Prayers and Meditations
September 16, 2008
Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.
Let who you are ring out and resonate
in every word and every deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There’s no sidestepping your own being
or your own responsibility.
What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppance.
You become your own message.
You are the message.
Prison writings – my life is my sun dance – Leonard peltier
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· Acknowledging our wrong doing
· Receiving correction and feedback graciously
· Refraining from criticizing others
· Forgiving others who have wronged us
· Apologizing to others who have been wronged by us
· Enduring unfair treatments with patience and a forgiving spirit
· Thinking and speaking about the good things of other people
· Rejoicing over other people’s success
· Counting our blessings for everything, good and bad
· Seeking opportunities to serve others
· Willing to remain anonymous in helping others
· Showing gratitude for our successes
· Giving due credit to others for our successes
· Treating success as a responsibility to do more for others
· Willing to learn from our failures
· Assuming responsibility for our failures
· Accepting our limitations and circumstances
· Treating all people with respect regardless of their social status
· Enjoying the lowly status of being an outsider and a nobody
Humility
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Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in the life’s battlefield but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant that I may not be a coward, feeling Your mercy in my success alone;
But let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure.
Bengali Poet – Rabindranath Tagore – 1916
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The enlivening Spirit of God is
freely expressive in and through me.
It illumines my mind,
regenerates my body,
inspires me with creative ideas,
empowers my constructive actions,
and easily and harmoniously arranges
all of my circumstances.
Every aspect of my life is now in divine order.
Affirmation – Roy Eugene Davis
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May all I say and all I think
Be in harmony with Thee,
God within me, God beyond me,
Maker of the Trees.
North American Indian – Chinook
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May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.
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I will give you a talisman . . .
Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.
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If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.
And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I may boast but have not love, nothing am I profited.
Love is long suffering, love is kind, it is not jealous, love does not boast, it is not inflated.
It is not discourteous, it is not selfish, it is not irritable, it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth.
It covers all things, it has faith for all things, it hopes in all things, it endures in all things.
Love never falls in ruins; but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or tongues, they will cease; or knowledge, it will be superseded.
For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.
When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I reckoned as an infant; when I became an adult, I abolished the things of the infant.
For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known. But now remain faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
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I will not die and unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.
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Send Thy peace O Lord, which is perfect and everlasting, that our souls may radiate peace.
Send Thy peace O Lord, that we may think, act and speak harmoniously.
Send Thy peace O Lord, that we may be contented and thankful for They bountiful gifts.
Send Thy peace O Lord, that amidst our worldly strife, we may enjoy Thy bliss.
Send thy peace O Lord, that we may endure all, tolerate all, in the thought of Thy grace and mercy.
Send Thy peace O Lord, that our lives may become a Divine vision and in Thy light, all darkness may vanish.
Send Thy peace O Lord, our Father and Mother, that we Thy children on Earth may all unite in one family.
Prayer for Peace – Pir-O-Murshid Inayat Khan – 1921
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For food that stays our hunger,
For rest that brings us ease,
For homes where memories linger,
We give our thanks for these.
Traditional – Mealtime Blessing
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Praise God from whom all blessings Flow;
praise him, all creatures here below;
praise him above, ye heavenly host;
praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost
traditional hymn – words by thomas ken – 1674
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Prayer is not asking.
Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God,
at his disposition,
and listening to his voice in the depths of our hearts.
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As the rain hides the stars,
as the autumn mist
hides the hills,
as the clouds veil
the blue of the sky, so
the dark happenings of my lot
hide the shining of thy face from me.
Yet, if I may hold they hand in the darkness,
it is enough, since I know,
that though may stumble in my going,
Thou dost not fall.
Traditional-scottish gaelic
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Live loyally today
–grow—
and tomorrow will attend to itself.
The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.
Urantia Book – 1094:06
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Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.
