Amen, Amen, Amen

Benediction from inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday. Transcript here.

Now playing: Dear Mr President – Pink

Home coming

We’ve been traveling recently. I found this prayer/poem/blessing which sort of makes sense of why we wonder about wandering, and why we welcome home coming.

Please bring strange things.

Please come bringing new things.

Let very old things come into your hands.

Let what you do not know come into your eyes.

Let desert sand harden your feet.

Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.

Let the paths of your fingerprints be your maps

and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.

Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing

and your outbreath be the shining of ice.

May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.

May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.

May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.

May your soul be at home where there are no houses.

Walk carefully, well loved one,

Walk mindfully, well loved one,

Walk fearlessly, well loved one.

Return with us, return to us,

Be always coming home

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Now playing: Carlos Gardel – Por Una Cabeza
via FoxyTunes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beatitude 2

Blessed are those who are seen to be different,
for they will make the difference
Blessed are the excluded
for they will be included
Blessed are the vulnerable
they shall have strength
Blessed are the troubled of heart and mind,
they shall find peace
Blessed are the persecuted
they will find freedom

Printed on a Jesuit Volunteers coffee mug at a project where I was trustee.

Beatitude 1

Blessed are the poor, not the penniless,

but those whose hearts are free.

Blessed are those who mourn, not those who whimper

but those who raise their voices.

Blessed are the meek, not the soft,

but those who are patient and tolerant.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, not those who whine

but those who struggle.

Blessed are the merciful, not those who forget,

but those who forgive.

Blessed are the pure in heart, not those who act like angels,

but those whose lives are transparent.

Blessed are the peacemakers, not those who shun conflict,

but those who face it squarely.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice,

not because they suffer

but because they love.

Matthew 5

Alternative beatitudes from churches in Santiago, Chile

Disturbance

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake which we used on the leadership day last week. Cheers to Mark Berry and the setting sail meditation.

Seven social sins

1. Politics without principle

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Wealth without work

4. Knowledge without character

5. Commerce without morality

6. Science without humanity

7. Worship without sacrifice

Mahatma Ghandi

Until God’s realm comes

I used this (slightly amended from the original) at the end of the service last week.

maybe in this there has been a glimpse of the kingdom
a foretaste
a hint
a promise
let it hold us and let it send us
so we will not be completely at rest
until all are fed
until all know home
until all are free
until justice is done
until peace is the way
until grace is the custom
until love is the rule
until God’s realm comes
until God’s realm comes
until God’s realm comes…

Amen.

Cheers to hold this space

Bene Diction

From the blog Bene Diction, good words, well said; a blessing to speak goodness of, and to, others, especially for those who most need to hear:

Have courage for the great sorrows

And patience for the small ones

And when you have laboriously acomplished

Your daily tasks,

Go to sleep in peace.

God is awake. 

Prayer – Finisterre

Prayer
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Carol Ann Duffy

(From Mean Time)

This is both prayerful and liturgical. It’s hanging on to something familiar and snatching the wisp of blessing as it passes – a prayer that utters itself. The roll of the Shipping Forecast sounds prayerful – and like the best liturgy summons those things we need to keep remembering. It honours ‘Those that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters’ (Psalm 107).

Like liturgy it works best when heard and spoken (on Radio 4 at 12.01, 17.54 and at 00.48 or 5.36). The late night and early morning readings are the kinds of times you’re awake too long worrying or awake too early fretting. The kinds of times when it might feel like the ends of the earth.

And oddly enough, Duffy’s last word of prayer, Finisterre – finis terrae -literally the end of the earth – is where we end up in prayer. At the end of our known world.
The full liturgy of the daily Shipping Forecast is at the Met Office. The map doesn’t show Finisterre, which was once between Biscay and Sole. It was replaced in 2002 by Fitzroy.