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earth's children, John Philip Newell, life, love, love of the Earth, peace of God, prayer, Praying With the Earth, strengthen, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
I picked up John Philip Newell’s book, Praying with the Earth, just now and found two prayers for Saturday morning that seemed helpful. The first was entitled Prayer for the Life of the World and the second was a Prayer of Blessing. I imagined a great gathering of people praying the prayers together and the peace of God flowing through the earth bringing peace. May it be so in our time.
- To the home of peace, to the field of love, to the land where forgiveness and right relationship meet we look, O God, with longing for earth’s children, with compassion for the creatures, with hearts breaking for the nations and people we love. Open us to visions we have never known, strengthen us for self-givings we have never made, delight us with a oneness we could never have imagined that we may truly be born of You as makers of peace.
- May the love of life fill our hearts. May the love of earth bring joy to heaven. May the love of self deepen our souls. May the love of neighbor heal our world. As nations, as peoples, as families this day may the love of life heal our world. (p. 52)
There’s a line in the Psalm response of today’s lectionary that got me singing – internally, of course, since I haven’t been awake long enough to trust my outer voice! What I heard inside my head was Darlene Franz’s chant, a call and response that says Seek my face in all things. Your face, O Lord, I will seek. (cf. PS 27, vs. 10) Although it’s usually annoying to have a tune running just below the surface one’s mind for days, I think I would welcome this one since it reminds me where I should be putting my attention. I was encouraged by that train of thought when I read Alan Cohen’s ‘daily word’ in which he offered the following paragraph.