Author: clfuu

“Be with us in this time, as people suffer, as parents grieve, as violence rages. Be with us who feel the pain of loss, who feel anger at injustice. Be with the oppressed and change the heart of the oppressor, for we know that both are joined in their humanity, no matter how often we forget it. Help us remember the hope we had, the hope we have, and the hope we will have; help us remember joy in the midst of sadness, success in the midst of challenge, and good things in the midst of bad. Help us to be better people, to work for better things, and to create a better world.”
-Christian Schmidt

What do you need help remembering and becoming?

An anonymous prayer of gratitude:

For food in a world where many walk in hunger
For faith in a world where many walk in fear
For friends in a world where many walk alone
We give you thanks, O God.
Amen.

For what are you grateful today? How can you say “thank you?”

“We come together in prayer even though many us struggle with what that means. We come together before that which is greater than us, although we struggle to say what that is.

And so on this day we pray for those things we struggle with. For the conflicts we feel within ourselves and between us and those we love. We pray for guidance, compassion, for the opening of a path.

We pray for those things that give us joy and hope. For those things that we trust in, believe in, will sacrifice for. These are gifts of grace, and perhaps we need not define them in order to savor them, rejoice in them, be thankful for them.”
-Krista Taves

What does prayer mean to you? How do you connect with something greater than yourself?

Come now, all who are thirsty and burned
Come to the place where cool waters and aloe
Soothe your bedraggled soul
Drink your fill and salve your skin
Then fill your canteen and return once more to the struggle
Knowing the well will remain unobstructed
-Lindasusan Ulrich, from “Begin Your Journey Home”

How can you soothe your bedraggled soul today? What is the balm that your spirit needs to recover?

“The pecan trees and their kin show a capacity for concerted action, for unity of purpose that transcends the individual trees. They ensure somehow that all stand together and thus survive. How they do so is still elusive.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer

How can you show solidarity with other beings today? How can you understand a unity of purpose with others?