Continue reading…there is still
Mary Oliver, Morning Poem
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted…
Tag: prayer (Page 2 of 3)
Audio Prayer: Revisiting a God moment
There ain’t no good thing ever dies
Tom Waits: Take It With Me
I’m gonna take it with me when I go
I have often talked about ‘repetition’, as Ignatius of Loyola calls it, in these writings, e.g. “Where to start?“, “The Kingdom of Heaven“, and “Repetition“. He invites us to revisit significant moments, “noting and dwelling upon the points where I have felt greater consolation or desolation or greater spiritual relish.” [62] When we do this, we become infused with the graces and insights given to us. This changes us. This is conversion, incrementally, daily.
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Christ is risen.
Alleluia
This is my third offering of recorded prayer. It is a version from the post, “The only 3 prayers you need,” in which I suggested that presence, gratitude, and kindness comprise the three important prayers.
Continue readingLast week’s morning guided prayer attracted about 30 people. I am going to continue to lead 30 minutes of guided prayer every Wednesday morning while we are in coronavirus lockdown. You can find details of this and other opportunities for prayer here: https://mailchi.mp/7865c2b9704a/prayer-in-a-time-of-plague-4863233.
With my prayers,
Julian
Here is my second offering of a recorded prayer. As I said in my last post, when I wake in the night, I wish there were some guided prayers I could listen to, to settle me, to connect me with God, to remind me that all is well and I am safe.
This is a prayer for when you lie down to sleep, when you wake in the night, or when you want to rest or have a nap in the day. This is designed to help you relax and find rest in God’s presence, such that you might drift off into sleep in a feeling of trust and letting go.
Continue readingIn this time of distancing, isolation, and quarantine, I am offering two opportunities for prayer.
Morning Prayer Zoom
I invite you to a free, weekly online time of meditative Christian prayer and reflection.
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Continue readingWe are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I also do not give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.
Meister Eckhart
There comes a time when God appears to change. This may happen many times in a life. It is not so much that God feels distant or absent, though this may also be the case. It is more that you look for God in the usual place, or you think of God in the usual way, and this no longer seems to work. The usual is no longer satisfying, or now seems childish or naïve, or has become intellectually lacking. It is not that you no longer want God. It is not that you no longer want to pray. It is that you thought you knew and now you are not so sure.
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Stop asking God for what you think you want.
What God is waiting for is not a right conclusion to a matter but for our suppleness in falling into His hands for Him to work in us.
Benedicta Ward, Discernment: A Rare Bird
When I ask people what they say to God, they often tell me they ask God to change their, or other people’s, attitudes, behaviours, and situations.
A manager asks God for more patience (with her difficult colleagues).A mother worries about her adult children’s standing with God and prays God will make them come back to church (which bores them stupid).
A man feels guilty that he feels angry towards his husband (who never helps out at home) and asks God to help him be kinder.
A vicar (who is harried by a demanding congregation) asks God to help her enjoy visiting the sick.
A city dweller (who is fed up with the frenetic lifestyle and noisy, dirty streets) asks God for help to find a place to live in Cornwall.
I’m feeling a lot of fear at the moment (more on this another time). I want God to stop me being afraid.
This is the pre-emptive strike. I make my request before giving God an opportunity to comment: “I know what is wrong. Please sort it out.” Not that I think I know what I need better than God does; rather, I fend off being vulnerable with God.
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Too often prayer is presented as petition.
But the word ‘prayer’ is simply religious jargon for relationship with what we call God.
In truth, there are only three prayers.
Prayer is properly not petition, but simply attention to God which is a form of love.
Iris Murdoch, On ‘God’ and ‘Good’ in Existentialists And Mystics
1. “Here I am.”
Inevitably, when I sit and pray in the morning I wish for a new, improved me. I lack kindness to myself. I try to think my way into becoming better. I try to think about how to sort out my life. I try to think about what to do. But thinking is not prayer.
Presence is prayer.
Continue readingApproaches to Prayer
The Approaches to Prayer website is sponsored by the Annunciation Trust. It is a repository of scores of ways to pray as an online version the book Approaches to Prayer compiled and edited by Henry under the auspices of SPIDIR.The God You Already Know
Henry Morgan and Roy Gregory, both part of Annunciation Trust, have edited a book which is a follow-on from Henry's Approaches to Prayer. It was inspired by their experiences of working together as Spiritual Directors at the Greenbelt Festival.
Originally published by SPCK, you can now read it here.