“Grant us a measure of your…peace; fill us, each, with hope and good cheer; and grant that each one be surrounded by [love, and]… we pray that you speak a word of encouragement and grace to every human heart.”
-Tom Schade
What encouragement does your heart need to hear today? How can you find that?
“O God, your love is unimposing
Yet firm and steadfast,
Present to all those who would know your peace.
You challenge me in my arrogance and
Move me to listen deeply when I fail—
As I always do—to see the fuller picture.”
-Alex Jensen
Listen deeply today to learn what you need to forgive and be forgiven. What is it you need to hear?
“The prayer of our souls is a petition for persistence; not for the one good deed, or single thought, but deed on deed, and thought on thought, until day calling unto day shall make a life worth living.” -W.E.B. DuBois
What is the prayer of your soul persisting in order to do? How are you called to make a life worth living?
Prayers can also be doorways to different states of being, such as the ecstatic union with God felt by some mystics or the overwhelming feeling of the divine everywhere described by transcendentalists.
Have you ever felt that your being was one with a larger entity, a holiness that some might call God? What gave you that feeling?
“We choose at this moment to lay down the burden of our shortcomings, and grasp the courage to begin anew. Together, we affirm our capacity for goodness and grace, for freedom and purpose and joy. We are not trapped in our past, but freed by creation to live and grow today. With gratitude, we say blessed be and amen.”
-Rosemary Bray McNatt
How can facing our shortcomings honestly help us lay them down?
