Prayer for the Week

Each Sunday I write a prayer as an insert in our bulletin. I write them relative to one of the scriptures for the week.  I felt guided to share some of them here. This is last week's prayer.

Lord, you tell me two simple actions that are our bottom-line. I seek guidance on how to fulfill them more fully.

I do love God, but I know I can love more. Show me how to love God more completely & open my life without reserve to God.

I do not always love all of my neighbors. Cleanse my heart so that I may truly love each & every neighbor as You ask me to do. I ask that You also cleanse my heart about myself. You tell me to love my neighbor as myself, so clearly a key is to love myself. Help me forgive myself for those things that linger as hurt & pain & self-attack. Lead me to embrace what I am &what I am not. Help me have a generous heart towards myself & toward all others & be at peace.

I know that compassion is one of the signs of a spiritually mature person. I ask that You open a deeper, fuller compassion in my heart. Just as You love me, accept me, encourage me,  & guide me without judgment, help me to accept & do the same for myself & others.

I humbly surrender all that is unloving, judgmental or unlike the call to love that Jesus has given us. I walk onto a higher path as I become willing to be the love You call me to be.

Thank You, God, for hearing my prayer. Thank You for Your action in my life, leading me more fully to You & the life You ask me to live. I ask this in the name of Christ and seal it with the ancient seal of faith as I say Amen. Amen & Amen

Time

The month is whirling by. The year is on hyperspeed. I have a theory about the relativity of time. Einstein said all is relative to the reference point. So here I am at 71 & so a day or a week are a small part of all of those years. When I was 5, a day or a week were a larger portion of those 5 years -- so they seemed longer then than they do now.

In the speeded up life I now live, each moment is even more precious & important to live well. It all goes by so quickly that I have to stay focused to be fully present so as not to miss the gift present in each moment.

I'd like to live the rest of my life without regrets -- I came to that conclusion quite a few years ago. But what I find is now the regrets I suffer are mostly from the actions of others. I have missed some precious moments as they whizzed by because of choices of others to be absent from my life. The heart ache is a different one from the one caused by more direct regrets, but it is still heart ache. The frustration inherent is different too. When the heart ache is from the choices of others, & there is nothing I can do, I feel a certain helplessness. 

Now helplessness is not usual for me. I usually can find something to do or say to move a situation. I am a doer by nature. I am not only an observer of life; I am a person who participates. When someone vanishes from my life, the helplessness is very strange & also very painful. I cannot do what I am good at. I cannot take action.

A significant part of my life has disappeared. They are gone to some unknown place doing some unknown things. They are out of my reach. I have done all I can think of doing, short of hiring a private eye. The only place they are not out of reach is my prayers.

If those who have gone, ever read this, please know I have never stopped loving you for a moment. You are constantly in my heart. The tears that fill my eyes are longings for you. The choice I have is to release you to God over & over again. There seems nothing more for me to do. 

I regret the memories we won't be making & haven't made this past year or so. I pray you are making other happy memories wherever you are.

Dear God, I am thankful to know that You are everywhere, always. You are where my loved ones are. Surround them with Your Light & Love. Protect them. Guide them. Heal them. If it is Your will, bring them back to me.

More on Mercy

As I prepare for my forgiveness class that begins this Sunday after church, I am contemplating mercy once again. 

The model I am developing includes this: 

• In a box on the left are resentment, judgment, fear, upset, anger, imprisonment - these are imposter values
• In the center is forgiveness, mercy - the exchange - the genuine values
• To the right is freedom, & there is the possibility of spiritual awakening, letting the mind be in you that was in Christ, as Paul said.

Or another way to say it might be: Cosmic trade in program - trade in bondage for peace of mind, cost = forgiveness.

We are free to choose what kind of person we will be. I choose freedom, peace of mind, Christ.

I exercise mercy. I exchange all that is unlike Christ in me with forgiveness. I accept a new freedom.

Mercy

I'm working on a new concept to me. It's not totally formed yet, but I want to write the beginnings of it as I begin to work it out.

The root of the word "mercy" is "exchange." So, when I say "Lord have mercy," I'm saying exchange this for that. Exchange this problem for Your will.

