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Hello Beloved Community!
This month, I have several things to share with you so get comfortable. This might be a long one.
I want to start out expressing my gratitude for your kind and supportive words and presence acknowledging my commissioning on June 16th as well as your care and support of me and my family with the passing of my mother on June 15th. That was quite a weekend! I am including a link to her obituary so that you may have a sense as to who she was and how her presence was felt by others.
As you may have seen, I will be delivering my first sermon here at First Community this coming Sunday, July 7th at all three services. My sermon title is, Who Do You Think You Are? I will be sharing some thoughts on our calling to live authentically and out loud and how to navigate the forces that oppose us doing so. Please pray for me as I continue to meditate on this message.
The Summer Salon Series has kicked off. We are very excited about the programming that is being offered this summer. Please mark your calendars for the upcoming events. The 2024-2025 program year is really shaping up. We will be announcing the plans and programs to date at the Ice Cream Social on Sunday, August 11th.
I recently read The Secret of Life by Roy Burkhart (1950). It was a delightful read. In it he offers a three-level approach to prayer:
- Prayer for ourselves
- Prayer for others
- Prayer of simple attention/unitive prayer
Prayer for ourselves does not mean praying for worldly or material things. Rather it implies that we pray for spiritual values, for freedom from our selfishness, hate or hostilities, from our dependency on material things, from our anxieties and fears. This level of prayer should result in a change of conduct and in our freedom to effectively manage our thoughts. This prayer acknowledges that we are perfect and enough…and can be better.
Prayer for others means that we pray earnestly for others, for all the people of the earth. He recommends that a good portion of our prayer life should be focused on others. “Others” would include those closest to us, those in need, and those we dislike. Sounds like a loving kindness practice, doesn’t it? This form of prayer should strive for freedom from resentment, hatred, cruelty, ruthlessness of any sort. The only way a person can hurt us is to allow them to trigger hate and resentment within us. The only way to free ourselves is through prayer. This level of prayer should result in growth of our character.
Unitive prayer has as its focus to be one with God, to experience God. This level of prayer is “wordless” and without petition. It focuses on silence, meditation, and quiet. It allows us to grow in our awareness of the Divine’s constant presence within us and giving that presence consent to grow within us. I have been engaged in Centering Prayer for a few months now (Thank you, Paul Knitter!) and have found it to be nourishing and profound.
I enjoyed the simplicity of this understanding of prayer and thought that some might also find it helpful.
I’d like to close with a poem:
Come, behold the works of the Beloved,
how love does reign even in
humanity's desolation.
For the Beloved yearns for wars to cease,
shining light into fearful hearts...
"Be still and know that I am Love.
Awaken! Befriend justice and mercy;
Do you not know you bear my Love?
Who among you will respond?"
O Blessed One, You know all hearts,
You are ever with us;
may Love ever guide our lives!
~ Nan Merrill
from her interpretation of "Psalm 46" in
PSALMS FOR PRAYING: AN INVITATION TO WHOLENESS
I am grateful to all of you and wish you many blessings,
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