Contemplative Morning Prayer
8:30am – 9:00am
 
Join us for a time of guided reflection based on the upcoming Sundays Scripture
 
Rest in your experience with the reading, the sunlight, the trees, the sky, the sights
and the sounds of life with a grateful heart.
Do not worry if your mind begins to wander.
Greet your thoughts and then let them go and return your attention to the beauty around you.

Be gentle with yourself.

All things are born of God and connected in a web of love.
Let us pray for the life of the world.

This morning we will practice paying attention to our breath.
We will meditate on the gift of breath.
There are 4 movements to our breathing. The Inhale, the pause, the exhale, and another pause. This breath practice invites us to pay attention to each part of our breath and how through the life-giving breath of God we are given all that we need.
We will close our time together with prayers for the life of the world and a centering prayer.
All things are born of God and connected in a web of love.
Let us pray for the life of the world.
Pastor Ninabeth provides a brief description of contemplative prayer and reads 3 blessings/poems from John O’Donohue’s book, “To Bless the Space Between Us.” After each reading you are invited to rest in your experience with the reading, the sunlight, the trees, the sky, the birds, the sights and sounds of life with a grateful heart. Do not worry if your mind begins to wander. Greet your thoughts and then let them go and return your attention to the beauty around you. Be gentle with yourself. All things are born of God and connected in a web of love. Let us pray for the life of the world.

This morning we will practice the heart meditation known as “Widening the Circle of Love”
 
Imagine that you are in a circle surrounded by those you love.
Stay in that circle and feel that love. Gradually widen your circle to include those you do not love that much. Embrace them in that love.
Keep widening your circle to include all of God’s creation.
This morning
we invite you to observe your surroundings;
to dwell in the here and now.
We will open with a prayer from
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
and close our time together
with the Saturday morning prayers from John Philip Newell’s book “Praying with the Earth”

Welcome as we pause for 10 minutes to lament and mourn the 104,383 Americans who have died of the coronavirus.
Our scriptures for today:
A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. ~Matthew 2:18
 
Blessed are those who weep, for their tears will be wiped away. ~Matthew 5:4
 
God heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds ~Psalm 147:3 
 
This morning we will practice
breath prayer 
It is a prayer that is repeated over and over in sync with your breath.
There are endless variations.
Here is 1:
As you breath in, imagine that you are filled with the light and love of God As you breath out imagine all the guilt, worry and trouble
flow out.
“Gracious One” (breathe in)
“forgive me” (breathe out)
 
Our opening scripture is from
Psalm 31:24
Our closing prayer is from
John Philip Newell

 

This morning we invite you to observe your surroundings;

to dwell in the here and now.

We will open and close our time together with
the Wednesday morning prayers from John Philip Newell’s book “Praying with the Earth”

Our meditation will be a reading from St. Francis of Assisi, “Instructions to the birds”.

 

Ash Wednesday 

Image: Anointed by Lauren Wright Pittman, 2018 http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57085

 
 

Cezanne The Allee of Chestnut Trees at the Jas de Bouffan c1888 Barnes Foundation Public Domain

 

This is the way of love

Visitation by Jacopo Pontormo

 
9/19/2018
James 3:13-18
 
 

9/5/2018
Mark 7:24-30