When I take the bread and the wine, God's mercy is an exchange. I exchange my separate, isolated self for joining with Christ. Let the mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus is the exchange I approach. It seems to be a process, that is the first time or the twentieth time or the two hundredth time is not the when this happens. It slowly, for most of us anyway, sort of creeps in. When we sincerely seek mercy, we move toward having the understanding of Christ express in us.

We can look to those who have successfully made this exchange to varying degrees -- from the Apostles, to the mystics, to saints, to great thinkers such as C.S. Lewis (I quoted him today on my website's Thought for the Day). If it is possible for one, it is possible for all.

Lord, I sincerely, fully say to You this day, have mercy on me. Exchange all that is unlike Christ for Christ. In the exchange, let Your Light shine & draw others to You for their own exchange. Let Your Light shine in people all over this planet. Lord, have Mercy.

Dealing with Life's Extremes

The old curse is may you live in interesting times. In so many ways, we who are on earth are indeed living in interesting times. But to make it closer to home, I am personally living in interesting times.

There is someone that I love very much who seems to have gone off the rails as the Brits say. This person has gotten into an extreme position re: religion & has decided that he is the only one who knows the truth & all others are wrong, bad & to be avoided. Others' spiritual experiences are invalid, false, not from God, etc. according to him. He has to protect his children from all of us who see from a slightly different perspective. He has gotten paranoid & imagines all sorts of false things & then acts on his false assumptions as if they were proven fact.

He has gone off, disappeared, left his livelihood, sold his home, shunned his family & friends, except for his nuclear family. He is beyond our reach -- except we pray for his peace as obviously he is not at peace. We pray for him to actually find Christ & realize that to emulate Christ's behavior is something other than this. We pray for him to know that for some of us our relationship with Christ is intimate, personal & deep & is not about shouting bumper stickers & making a public show. For some of us our walk with Christ is to be in a close & quiet relationship that informs us as to how to live so as to live in his Way. We are quietly, steadfastly, obviously (if you are paying attention) very Christian.

So while we pray, we also have a few tears rolling down our cheeks. Oh, what was & what could have been.

Joys & Sorrows

I just posted a quote from Mark Twain on my website re: the importance of sharing joys. https://sites.google.com/site/newthoughtsforanewlife/today-s-thought

So, this is what I'm considering today. I have dear friends, whom I treasure, & with whom I have the privilege of sharing our joys, but also our travails. It seems to me that the weight of life's troubles is lightened when compassion from loved ones enfolds you.

The joys do seem to multiply when shared. Tonight 30 of us from church are going to a community theater play, "Gypsy." How much fun it will be to not only enjoy the show, but also to be able to share it with others. Last Saturday my daughter & son-in-law met us at the San Diego Quilt Show. It was so much more fun to share that time. The joy was multiplied.

Thank You, Lord, for friends & family!!! Thank You that we have such wondrous gifts as friends & family & are not wandering alone on this planet. Thank You for the times they seem like Your Hands lifting us. Thank You for the times we multiply joy together. Bless them one & all.

Musings

I've felt rooted to earth & to my body for as long as I can recall. It somehow seemed to me that as long as I felt such interlaced rooting, I would have a strong grasp on continuing life on earth, & that at some point that grasp would loosen & loosen until it was time for me to go on to the next life effortlessly.

So, the point is, it is in fact loosening a bit. With the multiple odd, serious health challenges I'm experiencing during this year, I feel the connection here softening. I'm not ready to go on, yet I do feel the strong hold fading. I feel certain that when the ties are totally loosened, I will drift into the Light & the next phase of life eternal.

Now don't get morose. It's okay. It's natural. What a mess we'd have if we all stayed here forever. Plus, for me it's not imminent, it's just that I am aware the hold on my body is not as strong as it once was. I have some miles to go before I sleep as Frost said.

I do think that we need a Christian version of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." We Christians don't prepare very well for going on. In some places it's almost a taboo to talk about it, let alone consciously prepare.

I know that God is Love, knows my heart, is with me always, & there is nothing to fear. I also know I have some things left to do here on earth. It is more vibrant, what I have to do, realizing that I don't have forever. I am at least in the last 1/3 or 1/4th of my earthly life. So the time to wait is not now. I need to get on with what I'm called to do. Afterall, I will be asked "Did you learn how to love? Did you complete your purposes for going to earth?"