Irrelevance

All the questions at the public meeting that day were about life beyond the grave. The Master only laughed and did not give a single answer. To his disciples who demanded to know the reason for his evasiveness he later said, “Have you observed that it is those who do not know what to do with this life who want another that will last forever?
“But is there life after death or is there not?” persisted a disciple.
“Is there life before death? – that is the question!” said the Master enigmatically.

from Anthony de Mello, S.J., Prayer of the Frog

River Water for Sale

The Master's sermon consisted of one enigmatic sentence.
With a wry smile he said, "All I do is sit on the river bank selling water".
I was so busy buying the water that I failed to see the river.

from Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird

Hope Makes a Difference

Hope looks for the good in people instead of harping on the worst in them.
Hope opens doors where despair closes them.
Hope discovers what can be done instead of grumbling about what cannot be done.
Hope draws its power from a deep trust in God and the basic goodness of mankind.
Hope ‘lights a candle’ ‘instead of cursing the darkness’.
Hope regards problems, large or small, as opportunities.
Hope cherishes no illusions, nor does it yield to cynicism.

The Wise Woman's Stone

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation.
The traveler left rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable this stone is, but I gave it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone".

Prayers for Peace (9)

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 despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; and
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may 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.

St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)

Prayers for Peace (8)

Praise be to the Lord of the
Universe who has created us and
made us into tribes and nations,
That we may know each other, not that
we may despise each other.
If the enemy incline towards peace, do
thou also incline towards peace, and
trust God, for the Lord is the one that
heareth and knoweth all things.
And the servants of God,
Most Gracious are those who walk on
the Earth in humility, and when we
address them, we say "PEACE."

Muslim Prayer for Peace

Prayers for Peace (7)

We pray to God to eradicate all the misery in the world:
that understanding triumph over ignorance,
that generosity triumph over indifference,
that trust triumph over contempt, and
that truth triumph over falsehood.

Zoroastrian Prayer for Peace

Prayers for Peace (6)

May all beings everywhere plagued
with sufferings of body and mind
quickly be freed from their illnesses.
May those frightened cease to be afraid,
and may those bound be free.
May the powerless find power,
and may people think of befriending
one another.
May those who find themselves in trackless,
fearful wilderness--
the children, the aged, the unprotected--
be guarded by beneficent celestials

Buddhist Prayer for Peace

Prayers for Peace (5)

God of peace;
God of shalom;
God of salaam:
Save us from intoxication with war.
Turn down the media's frenzy and
unquestioning assumption that war will come.
Pull all peoples back from unstable international policy.
Deliver the nations from going out of control as the solution to conflict.
Bring us to sobriety of spirit.
Turn our hearts to peacemaking.
Give wisdom and light to our leaders, that they may choose the way to peace. Amen.

Prayers for Peace (4)

Almighty God and Creator,
You are the Father of all people on the earth.
Guide, I pray all the nations and their leaders
in the ways of justice and peace.
Protect us from the evils of injustice,
prejudice, exploitation, conflict and war.
Help us to put away mistrust, bitterness and hatred.
Teach us to cease the storing and using of implements of war.
Lead us to find justice, peace and freedom.
Unite us in the making and creating of the tools of peace
against ignorance, poverty, disease and oppression.
Grant that we may grow in harmony and friendship as brothers and sisters created in Your image, to Your honor and praise.
Amen.

Prayers for Peace (3)

May all beings be filled with joy and peace.
May all beings everywhere,
The strong and the weak,
The great and the small,
The mean and the powerful,
The short and the long,
the subtle and the gross:
May all beings everywhere,
Seen and unseen,
Dwelling far off or nearby,
Being or waiting to become:
May all be filled with lasting joy.
Let no one deceive another,
Let no one anywhere despise another,
Let no one out of anger or resentment
Wish suffering on anyone at all.
Just as a mother with her own life
Protects her child, her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow
A boundless love for all creatures.
Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

Sutta Nipata

Prayers for Peace (2)

O Lord, grant us to love Thee;
grant that we may love those that love Thee;
grant that we may do the deeds that win Thy love.
Make the love of Thee be dearer to us than ourselves,
than our families, than wealth, and even than cool water.

Mohammed 570-632

Prayers for Peace (1)

If there is to be peace in the world
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities
There must be peace between neighbours.
If there is to be peace between neighbours
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home
There must be peace in the heart.

Lao-Tse 6th Century Chinese philosopher

Everything Your Heart Desires

One night in a dream, a man noticed a new shop in the High Street. He went in and saw an angel behind the counter. Nervously, he asked what the shop sold. “Everything your heart desires,” the angel said. “Then I want peace on earth,” cried the man. “An end to sorrow, famine and disease.”
“Just one moment,” said the angel, “You haven’t quite understood. We don’t sell fruit here... only seeds.”

Prayer in Time of Distress

Sweet Jesus, hold me to your breast
as a mother guards her infant.

Gentle Jesus, cradle me
as a father soothes a night-terrored child.

Beloved Jesus, stretch out your hand to me,
as once you reached to Peter.

Sweet Deliverer, gentle Refuge, beloved Lord,
preserve me from danger, harm, and evil.

by Kerry Elizabeth Thompson

How Long, O Lord?

(an adaptation of the Thirteenth Psalm)
How long - how long O Lord how long?
Is it forever you forget?
How long - how long O Lord how long?
With sorrow is my heart beset.
O hear my prayer; consider, Lord,
My eyes grow dim with darkling death.
And those that trouble me, O Lord,
Rejoice to hear my failing breath.
But in your love and mercy, Lord,
My heart finds harborage and peace;
And in your healing grace, O Lord,
My praise and faith shall never cease.
My soul shall sing and praise my Lord
Rejoicing, raise her voice above;
For, many blessings on me You have poured,
And lit my lonely life with love.

