Love your neighbor week continues! Did you know that you are your closest neighbor?

Good Evening Family of Love!

Happy Take Care Tuesday! Tonight we continue our time together loving our neighbors! This seems to be giving quite a few of us trouble these days. Maybe if we take time to get to know the neighbor who happens to stare back at you in the mirror when you brush your teeth, wash your hands, face, shaving, and putting on your make up you just might be surprised who your nearest neighbor is. We are neighbors too! So loving ourselves helps us to love God and our world wide family of neighbors!
Remember it is like those wonderful pebbles in the pond, it starts from the center out and from the edges in. Meaning it starts with us! God should be thought of as being a neighbor too. If we love God, neighbor,and self we shouldn't have any problems loving anyone else. Anyone you love is your neighbor! 

Tonight let's engage in some brainstorming of how we can seek to be good neighbors to ourselves, God, and our family members who are nearby and far away. Don't forget to journal your journey. 

Here is a partial list:

Love them without condition and be a CALMing influence. Compassionate, Accepting, Loving, and merciful
Get to know your neighbor's names.
If they are next door to you keep watch for anything unusual. ( My neighbor reminded me of my garage door being open)
Take down their trash if they are elderly.
Say hello.
Smile
Take a casserole to them if they are sick.
Offer to sit with an elderly parent or child.
and .........?

If you are still  feeling overwhelmed about getting to know your neighbors just use our meditation from last weeks blog about meeting each other halfway!

Tonight let's meditate upon how we can become neighborly!

Let us exchange the "Be Stills' for this!

I love God.
I love my neighbor.
I love myself.
I love.

I love because God first loved me.

I love God.
I love my neighbor.
I love myself.
I love.

I love because God first loved me.

I love God.
I love my neighbor.
I love myself.
I love.

I love because God first loved me.


A few months back I wrote a You Matter Monday Bill of  Rights and they may apply to ourselves and our neighbors. 

Here is a You Matter Monday Bill of Rights.


We all matter and need to be told this repeatedly until we get it. 

We all need to be told and better yet shown that we are loved and cared for.

We all need to tell everyone they matter and yes that means our not so nice neighbors and enemies.

We all need to do the same and  tell everyone that they are loved and cared for. No one is let off the hook either. 

We all need to feel the love that we bring into each other's lives and others bring to ours even if it may just be temporary or long lasting. 

We all need to feel needed not be needy.

We all have the right to live our lives in love, in safety, being inclusively accepted without fear. 

We all have the right not to be made to feel shame or led into self- loathing because our religious or non religious beliefs.

We all have the right to have a private life separate from our social media miens. 


We all have the right to take time for ourselves and do proper self-care and allow others the same courtesy.

We all have the right to live in a peaceful world without violence.

We all have a right for our children to be brought up in a safe and nurturing environment.

We all have the right to speak truth to power and be a voice for the voiceless.

We all have the right to fall in love with whomever God has chosen for us.

We all matter! Do you matter to yourself?

Tonight we will pray in silence and meditate upon the You Matter Monday Bill of Rights


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Happy Take Care Tuesday! It is time for our Virtual Candlelight Prayer Vigil and prayer time together. Let us pray that we may be good neighbors to ourselves and each other. Let us pray that we may always have our arms ready to embrace and provide solace to our neighbors who are in need. We pray for peace in the worldwide neighborhood. We pray that we may extend olive branches and be peacemakers to our neighbors where there is division. We pray that we may be united in neighborly ways of Compassion, Acceptance, Love, Mercy, Kindness, Justice, and Service to one another. May we consider wisely and pray the words of St. Francis of Assisi :


"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

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Here are more opportunities for prayer and meditation:

Deuteronomy 15:7-11

7 If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbour. ⁸You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. ⁹Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near’, and therefore view your needy neighbour with hostility and give nothing; your neighbour might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. ¹⁰Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lordyour God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.¹¹Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land.’

God of  Creation, we give thanks and celebrate all that you have made. Give us a tender and compassionate reverence for all things living.

God of Creation, we thank you for the rain and pray for more so that  the drought parched areas of our world may be cleansed and healed.

God of  Peace, we pray for peace in this your fragile and broken world. Help us to become truly the Children of God as Peacemakers.

God  of Justice, we pray for all leaders of the  nations that they may do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you O God.

God of Compassion,we pray for all who are in need of healing and comfort. May we help them wipe away their many tears and help them be relieved of anxieties and fears by using our empathetic skills and tender and loving hearts.

God of  Light, We pray that we may become Your beacons of hope to all who are in darkness.

God who walks with us on our daily journey, may we follow where you lead and may we walk hand in hand with you and when we need it may we feel you carry us in your arms.

God of all gentleness, may we always remember the vulnerable, especially children, elderly, the least of these, and all others who are the tender ones.

God of  time and space, help us to become acclimated  to the time change coming up. Help our bodies, minds, and spirits adjust.

God we pray for all who travel. May they have safe journeys.

God we pray for all leaders of the many faith communities who are in preparation for worship tomorrow. Help them to preach The Word boldly and without fear.

God we lift up our additional prayers for ourselves and others remembering especially__________

God we take time to add our remembrances of those who have died remembering especially-______

God we celebrate this the Feast of All Saints and remember those who have died and entered the Thin Places remembering especially________

God we give thanks for _______________________

God we lift up these our prayers, remembrances, thanksgivings, and celebrations in the most holy name of Your only Son, Jesus, the Christ. Amen.

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This week we won't be using keywords and concepts just learning to love our neighbors more fully!

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Good night dearly loved ones! I love you! Have a blessed and restful night. May you feel God's loving arms gently enfolding you as you sleep. I give thanks to God for you this night and always!


With love and neighborliness!

Sara