‘Dear Lord, look down upon the starving world, your world -
the homeless men,
the widowed women,
the children desperate for food.
Have pity on those who fast - and have pity on us who feast;
Pity them, the pitiful, - and pity us, the pitiless;
Have mercy on their starving bodies - and our starving souls;
for Jesus' sake..’.
(Simon Baynes, in Prayers in Church, Dick Williams, OUP, 1987, reproduced by kind permission of the author)
A prayer from Africa:
’Lord, give bread to the hungry, and to those who have bread, give a hunger for justice.’
We are not our own. Earth forms us,
human leaves on nature’s growing vine,
fruit of many generations,
seeds of love divine.We are not alone. Earth names us:
past and present, peoples near and far,
family and friends and strangers
show us who we are.Through a human life God finds us;
dying, living, love is fully known,
and in bread and wine reminds us:
We are not our own.Therefore let us make thanksgiving,
and with justice, willing and aware,
give to earth, and all things living,
Liturgies of love and care.And if love’s encounters lead us
on a way uncertain and unknown,
all the saints with prayer surround us:
we are not alone.Let us be a house of welcome,
living stone upholding living stone,
gladly showing all our neighbors
we are not our own!
(Brian Wren for Drew University Liturgical Studies Program,1989, in Bring Many Names by Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL)
‘When I was working as a nurse about thirty years ago in London, a friend of mine in the nurses' home had a saying pinned to her noticeboard which read ‘When the sun rises, it rises for everyone’. It's always stuck with me and I do use the idea in prayer - that wonderful and abundant things are there for all of us, not just some of us, and that in a world where half of us don't even have clean drinking water, we as Christians should do everything possible to make sure that everyone has access to what they need.
(A BSR volunteer)
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyedI have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
(from ‘Natural Resources’, in The Dream of a Common Language, Norton, USA, 1978)
‘Take us outside, Lord, outside holiness, out to where the soldiers curse and nations clash at the crossroads of the world.’
(The Iona Community Worship Book)
‘There is more to courage than physical bravery. Moral courage is even more important, because it is needed all the time. It takes moral courage to question the received wisdom and to challenge those in power. This is sometimes called the heretical imperative. Those who follow this way are uncomfortable to live with, but they help societies cleanse and renew themselves.’
(Richard Holloway)
‘I don’t see how you can be human in the world today if alleviating this growing poverty and oppression is not your key concern’
(John Sobrino, SJ)
And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not wage war against nation nor prepare again for war.
Instead everyone shall sit under their vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.’
(Micah 4:3)
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If this is not a place where tears are understood
Where can I go to cry?If this is not a place where my spirit can take wing
Where do I go to fly?If this is not a place where my questions can be asked
Where do I go to seek?If this is not a place where my feelings can be heard
Where do I go to speak?If this is not a place where you will accept me as I am
Where can I go to be?If this is not a place where I can try to learn and grow
Where do I just be me?
(Attributed to William J Crockett, and produced as a postcard by the Methodist Church)
‘…friendship, within the Christian tradition, is often based on the mutual search for justice. This is what the Christian community has historically done best. The Christian tradition began with the disciples and members of the Jesus movement who were, if nothing else, friends seeking ways to express their faith in a hostile environment. It continues through our day when groups of justice-seeking friends unite to overturn unjust rulers and to conduct political refugees to sanctuary, for example. Such friendly action is not limited to Christian communities. Secular political groups and people of other faith traditions do the same work, often with better results. But justice-seeking friends who unite in unlikely coalitions are what I mean by “church”…’
(Mary E Hunt, in Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship, Crossroad, 1991)
I dream of a church that joins in God’s laughing
as she rocks in her rapture, enjoying her art:
she’s glad of her world, in its risking and growing:
‘tis the child she has borne and holds close to her heart.I dream of a church that joins in with God’s weeping
as she crouches, weighed down by the sorrow she sees:
she cries for the hostile, the cold and no-hoping,
for she bears in herself our despair and dis-ease.I dream of a church that joins in with God’s dancing
as she moves like the wind and the wave and the fire:
a church that can pick up its skirts, pirouetting,
with the steps that can signal God’s deepest desire.I dream of a church that joins in with God’s loving
as she bends to embrace the unlovely and lost,
a church that can free, by its sharing and daring,
the imprisoned and poor, and then shoulder the cost.God, make us a church that joins in with our living,
as you cherish and challenge, rein in and release,
a church that is winsome, impassioned, inspiring;
lioness of your justice and lamb of your peace
(Kate Compston, in Dare to Dream, ed Geoffrey Duncan)
Libby Purves writing in a recent Tablet on how 'all charities are at risk of being infected by the money they handle and the moral high ground they inhabit': she writes that while some fall for this, ‘Some remain focused, practical and essentially humble.’ I think that is good to remember and good for the Church to be - focused, practical and essentially humble!