From the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days - quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapor, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil - historically considered. But the historic version is, of course, not the only one. All things and all deeds have a value in themselves, apart from their "causes" and "effects." No man can estimate what is really happening sub specie aeternitatis. All we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labors with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.

A Prayer for Peace Today

(I wrote this prayer early in 2003)
Lord, hold all troops, and civilians, in your loving hand, regardless of race or creed.
Protect the weak and innocent.
Bring justice with love and love with justice.
May compassion and grace rule over might and power.
God of all nations, let YOUR kingdom come, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven....
Bless Saddam Hussein, George W Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard. Build a Coalition of those willing for peace, justice and freedom for all humanity.
Disarm all those who are committed to imposing their will on others.
May Your will and grace be the only source of freedom.
In the name of that Middle Eastern Preacher I pray...
Amen.

Back In My Day...

In my day, we didn't have any rocks. We had to go down to the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our heads.
In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated.
In my day, we didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Kids today think the world revolves around them. In my day, the sun revolved around the world, and the world was perched on the back of a giant tortoise.
In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an axe, you just had to hope you could outrun him.

Action, intent, outcome...

It's the action, not the fruit of the action that's important.
You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power,
may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit.
But that does not mean you stop doing the right thing.
You may never know what results come from your action.
But if you do nothing, there will be no results. - Mahatma Gandhi

What is True Love?

The late Father James Keller, founder of The Christophers, put it this way:
Love delights in giving attention rather than attracting it.
Love finds the element of good and builds on it.
Love does not magnify defects.
Love is a flame that warms but never burns.
Love knows how to disagree without becoming disagreeable.
Love rejoices at the success of others instead of being envious.

The War Prayer

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be thou near them! . . . O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead: help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief. . . . For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it in the spirit of love of Him who is the Source of Love, and who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all who are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen

(written by Mark Twain)

Who spoke?

They came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a communist; They came for the socialists, and I did not speak up because I was not a socialist; They came for the union leaders, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a union leader; They came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me.

- Martin Niemoller (1892-1984) -

The God of Many Names

Eternal God, we see that our understanding of you has been shaped and chiseled by the stories of many people. Indeed you are known to us by many names:
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you remind us that you are part of the human story, and have connected yourself with us in unique and surprising ways.
You have allowed yourself to be shaped by our journey, connecting yourself with the lives of Moses, Elijah, and the prophets.
And you have surprised us through your interaction with and ownership of the life of Rahab the prostitute, the broken marriage of Hosea, and the deep grief of Ruth and Naomi.
In succeeding generations you have touched and inhabited many lives, always adding to the story of our understanding, challenging us to accept you in the new and the old.
We confess that we find it hard to connect with their stories: you seem much more distant from us: the immediacy and intimacy of their relationship with you does not echo in our own experience.
Help us to find comfort and hope from the past, rather than a prescription. You surprised Moses at the burning bush; Elijah in the whisper of a wind, Jonah inside a great fish, even Job in his deep turmoil.
Grant us a present and future understanding and expectation: grounded in the knowledge that you met others in their present and futures.
Liberate us from prescription.
Encourage us to open exploration.
That we might meet you afresh tonight.
Etch your name on our gathering, in our hearts we pray, and into our week.
Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen

The Call to Non-violence

Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.

- Dr Martin Luther King

The Path to Peace

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the dischords of war. Somehow, we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will - and determination - to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment
- Dr Martin Luther King -

The Lesson

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathering them around him, he taught them saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are the meek...
Blessed are they who mourn...
Blessed are the merciful...
Blessed are they who thirst for justice...
Blessed are you when persecuted...
Blessed are you when you suffer...
Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven...
Then Simon Peter said, 'Do we have to write this down?'
And Andrew said, 'Are we supposed to know this?'
And James said, 'Will we have a test on it?'
And Philip said, 'What if we don't know it?'
And Bartholomew said, 'Do we have to turn this in?'
And John said, 'The other disciples didn't have to learn this.'
And Matthew said, 'When do we get out of here?'
And Judas said, 'What does this have to do with real life?'
Then one of the Pharisees present asked to see Jesus' lesson plans and inquired of Jesus his terminal objectives in the cognitive domain.
And Jesus wept...

Knowledge and Enlightenment

The poet Kabir says:
What good is it if the scholar pores over words and points of this and that but his chest is not soaked dark with love?
What good is it if the ascetic clothes himself with saffron robes but is colourless within?
What good is it if you scrub your ethical behavior till it shines, but there is no music inside?
Disciple: What’s the difference between knowledge and enlightenment?
Master: When you have knowledge, you use a torch to show the way. When you are enlightened you become a torch.

from Anthony de Mello, The Prayer of the Frog

Effective Prayer

Mrs. Friedman, the third grade Hebrew teacher, needed some supplies from a supply cabinet that was seldom used and was secured with a lock. She didn't know the combination, and called Rabbi Weinstein to give it a try.
Rabbi Weinstein placed his fingers on the lock's dial and raised his eyes heavenward for a moment. Then he confidently spun the dial and opened the lock.
Seeing how impressed Mrs. Friedman was with this demonstration of faith, he smiled and confided, "The numbers are written on the ceiling."

Light in the darkness

We can and must believe not so much that the mysterious light of God can 'convert' the ones who are mostly responsible for the world's peace, but at least that they may, in spite of their obstinacy and their prejudices, be guarded against fatal error. - Thomas Merton

OOPS!

Astronomers were excited this week at having isolated a brief sound which occurred immediately before the Big Bang. Apparently, that sound was "Uh oh."