Request for the Presence of Christ

Christ be with me
Christ within me
Christ behind me
Christ before me
Christ beside me
Christ to win me
Christ to comfort and restore me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ in quiet
Christ in danger
Christ in hearts of all that love me
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger

Wordless

I wish I could capture
This moment;
Put it in a little glass cube

So I could be reminded

All the time

Of the wordless Ecstasy

Of being in Your

Frighteningly holy

Yet

Encompassingly loving

Presence.

Like

Embracing a waterfall

Or

Lying safely between a lion's paws

Or

Sitting atop a rainbow

Without falling through...

But still I am wordless

And need

To resort to

Comparisons.

- Rebecca Yoder

For Hope

May the incarnation of Christ in me be the reality that speaks hope into the screaming black silence and becomes my ground of being in the freefall of despair. Amen.

Instrument of Your Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt, faith, where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I many not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- Saint Francis of Assissi

Shalom for the Ragamuffins

May the "Shalom voice" of the true Lord Jesus live in my heart with its power to give itself away. For your child, Oh God, grant grace to receive it and give it to the people of your heart - the broken, fatherless, widow, voiceless, nameless, and anxious. Give me courage to feed the mouth that bites the hand that feeds it. Amen

You Surround Me

You surround me
You indwell me
You're beside me
Ever present, always near
You're the whisper
Calling my name gently
Love eternal
Reaching to me
Jealous for me
God I will stay with you forever
Arm in arm together
You will never let me go
My life is not worth it without You
You gave meaning and sense to my life

-song by Karen Padgett, translated from Gaelic

Prayer for my Enemies

Save, O Lord, and have mercy upon those that envy and affront me and do me mischief, and let them not perish through me, a sinner. Amen
-from an Orthodox prayer book

Coram Deo

"Before the Face of God"

Great God, grant me grace to live before your face. In Your presence is full joy. Open-handed. Amen.