Good Evening Dear Family!
Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is having a good week after Thanksgiving. This is a perfect week to begin taking time to listen more fully to God's voice and spend time in sacred silence listening to what the world is having to say without speaking. This kind of listening requires us to use our eyes, hearts, souls, and minds. Daily we are in a struggle with having to have something to say and not be active in listening and always seeking to respond. This is the time of the year where we need to learn to listen what our family member's have to say not only in the words they speak but in the outward and visible signs they display by their body language. Yesterday's time handing out lunches bore this out in unimaginable ways. So let's start listening, expanding our heart homes,and let us be tenderized with holy empathy and sympathy for all humanity, yes even those who rub us the wrong way and may be our enemies. Listen to their pain, stories, and seek to find common ground.
Let us remember the words of Thomas Merton: "We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen."
Tonight let us set up our sanctuaries in our homes for a time of quiet and holy listening. Practice your breathing and mindfulness exercises with these adapted forms of the "Be Stills".
Let us start with a variation on this:
Be Still and Know That I am God.
Be Still and know
Be Still
Be
Inhale God's Love for you
Exhale Your Love for God, each other ,our family members , and yourself.
Listen with Love in your heart.
Be still and listen to God
Be still and listen
Be still
Be
Inhale God's Love for you
Exhale Your Love for God, each other ,our family members and yourself.
Listen with Joy in your Soul
Be still and listen
Be still
Be
Listen for hope in the world.
Inhale God's Love for you
Exhale Your Love for God, each other , our family members and yourself.
Be sill and listen
Be still
Be
Inhale God's Love for you
Exhale Your Love for God, each other, our family members,and yourself.
Listen and pray for peace.
Be still and know
Be still
Be
Listen for God
Listen to God's voice
Listen to God's message
Listen to the sufferings of God's Fragile and Broken World.
Dear Ones it is time once again for our nightly Virtual Candlelight Prayer Vigil and light our candles and pray for an end to hatred and fear. We pray this night for clean air, water, and soil so that God's Cathedral of Life may be revived and protected. We pray for all of our family members who are on the margins and who feel lost, lonely, alone, and invisible. We pray for peace and safety in all cities, states, and nations of the world. We add our thoughts and thanksgivings on this Being Thoughtful and Thankful Thursday and remember to wear our attitudes of CALM (compassion, acceptance, love and mercy) and gratitude in service to God and the entire family of God.
Prayers in the stillness. If you so desire you may do a virtual labyrinth to add to your meditation.
*Those may be replaced with names, or by using Family Members.
Quiet our minds O God so that we can listen and hear your voice and what you are calling us to do and to be.
Help us to be still and listen to that quiet place in our heart and spirit. Help us to unwind our minds O God.
Quiet our bodies that we may turn our bodies from human doings to human beings.
Take the keys away that drive our bodies to do and not be.
Help us to feel our spirits and the indwelling of You and the Holy Spirit in this time of being quiet and still.
May our spirits be enlivened even in the quietness.
Lord we pray for all who are traveling may they take time to rest and be alert.
Lord help us to lay down our burdens each day at your feet so that we may find rest and spend time with You.
Give us the peace of mind that we are always seeking.
While we spend time with you Lord please take care of all of our loved ones and those whom we have been praying for. If we should fall asleep and rest be with them as we rest in the quietness.
In the stillness O Lord may we drink of the Living Water of Life and be refreshed and feel it coursing through our veins and give us the energy to do your will to your glory and in service to others.
In the stillness we remember and pray for all those who have requested our prayers for themselves and on behalf of others________________________________.
In the stillness we give thanks for the gifts of quiet, contemplation, rest, and times for our bodies, minds, and spirits to be renewed. We give thanks for__________________________
In the stillness we celebrate those times of joy and those who have made a difference in our lives remembering_____________________
In the stillness we remember those who have entered in to life eternal especially________________And we remember those continue to grieve.
We pray for those awaiting surgery tomorrow. Calm their fears and anxieties Lord.
We pray for those who are being beset by bad weather O Lord. Ease these weather patterns Lord.
We pray for those who live in earthquake prone areas. Quiet their minds and give them the peace and knowledge that You O God are there.
Lord God watch over this your troubled and divided world. Set us on fire to help heal and unite it with our prayers, love, service, and actions. Give us grace, courage and love energy to do this in Your Name. Amen.
'Great Spirit Prayer
Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me. Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
Help me seek pure thoughts and act with the intention of helping others. Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy Myself.Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.
An Additional Reflection from the blog I wrote 3 years ago!
