Silver lining

Our housegroups are in the middle of an interminable series on the armour of God – not my cup of tea to look at stuff like this in detail. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we were looking at the breastplate of righteousness, and I was leading the study that night.

As my mind wandered I recalled that there was a prayer by (or attributed to) St Patrick called the Breastplate of St Patrick. I even remembered where I had a copy of it (David Adam’s book The Cry of the Deer – which is another name for the same prayer). So I referred to it during the study, quoting a wee bit of it, and used it to conclude our prayer time at the end of the evening. It was only as I was reading it out loud that I realised how wonderful it is. Now it’s my new favourite prayer!

You can find the prayer here – other translations are available, but I like this one.

So there are silver linings to dark clouds… at least sometimes.

There is no more urgent time than now...

... to act justly.

Let's remember what a difficult, invidious job the world's political leaders are trying to do as they meet in London over the next couple of days. And let's hope that the influence the Christian leaders might be evident in the outcome.

From the Tearfund's Global Action campaign, pray:

• For wisdom and courage for world leaders to move beyond narrow self interest and old ideas and respond together to this crisis.
• That the voices of the poor and vulnerable would be heard and listened to, and the church will continue to speak out on their behalf.

New Year Prayer

Almighty God,
by whose mercy my life has been
yet prolonged to another year,
grant that thy mercy may not be in vain.
Let not my years be multiplied to increase my guilt,
but as age advances,
let me become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my desires, and more obedient to thy laws.
Let not the cares of the world distract me, nor the evils of age overwhelm me. But continue and increase thy loving kindness towards me,
and when thou shalt call me hence,
receive me to everlasting happiness,
for the sake of Jesus Christ,
our Lord.

Samuel Johnson: 1709–1794

May God bless you all in the year ahead!

Barack Obama: My part in his success

(Title inspired by Spike Milligan)

No, I didn’t play any role in his election victory. But – for me – that’s not his success. His success will be measured by the way in which he tackles the issues that he talked about during his campaign; by the way that he works collaboratively with other leaders (political and otherwise); by the way he builds on the goodwill that he currently seems to enjoy; and by the way that he creates hope and makes a difference in individual lives.

Why should this matter to me, living in Scotland? Well, in these turbulent times – geopolitically and economically – the impact of the United States will be felt across the world. In my opinion, that impact wasn’t a positive force during the Bush years. Obama needs to change that.

I was catching up on e-mails today, and I came across this article from LICC. It’s a useful reminder that we all have a role to play in the success, or otherwise, of Obama’s presidency. We can all pray.

Also, we should be willing to hold him to account, and since he used the Internet to good effect during his campaign, we can use it to make sure that he is doing what he said he would through our use of cyberspace. As Hillary Clinton said recently:

“I want to do everything I can to make sure his agenda is successful.”

We can all do that. And while I’m at it, I shouldn’t forget Messrs. Brown and Salmond (tempting though it is!)

Discomfort

As I get older I'm finding it a bit easier to pause before reacting to things (but only a bit!).

Something's been bugging me for a few days now, and I'm letting it just stick around in the background. I know that I would like to do something about it - but I'm not sure what or when.

Anyway, I came across a prayer (attributed to St Francis of Assisi) at the weekend, and the first few lines seem to capture my present state of mind. So I thought I'd share it, while I cogitate and contemplate how to deal with my current discomfort.

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Lord increase...

I said I would share a prayer that I've been using lately. It's one of David Adam's wonderful prayers in the Celtic tradition. I love the simplicity of the phrases, which also resonate with deep, lasting meaning.

Lord increase
My zest for living
My vision of glory
My hearing of your call
My grasp on reality
My response to your love
My sensitivity to others
My gentleness to creation
My taste for wonder
My love for you.

- from Power Lines

Pathways of prayer: The charismatic path

This week Pathways of Prayer moves on to the charismatic path.

Actually, that's not quite true. I seem to have got out of sync with the course. But that's OK, as I'm planning to keep going with the cycle of pathways beyond Lent.

So this week, I'm moving on to the charismatic path. But the word 'charismatic' seems to carry so many connotations/values, that I'm calling it the pathway of worship. (I've never been too great at following all of the rules all of the time!).

This pathway is summarised by St Augustine's prayer:

Lord you are great and greatly to be praised!

awaken us to delight in your praises,

for you made us for yourself,

and our hearts are restless

'till they find their rest in you.

The doodle had now reached its final state.

The contemplative path

This week Pathways of Prayer moves on to the contemplative path.

"The contemplative tradition in Christian spirituality describes the steady gaze of the soul upon God."

So that's the objective for this week. It'll be intriguing to see how this develops during what passes for 'normal life'. Will I be able to focus sufficiently during the working week?

I'm comforted (again) by the bit of Heschel that I was reading today:

"God is not hiding in a temple."

So maybe I will be able to contemplate while at work.

