Respite

Tags

flow, John Philip Newell, morning prayer, Praying With the Earth, river of life, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thirst

Finally it seems that we have a break from the intense heat and high humidity that hinders movement and keeps effectiveness at a minimum. We were spared the violence of the storms that gripped the Northeast Corridor of our country yesterday but at one moment it was as if some caretaker in the heavens turned a spigot to let all the humidity out of the sky and gave us some moments of straight-down driving rain – a curtain of water to slake the thirst of the land. As I celebrate the freshness of this new day I am drawn to another image of water in a prayer for unity by John Philip Newell. I offer it as a morning prayer for us all.

All things come from you, O God, and to you we return. All things merge in your great river of life and into you we vanish again. At the beginning of this day we wake not as separate streams but as countless currents in a single flow: the flow of this day’s dawning, the flow of this day’s delight, the flow of this day’s sorrows – your flow, O God, in the twistings and turnings of this new day. (Praying with the Earth, p.26)