UniversalistPrayers

Evening Prayer April 14, 2014

At the end of our days, let us be thankful. Sit down beside us, Beloved, in the garden, and let us rest against your knees, that we may recount why we are thankful and how, knowing we can number only a tiny portion of the reasons we have for such gratitude. At the end of our days, let us be thankful, before we take flight to what comes next, to release and relief, to rest and restoration, to the next set of tasks and the next chapter in the story. Sit down beside us, Beloved, in this garden of being, and let us lean against your knees, and take comfort in your abiding love. At the end of our days, may we be thankful for all the chances to choose love and to choose hope and to choose justice and to choose generosity and to choose wonderment and to choose joy. At the end of our days, may we be thankful for all the unlooked for blessings and also for the ones that needed much of our labor to create. At the end of our days, may we be thankful for this life and our chance and calling to be more love in this world. Sit down beside us, Beloved, in this graciousness of being, and let us lean against your knees, and breathe in the yes that is and breathe out with all the love we have to give. Amen.

Morning Prayer April 14, 2014

Oh, Beloved, fly beside us as we let go of unworthy goals, dropping what is holding us back from what really matters and tending to what we can do right now, with who we are right now, with the heart and hope and gifts we have right now. Turn us away from worshipping the false idols of success that bind us to harsh and unimaginative expectations, the kind of expectations that should us down in must-filled fogs and keep us from truly flying. Beloved, stay beside us as we let go of worthy goals and practices we can no longer fulfill, because we no longer have the strength to carry them on. Let us tend well to what we can do right now, with who we are right now, with the heart and hope and gifts we have right now. There is, indeed, a time to pick up and a time to let go. Beloved, help us discern if we are at one of those times of letting go, and then to do what is needful and good in freeing that work for another. Oh, Beloved, it is so easy to become captive to what we believe we should do, and to struggle with letting go. Help us know and gather the courage and the love to let go and let our hears soar again in wonderment and hopeful joy. Amen.

Evening Prayer April 13, 2014

Wisdom teach us in reflection and in doubt, in failure and in success, in all the ages and stages of our lives. Teach us to pause and examine where we are, who we are, where we are going, who we are becoming. Teach us to pause before we choose, that we may make better choices, and, when we have made bad ones, do what we can to repair what is wrong and learn from what we did badly. Wisdom teach us to consider another way of doing, other ways of being, and even if we do not choose to follow those ways, to appreciate what they may offer, to grow our understanding and respect for the diversity of being. Help us learn not to drag each other down, but to help each other create a greater goodness than we knew how to do by ourselves or could have achieved alone. Wisdom teach us, now and always, in our imperfections are perfection, in our power is a blessing if we wish to make it so, in our being is more love than hate, and, in our choices we live. May we choose with courage. May we choose generously. May we choose with love steadfast and true. Amen.

Morning Prayer April 13, 2014

Each day may we wake to the possibilities therein, to the choices before us, moment by moment, asking over and over again, "is this choice the one of becoming someone I would respect?" Wisdom help us shed the association of respect with fear, for while we can admire the power to cause fear and when we are very afraid want that for ourselves thinking we might fear less, that is because we do not understand fear. Wisdom, help us understand that fear wants more fear with which to dwell, just as love wants to encourage more love and joy wants to create more gladness and generosity ripples out in lapping waves of kindness and compassion. Wisdom, help us know the people we would become, the people we truly respect, the ones who are kind in unkind circumstances, the ones who are steadfastly loving in steadily hateful places, the ones who are humble and always learning and yet, amazingly, always teaching. Help us know the people we would become and as we meet each choice in this day, choose well for love and generosity and just and compassion and kindness and humble steadfastness in all that really matters. Choice by choice may we choose a world of greater blessing, one in which we are choosing to become and do our very best. Amen.

Evening Prayer April 12, 2014

Courageous Love bear us when we are too weary to bear ourselves, when we falter and when we fall. Hold us steadfastly and bring us to the place of peace, when we cannot go there ourselves, when our steadiness is gone and our strength has washed away. Courageous Love bring us together that we may bear each other up and on and through the difficulties that are, the troubles that tire, the challenges that shape us but in the shaping wear us down. Life takes courage and love each and every day, and some nights and some days so many of us are struggling to muster the courage and muster the love needed. Courageous Love bring us together to be present with each other, to shoulder the burdens and to share the joys, to create together from grit and generosity reasons for gladness, to sing together gratefully for the day and for the night and for the wonderment of being. And as we sing, may we find new resolve and greater love and greater courage to be present with what is, to keep changing what can be and is in need of changing, and to cherish one another, this world, and this life. Courageous Love bear us up and on and through until we can bear ourselves and whirl again in wonderment and generous joy. Amen.

