UniversalistPrayers

Prayer for Wonderment

Prayer for Week of September 26, 2022 - Prayer for Wonderment

Beloved, wherever we are and wherever we go may we dwell in, reach for, whirl into, and co-create wonderment. May these “wow” moments and “ahhhhh” experiences and utterances of true amazed joy make our hearts have wings, finding nourishment to carry us from day to day in the beautiful, the true, and the sweetly delightful. Beloved, help us perceive wonder, experience reverence, and move in joy through this astounding life, to be surprised, revived, and carried on by these breaths that make being fabulous. Amen.

Prayer for Peace

Prayer for Week of September 19, 2022 - Prayer for Peace

Lover of Peace teach us to grow out of inequity into greater equity, to move from co-creating injustice to co-creating justice, to shine boldly with gladness to be together and to cultivate the trust that underlies that. Lover of Peace teach us the skills of deep attention and empathic imagination, of being able to stay present in our own discomfort and in another’s long enough to reflect what the other is truly expressing and to find out if we have also been understood. Lover of Peace invite us to grow each day not by circumventing conflict but by having constructive conflict, not by suppressing difference but in learning from our differing experiences, thoughts, cultures, and ideas. Invite us to be peacemakers, finding ways together that all may flourish. Amen.

Prayer for Homeschoolers

Prayer for Week of September 12, 2022 - Prayer for Homeschoolers

Lover of Wisdom support those who homeschool and unschool, who seek to learn and teach and grow in ways outside schools and for the specific needs of some families and children. May there be abundant community resources and abundant appreciation and understanding. May there be other children and opportunities outside of school for neighborhoods and communities to grow as play and curiosity and exchanging ideas and imagining together draws disparate people together. May each learn to share generously and also to think critically and well, to reason and to feel, to lean into adventure and seek knowing as skills for our whole lives. Lover of Wisdom may we be gracious with one another, whether choosing schools or homeschooling, and learn from each other with gladness and kindness. Amen.

 

Prayer for Labor Day

Prayer for the Week of September 5, 2022 - Prayer for Labor Day

 

Lover of Life may we give thanks for those who insist we are more than our productivity, more than economic units, more valuable than the measurements of income and assets, skills, degrees, and talents. Lover of Life may we give thanks for those who insist everyone is deserving of dignity and of being perceived as valued and valuable, loved and lovable. And that is why we advocate for safe workplaces and living wages, for adequate workweeks instead of punishing and exhaustive ones, of vacations and of time to care for families and communities and one’s self, for workplaces that accommodate differing abilities and ways of processing and thinking, for work that adds to communal and environmental good. Lover of Life may we affirm those who advocate and organize for labor justice, and all the connecting intersections with racial, gender, disability, class, and environmental justice. May we nurture community and work worthy of the people who are engaged in it. Amen.

 

Prayer for Students

Prayer for Students

 

Beloved, grant courage, heart, and curiosity to all who learn this season, to enter their studies, to meet new classmates and returning ones, to meet new teachers and returning ones, to grow stronger and steadfast in their pursuit of learning. Bless those who are students, learning the skills to think critically, to reason together, to imagine together, to create together, to solve problems together. Bless those who are students, who learn to appreciate their own strengths and skills and to appreciate the skills and strengths of others. Bless those who study in easy environments and, especially, in challenging ones, so that each may keep learning. Bless those are students who also mentor and teach and who are mentored and taught, who are finding out that life is full of learning no matter how learned we are, and that mentoring and teaching, being mentored and taught, is a cycle of being belonging to everyone. Bless students with generosity toward one another, school staff, educators, parents, and themselves, to grow more capable of empathy and strong in reason. Beloved, grant every student safety and well-being to attend to their studies and growing their communities with trust and with persistence. Amen.

