Prayers and Notes from Days Past

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Oh Yahweh, Elohim, Allah, Ahura Mazda,

Creator God by any Name, hear our prayers today.

We pray for our nation and for its leaders.

We pray for the healing of our nation.

We pray for acceptance of our differences.

We pray for racial justice and equity.

We pray for those who are in financial need.

We pray for healing for those who are sick.

We pray for the families who grieving loved ones.

We pray for the healing of the earth.

We pray with gratitude for the lessons we have learned about resilience and perseverance.

We pray with gratitude for all our blessings.  Amen ~by Gloria Toot

We are pleased to have engaged as a church with people of different faith traditions. The past two years, we have had a table at the Cincinnati Festival of Faiths, this past Sunday, we celebrated World Religion Sunday, and while at our former Kemper Road location, we facilitated an Interfaith Dialogue Series. We continue to be a welcoming church, not demanding any adherence to any particular creed, in order to worship together in love and with the understanding that differences make us more open, and fill us with peace.

The announcement and notes from the dialogue series are below:

Oh what a delightful afternoon was enjoyed this past
Sunday at the New Church of Montgomery, when a
panel of 7 different religious traditions explored “What
is the core nature of God like,” and “What is God made
out of,” to begin the first of three Interfaith Dialogues.
After a break for refreshments, the views of the BAHA’I,
Eckankar, Hindu, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Sikh and
Swedenborgian Christians continued with reflections on the
existence of evil and what is evil’s nature and role in human
affairs. WoW! The Q & A meandered through more wonderful
territory; from shared stories of Messiahs and to the more intimate
of how does one communicate with God. The richness of the
answers was elevated further by the sincere and wonderful emotion
present when many gather and find and share many commonalities
in their loving and knowing of God.
Join in the fun Sundays, June 10 and June 17, 1:30 to 3:30, 2007, as
Judaism, Islam, Native American, Syrian Christians of India and
the Zoroastrians will join as their schedules permit. Questions can be
directed to Rev. John Billings at the New Church of Montgomery, (513)
489-9572, map at: http://www.newchurchofmontgomery.net
What: Interfaith Dialogue Series
When: Sunday June 10th and 17th

1:30 to 3:30

Who: BAHA’I, Eckankar, Hindu, Islam, Judaism, Native
American, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Sikh, Syrian
Christians of India, Swedenborgian and Zoroastrians

Where: New Church of Montgomery
9035 E. Kemper Road
Montgomery, Ohio
(523) 489-9572
http://www.newchurchofmontgomery.net

Mary Jane Portaz – Eckankar
Mr. Kannicks – Hindu
Rev. George Hupps – Presbyterian
Darsham Schbi – Sikh
Jasleen Goel – Sikh
Majid Samarghandi – BAHA’I
Father Chris – Roman Catholic
Rev. John Billings – Swedenborgian

The Power of Prayer; Hope, Comfort, and Joy

From https://swedenborg.com/the-magical-power-of-prayer/

Regarded in itself, praying is talking with God, while taking an inward view of the things we are praying about. In answer we receive a similar stream of speech into the perceptions or thoughts of our mind, so that our inner depths open up to God, in a way. The experience varies, depending on our mood and the nature of the subject we are praying about. If we pray from love and faith and focus on or seek only what is heavenly and spiritual, something resembling a revelation emerges while we pray. It discloses itself in our emotions in the form of hope, comfort, or an inward stirring of joy. (Secrets of Heaven §2535)

#MondayMotivation: Let Love Get in the Way

Open your heart to love.  See your fellow human as just that.  Use the Prayer or St. Francis as motivation today, to open your inner spirit to the unity we are meant to have.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

For more reading on the topic, click here

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Thursday Theology Useful Prayer

If we pray from love and faith and focus on or seek only what is heavenly and spiritual, something resembling a revelation emerges while we pray. It discloses itself in our emotions in the form of hope, comfort, or an inward stirring of joy. (Secrets of Heaven §2535)

Lenten Prayers, March 10

From http://wordsmatter.org/

Words affect all of us differently.  As you read this prayer, read with generosity, and consider which images and words speak to you, and which make you bristle.  Instead of agreeing or disagreeing in the “Comments” section, please use that space to expand upon an image or word from the prayer that resonated with you, or that you felt was missing, and write an expansive prayer of your own.


May you Lord God grant my most heartfelt desire
As I pass through the midst of the refiner’s fire
For You know what is beneath the surface
As I emerge this moment a woman of purpose

Breaking through the guilt, the hurt and the shame
Emerging victorious despite the pain
I pray may your way be made manifest in me
While I walk the marked path of destiny

May Your will reign sovereign, complete and free
Your glory revealed from the depths of me
As you purge me now to reveal The Spirit’s fruit
Killing the very depths of a bitter root

I submit my will to be lost in Thine
My way forfeited for a life sublime
Yielded now I cast on you my care
To be wholly Thine is my most fervent prayer

Evangelist Marcella Woodridge of New Bethel AME Church, Willow Grove, PA

 

Lenten Prayers, March 9

From http://wordsmatter.org/

Words affect all of us differently.  As you read this prayer, read with generosity, and consider which images and words speak to you, and which make you bristle.  Instead of agreeing or disagreeing in the “Comments” section, please use that space to expand upon an image or word from the prayer that resonated with you, or that you felt was missing, and write an expansive prayer of your own.


Like busy, busy bees
My mind and heart and womb are busy and without release.
I do not know what to do
Or who to see
Or what I want
Or what to do
Or when to do it
I only know everything seems in a beehive. Busy.
The season of reflection, depth, sorrow and suffering is all around me.
And I dwell in this other place.
What must I do and why?
Hold me and focus my hungers, O God of eternity.
Tell me of what you want from me.
Hold me like you’ve never held another before or maybe like you hold each of us every day, every minute, every second.
Without demand and with full understanding which leaves no room for such nonsense.
I know I have everything I need.
I know I do not want.