(A BSR volunteer)
‘The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain’t in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t.’
(Wendell Berry, ‘The Wild Birds’)
‘Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, whereas tradition is the living faith of the dead.’
(Jaraslav Pelikan)
Just Challenge
‘Despair is the affliction of the small-minded who have not so much lost their faith as they have lost their memory. Hope says, remember where you have been before and know that God is waiting for you someplace else now, to go on again to something new.’
(Joan Chittester, in Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, Eerdmans/Novalis, 2003)
A Maori saying: ‘Turn your face to the sun, and the shadows will always fall behind you.’
'Nurturing the mind within the heart' (Augustine) is a key spiritual dictum for me.
(A BSR volunteer)
A saying I have framed and in our kitchen (the heart of the home) is, ‘Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his Shoes’
(A BSR volunteer)
‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves – who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
There is nothing enlightening about shrinking, so that other people won’t feel inadequate around you.
We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
As we let our own light shine, we give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.’
(A return to love - Marianne Williamson )
Samuel said, ‘though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel?’
(1 Samuel 15: 17)
No longer shall they teach one another, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31: 34)
‘Ask God to bless your work, but do not ask him to do it for you.’
(the late Dame Flora Robson, actress)
‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’
(Gandhi)
‘How do you make God Laugh? Tell him your plans’
(quoted from Yiddish Proverbs in Howard Cooper, The Alphabet of Paradise, DLT 2000)
‘The good-enough is best’,
(DW Winnicott, in Winnicott , Adam Phillips, Fontana Modern Masters, 1988)
I may never see tomorrow;
There’s no written guarantee,
And things that happened yesterday
Belong to history,
I can’t predict the future,
I cannot change the past
I have just this present moment
I must treat it as my lastI must use this moment wisely
For it soon will pass away
And be lost to me forever
As part of yesterday,
I must exercise compassion,
Help the fallen to their feet,
Be a friend to the friendless,
Make an empty life complete.The unkindest thing I do today,
May never be undone,
And friendships that I fail to win
May nevermore be won,
I may not have another chance
On bended knees to pray
And thank God with a humble heart
For giving me this day.
(source unknown)
‘Why does the same old story have to be repeated? Why not try and start a new one?’
(Mahatma Gandhi on war)
‘Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.’
(William Feather)
‘To pray is to learn to believe in a transformation of self and world which seems, empirically, impossible – as in “moving mountains”.’
(Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man)
'To know all is to understand all;
To understand all is to forgive all.’
(sources unknown)
‘But now you will ask me, “How am I to think of God himself, and what is he?” and I cannot answer you except to say “I do not know!”…of God himself can no man think. Therefore I will leave on one side everything I can think, and choose for my love that thing which I cannot think! Why? Because he may well be loved. But not thought. By love he can be caught and held, but by thinking never….Strike that thick cloud of unknowing with the sharp dart of longing love, and on no account whatever think of giving up.’
(The Cloud of Unknowing. Translated by Clifton Wolters, Penguin Classics, 1961)
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‘In order to make advance in prayer… we must remember that the business of prayer does not consist in thinking much but in loving much. Do therefore whatever may excite you most to love.
