Category: Speaking to the Soul

““These are strange days!”
yells someone in the crowd.
I can assure you, friend,
that no one has had a stranger day than me.”

“In peace, we pray to You, Lord Christ,
our hearts and faces upturned and open to your glory.
Holy One, You are our shepherd…”

“And I do. Praise spills from this invocation into my soul like water from a pitcher into a glass. The Venite. The Jubilate. A Psalm. Routine, unextraordinary, but this opening praise is marvelously settling.”

“When you pray, move your feet.
One foot after another
meeting fellow pilgrims, journeying together.”

“So much gardening activity happens on our knees, in the position of prayer and supplication. I kneel to weed, plant and harvest and often find myself meditating and praying. If I am troubled by some seemingly insurmountable problem, there is no better place to thrash it out than kneeling in the garden. If I am irritable or depressed, there is no better therapy than weeding.”

“Most importantly, God is love.  Learning what that means is a life-long study.  It isn’t warm feelings and the removal of stumbling blocks from our paths.  It is a profound showing up for the essence of who we are.”

“In church, we are taught that Mary chose the better part, sitting and learning from the Master while he was on earth.  At that time, the disciples didn’t know Jesus would soon be gone, but we benefit from knowledge in retrospect. It makes all the difference.”

“I’ll admit it wasn’t until after becoming Christian that I truly began to examine the structural evils of the present day, and how Christianity has played a part in them. But by then, something had changed in me: Christianity was my home.”

“Make me ever joyful and merciful
even if children pull my tail.
Help me be ever watchful
that I may protect my home
as you have protected me, O Steadfast One.”

Now, with another change of location and a new technological innovation, comes this beep.

The last time I attended an in-person conference, I remember the keynote speaker mentioning in passing that he sets an alarm on his phone at noon each day to remind him to pray.

I have decided to regard this beep as my personal call to prayer.