Morning Prayer April 12, 2014

Beloved, when you come knocking, may we be ready. Let us not call out for five more minutes, but wholly, heartfully whirl into the dance. Beloved, when you come knocking, may we be ready. May we be ready to be surprised by joy and to be challenged to change what is wrong and harmful in this world and especially in ourselves. May we be ready to give what we did not know we had to offer, but will be needful and good at some moment today. May we be ready to learn many somethings new and to teach what little we do know, to share in the pleasure of learning together and trying together and, from our failures, imagining what to try next. May we be ready to be courageous for yet another day, to love more than we think we have the patience, to be more generous than we know we can be, to be fully present to and in another day. Beloved, when you come knocking, may we be ready. No matter how we feel, no matter who we are, no matter where we are, may we be ready, for you, Beloved, are always knocking, always inviting, to this present moment. Amen.

Evening Prayer April 11, 2014

Quiet Love hold us close, separating us from the rush and rumble of the day, the persistent noise that presses us into tighter and tighter places until we have no choice but to press back simply to breathe. Steadfast Love hold us gently, breathing with us until we find the struggles of the day shrugging off our shoulders and the gladness of the day unfolding as a gift in the center of who we are. Present Love hold us sweetly, until we find again the hopeful song that leads us to greater kindness and greater gladness and greater gratitude. Wondrous Love raise us up again to life's dance, blessed and ready again to add our blessings to this world. The Mystery awaits. The dance is underway. Let us whirl once more in a flurry of gladness. Amen.

Morning Prayer April 11, 2014

Are we living in a half-frozen smelly morass or is the sky bluer than blue and the trees greening? Can't we be in the morass and still love the bluer sky and greening trees? Is there not wonder there? Beloved help us shift our understanding and open our hearts again when we are stuck, swamped, frozen to dismal until that is the only sign and signal we know how to read. Bring us back to mystery, to beauty, to what is not yet as wonderful possibility and not cause for dread. Bring us back to beginning, breathing a new breath, finding a smile tugging at the corners of our mouths, a laugh affirming life's surprising joy forming and breaking open, a bubble of hope that we can catch and rise out of this morass. Bring us back to the now, to the not yet, to the splendid opportunities each day may bring to love heartily, to nurture kindness and gladness, to lean into a hope that does not rely on cures or answers but dwells in the surprising joy we can offer each other each day. May we choose to live in the dance, to dance with each other in ways we don't yet know, to learn and to teach, to find and create gladness here and now and in the next breath. Amen.

Evening Prayer April 10, 2014

Mystery and Wonder may we pause to dwell in reverent awe at least nine times a day, or seventeen, or fifty-three, or some uncountable number that startles us back to the heart of being over and over and over again. In the pause between the day and the night, may we breathe in the hush and give thanks for the goodness we knew this day, for the miracles of light and the drumming of life calling us to the great dance of being. Whirling, it is so easy to cast ourselves out beyond ourselves, to feel the separations ebb and disappear until there is only oneness. Cast back to earth, breathless, embodied, may we rejoice in the spaciousness of unity, the blessing of dwelling in wonderment, even if only for the space of seven or nineteen or six hundred and thirty three heartbeats, however long it was, a gift of joy. Mystery and Wonder, may we dwell in reverent awe many times a night and many times a day, glad for the fullness of life and the splendid quiet spaces, for the astounding miracles that compose a day and add up, over time, to a whole life. Amen.

Morning Prayer April 10, 2014

Lover of Life join us in singing a new song, a song we don't yet comprehend, a song of promise, a song of now and not quite now, a song that leads us into new ways of being that we yearn to embody but have not understood how to be before the next note. Maybe this new song is leading us in the ways of generosity, in cultivating dignity in this world and kindness beyond measure. Maybe this new song is dancing us in greater love, in a boldness of heart that dares vulnerability and risks foolishness and failure in order to cherish and be cherished. Maybe this new song is building with us a more compassionate and just world, the kind where each person has real chances and choices, where communities are separated by how we sing and not by money or degrees of despair. Lover of Life join us in singing a new song, a song we don't yet comprehend, a song of promise, a song of now and not quite now, a song that leads us into new ways of being that we yearn to embody but have not understood how to be before the next note. May we sing with all our being, and be changed by the song, though we may falter or miss a note, though we may discover the song has been with us all along and add new harmonies learned from strangers become neighbors, though the song is always just beginning now. Amen.