Therefore, in such times of quietude, let the soul remain in its repose. Put aside learning. The time will come when learning is useful for the Lord. It should be esteemed so that it is not abandoned for any treasure, but should be used only to serve his Majesty. This alone is helpful
Believe me, in the presence of infinite Wisdom, a little study of humility and one act of humility is worth all the knowledge in the world. For here there is no demand for reasoning, but simply knowing what we are and that we are humbly in God’s presence.’
(Teresa of Avila ‘A Garden of Prayer’)
‘Give me only a love for you, and the gift of your grace; then I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.’
(St Ignatius of Loyola)
‘You can pray with them sometimes, but pray for them always.’
(Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy, in Moments of Prayer, ed David Scott, SPCK, 1997)
‘Prayer is the voice of desire’
(St Thomas Aquinas, in Moments of Prayer, ed David Scott, SPCK, 1997)
‘When Brother Bruno was at prayer one night he was disturbed by the croaking of a bullfrog. All his attempts to disregard the sound were unsuccessful so he shouted from his window. “Quiet! I’m at my prayers.”
Now Brother Bruno was a saint so his command was instantly obeyed. Every living creature held its voice so as to create a silence that would be favourable to prayer.
But now another sound intruded on Bruno’s worship – an inner voice that said, “Maybe God is as pleased with the croaking of that frog as with the chanting of your psalms.” “What can please the ears of God in the croak of a frog?” was Bruno’s scornful rejoinder. But the voice refused to give up: “Why would you think God invented the sound?”
Bruno decided to find out why. He leaned out of his window and gave the order, “Sing!” The bullfrog’s measured croaking filled the air to the ludicrous accompaniment of all the frogs in the vicinity. And as Bruno attended to the sound, their voices ceased to jar and he discovered that, if he stopped resisting them, they actually enriched the silence of the night.
With that discovery Bruno’s heart became harmonious with the universe and, for the first time in his life he understood what it means to pray.’
(from,The Prayer of the Frog Anthony de Mello, 1988)
My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe in skies so dull and gray;
Yet, if you will, one lesson I can give you
For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be cleaver;
Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long;
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.
(Charles Kingsley)
'It is not the development of man that will change the course of human history - only the intervention of the living God in men's lives. When he has touched us, we may hope for a change of heart and soul and for the Spirit and the kingdom of God to come. The Spirit brings the joy of God: joy in love, joy in sharing with brothers and sisters, joy in pure relationships between men and women, and joy in justice and peace among races and nations.'
'The expectation of the kingdom must lead to deeds.'
(Discipleship, Compiled and edited by the Bruderhof communities bases on the letters of J. Heinrich Arnold. Plough Publishing House, Robertsbridge, East Sussex. 1994)
‘Praying is bringing to consciousness what is always and everywhere true.’
(Alan Webster, Reaching for Reality)
‘Forget your perfect offering,
there is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.’
(Leonard Cohen song, ‘Anthem’)
'Tell your heart...that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a seconds encounter with god and eternity…
…when I have been searching for my treasure every day has been luminous. I've discovered things that I would never have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible to achieve.
…no matter what he does, every person plays a central role in the history of the world
…everyone has a treasure that awaits them, but unfortunately very few follow the path laid out for them .. to their destinies, and to their happiness.
…the boy asked his heart never to stop speaking to him, and when he wandered far from his dreams to sound the alarm.’
(Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, published by Harper Collins)
‘A constantly recurring feature of all the revelations which filled my soul with wonder as I diligently observed it, was that our Lord God, as far as he himself is concerned, does not have to forgive, because it is impossible for him to be angry! It was shown that the whole of life is grounded and rooted in love, and that without love we cannot live…It is quite clear that where our Lord is, peace reigns and anger has no place. I could see no sort of anger in God, however long I looked. Indeed, if God were to be angry but for a moment we could not live, endure, or be!’
(Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, translated into modern English by Clifton Wolters, Penguin Classics 1966)