I only need to know how to live such a gift.

My Lord and my God, teach me your ways.

Amen.

Kathleen Stone
Chaplain, Church Center for the United Nations

 

Lenten Prayers, March 8

From http://wordsmatter.org/

Words affect all of us differently.  As you read this prayer, read with generosity, and consider which images and words speak to you, and which make you bristle.  Instead of agreeing or disagreeing in the “Comments” section, please use that space to expand upon an image or word from the prayer that resonated with you, or that you felt was missing, and write an expansive prayer of your own.


Wake me up God, from the dreamless sleep of complacency.
Wake me from the fitful slumber of worry and despair.
Wake me from the sleepwalking of needless gathering and greed.
Wake me from the nightmares of prejudice, hatred and fear.

Wake me to the daybreak of your Resurrection morning.
Wake me to the dawning of new life in You.
Wake me to the sunshine warmth of service and caring.
Wake me to a blessed day of purposeful living.

And after the sunset, let me find at last a peaceful slumber in Your Love.
Amen

Susan Daron
President, Eastmont Church Women United
Member, Zion United Church of Christ
Gresham, Oregon

 

Lenten Prayers, March 7

From http://wordsmatter.org/

Words affect all of us differently.  As you read this prayer, read with generosity, and consider which images and words speak to you, and which make you bristle.  Instead of agreeing or disagreeing in the “Comments” section, please use that space to expand upon an image or word from the prayer that resonated with you, or that you felt was missing, and write an expansive prayer of your own.


I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Mother of glory, may give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation as I come to know her, so that, with the eyes and ears of my heart enlightened, I may know what is the hope, what is the joy to which she has called me and what are the riches of her glorious legacy among the saints.

My name is Hannah Joy Bergstrom de Leon. I currently attend Luther Seminary with the hope of becoming an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I am in my second year and have been working with a group of students to encourage and challenge our community to use more expansive language for God, acknowledging and embracing the vastness and mystery of the Trinity. Aboveis a simple prayer I used this past summer during my silent retreat. It has been adapted from Ephesians 1:17-18.

Using this prayer daily broke my internalized understanding of God wide open. In using Mother and feminine pronouns, God was revealed anew. This language embodied God, breathed out God and she was just as real, just as true, and just as honest as the God witnessed to using Father and masculine language. This prayer became the prayer that cracked me open, calling me, calling us to open ourselves up to the expansiveness of who God is and know her, him, it…in new and penetrating ways.

 

Lenten Prayers, March 6

From http://wordsmatter.org/

Words affect all of us differently.  As you read this prayer, read with generosity, and consider which images and words speak to you, and which make you bristle.  Instead of agreeing or disagreeing in the “Comments” section, please use that space to expand upon an image or word from the prayer that resonated with you, or that you felt was missing, and write an expansive prayer of your own.


God of light and matter,

Gazing into fierce dark energy,
here on earth, not that which makes up space,
Gazing into all that darkness, spongy and close,

piecing out gravitational pulls on us, it’s time
to sort what makes and breaks us. Watching
for Doppler shift, in that vast vacuum, seeking
what brings light from so far away–why it comes
to us, here now, in the midst of our nighttime?

Seeking grace, and escape, like solar winds,
breaking loose to find that which is way out there,
while You? You reside within and among,
hard for us earthbound to grasp your incarnation,
Your presence housed in something akin to ours,
a body shared and broken in the midst of a vast vision
for humanity, while we seek comfort, and not the wide
expanse to which You call us, not the vastness to which
you whisper, “Come!”

As the earth circles the sun again this season,
as Lent sprawls out through this universe, hither
and yon, may it rest in me, may it remake me:
new energy, new matter, new purpose:

*To orbit Truth like a satellite, to remember
home, how far I’ve come, how far I have yet
to go.

*To remember the One whose voice
echoes through the light years, calling me,
and all.

*To recall what was noise to one, proved the origin
of the universe to another, in the story of static
and the cosmic microwave background.

*To sort sonance and sounds, to finally tune in to Your
“I am.”

Selah.

Rev. Susan Baller Shepard
“I love theoretical physics, although last night I had to call a physics friend of mine to help me
understand, again, special relativity, still, I love the expanse of it all.”

The award-winning writing by Rev. Susan Baller-Shepard, MSW has been published in the Chicago Tribune, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post “On Faith,” Spirituality & Health, Patheos, Writer’s Digest, and Church & Society, along with a number of newspapers, denominational publications, web sites, and poetry anthologies. Susan has her Master of Social Work and Master of Divinity, is a parish associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church-Normal, and for thirteen years has been editor of an international spirituality web site http://www.spiritualbookclub.com with its blog. She is completing a non-fiction manuscript. Author of the children’s book Matching Yu, she was interviewed by a PBS program about the adoption and faith journey http://www.vimeo.com/8769752 . She blogs about faith & life in motion at www.patheos.com/blogs/transient.

Lenten Prayers, March 5

From: http://wordsmatter.org

Words affect all of us differently.  As you read this prayer, read with generosity, and consider which images and words speak to you, and which make you bristle.  Instead of agreeing or disagreeing in the “Comments” section, please use that space to expand upon an image or word from the prayer that resonated with you, or that you felt was missing, and write an expansive prayer of your own.

Heart-guide and Keeper of our Loves, watch over, we ask, the affections of our souls. Grant that we may love the right things the right way, and never know the hatred for any person that silences the love that you would show in and through us. Amen.


Mark Young, Covenant United Methodist Church, Springfield, PA