Week Two: Tuesday

Flickers of Flame

In yesterday’s blog, I wrote about peace and how it is so often sung about in Christmas carols and proclaimed in scriptures.  At this point in history, the image of a lion lying down with a lamb is one for which we all long.  But for peace to become a reality in our lives, homes, country, and world, it has to begin within us.  I used the first half of the Prayer of St. Francis to offer a way we might approach those unpeaceful or shadowed parts within us in order to invite them into the Light and into harmony so that we might become whole and more at peace.

Another aspect of peace is to guide the world toward it, but how, especially in a time of pandemic, do we do that?  As I have tried to follow the CDC guidelines and not become a burden on family or on our health care system, I have found it difficult to offer a service of peace to my community.  How does one serve apart from others, especially in offering peace?  The answer that came to me is “prayer.”

In a virtual class I took on creativity and spirituality, we were invited to take some deep breaths, move from our heads into our hearts, and then pray silently for all those in our group; next, we were invited to pray outwards to all those in need of any sort in our community, then our country, and then our world.  Our small group, in the sanctuary of our hearts, blanketed the world in silent prayer, and I felt the prayers offered for me, along with feeling whatever power comes from God, in whatever name we use for God, flow out of our group to the world.  Our prayer was a movement toward peace, a light in a dark season.

Consider the second part of St. Francis’ prayer: 

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.

Prayer can be an extension of peace to those who need to be consoled, to be understood, to be loved, to be given to, to be pardoned, to know that even when they do not have the words to pray, someone else is praying for them, and a Greater Being is receiving those prayers into a loving and compassionate heart.

In this season, I am praying for whoever happens to come across this blog.  Some of you I know; others I do not.  Each time I come to this place, I light a candle for all of you.  I don’t know your specific need, but I ask God/Spirit/Universe to bless you with your highest good, whatever that may be for you.  Beyond that, I invite you to accept an offering from me, to email me at 20rosepoet20@gmail.com with any personal prayer request you might have so that I can add that request to my candle circle of light and lift that request skyward.  (Each prayer will be kept in confidence.) When I extinguish the candles, I imagine the smoke a holy incense that carries the requests of our hearts to the heavens.   May peace be with you, and may you be blessed.