Doodle's moved on a bit more.

The sacramental path

The Pathways of prayer course has moved on to the sacramental path this week - the idea being that we should consciously meet with God, but also recognise his presence all around us.

Coincidentally, I was reading 1 Cornithians 13 today and it struck me that through regular, instinctive, habitual meeting with God we should be slowly transformed. This will involve growing, learning and un-learning, because as we get to know God better, we will (in a limited way) begin to see ourselves from his perspective. Of course we need to be willing to change, to bend and to be re-shaped.

Heschel puts it better than me:

"Stirred by a yearning after the unattainable, a pious man is not content with being confined to what he is."

And my pathways of prayer doodle has moved on a bit!

join the dots

If you came to this page looking for a simple, fun children’s activity – you’re probably in the right place, but for the wrong reasons! Anyway …

I’ve been thinking a lot today about transformation. To start at the beginning – yesterday my ‘praying in colour’ doodle in my journal was rubbish. It was bland, uninspiring and didn’t stick with me for the day – it was so dull that it didn’t get as far as being coloured (it’s still a pencil drawing). But today was a bit different …

I was reading a passage from Acts 1 this morning where the disciples are described as being “constantly in prayer”, and I was thinking about how you get to that state. Is it repetition or discipline or giftedness or …? Whatever it is, it’s certainly about being transformed – and so my mind wandered over to Romans and “be transformed through the renewing of your mind”. This stuck with me and became the doodle of the day.

Then I read a bit of Heschel, which said:

“Mindfulness of God rises slowly, a thought at a time. Suddenly we are there. Or is He here, at the margin of our soul?”

So I’m thinking that to be transformed, we need to start to change – step by step, no matter how slowly until we reach a state where the transformation seems real (if not complete). When we realise that we are a butterfly not a caterpillar.

Then as I was driving between meetings at work and listening to a podcast from Speaking of Faith, I heard a fantastic, amazing, humbling, uplifting account of profound transformation. I exhort you to take the time – about 55 minutes – to listen or watch this, I am convinced that you will be moved and encouraged.

I’m not going to spoil any of the story, but it reminded me of Gandhi’s saying:

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

And to paraphrase – you must be the change you want to see in yourself!

pathways of prayer

We had a brilliant church service this morning. After my recent gripes about songs - there were only 3, and about 10 prayers. It really was amazing. The speaker was taking us through something called "pathways of prayer" - which is a study course created by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. It's intended to be for Lent - we're just a bit late catching up with it.

The guy who was taking our service today has created a calendar for use through Lent, which should be useful. I know that prayer is a major deficit in our church an dhopefully this will help us to focus on it and develop some good, lasting habits in the coming weeks.

Inspired by the concept and the uplifting service, I came home and created this:

A new dawning

I thank God for the sky yesterday morning. It wasn't the most spectacular sunrise, in many ways it was barely noteworthy. But I was attracted to it - and as the day progressed I became more and more grateful! As I reflected on it, I regained a sense of equilibrium and came back from a pretty dark place in my mind.


A new dawning
with a glimmer of hope,
a chink of light,
through a blanket of darkness

When I lift my eyes
what do I see?
Bright hope for the day
or the overcast blackness
that meets my eye?
Do I see the day’s problems
lying in wait,
or the opportunities before me?

Can my hope outweigh my disillusion?

And even if the dark clouds
fill the day,
I will cling on to that promise of light
and think what tomorrow might bring,
with a new dawning.

Praying in color

I stumbled across a review for a book the other day, which seemed to be a fantastic concept - Praying in Color. I can't talk about the book (yet), but I found the website to be inspirational, and have been dabbling in the idea in recent days (see doodles below).

So far, I have found that the process of doodling had reinforced the prayer topic. Also, the image has tended to stick with me through the day - thereby increasing my prayer activity. It's also an approach to prayer that isn't focussed too much on the words (which can often be feeble), but more on thinking through a few words. It's early days, but it seems to be working for me!

It's also brought my journal to life with colour - which I like!

We still love ...

Unusually for me, I was moved almost to tears by a news story today - full version over at Auntie Beeb.

Short version - man with schizophrenia kills his father, despite doctors knowing about the voices in his head.

Why the "almost tears"?

Firstly, there seems to be a reasonable case for saying that this tragedy could have been avoided. Inevitably we all make mistakes/ poor judgements, fortunately for most of us they don't lead to loss of life. What must the consultant(s) be going through? They need our prayers.

Secondly, Gary (the son) is going to need a lot of care for a long time - while he is ill, and especially as/if he gets better and realises the enormity of his actions. He needs our prayers.

Thirdly, his mother's reaction is a model for all of us. She said:

"It's been a horrific tragedy for us all, but as a family we still love Gary and we are all standing by him and hope that one day he will get better."

Pray for Mrs Ward and her family.

