How can we live a truly grateful life?  When we look back at all that has happened to us, we easily divide our lives into good things to be grateful for and bad things to forget.  But with a past thus divided, we cannot move freely into the future.  With many things to forget we can only limp toward a future.

True spiritual gratitude embraces all of our past, the good as well as the bad events, the joyful as well as the sorrowful moments.  From the place where we stand, everything that took place brought us to this place, and we want to remember all of it as part of God’s guidance.  That does not mean that all that happened in the past was good, but it does mean that even the bad didn’t happen outside the loving presence of God.

And now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still…

For once on the face of the earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
(Life is what it is about;
I want to truck with death.)

If we were not so singleminded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve,
and you keep quiet and I will go.

                        Pablo Neruda       

Suppose, for example, that a worried miser carries everywhere with him a bag of money, nervously guarding it, refusing to open it and spend any of it; and then someone comes and persuades him to open the bag to the light of day, revealing that it now holds nothing but chewed paper and a dead rat. Would not the owner at once drop the bag in disgust? No further debate is necessary—he sees and he lets go. Meditation works in a similar way, exposing our deepest beliefs to light and naturally causing us to let go of the false ones.

Grant me the ability to be alone;
May it be my custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grasses,
among all growing things
and there may I be alone,
and enter into prayer
to talk with the one
that I belong to.

Eternal Spirit

Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever, Amen.

           Alternative Lord’s Prayer, New Zealand Book of Common Prayer

O Great Spirit

Whose voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me!  I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy—myself.
Make me always read to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.

God of love,
you chose the blessed virgin Mary
to be the mother of your only Son;
grant that we who have been redeemed by his blood,
may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

            New Zealand Prayer Book

Jesus, your birth is wonderful
and your mother is the most beloved woman of all time.
Help us who believe in you to honour each other equally,
whatever our gender,
whatever our ability,
whatever our social state may be.

New Zealand Prayer Book

…if we can open ourselves to the mystery of it all, if we can glimpse the Whole, affirm the Whole, commit to leaning into life until it drops us beneath our surface maps of reality, we may discover that, though we pray to the many faces of God, each is a changing wave in a sea of divine being in which we are tiny fish. And anything in our experience that causes us to trip below our preferences and smaller ways of seeing—any circumstance that awakes us to that divine sea—is a holy gift.

Mark Nepo in The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life
(which I highly recommend)

Flowers have come!
     to refresh
     and delight you, princes.

You see them briefly
as they dress themselves,
     spread their petals,
     perfect only in spring—
countless golden flowers!

The flowers have come
     to the skirt of the mountain! 

Yellow flowers
     sweet flowers
     precious vanilla flowers
     the crows dark magic flowers

 weave themselves together.

They are your
     flowers, god.

We only borrow them:
your flowered drum,
your bells,
     your song:

They are your flowers,
     god.

            Nezahualcoyotl

Yes, even when we’re stranded in the dark, this fire at the center—that quiet place beneath all names where we are joined to God—this fire is a deep and lasting friend. Estranged from this place, we suffer wounds that never stop. For without knowing who I am—that is, without finding the place where God and I join—I will become everyone I love. Without drinking from the quiet—that is, without listening for the place from which all living things speak—I will talk too much and wonder why I am not heard. Without seeking the self that lives beneath all names, all my attempts at kindness will fail, for everything I do will turn everyone in need into me. This being human is a series of blindnesses that come and go. But we can outlive our mistakes, for the mysterious fire at center is always near and greater than our need.

            Mark Nepo from The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live An Authentic Life

            Waiting for situations to clear is a perennial challenge. Written 2,600 years ago, the ancient Tao asks: “Can you wait till the waters of your mind settle?” Frustrating as it is, human beings have always had to wait for things to become clear, and even then, the clarity is all too fleeting. But authenticity takes time to rise in our blood. Beauty takes time for us to fully see. It always takes longer to hear with the heart, but the song heard there is lasting and precious.

