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A Liturgy in Service to Wholeness
Dear God of All … Instead of asking ‘why am I just now ‘getting this?,’ may I be grateful for a recent divine discovery: that nature isn’t out there; it’s in me too. Yes I am nature in equal measure to the birds, beasts, oceans, stars, raging fires and blades of grass. I am a seamless part of the whole, and I see now that my job is to live into that wholeness, to live into this theology of wholeness I’ve uncovered, within myself and within every alive thing that exists. Spirit is whole; ego is fragmented. May I live in wholeness, dismantling fragmentation whenever I find it in myself. Spirit is truth; ego is non truth. May I ever live in Divine Truth. May I also recognize that my inherent brokenness as a human is not a curse. No, it is only that…
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The Divine Elements
Dear Embodied God … Who Walked Among Us, Who Was With Us, Who Is With Us, Who Was Us, Who Is Us, in a certain sense … Please show us what it means to be human, to be fully human, to live full human lives, instead of the shadow lives we often limit ourselves to. Please help us to stop, look, continue or pivot, based on what we see. Please grant us Divine Seeing so we may know and trust our sight. Dear God, my own human embodiment tends toward the rush. She tends toward anxiety, overthinking, shame, and sometimes stagnation. While shame makes me not want to name these things, I know that in the naming I am set free. Please continue to show me how these things aren’t from you, and please grace me with the gifts that are of your essence:…
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We Have Forgotten
We have forgotten how to be human. We have forgotten what it means to be human. We have forgotten ourselves and what it feels like to be human. We have forgotten each other and the natural world. Now that I’m about a year into my nervous system regulating journey, and many years in spiritual devotion, life — real life — is coming back online. (And to be honest, I think the only time it was ever online for me prior to this was when I was a baby, when I was pre-verbal. I suspect this to be the case with most of us, unless our parents were fully realized while raising us.) I keep having revelations about life, and what I see is that nothing is real in the state of the world these days. Capitalism, the patriarchy and Western civilization, in general, have…
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May I Live in Awe and Wonder
I’m stuck, God. I’m stuck more often than I’d like, more often than I’d like to admit. That saying, ‘wherever you go, there you are,’ rings true. Can you help me get unstuck? Why do we get stuck in our ways of doing things, and why is it so hard to get unstuck? Why can’t we get stuck in our good ways of being? I suppose sometimes we can and do but what I notice is all of the ways I get stuck in the not-so-good. So here I am, asking, pleading, begging … please unstick me. What I want is to undo the hold my mind often has on me. I want to live more fully in my body. I want to live in awe and wonder. Every day. Because it exists everyday. The mere fact that I’m healthy, alive, breathing, surrounded by…
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May the Earth Heal Me
Dear Creator God, Thank you for creating me as one teeny tiny speck upon the magnificence that is this earth. Thank you for flowers, trees, grasses, dirt, bodies of water, mountains, creatures — large and small, of land and sea — even insects. Thank you for the sun, the moon, the stars, the billions of galaxies. Thank you for the awe-inspiring grandeur that is this created world. Help me, dear God of all of life, to always live in wonder at this amazing place we call home. Please help me to be a steward of the land, to observe, pray with and for, learn and grow from the earth. Please mold me into the you, you want me to be. Please direct me to my greatest teachers here and show me my place within creation. Please move me to heal with the earth. And…
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Simply Being Alive
Oh Divine Light who moves us, loves us, sustains us, We thank you for life. Thank you for the rain, the sun, the wind, the snow. Thank you for the grass, the trees, the rocks, the dirt, the sand. Thank you, God, for the deer, the turkey, the chipmunks, the squirrels, the rabbit. Thank you for all beings, human, non-human, big and small. Thank you for these beautiful beings that snore at my feet, who show me your love every single day. Thank you for the graduation of darkness into golden morning light. Thank you for beingness, consciousness, life. May we always live in gratitude for these simple pleasures. Dear God, why do we know but continually forget? Why do we go to our heads more than our hearts? Can you help us remember? May we ever, deep-in-our-bones know that in you we live…
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Dear Holy All
. . . Or Holy Awe, Divine Existence, Maker and Keeper of Truth, Exquisite Love, My heart is troubled as I write these words. I feel fragile. I feel deep sadness. I feel a sense of responsibility for those who didn’t/don’t have a voice, those who were/are oppressed. I don’t feel weak but I do feel uncertain. I continually search my heart for the next right step, but nothing is clear. There is so much to do. I want to make a difference but the path before me is dark and obscure. I know that you did not give me a spirit of timidity, but one of quiet power. I come to you this day asking for divine inner vision, clarity, strength, as I search the depths of my heart, as I discern the work you’re asking me to live into. As a person…
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Visio Divina
Many have heard about and maybe even practiced Lectio Divina, but have you heard of Visio Divina? If you’re more drawn to images than words, it might be the perfect contemplative practice for you. It is simply a way of praying and being attentive to God. “Visio divina, holy seeing, is a way to pray with the eyes,” Adele Ahlberg Calhoun: Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Practices that Transform Us. How to do the practice: God is always present to us. God is within. But we often forget. All Divina practices (Lectio, Visio, Audio, Terra) are excellent, simple ways of spending time with God. Messages locked away in our subconscious come through more easily during contemplative practice. Focus on breath. Relax. Take it all in. And let your mind wander toward what it will, without judging, controlling or fixing. (Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash)
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Divine Joy
I love it when a new way of thinking presents itself, and as a person with borderline-manic-analytical-thinking tendencies, poetry and creative expression really lands for me, especially related to the natural world and our humanity. And last week, this excerpt arrived in my in-box: “The Divine Joy. Did you ever consider that maybe the “Big Bang” was a Big laugh? Or a Big Shout of Joy? That the Trinity could not take it any more—that is the joy of being, the joy of existence, the joy that is the joie d’vivere, the celebration of a universe where “existence itself is the miracle.” (Rilke). Or—even more likely because scientists tell us there was no sound at all when the universe began–a big, quiet smile of mischievousness when the Creator came up with the crazy idea to birth a universe (and put homo sapiens into it)?…
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Deep Trust
Dear God of Infinite Faces, Help me to have a deep trust in myself, in the ground of my being, in the You who rests inside of me. Please help me to be bold in this heart-knowing and allow that boldness to resist the negative mind-chatter that seeks to dominate my thoughts and actions, my very way of being in the world. Please also grace me with awe and wonder at the mystery and transient nature of life. May I be bold in the deep knowing of myself while also remaining humble in the unknowing and uncertainty at the heart of creation’s divine dance. May I live into my unique personhood and callings, feeling you from deep within and allowing that sense to form powerful words and actions—of reverence, awe and love—knowing language frames the way we think, stirs us, and gives voice to…
