook”

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling.  This hand here is falling
And look at the other one…It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

            Rainer Maria Rilke

May a good vision catch me
            May a benevolent vision take hold of me, and move me
May a deep and full vision come over me, and burst open around me
May a luminous vision inform me, enfold me.
May I awaken into the story that surrounds,
May I awaken into the beautiful story.
May the wondrous story find me;
May the wildness that makes beauty arise between two lovers arise beautifully between
my body and the body of this land, between my flesh and the flesh of this earth, here and
now, on this day,
May I taste something sacred.

David Abram Ecologist and author, Norwest Coast of North America from “Prayers for a Thousand Years”

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life—
wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Diane Ackerman from “Prayers for a Thousand Years”