UniversalistPrayers

Morning Prayer June 1, 2012

Awake my heart and give thanks for this day, a day to be celebrate the gifts of love and to create new hope. Awake my heart and sing with joy for this day, a day to live generously and to join in what is needful and good. Awake my heart and dance with delight in this day, a day to risk faithfully, to love mightily, and to join those who insist on doing all we may to add to this life’s blessings for the greater good, now and ever more. Amen.

Evening Prayer June 1, 2012

Spirit of Life you are also the Spirit of Joy. Teach me not to wait for laughter to alight upon my heart, like a rainbow bursting through a cloud, but to cling to, to cultivate, to care for, to share in, and to grow with others the simple joys that bless this life and guide the way of faith. Such joy is generous and fruitful, spreading with heart to heart and lifting each flagging spirit with hope. Such joy brings us together, helps us find creative new ways to persistent problems and lets us endure through the trials and sorrows we have. Let my heart take wing and grow full with faithful joy, and let me bear such joy to and with others all my nights and all my days. Amen.

Morning Prayer May 31, 2012

Let peace flower in my spirit and in yours, in every heart and every land. What a gift peace is and yet it is a gift striven for, a gift grown over time, through steady and long labor, through grace, through hope, and through sweat and midnight wrestling open the gates of our hearts! Let peace flower in your spirit and in mine, in every night and in every day.  The troubles that find me, the troubles that I create but do not want to admit, the troubles I join and the troubles that sweep me along may be bitter and may be long. Let me know and take responsibility for the ones I create and the ones I may affect and do what I can to bring them to an end, to find a way of amends, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of making peace. Let peace flower in our spirits together, and together may we tend and bring forth the great hope of peace in this world. Amen.

Evening Prayer May 31, 2012

Peace grow between us, greening across the gaps opened by our turning away, drawing us back together after the days of hatred and enmity, growing trust within and between us one again. Peace, in the day of trouble, we speak of and yearn for you as though you require nothing of us, no labor, no hard-wrestled generosity of spirit, no striving in compassion and past our previous limits of kindness. And yet you ask ever for our participation, our effort, our reaching and stretching and learning and growing in humility, with great strength and great courage, to make the way of mercy, the way of love, and the way of peace possible in this night and every night and in this day and every day. Amen.

Evening Prayer May 30, 2012

Mercy grow in each and all of us until we cannot help but be kind, until we cannot help but reach past hate and offer one another hope and goodwill, until we cannot turn away from one another but instead seek one another to do what needs doing, to feed the hungry, to help bring healing to the world, to teach and to learn humbly and ceaselessly. Mercy be the fruit that bears well, from each of us and with all of us, growing a more compassionate, more loving world hour by hour and day by day. Amen.

Morning Prayer May 30, 2012

After the storm, let the floodwaters of our spirit be merciful ones, pouring out the balm of caring and bringing great help where it is needed. Let us bring comfort to those who are in need, rest to those who are weary, answering our aspirations, living out our promises, following the way of righteousness and mercy all our nights and all our days. No strangers to worry about, because every stranger is our kind. No hatred to divide us, because love calls us together for what is needful and what is good. Out of troubles past, let us turn again and join loving change, keeping ever the lamp of faith and hope lit and obvious to all in our words, our deeds, and our prayers. Amen.

Morning Prayer May 29, 2012

Awake my heart to another day, a day of aspiration and inspiration, a day with disappointments and with sadness, a day with frustration and with learning, a day of joyful laughter and a day of growing hope. Awake, my heart, to another day trusting in the transforming power of love, and when that trust is tested, holding on and holding true, through hatred, through vitriol, through disbelief, through tantrums, and through curses. Awake, my heart, to another day to love generously and courageously my neighbor, the stranger, my friend, my kin, the Holy, and even myself. So much to love, so much to learn! Let me then give thanks for this day and bear a heart of hope on into it! Amen.

Evening Prayer May 29, 2012

Love grant us the courage to protect and care for those who are in danger, those who cannot care for themselves, those who need our help. Love grant us the strength to encourage each to share their special gifts for goodness in the world, to cheer for those who may leave the nest and to cheer for those who may never fully fledge, each and all are cherished already by you.  Each and all are cherished and each and all loved and loveable already by you. May we live likewise, every day and every night more fully in the strength and courage of love, dissolving hate into generous goodwill and transforming fear into mercy and kindness. Amen.

Evening Prayer May 28, 2012

Love you teach us each night and each day, in goodness and in grief. As this Memorial Day comes to a close, listen to our grief, our longing for those lost, our efforts to remember them and to carry on, our work to hold together and heal our wounded communities and wounded warriors who have returned. Love, you teach us in every night and every day. Grant us courage to be kind, courage to be generous with one another, courage to be merciful, courage to be bold enough to keep a bright flame of loving memory and to offer one another the kind of hope and healing that helps us all carry on. Amen.

Morning Prayer May 28, 2012

Love you have work for us to do. Let hope bear each our spirits along our way today, to carry on with each our gifts for goodness, to tend the expected and the unknown, to love courageously and well. Love you have laughter for us, too. Bring us together singing our thanksgiving and dancing gratefully. Help us live gracefully, skillfully, peacefully, knowing that part of skillfulness is learning through awkwardness and mistake, part of gracefulness is falling and failing, and part of living peacefully is loving accountability and knowing when to resist, when to bear up and on, and when to yield. Love there is so much for us in this and every day. Wherever we go, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, may we remember your calling, your work, your gifts, and your joys, and live boldly following the way of transforming Love. Amen.