Noonday Prayer - On Prayer

I've been contemplating prayer a lot during my internship. I think this picture represents what many of us envision when we think of prayer. Someone with folded or clasped hands, maybe a bowed head, reciting a memorized prayer as part of a liturgy - or quietly praying to God as s/he envisions the divine. I recently facilitated a class on reclaiming the positive aspects of our religious past. Many UUs (though not all) come to Unitarian Universalism from other traditions. Often, they come with emotional baggage, feeling wary of church/religion/the holy. So, it was fascinating to me when one person in the group asked a question about prayer.


This woman was raised Roman Catholic. Why, she said, did they not teach us what prayer really could be? Why did I have to wait until I was a grandmother to stumble upon a book by a Buddhist monk to learn how to pray?




Good question. Different cultures approach prayer in different ways - and have different practices. There are Jewish prayer shawls... and Indian prayer shawls...



.
and Tibetan prayer flags... and prayer candles





There are also many different kinds of prayer - spoken, silent, individual, contemplative prayer, body prayer (dance or other motion), pastoral prayer in worship, and so on - and I haven't yet mentioned music as prayer, or the contemplation (or creation) of visual art as prayer. I've been glad to have the opportunity to lead noonday prayer several times this spring. I'm leading again today - and my theme is going to be prayer.

Most people who come to these devotional sessions are Christian, so I'll open with this familiar prayer from the Gospel of Matthew:

"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one." Matthew 6:9-13, NRSV

Notice any differences between this and the one you might have learned as a child? The one I learned as a child used King James Version language, asked for forgiveness for trespasses, and ended with "for thine is the kingdom forever and ever."

I'm taking along Neil Douglas-Klotz's Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus, with his line-by-line alternative translations of the Lord's Prayer, as well as a few others. One is pieced together from Douglas-Klotz's translations. One is a prayer to the Divine Mother, written by a dear friend several years ago, explicitly echoing the Lord's Prayer - but from a divine feminine point of view. The other is one addressed to "Our Mother, whose body is the Earth," which I found in one of several collections of readings and prayers I have.

Hopefully, we will have a rich discussion of prayer and it's multitude of meanings and practices!

And - we will pray, each in our own way, to the God of our varied understanding.

Amen and Blessed Be.

A Prayer for Good Friday...

(Like Ms. Kitty I'm participating in a Good Friday service where each clergy person is offering a reflection on the Seven Last Words of Jesus. My homily is too long to post here, but the prayer is below.)

…Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. John 19:25b-27 (NRSV)

Spirit of Life,
God of our varied understandings,
Drawn to the story of Jesus
we reflect on his manner of death,
and how it affected those closest to him.

Who can know, now,
what went through his mother’s mind
as she watched her son,
bleeding, suffering?

Who can know, now,
what the beloved disciple thought as
Jesus asked him to care for his mother?
None but those who have suffered
as Mary, and as the disciple.
And there are too many who have.

Spirit of Love and Hope,
God of mystery and change,
Help us understand the love
that binds us one to another –
the love that compels us
to risk our lives for one another –

love that does not depend on
blood ties or tribal identification,
but love that brings courage,
love that overcomes obstacles,
love that does not limit or exclude
but frees us
and blesses
the whole world.

Blessed Be. Amen.

Easter is Coming...

***The Jesus in Love blog referred to at the end of this post is running the Passion artwork for Holy Week again. I don't know if this is new art or a rerun of last year's - but I recommend it to you all!***



...so it's time for some "Passion of the Tchotchke!" (Besides, things have been way too serious around here...)

See the most amazing (well, some are amazingly hideous) Holy Week "art" here. And may the spirit of life embrace you and lift you up as you fall down laughing... The blogger who posted these says all it in her caption for one item: "I don't know how to love this."

A seminary acquaintance alerted me (and others) to this site a few years ago, and I like to share it every year. Because, you know, things get a little crazy around church this time of year. We also need reminding to take ourselves a little more lightly, as well.

For those desiring more serious fare, I recommend heading over to Kittredge Cherry's blog, "Jesus in Love," and checking out her recent post on photographer Robert Recker's series depicting the Passion of Christ. You can also go back to mid-March of last year and take a look at the art she posted for Holy Week, which is stunning.