There is a contemplative in all of us...

There is a contemplative
in all of us,
almost strangled
but still alive,
who craves quiet
enjoyment of the Now,
and longs to touch
the seamless
garmet of silence
which
makes whole.

--Alan P. Tory in Reading for June 2 in Celtic Daily Prayer

Above all, trust the slow work of God...spirituality of process

Thanks, Allie Ogle, for passing this prayer-poetry on about the spirituality of process.

Patient Trust In Ourselves & The Slow Work Of God

By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are all, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip
the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being
on the way to something unknown,
something new,
and yet it is the law of all progress
that is made by passing through
some stages of instability-
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually -
let them grow,
let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace and
circumstances acting on your own good will) will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you
and accept the anxiety of
feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

Word Made Flesh Benediction--Prayer of Oscar Romero

We closed the Spring 2010 Word Made Flesh Board Meetings with the Prayer of Oscar Romero. Lisa Kelly, Board Secretary--and so much more--led us in this as a reflection of the work of WMF as a part of the movement of God. This prayer speaks to me-not only in my role in WMF, but for pastors and God-movement people everywhere. And especially as another year comes to the end for our university.

From Oscar Romero (priest and martyr)

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

A Prayer of Blessing for Potters

A Prayer of Blessing for Potters

O Lord, You are the Divine Potter: creating us, forming us, shaping us with your gentle, firm and skilled hands.

Take our hands, use them for Your work. Bless our hands as we knead and shape and form.

Take this clay, turn it into bowls of peace and justice. Take ordinary lifeless clay and make it a vessel of life and grace.

Take these potters wheels and bless them, may Your spirit turn in us: moving and shaping us hour by hour.

Take the fire and ignite it with Your Spirit. May its burning burn away any evil that lingers in our midst.

Take these bowls that we are making and fill them with Your Spirit. May these bowls be filled with the Bread of Life. May these empty bowls and cups be filled with the power of life.

Take our small human efforts and breathe Divine breath into them that we may be part of the tide of redemption that is moving in the world.

Now take this oil and anoint the wheels and tools…

Use this oil to as a symbol of Your Presence, blessing and anointing wheels and hands and clay and tools and fire and glaze that these bowls would be instruments of Divine Grace in the world.

We offer up this time and space to You. You are presence in that we find these ordinary hands and tools to be holy.

Amen.