 

Prayer for Teachers

Prayer for Teachers

 

Beloved, grant courage and heart to all who teach this season, to enter classrooms, to meet new and returning students, to imagine and develop lessons, and to invite others to greater learning, knowledge, and wisdom. Bless those who are educators, drawing out the skills and strengths of their pupils with all their differing ways of engaging the world. Bless those who are imparters, who equip students with new skills so they can learn for a lifetime. Bless those who are guides, inviting students to find and following their curiosity, their passions, their questions, their hypotheses, and their experiments. And bless those who ignite a love of learning in their students, in community and as individuals, for this is a blessing that will yield further blessings throughout their lives. Beloved, grant generosity to those who fund educators and schools, and generosity to those interacting with schools and those who work there, that we may cultivate trust and a learning community that extends far beyond the doors, schedules, and walls of these houses of learning. Amen.

 

Prayer for School Staff

Prayer for School Staff, Week of August 15, 2022

 

Beloved, strengthen, protect, and support all those who work at schools. Bless those who drive buses, are crossing guards, and who greet parents dropping children off, greeting each child and helping them to school safely, saying “here you are welcome, here you matter.” Bless those who keep the facilities clean and in shape, whose work says to everyone in the school that a clean and well-maintained place of learning is a gift, a birthright, and a blessing for all who enter. Bless those who stock supplies and fill orders, for it is hard to teach and hard to learn without books or crayons or chalk or paper. Bless those who nourish the others who work and study at schools, who make breakfasts and lunches and ensure each and all have enough to eat, to be able to concentrate and learn. Bless the administrators who handle budgets and calendars and interface between school boards and school staff and parents. Bless the teachers and teachers’ aides who want each child to learn what they can and to excel. Bless those who tend to the safety of the schools, who watch over and support them, who support those learning and those creating a place to learn. Beloved, may those who labor with and for schools find and create blessing for those who arrive to learn, for each other, and for this world. Amen.

Prayer for Hospitality Workers

A Prayer for Hospitality Workers - Week of August 8, 2022

Grace and Generosity support and sustain all those who work in hospitality and related trades and businesses. May each and all be treated with respect, dignity, and generosity, recognizing the hard work of showing up night and day to tend to the needs of others, to make strangers welcome, to make respite and refuge for those away relying on that care and welcome. May the tips be generous and may people who are having a bad day refrain from inflicting that on others. May the workplaces be just and equitable, respectful of persons and of time, inclusive and as concerned about the well-being of staff as of guests. Grace and Generosity support and sustain all those who work in hospitality and related trades and businesses, for labor need not be dreaded, feared, or drudgery. Bless those in hospitality and may those they encounter bless them mightily. Amen.

 

A Prayer for Travelers

A Prayer for Travelers, Week of August 1, 2022

Beloved, may the way ahead open and be easy. May we meet welcome at each stop along the way. May we encounter kindness and generosity and share curiosity and generous joy in return. May we travel with respect for the people and places we go and how we get there and may we all be worthy of respect. May we remember those who are also traveling and be considerate of their needs, for we are journeyers and sojourners together. May we make the way easier for each other, and may we meet wonderment in every day. May we live thankfully, wherever we are, and be profligate in our gratitude. Beloved, be with us wherever we are and wherever we go, inbound and out, traveling from necessity or pleasure, and guide us in every day. Amen.

Prayer for Being Community

Week of June 26, 2022

Beloved, let our nights and days fill with the varied fragrances of compassion, showing up as a generous and kind neighbor to strangers, making amends where we have swerved away from what love challenges us to become or integrity invites us to embody. Beloved, may we curate amazing recipes for living compassionately, for staying juicy and avoiding burnout and numbness, for stretching ourselves to care once more for one more. Beloved, let our nights and days fill with the stories in all the languages and ways of singing, signing, and telling them, the stories of strangers in a strange land, of people seeking welcome, of people creating welcome, of all of us yearning to love and thrive. Beloved, may we curate glad moments of nourishing one another past divisions and borders, past fences and suspicions, into communities lush with diverse experiences, temperaments, cultures, choices, and ways of being good and loving people. Amen.