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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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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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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…
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Nature’s Is-ness Is In Us
Dear God of All, Help us to remember that nature IS. Its isness is what makes it special, nothing more, nothing less. Help us to recognize that same pure beingness within ourselves. Let us gently live into our sheer essence … the sweetness of our breath that naturally moves at ‘the pace of what is real’ without any effort on our part.* May we ever feel the thunderous beat of our glorious hearts, and may we recognize ourselves in the other, especially during clash or struggle. Allow us, oh Divine love, to use the amazing capacities of our minds without attaching to their technical workings. May we always know that the mind is a divine tool, an important part of us but not the all of us. May we live into our inherent birthright … our Buddha nature, the Cosmic Christ within; individual beings…
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Dust and Salt of the Earth
Dear Creator God, May we ever remember from whence we came, that we derive from the dust and become the salt of the earth—the mundane and the divine—at once, as one. May we know and live into this truth deep within our bones. May we recognize our grandeur, not by our wittiness, or humor or intellect, but by our inherent dignity as human persons, made in your image. Creator God, help us to re-member ourselves in our wholeness, the all of us, in our feet, gut, heart and knees. May we never again neglect our gorgeous human embodiment, but instead let it shine forth as a light of hope and transformation in a disembodied world. And finally, oh Holy One, make us ever remember—with a deep in our bones remembrance—our connection to all that is in the created world: humans unlike us in all…
