UniversalistPrayers

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.

 

Evening Prayer May 27, 2012

Mercy, so many towns, so many families, so many friends have lost good, brave, generous hearts, creative lives, deep wisdom and great caring in those lost to war. Help us remember them still, in each day and each night, and carry on with loving, with creating what is good and true, with learning and teaching, and with caring generously, in their memory. Mercy, many have returned deeply wounded, haunted, and aching with loss. Help us care well for them and their families, their friends, and their communities, learning together night by night and day by day how to put back together our lives, to find healing and hope, and to share in courageous love.  Mercy, guide us. Mercy, heal us. Mercy, unite us. Mercy, bring peace. Amen.

 

Morning Prayer May 27, 2012

The shadow of grief lies across our hearts as we remember the fallen, those killed on the battlefield and those who die from war long after the battles are done. We remember the brave, the loving, the haunted, the hurting, knowing well that one can be of great courage and of great heart and still suffer. Mercy hold us and help us hold one another on this weekend of remembrance, a weekend of naming our gratitude and our grief that march daily side by side. Let us remember them, the fallen from our families and our friends, those lost from our communities, those strangers we now will never meet who were still loved, who are still missed. Mercy gather us together that we may remember them. Amen.

Morning Prayer May 26, 2012

Courageous Mercy teach us to better love one another, to care for stranger, neighbor, family, and friend. Lead us in loving accountability, calling each other back to the heart of compassion, the reverence for life that fruits in respect and dignity for all, the joy of generosity that strengthens our heart’s bonds with one another and with the source of all. Courageous Mercy let us choose well and work for what is right, not just what supports our sense of righteousness. Help us love learning enough each day to cherish our humility and attend to the ideas and true wisdom of others. And grant that we may grow more generous each day so we can celebrate that wisdom, that creative idea, that labor, that life, that way that is not our own, but is our neighbor’s, the stranger’s, our family member’s, our friend’s.  Amen.

Evening Prayer May 26, 2012

Wisdom grant me the courage to be humble and to so love learning that I may rest in you even when I enter your presence by way of one I fear, mistrust, or hate. How easy it is to turn aside from the knowledge borne by another! How difficult to let go of what I thought I knew that was untrue, of learning new ways to live, new ways to do the things I thought I knew. Beloved Wisdom, your way is rarely easy, though it remains sweet. Your way requires hard labor and great generosity. Lead me in truth and lead me in humility, in this and every day. Amen.

Evening Prayer May 25, 2012

Lover of Life teach me to love more generously, to pay attention to the things I otherwise pass by, to care for the broken and hurting, to be bold in the way of mercy. When I find myself disappointed and hurt by the failures and fears or the hatred and irreverence or the apathy and ignorance of others, help me draw again on a deeper and stronger courage rooted in transforming love. Help us grow together in peace, grow together with respect and understanding for our differences, grow together in service to what is good and needful, what is kind, what is healing, what is hope-bearing, what is merciful and just for every stranger, every friend, every lover, every one dreaming and waking in the astounding life. Amen.

Morning Prayer May 25, 2012

Compassion take root in each heart. Challenge and change us that we may blossom with new generosity, bear new kindness, and bring healing and hope to this day. Take root and by love transform us from selfishness and fearfulness, from hatred and hurting, from ignorance and from ignominy. Transform us, moment by moment and hour by hour, through our aspirations and our deeds, through attending to wisdom shared and to sharing wisdom earned, through the quiet winters of the heart and through our bursting bustling waking rustling springs. Compassion grow within and through us, and together may all we do in mercy and in love today be praise and tribute to the Source of All. Amen.