How easy it is to grow shy after our heart’s been hurt, after rebuff or even simple misunderstanding! Courageous Love help us grow bold again — bold enough to risk faithfully, to make amends and to forgive. Strengthen us enough to live responsibly for what we do that matters, for good and ill, and for what we have not done that mattered, for good and for ill. Grant us songs of courage and stories that lead us back to try again, to keep on the rough and troubled needful way, to stay steadfast in our love and steady in building anew a world of mercy and a world of peace. Amen.
Love strengthen us in the courage we need to make mistakes, to fail, to risk faithfully, to learn, and to grow. Peace strengthen us in the courage we need to hold on and hold up one another, to forgive, to make amends, to grow strong together in our different ways. Faith strengthen us in the courage we need to fulfill our promises, to make refuge and way for strangers, to create a world of mercy and of hope together. Joy strengthen us in the courage we need to laugh generously, to celebrate freely, to enhearten one another, and to dance gratefully with each and every day. Amen.
Where does patience come from and how does it flower? How is it I find myself praying for patience when I have so little, praying for peace when I am in turmoil, praying for what it is I imagine will hold me until the dawn? Let me breathe and in that breath find enoughness for now, the next breath leading me on. All questions cannot be answered right this minute, and today’s may need to wait for many tomorrows or many generations. Let me breathe in that breath and know enoughness. Love knows my imperfections, my being in progress and what I haven’t started upon yet and still. Let me breathe in that breath and know right now is enough. Slowly, slowly patience grows, peace fruits from the land, hope holds us from one dawn to the next. Let me breathe and my breath join all those others of people hoping and wishing and yearning what is not just yet. Let us breathe in and meet the heart of Love, breathe and join together in our enoughness. Amen.
Love break like dawn across my heart. When I have grown shy and quiet, let me find the song that recalls me to my whole self, the laughter that grounds me once again and grows my heart strong and ready to give generously once more. Love steal upon me out of the shadowed places so that I must stop in awe and wonder, amazed anew by this day, the beauty of this life, the blessings that we turn away from and tune out, and the joy of turning once again back to you. Love, here is my heart, already yours; teach me in the day how to use it well and wisely, how to risk it faithfully and how to give all it may give. Amen.
Mercy be with those tonight who feel alone, those who have not chosen the sweetness of solitude, but been cast aside or shut out or sent away or left behind. Guide us to open hearts and doors to one another, to reach out and to seek out those who have been left lonely, who know abandonment, who are shy now for fear of rejection. Mercy make us people of peace who open the new way, who leave no one a stranger, but learn of their gifts and weave them into the wholeness of our communities of grace and goodness, of blessing and hope. Mercy be with those tonight who are full up to overwhelmed and let them have the gift of quiet and space to let go, to grow with silence and tranquility back into their wholeness. Guide us to open hearts and be mindful of one another, to make space for those who need welcome and to make room for those who need solitude, honoring the different seasons each and all of us know, loving each other well enough to make such gift real in this night, in every day. Amen.
Heart of mine, when troubled, stop here longer in prayer. Listen to the song of the world, to the healing of the broken-hearted, to the bearers of hope rebuilding with the bereft, to the creators of compassion who know grief and know the ways of restoration. Heart of mine, rest here in the quiet for a while longer, held by the whole, until ready to try again, until hunger prods toward breaking bread and sharing that with someone else who may turn out to be in as much, if different, need. Heart of mine, can you feel the song of Love sings you into being in this moment? Turn into it, breathe, raise your heart in thanksgiving, and rejoin this dance of life with gratitude, with wonder, with not knowing what will come next. What comes next? An ‘Alleluia’, a steadying breath, the work and life that matters – let us be ready to live into the yes. Amen.
I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon the dewdrop.
Kahlil Gibran
Abundant Hope: A Meditation #uu #spirit
Heart Adventure: A Meditation from City of Refuge a Unitarian Universalist ministry.
#UU City of Refuge weekly video meditation - Creating Refuge
