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People wonder about how to pray out loud. In my tradition Jesus said this simple prayer:
Mother, father, sister, brother and friend, Who makes everything sacred, and all life possible,
we ask only enough for today.
Release the burdens of yesterday as we release the debts of those we have burdened.
Protect us from distraction and anything that is not of life. May it be.
That’s all he said.
And then he turned back to healing. -
From Prayers for a Newer New Awakening. Available here.
Tag Archives: Stakeholder Health
Hurricanes
Things move fast and urgently in an operating room early on a Monday. The churn of events and flood of people in the hallways are wondering why the nurses are standing holding hands right there in the surgery suite. A … Continue reading
Speak Life
I wish I was handing you this in person in a decent restaurant with a bit more ceremony involved. But I didn’t want to wait to get my new book in your hands. Speak Life: Crafting Mercy in a Hard-Hearted … Continue reading
Finding Our Bearings
How do we find our bearings when we are so far off the known map? Last week I reflected on how bearings were the things we rest our weight on when times are mean. We humans simply must bear each … Continue reading
Crafting life together
It can all fall apart, this democracy thing. It’s not like gravity that makes rocks fall, even if you don’t believe in it. Democracy only lives in the mind and spirit and evaporates when we forget it. The belief that … Continue reading
Thanks for the fish
Sunday morning I found myself, an incurable optimist, preaching perched on the chasm of doom, 46 hours into a Trump presidency. Green Street United Methodist is the archetype of the raggedly dogged social action church. The kind that Newt things … Continue reading
New systems of health
Sometimes when you’ve been walking a long time you forget how far you’ve come and far you can see from the crest. This happens more in the folded and forested Blue Ridge than in the wide open west. But even … Continue reading
Runaway heart
My daughter Lauren is about to give birth to my second grandson, which, with her sense of dramatic timing will probably happen on Mothers’ Day. This also kicks off Nurses’ Week in hospitals. My wife and my (now former) first … Continue reading
Faith with
There were years when I was across the ocean that I would tell people I was from Canada to avoid explaining US politics. People in more normal countries dumbfounded my people would be found dumb enough to vote for a … Continue reading
Improbable Lessons
Between Pope Francis and the nine Charleston “Saints” whose deadly witness held us just as rivited a few months ago it is obvious to all that faith is not synonymous with stupid, mean and irrelevant. They are helping us see through … Continue reading
City of Light
Every religion is dangerous. Like fire, wind and water, religion is a fundamental element of human life that can drown, blast and burn. Religion guides our fear and frames our shame. And it can also strengthen our capacity for the … Continue reading