The Incarnate God

After yesterday's rant I wanted to post something a bit different.

I'm currently reading John V Taylor's "The Incarnate God" (which I may blog about later - when I've finished it). In the meantime, I thought I'd post this.

In the preface to one of the section there's a prayer that Taylor used as a daily dedication. I like it; I hope you do too.

Lord Jesus Christ

alive and at large in the world,

help me to follow and find you there today,

in the places where I work,

meet people,

spend money,

and make plans.

Take me as a disciple of your Kingdom,

to see through your eyes,

and hear the questions you are asking,

to welcome all others with trust and truth,

and to change the things that contradict God's love,

by the power of the cross,

and the freedom of your Spirit.

Winter's low tide

For all sorts of reasons, that I can’t go into here, I’ve been reminded today of a prayer from David Adam’s "Tides and Seasons" collection. In the introduction to the low tide section, where the prayer is included, Adam writes:

“The low tide is the winter of our lives; it is a time of bareness and death. Yet it is also a time of strange beauty, a time of purity – and purifying. In winter we see things that we have never seen before. Our vision on clear days seems lengthened – we can see past the trees, because the foliage is gone. On the shore, low tide can be an interesting time…”

The prayer is called Caim Rune:

This is the prayer
I make today
This is the rune
I wish to say
The presence of God
To you abound
The Power of God
Keep you sound
The Love of God
Encircle round
The Peace of God
Your life surround
This is the rune
I wish to say
This is the prayer
I make today.

In the Father’s way
In the Son’s bright ray
In the Spirit’s sway
Be this day

In the Father’s sight
In the Son’s light
In the Spirit’s might
Be this night

Quoting Moltmann

Having posted my last entry, I found a great Jurgen Moltmann quotation on prayer over at Adventures in Following Jesus. It's worth a look.

Lies, damned lies and statistics about prayer

No, I'm not casting aspersions about the validity of the Tearfund prayer report! In this (final) post about the report I want to consider some surprising stats that emerge from the report, particularly relating to the regional analysis.

London topped the charts with 73% of people saying that they ever prayed. For Scotland the figure was a disappointing 32%. Still at least we're not from Yorkshire - 24%.

Do Londoners really pray more than the Scots? Well, I'm going down there for a couple of days so I might just ask around a bit.

The report suggests that one reason why more Londoners pray than any other region is due to "the number of black and ethnic minorities, who show a higher propensity for prayer".

Well, I wonder if there might be other reasons. Is our personal spirituality shaped by the prevailing culture of our churches? In Scotland, the Calvinist, presbyterian model is based on a fairly passive congregation listening to a man preaching. The rest of the service being fairly restrained and under-stated (some might say sombre). By contrast, the Anglican tradition seems to me to be a more participative event (congregational responses, movement during the service, greeting each other) based around the liturgy. Recognising the over-simplification in this analysis - could it explain some differences in spirituality which continues into the 21st century?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of my comments, I still think that Francois Fenelon was right:

"Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer. "

Pray, and let God worry

The blog title is a quotation from Martin Luther. It came to mind when reading a part of the Tearfund report, which highlights the calming effects of prayer.

After prayer 38% of people felt peaceful/content; 22% close to God. 80% reported that prayer made them feel better. This section of the report is entitled 'Too Busy Not To Pray' (referring to Bill Hybels' book) and concludes with this sentence:

"It [prayer] provides a moment of reflection and it provokes positive emotions in the person praying."

I realise that this is not the exeperience of everyone, and in fact, these conclusions can make some people feel worse because they don't respond in this way. This is one example of areas where we need to be sensitive to those around us - often we/I lack this sensitivity and trot out one-dimensional opinions and viewpoints.

Nevertheless the Tearfund report and other research highlights the value that there is in the act of praying. Intriguingly (for me) they make a link between these benefits from prayer and the processing of slowing down and reflecting. They also refer to the Stephen Cottrell book that I've been blogging about recently.

This brought to mind a time when I was a student in St Andrews (hence the photo) and going through a bit of a rough time. I recall vividly - which is unusual for me - walking along the East Sands one night in the haar, feeling completely confused and then without really noticing anything happening I felt completely at peace and reassured. I came to a conclusion about the direction of my life - and have had no regrets ever since.

Prayer takes many forms, but maybe it's most effective when we don't use our feeble words and simply let God work in our hearts.

Prayer in the UK

Tearfund has designated this week (11-17 November 2007) as Global Poverty Prayer Week. To coincide with this, they have just published a survey about prayer habits in the UK. I haven't read the report yet, but it was heartening that some of the Sunday papers picked up the story.

Headline figures include 1 in 5 people believes prayer changes the world; 9 million people pray every day. Over the next couple of days, I'll read the report - and probably pass comment on it! In the meantime, I rejoice that prayer has made the headlines. Go on, be part of a news story - pray!

"When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't pray, they don't."

William Temple