more prayer thoughts...

i like what you're saying about the prayer esther...

i'm finding myself praying the jesus prayer quite a lot - 'lord jesus christ, son of god, have mercy on me, a sinner' - and at random times too...
i'm also doing the breathing thing with it [breathing in = 'lord...god' and out = 'have... sinner']
getting into that rhythm really helps somehow - it works for me with the 'god be...' prayer too...

i really like the idea that prayer is about saying as little as possible, and listening as much as you can. with some things that i'm praying about at the mo, i have absolutely no idea what to ask god to do, and so it's comforting to have the repetition of a set prayer... you can just bring the situation to god and trust him/her with it...


si

God be in my head

I've found the prayer useful too recently...

When there's no words to face a situation with, you kind of have to rely on the simplest of structures and let them hold you - like this prayer does.

I pray it all the time at the moment... sometimes I drift halfway through and outside noise drowns out the meaning but then I come back to it and start again. Sometimes it becomes almost circular and I go round and round the same lines like a buddhist chant,. Sometimes I say 'her' head or 'his' eyes or 'our' departing. I think about the people I'm praying it for.

Mostly I say 'my'. Mostly I'm praying it for myself.

in my heart, in my thinking...

i'm still using the 'god be...' prayer and finding new depth in it...

the hardest line for me has been 'god be in my heart and in my thinking'

i love the idea that the way that you think is an attitude of the heart, rather than of the mind... it explains why it's the place in the prayer where i've struggled most.
my thinking is so ingrained, my attitudes have become so well rehearsed and self-justified and reinforced and entrenched down the years; they're second nature.

[it's not called a mind-'set' for nothing...]

and yet i think that i am being challenged and changed. moving up here to leeds and the things that we've experienced since we've been here through revive and now this monastic stuff have been a big part of that process... my thinking is [painfully slowly] changing. what's that line from the psalms? '...create in me a new heart, and renew a right spirit in me...'
i think it's happening...

si

A short addition

Changing

Porcelain skin and sapphire eyes
A voice I remember best in song
Hands that conjured tastes and melodies
A brain brim-full of irreverent rhymes

You’ve become full of years now
And your hands cannot conjure anymore
But your words still glimmer and twinkle
And your determination remains sure

I think of you as simply changing colour
Blending with the sky, becoming brightest blue
Absorbing the emerald of the greenest hills
Catching sun-fire: turning yellow, red, orange…

I think of you as stepping into star-shone light
Into the pool of a golden shadow
Where a person’s truth lies and
Where your soul survives after your body dies

04/10/07

Welcoming the night

I wish I knew how to encourage someone to welcome the night. I wish I had the words to say and the strength to impart.

I know someone who's nearing the closing of the day, to the welcoming of the night. I wish I could be with her to at least stand and face the darkness by her side. But it's probably not my place anyway. And I could probably not find the words or the attitude or the compassion or the courage to be truly there.

It may be that she holds on and doesn't go straight away. I'm not sure what she'll decide. Maybe this time next year she'll still be here - holding on to her piece of light. To the patch of experience that she knows. But the night will still be there, and I will still want to be there facing it with her.

I'm reading John O'Donohue at the moment, he writes this, among other things, about the journey of death:

"At the time of death, the soul knows how to protect its precious cargo. While death will stop and empty the body, the soul will ferry your essence into eternal life. Not one moment of you will be lost in the crossing. Eternal life is the province of the soul, this is where the soul is at home. For your soul then, death is indeed a homecoming"

I hope she knows this. I pray she may know this.

"...it's like deja vu all over again..."

heh heh - like everyone except esther, i've got out of the habit of posting these past two weeks...

and so even though i've not much to say for meself this week, i'm writing this now, just to get back into routine...

actually, routine is what i need right now. re-establishing the silent prayer time to begin the day. learning to find time to end each day with prayer too would be good.
getting my eating back right again [i've slipped back into snacking recently...!]
and starting to exercise - that's still left undone on the 'to do' list...

post-greenbelt i'd promised myself [and sue, and the kids] that i'd get the amount of work i was taking on back down to a manageable level, and that it wouldn't take over our lives any more; but to be honest it's not really happened.
last week i found myself cancelling a nite out at the very last moment to stay up and draw stuff instead, and this week i'm already facing up to three deadline crises between now and the end of wednesday...

so that's me at the mo; despite my very best intentions, still wrestling with the old work/life balance...

si