Listening to your heart and walking with God on our Journey!
Good Evening Dear Family of Love and those who are on pilgrimage with us!
Well family we are getting ready for the next season a season that is not like any of the others. We are approaching what we call in my faith the season of Advent. This time is a time for reflection, listening and going on a special journey that will once again lead us to Bethlehem or in Hebrew it means House of Bread where we will meet with expectation and a sense of wonder and awe the Christ child. This is a time where we get to meet God Incarnate, Man Divine. How can we again make this a time where we aren't doing the usual things that are in hyper-holiday drive and the need to out do, out buy and out spend and keep up with the Jones's? May I suggest the following:( these are good even if you aren't faith based or faith centered)
Take time to listen to your heart and reconnect with you, yourself and God.
Take time to see the season as one of Love and the gifts need to come from the heart.
Take time to reflect on the year that is coming to a close.
Take time to practice good wellness of body, mind, and spirit.
Take time to be with your family and friends more often and not just at the Christmas. Getting to see them ahead of time will give you as they call in psychology baseline data from which to become acquainted.
Take time to get to know the transportation schedules in town. I had a gentleman on my walk who needed to know when the next bus was. I was so sorry that I couldn't have helped him.
Take time to begin your walking or fitness program. It will make things much more stress free. The Order of the Daughters of the King (R) are going to do just that by preparing their bodies for Triennial in 2015.
Take Time to pray and listen to your heart and what God is telling you and where God is leading you on our journey. Have you hydrated enough with the Living Water, Tied your shoes laces tight, put on a jacket and asked God to be on our journey thus far? I hope you have, if you haven't, let's do it now in prayers for the first week of Advent!
Take time to see the season as one of Love and the gifts need to come from the heart.
Take time to reflect on the year that is coming to a close.
Take time to practice good wellness of body, mind, and spirit.
Take time to be with your family and friends more often and not just at the Christmas. Getting to see them ahead of time will give you as they call in psychology baseline data from which to become acquainted.
Take time to get to know the transportation schedules in town. I had a gentleman on my walk who needed to know when the next bus was. I was so sorry that I couldn't have helped him.
Take time to begin your walking or fitness program. It will make things much more stress free. The Order of the Daughters of the King (R) are going to do just that by preparing their bodies for Triennial in 2015.
Take Time to pray and listen to your heart and what God is telling you and where God is leading you on our journey. Have you hydrated enough with the Living Water, Tied your shoes laces tight, put on a jacket and asked God to be on our journey thus far? I hope you have, if you haven't, let's do it now in prayers for the first week of Advent!
Help us to wait patiently again on you God and the plans you are setting before us.
Come thou long expected Jesus
Help us to give all our worries, anxieties, and all our live's baggage to you God, so that we may be free to worship you without fear but with a clean heart and on fire to serve you.
Come thou long expected Jesus
Help us to see are homeless, hungry, lonely, outcast and the least of these this season as we see Jesus, ,Joseph, and the Blessed Virgin Mary every year in the manger. When ever we see some one living out doors help us to remember and pray for them.
Come thou Long Expected Jesus
God our protector, watch over those who are traveling and are on any kind of journey, keep them safe where ever they may be.
Make ours and their pathways straight as we journey on towards you and throughout this season and always.
Come thou long expected Jesus
Help us to give all our worries, anxieties, and all our live's baggage to you God, so that we may be free to worship you without fear but with a clean heart and on fire to serve you.
Come thou long expected Jesus
Help us to see are homeless, hungry, lonely, outcast and the least of these this season as we see Jesus, ,Joseph, and the Blessed Virgin Mary every year in the manger. When ever we see some one living out doors help us to remember and pray for them.
Come thou Long Expected Jesus
God our protector, watch over those who are traveling and are on any kind of journey, keep them safe where ever they may be.
Make ours and their pathways straight as we journey on towards you and throughout this season and always.
Give them comfort Lord.
We give thanks this day______________________________
Shine in our hearts with gladness.
We remember all those who reside in the Thin Places______________________
We pray especially for women, children, and all those who are vulnerable.
Comfort ye my people.
We pray for the aging, sick, and those in any health care facility. We also pray for medical professionals and caregivers.
Comfort ye my people
We pray for our family members near and far. Help us to love them more and more.
Shine in our hearts with overflowing streams of living water and love.
All this we ask in the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
+++++
Good Night Dear Ones. I love you and give thanks for you this day and always. I'm always ready to listen and not to hear or just reply. Keep warm and cozy and be renewed for tomorrow.
Love, hope, joy, and peace.
Sara
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