While on internship, I've had the opportunity to interact with other clergy and people in religious life through interfaith and ecumenical groups in the area. This is an area of ministry about which I was quite ignorant before this - and I have to say some experiences are better than others.
One of the good experiences has been getting acquainted with a group of nuns who live at a retreat center nearby. Many of the residents there are retired, no longer active in the larger community. But there are others who are very active, and committed to making a difference in peoples' lives here and elsewhere. One dynamic nun is the driving force behind a drop-in counseling center, as well as a fair-trade gift and coffee shop near my internship site. She is also the Sisters' representative to a couple of urban interfaith groups. At one of our recent meetings, she asked clergy who were there to volunteer to lead noonday prayer services at the counseling center.
The format is open - she lets everyone do what they wish, within reason, asking only that for 20 minutes space is held prayerfully for whomever shows up. I signed up for a couple of days this month, and Wednesday was my first time leading the prayer service.
I decided to do a little modified lectio divina - reading of sacred words. Because I was focused on love this week, preparing a service and thinking about Freedom to Marry Week, the readings I brought were all on love. Here they are:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6.8
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Matt. 5:43-44
Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; this is an eternal truth… Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good. Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth. Dhammapada 1.5 & 17.3
The second [commandment] is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:31
“Loving our neighbor implicates us in loving the whole network of life. … This interconnectedness of all things calls for wisdom and reverence. We cannot turn from our bonds and obligations for and with one another and expect everyone to be okay. We cannot love after the fact and expect love to be able to save life.” The Rev. Rebecca Parker
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” I Cor. 13:4-8a
Then, we prayed, each in our own way, silently for a time. I invited people to speak aloud the names of people, groups, or situations they wished to lift up in loving concern or joy. And I closed the session with this poem from Meister Eckhardt:
All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,
he looks into the burro's eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does
that.
Love Frees.
Amen...
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