Today was the last full day of this phase of my vacation. I spent it exactly the way it should have been spent: a couple of hours on the beach enjoying the breeze, the sounds of the ocean, conversations with my sisters, doing as much nothing as I could manage. Tomorrow, my traveling companions and I–two leggeds and my four-legged bestie–will climb back into my car for the six-hour (hopefully) drive home. It has been a good time. I am grateful to my sister for the invitation and for the time spent relaxing with two of my three sisters and various partners, children and their partners and members of the family. Next summer I hope to be able to spend some fun times with all three of my sisters and various permutations of family, but that it for another time and much will happen in between now and then to bring us all together again. Family is a beautiful thing.
Tonight I decided to spin the wheel to provide a supplement this evening’s post. I landed on a pretty good spot so I’m going to share it and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did re-reading it.
I am grateful this evening for the gift of words and language, specifically tonight, I am grateful for spiritual expression often referred to as prayer. I pray constantly, I can’t seem to help it and I don’t really try to help it. It is completely natural and effortless to me, as instantaneous as thought. But this morning, I took a slightly different direction with my praying. Sometimes I pray with intention, a specific prayer like the night prayer I’ve shared in previous blogs (Google,“Lord It Is Night”and you’ll find it.) I recite it a lot, though I haven’t memorized it yet. It is a good prayer as I wind down to go to sleep; I’ll probably say it tonight. This morning, though, I found myself wanting a morning prayer, and rather than Google, “Lord it is morning,” or return to my childhood “Morning Offering,”which has elements I don’t particularly ascribe to any more, I decided to write my own prayer.
After a moment of wondering to myself “Can I do that–write my own prayer?” I quickly chided myself, “Of course I can, I make up my own prayers all the time–every day in fact.” But I guess when you commit something to paper or type it into your computer, it becomes more real somehow, more fixed. When you post it in your blog, I suppose it’s even more “out there.” That’s alright with me. I’m not trying to have my prayer inducted into a prayer hall of fame or included in a prayer book or anything else. It is to provide me with another means of expression, of communion between myself and One who is greater than I yet is also a part of me. So this morning I wrote a morning prayer in my journal. It is as yet unrefined, but that’s alright too. I offer it here as a gift of sorts in the same spirit in which I offer encouragement to each person reading this blog to consider what they are grateful for in their lives. I hope you find meaning in these words each night and in my Morning Prayer.
Good morning, God. It is a new day.
Day time is full of activity and action; But in the early morning,let me turn to you while it is yet still. Let me offer this day and all it brings– the work that I do, the people I encounter, the triumphs and the challenges–for the good of all beings and to honor you. Let the actions of my hands, the thoughts of my mind, the meditation of my heart, and the song of my spirit be pleasing to you and to all those around me. In the midst of the busy-ness, let me feel myself enveloped by peace and calm. Let me experience moments of beauty and gratitude until the night time comes and it’s time to take my rest and reflect on the day just past. Keep my heart and mind in perfect peace. In your many names, I pray. Amen and let it be so!
I am a big “pray-er,” communicating with God is a frequently occurring phenomenon. I am grateful to my parents for introducing me to church and various concepts of God. At various times in my life I’ve been a minister of sorts and periodically I ponder the idea of pursuing work in the ministry. Then I consider what I’m already doing out in the world and while I’m not preaching or “leading a flock,” much of the work that I do is “God’s work,” spiritual in nature, so perhaps there’s no need to formalize it. If there’s something God wants me to do, I assume she will tell me. In the meantime, I’ll be content and grateful with what I’m doing now. May it be so.
