God, grant us the Peace that is You within us.

led by Dustin G. Wright on Thursday, August 27, 2009

Opening Prayer:

God, thank you for this day,

and all that are gathered here to share it.

Please bless and be with us today

as we seek to better understand You.

God, grant us the Peace that is You within us.

God, help us to the share the Peace that is You with the world everyday.

Amen.

First Reflection: Ephesians 6: 10-20

¹⁰A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. ¹²For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.¹³Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. ¹⁴Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. ¹⁵For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. ¹⁶In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. ¹⁷Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

¹⁹And pray for me, too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God’s mysterious plan that the Good News is for Jews and Gentiles alike.

²⁰I am in chains now, still preaching this message as God’s ambassador. So pray that I will keep on speaking boldly for him, as I should.

- from The New Living Translation

Second Prayer: meditative prayer while listening to "Wartime Prayers" by Paul Simon

Prayers offered in times of peace are silent conversations. Appeals for love, or love's release. In private invocations. But all that is changed now. Gone like a memory from the day before the fires. People hungry for the voice of God hear lunatics and liars.

Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers in every language spoken. For every family scattered and broken. Because you cannot walk with the holy if you're just a halfway decent man, I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind with a genius marketing plan. I'm trying to tap into some wisdom. Even a little drop will do. I want to rid my heart of envy, and cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through.

Times are hard. It's a hard time, but everybody knows. All about hard times, the thing is, what are you gonna do? Well, you cry and try to muscle through. Try to rearrange your stuff. But when the wounds are deep enough, and it's all that we can bear, we wrap ourselves. In prayer.

Because you cannot walk with the holy, if you're just a halfway decent man, I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind with a genius marketing plan. I'm trying to tap into some wisdom. Even a little drop will do. I want to rid my heart of envy, and cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through.

A mother murmurs in twilight sleep and draws her babies closer. With hush-a-byes for sleepy eyes, and kisses on the shoulder. To drive away despair she says a wartime prayer.

Second Reflection: excerpt from Experiencing the Soul  "A Native American Elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: 'Inside of me there are two dogs.  One of the dogs is mean and evil.  The other dog is good.  The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.'  When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, 'The one I feed the most."
- by Elliot Rosen and Ellen Burstyn

Third Prayer: The Peace Prayer of St. Francis

Lord make me an instrument of your peace Where there is hatred, Let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is error, truth; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, Joy. O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled As to console; To be understood,as to understand; To be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- Author unknown

Third Reflection: Marker in the Sand, by Pearl Jam
LYRICS HERE

Letting Go

led by Kari Keyl on July 23, 2009

First Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21
I kneel in prayer to the Father. All beings in heaven and on earth receive their life from him. God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that his Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love.

I pray that you and all of God's people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ's love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.

I pray that Christ Jesus and the church will forever bring praise to God. His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine. Amen.
(Contemporary English Version)

Prayer:
O God, we hunger for stability, to know what we can count on. Teach us to count on your love. Show us how to give up counting on ourselves, and how to root ourselves in you. Give us courage to speak up about our own experiences of your love and power, that we might teach one another. In your name we pray… amen.

Second Reading: The Wondrous Gift
How silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming;
but, in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him,
still the dear Christ enters in.
(verse 3, O Little Town of Bethlehelm)

Prayer:
Your wondrous gifts, O God, are beyond what words can express. Sometimes in the silence, in the stillness of a praying community, we can sense those gifts in new ways... O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today. In your name we pray… amen.

Third Reading: Christ Dwelling in Us… Now
With only believing in Jesus and not “the Christ,” we had no understanding of the indwelling Christ that we are. To believe in Jesus Christ is to make two distinct faith affirmations, one in the historical Jesus, and the other in the Christ of space and time, which we are a part of! Most of history argued about the historical Jesus instead of experiencing the Christ now.

Salvation is simply conscious experience of our union with God and the lifestyle that proceeds from that conscious union. But at any rate, it happens now—“in Christ”—as Paul says over 200 times. Paul never knew Jesus but he knew Christ and believed in Jesus as the revelation of the Eternal Christ Mystery. (Think about that!)

We are all sons and daughters of God and at the same time sons and daughters of earth. We’ve got to stop running from our “earthiness”; hating it, denying it, projecting it onto other, so called, unworthy people. For some wonderful reason, this mixture of heaven and earth that we are, and that all creation is, is what God loves and where God dwells. You cannot get better than that!
(from Richard Rohr's The Cosmic Christ)

Prayer:
O Christ beyond space and time, do you really dwell in me? Whisper to me of your mysteries. Teach us to love all of creation, all that is earthly, yet somehow heavenly as well. Set our feet upon the steady ground that is you. In your name we pray… amen.