Mark Nepo

…falling down is not about failure, but about experiencing as many of life’s positions as possible. It is how we learn. And getting up is not about vanquishing or conquering an opponent or circumstance, but about not getting stuck in one of life’s innumerable valleys. The truth is that we can’t avoid falling down and getting up, any more than we can avoid forgetting and remembering. It is how we integrate, one experience at a time, our human with our being.

Mark Nepo from The Exquisite Risk

What Ties Me to the Earth is Unseen

My heart was beating like a heron awakened
in the weeds, no room to move. Tangled
and surprised by the noise of my mind,
I fluttered without grace to the center
of the lake which humans call silence.

I guess, if you should ask, peace
is no more than the underside
of tired wings resting on the lake
while the heart in its feathers
pounds softer and softer.

Mark Nepo

In the beginning,
where I was touched by
God, before my tongue had word,
before my mind had thought,
there, in the fire I still carry,
the mind and heart are one.            Mark Nepo

            Every survivor, regardless of what they survive, knows the hammering of the sea, and the rock we find refuge on is an exposed place where we finally accept each other; too tired from swimming to think any longer about territories; too tired to talk except through simple touch….

            For those of us who have suffered into gratitude, tolerance is not a political position or even a principle. For those of us who have suffered, who have hauled ourselves into the sun, anything exhausted beside us is family. That we are still here, worn of our imagined differences, marks the resurrection of a deep and timeless gratitude that renews the truth of our common ground.

            Mark Nepo

The Not Yet Born

Volcano—Volcano,
Bubbling rich red.
Streaming.
Spirit-creation
Bursting. Bursting
For release and life.

And I must
Carry you
Hot and aching
Within me
Until your time
Is come.

Mysterious,
Lonely gestation,
Formed in darkness,
Fed and nurtured
By a life and spirit
Breathing gently, powerfully,
In my soul.
Hush. Silence.
The time is
Not yet.
Now is only
Slow murmurings
And gentle stirrings,
Oh! Not yet born!
But how you live!

I love you, Volcano.
I love your
Sweeping pain
And thrusting, tentative
Movement.

I love you, Volcano,
As you sleep and wait
Within me
For your life.
And for your death.

To be at home in your own house means to discover the center of your life in your own heart.

            Henri Nouwen

I used to think that the reward for knowing truth was wisdom, and in some ways, it is.  But more deeply, if we can enter truth, the reward is joy. Indeed, joy lives inside the blues. And you have to sing them open, so the joy can fly out. This is why holding things in is so dangerous. We are human instruments and experience plucks our strings and our feelings are the notes. If we don’t sing them open, they build up and batter the heart from the inside out—till we explode. So it’s never been about singing well, just singing. This is the difference between entertainment and staying alive. This is B.B.’s [B.B. King] true gift. Of course, he’s a master musician, but underneath that, he is a master at singing the blues, at feeling truth until it opens to joy—a master at staying alive. This is what every oppressed people, at the heart of their music and poetry and story and art, have to teach us.

New Life

I suffered, and now there is joy.
I was lonely and now there is comfort.
I was desolate, and now there is warmth,
I was empty, and now there is fullness.

The years and months of struggle dragged on
And plunged me into dark solitude.
And now, why now,
Do I see the light and feel the warmth?
Is it that my despair reached its depth
And God, in pity, said: Enough?
Where was my soul then,
When my spirit was so dead?
And now there is a relief,
An almost tangible gratitude
That it is over
And a spark of life and love
Is born from nothingness.
This will not last forever.
But thank you, God,
For living again,
For letting me know and feel
Your life and presence in me.
And if this hope should die again,
Let me remember
The years of emptiness
That passed.

Stay now, God,
A little longer.

            Edwina Gately       

Native American Ten Commandments

1. The Earth is our Mother; care for her.
2.  Honor all your relations.
3.  Open your heart and soul to the Great Spirit.
4. All life is sacred; treat all being with respect.
5. Take from the Earth what is needed and nothing more.
6. Do what needs to be done for the good of all.
7. Give constant thanks to the Great Spirit for each day.
8. Speak the truth, but only for the good in others.
9. Follow the rhythms of Nature.
10. Enjoy life’s journey, but leave no tracks.

