Prayer or meditation
Meditation for Winter
As the days shorten, and Christmas
and the Winter Solstice draw near,
It is time to follow the wisdom of the trees.
This season should be one of
stillness, darkness, dormancy, and rest.
Humankind was not created
to be constantly on the run –
like all created beings,
we need to remember to take time out
Te Deum Laudamus
We praise you O God:
unfailing friend and guide
Through whose creative presence:
day by day the cosmos comes alive.
We imagine angels:
praising you on high,
Where cherubim and seraphim:
continually cry:
Holy, Holy, Holy:
Highest, Truest, Best;
Heaven and earth:
are overflowing with your grace.
We picture the apostles:
casting down their golden crowns.
The martyrs
In prayer we look back at a year gone by
In prayer we look back at a year gone by.
There have been triumphs, sometimes disasters and often periods of quietness and inertia.
We have gained and possibly lost.
We have promised and fulfilled, promised and not fulfilled.
We have known moments of joy and moments of sadness.
Our year has been better or worse
Another Prayer for Peace
Psalm 122:6, Luke 19:42, Matthew 5:9
With the Psalmist we
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
With Jesus we say,
“If only you had known this day the way that leads to peace.”
We pray for the peace of
Gaza and of Lebanon, of Israel and Iran,
of Syria and Sudan, of Russia and Ukraine…
We pray for the
A prayer of willing well-being
For all those suffering illness and loss
For those unable to say goodbye
For all those left with too much, even everything, unsaid.
I pray to will your well-being.
For those with whom we disagree sometimes strongly
For those who offend me often wrongly
For leaders even as they appear not
Impatient to be away
A prayer to close a meeting
Impatient to be away now,
to move from the focussed space of this meeting
to the liminal spaces of transition and journey –
we have our minds on the business of leaving;
locating devices and gathering up notes
instead of dwelling in the moment
as we are reluctantly
reminded to pay lip
I am not here
A prayer to open a meeting
Although I’ve taken a seat at this meeting, I’m still thinking about what just happened in my journey to get here, so I’m not here…
I am not here
Instead I’m trying to remember which papers I have skipped and if it is going to be discovered, I’m trying to remember if
Blessing of freedom
May you know freedom
Freedom born of complete trust in God
May you know freedom
Freedom born of difficulties faced and conquered
May you know freedom
Freedom born of full knowing of God’s love for you
May you know freedom