September invites me to pause, savor, and reflect on the ebb and flow of this past season. The joy of family and families gathering for celebrations. The tender moments of reconnection. The warm (perhaps too warm some days) sunshine on the back yard deck. My roses outdoing themselves in blossoms this year. But I reread my journal, spotted with tears and anger and sadness experienced in the darker moments of life. War. Suffering. Illness. Separations. I am slowly learning that life is more and/both than either/or. Ebb and Flow. Good ol’ Henri Nouwen says it best in this prayer: “Dear Lord, Today I thought of the words of Vincent van Gogh: “It is true there is an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea.” You are the sea. Although I experience many ups and downs in my emotions and often feel great shifts and changes in my inner life, you remain the same. Your sameness is not the sameness of a rock, but the sameness of a faithful lover. Out of your love I came to … [Read more...]
Prayer of Abandonment
The prayer of abandonment by Charles de Foucauld has haunted me all year. The words keep appearing in readings. Its message scares me yet draws me into contemplation. This prayer is calling to my soul. Can I really pray this prayer? Am I honest in saying thank you in response to God doing what he wants with my life? Is this truthfully my only wish to be abandoned to God? Will I ever fully surrender my all to the All? Part of me says yes, but my ego shivers with the consequences. I yearn to be closer to God but to be honest, my pride, personal agenda, and independence pulls me in opposite directions. I thirst to keep the eyes of my heart only on him. This prayer of abandonment requires trust and faith that I am inadequately equipped for – I am not strong enough to pray this prayer on my own. Then I realize I am overthinking, overreacting. Fear blocks me from risking my love for God. “Just take a deep breath, Jeanie. Slow down and pray. God will take care of the … [Read more...]
Collecting Prayers Using My Word of the Year
All is my word of the year and I have watching for and collecting prayers containing this word. Such a simple word - you would think I would have an endless list by now but alas, the list grows slowly. Slowly - that in itself is a good lesson. I tend to rush, skim, get it done. Looks like God is inviting me to savor and enjoy each prayer. To allow its word to seep into my soul. To feel its “all” to permeate my heart and shape me. I find the prayers deepens if I copy its words, not by the printer or computer but unhurriedly with a pen into my journal. These prayers accompany me through my morning devotions and linger with me throughout the day. Holy companions, these prayers. Here are a few of my new friends shedding light on “all.” Covenant Prayer – John WesleyI am no longer my own, but yours.Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will.Put me to doing, put me to suffering.Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you,Praised for you or criticized for … [Read more...]
Let Go or Let’s Go
“Go” is my word for 2021 and for such a short, simple word I have been amazed how it has weaved its meaning into my life this year. For some earlier examples, you can reread these blog posts here and here. This past week “Go” tickled my imagination during my practice of breath prayer. A breath prayer is a very short prayer that can be said in one breath and repeated throughout the day. It is an ancient form of prayer, found in writings as early as the second century. The prayer communicates a sense of nearness with trust and dependency on God. Perhaps the best-known breath prayer is called the Jesus Prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” That morning I inhaled “Let” and exhaled “Go” as I relaxed into God’s arm and surrender the many attachments coming between us. I loosened my grip on concerns and future non-existent anxieties. “Let go.” “Let go.” Then I noticed a whispered change, “Let’s go.” “Let’s go.” A simple … [Read more...]
11 Tips to Percolate in Prayer
Percolate means to spread or pass through. What a lovely way to think of prayer. To percolate our day, our time, our life in prayer. Percolate originates from Latin with “colo” meaning to worship, honor, inhabit, nurture, cultivate, filter, and purify. To allow ourselves to seep in and through prayer. I love that image and have been intentionally soaking in God’s presence during the moments of my day. Even last week in the hot humid craziness of a packed Disney World with long lines and achy feet, I smiled at God and thanked him for all his gifts. Beholding the word “percolate” centered me even in the midst of the noise of the Magic Kingdom. Once home I began to identify what has helped me this year focus on God throughout the day and distilled 11 ideas to share with you and hopefully reinforce and cultivate prayer in my life too. 11 Tips to Percolate in Prayer "Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary … [Read more...]
11 Apps for Daily Prayer – Divine Technology
How do you start your day? Me? Coffee, walking, and prayer. All with the help of technology. My coffee is ready when I get up in the morning since I use the timer feature on the coffee maker. What a great way to wake up with the delightful smell of coffee in the air. I am a house walker, walking throughout my house at a fast pace, up and down the stairs, listening to podcasts and working out with the goal of 50 minutes and 6000 steps to start the day. I love my Fitbit for tracking and try to close all three fitness rings on my Apple Watch by the end of the day. I also practice morning prayer and use several apps on my phone to help me slow down, quiet my spirit and thoughts, and hear God in new ways. Technology can be a distractions sometimes but also a help in deepening prayer. Below are some great suggestions to try. I think all use either Apple or android and most links go directly to the app page. You will have to go to your app store to download. … [Read more...]
Half a Million, Oh My!
Half a million dead. This is the number fellow Americans who have died in the Covid pandemic. In one year – 500,000 lives gone. This grim statistic stabbed my heart. I can't even comprehend this staggering number of a half of million. I read this is more that the entire population of the city of Atlanta. There are 525,600 minutes in a year. That’s one Covid death per minute, for almost an entire year. National Geographic shared these and other graphics about this tragedy. In 2020, the U.S. saw a more than 15 percent increase in deaths over the prior year, the highest year-on-year rise in deaths across the U.S. since 1918, which experienced both a global flu epidemic and the First World War. A line of 500,000 caskets, laid end to end, would stretch for 645 miles. Those coffins would reach from New York City to Indianapolis. It would take a wall almost nine times the length of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., to list the … [Read more...]
Keeping Christmas
Are you willing...To forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you?To ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world?To put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance and your changes to do a little more than your duty in the foreground?To see the that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy?To own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life?To close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness?Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas. Are you willing..To stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children?To remember the weakness and loneliness of people … [Read more...]