From “Tending Your Inner Garden” by Debra Landwehr Engle and Diane Glass

Nothing

I must come to understand
what it means
to hold on to nothing—
it is the ultimate
experience of faith. 
There is nothing left,
only God,
only God and me—
my little self
in God.

            Edwina Gateley

Christians should be at the forefront of the fight against poverty, which, in all its ramifications and consequences, is nothing short of evil.  It mars the image of God within humanity; it mars his image in the poor as it deprives them of opportunities for abundant life; and it mars his image within those of us who have more than enough, but who, through greed, complacency, or even ignorance, fail to do the justice, to embrace the loving-kindness, that our God asks of us.  Poverty is the new global apartheid.

            Njongonkulu Ndungane. Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa

The sap of spring is beginning to rise in the trees.  Growth is like that: invisible at first, then seeming to arrive in a sudden crescendo of green.  But the secret of growth rests in invisible times such as these.  The world is still gray with winter, but spring has secretly begun.

Within ourselves, too, we must learn to labor through the silent nights and winters of our lives, times when nothing seems to come to fruition, when we encounter only disappointment and disdain.  For the inner work we do during these times is what creates the environment for growth on which others later remark.  Keep faith during the wintry times, and spring will surely follow.

May Anger and Fear Turn to Love

O God
whose Son in anger
drove the money-changers
from the temple
let the anger of Nkwenkwe Nkomo
and his fellow detainees
be to the cleansing
of this land.

O God
I hold before you
the anger
the rage
the frustration
the sorrow
of Mrs. Nkomo and all black mothers
who demand for their children
the same chance to grow up
strong and tall
loving and unafraid
as any white mother
wants for her children;
 
In penitence
I offer you
my own mixed-up anger
that it, with theirs,
may be taken up
into your redemptive will
in which the clash
between anger and fear
oppressed and oppressor
can give way
to the incomprehensible action
of agape-love
bringing about the reconciliation
the embrace of the other
the alien
the enemy
creating the festival of shalom
in which the wolf shall lie down
with the lamb
and the whole of life on earth
shall rejoice
in the splendor of your glory.

Dr.Margaret Nash is a prominent Anglican lay person in Cape Town.  She joined black workers in resisting the bulldozing of their shacks, which had been declared illegal under apartheid laws.  Nkwenkwe Nkomo was one of thousands of young people who were jailed without trial laws during the apartheid era. 

From   “An African Prayer Book” ed. by Desmond Tutu

“Freefall”

If you have one hour of air
and many hours to go,
you must breathe slowly.

If you have one arm’s length
and many things to care for,
you must give freely.

If you have one chance to know God
and many doubts, you must
set your heart on fire.

We are blessed.

Each day is a chance.
We have two arms
Fear wastes air.

            Mark Nepo from “Prayers for Healing”

NIGHT SILENCE

Lord of light
help me to know
that you are also
Lord of night.

And by your choice
when all is dark
and still and stark
you use your voice.

            Harry Alfred Wiggett from An “African Prayer Book.”

New Depth

The soul
when left
out in
the cold
tends
to lose
its voice
which
once
it returns
speaks
from a new
depth.

            Alla Renee Bozarth

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers and sisters, with the power of your virtue.  Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth.  Thus I beg and beseech you.  Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls.  Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away.  Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away…back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning…

            Verily, the earth shall yet become a site of recovery.  And even now a new fragrance surrounds it, bringing salvation—and a new hope.

Through the great pain of stretching
beyond all that pain has taught me,
the soft well at the base
has opened, and life
touching me there
has turned me into a flower
that prays for rain.  Now
I understand: to blossom
is to pray, to wilt and shed
is to pray, to turn to mulch
is to pray, to stretch in the dark
is to pray, to break the surface
after great months of ice
is to pray, and to squeeze love
up the stalky center toward the sky
with only dreams of color
is to pray, and finally to unfold
again as if never before
is to be the prayer.

            Mark Nepo from “God’s Wounds” in “Prayers for Healing”