Lord I sing your praise
the whole day through, until the night.
Dad’s nets are filled; I have helped him.
We have drawn them in, stamping the rhythm with
our feet,
the muscles tense.
We have sung your praise.

On the beach there were our mammies,
who brought the blessings out of the nets,
out of the nets and into their basins.
They rushed to the market, returned and bought again.
Lord, what a blessing is the sea, with fish in plenty.
Lord, that is the story of your grace:
nets tear, and we succumb because we can not hold
them.

Lord, with your praise we drop off to sleep.
Carry us through the night.
Make us fresh for the morning.
Hallelujah for the day!
And blessing for the night!
Amen

Ghana traditional prayer

The great statements of Jesus Christ were never spoken from the personal, but always from the impersonal. No truth ever sprung from the personal mind because it is only the impersonal that can touch the universal, and it is only in the universal that absolute truth can be found. When the mind enters the impersonal state, consciousness comes in touch with the cosmic state of being, and in that state we realize the “I am” way of being. We discern what the “I am” actually is, and we find that the consciousness of the “I am” is the open door to the limitless vastness of the spiritual universe. “I am the door.” Enter through the door of “I am” and we pass into that immense world that is found on the upper side, or the divine side of sublime existence.

Christian Larson, 1911

I need somebody
to touch me
in a healing way

Somebody

Somebody

to touch me -
with love

somebody
who can hold
this depth of pain

hold me
crying tears
for every woman
whose
being a woman
has ever
made her cry

Unshed grief
running out slowly
in a river
of cleansing salt

Akasa Hull

Easter God,
persuade us that Easter
is not a once-upon-a-time story,
but rather a moment by moment leaning into,
a deep trust,
that your name and nature
is Resurrection.
This rising up
from the dead,
of life from matter,
and mind from life,
and a promised future
where we see nothing
but dead-ends and a darkened tomb,
is your M.O.
This is the only miracle,
that you are always rising up
in willing hearts and souls,
unafraid to hope,
and to be hope,
for a world entranced
by despair.
Amen.

Bruce Sanguin

Matthew 23:32

Now we open
to the story of the Crucified and Risen One,
arms stretched out
across the chasms of fear,
pulling factions into his own broken body,
closer to his pierced heart,
so that this planet of pain
may one day claim as its own
the love flowing out from that
sacred, broken heart.

Yes, pull us in, Spirit of the Living God,
into the heart of our hearts,
that we might once and for all
lay down our arsenals of fear
and take up our tools
to build the kin-dom of God
for the sake of all creation.
Amen.

Bruce Sanguin

The healing power of love does not belong to any religion.
It is not Christian, or Jewish, or Buddhist or Hindu.
It is not exclusive or protective of itself.
It spontaneously opens to bless, surround and inspire any human being
who is ready to give it and receive it.

Your willingness to feel this energy of unconditional love in and around you
will transform your life and the lives of the people you know.
It will speed up the vibration of your life
and at the same time slow down your mental activity
so that you feel bliss you have never felt before.

It will be as if you are riding in a cocoon of positive energy.
Soon you will no longer feel that you can support or participate in
the negative fear-based patterns that you encounter.
You won’t want to judge or complain, blame or shame.

You will do what resonates with the energy of pure LOVE
and stop doing what doesn’t.
There will be no force or sacrifice in this.
What no longer serves you will simply drop away
as you more deeply attune to
and vibrate with the truth of who you are.

Paul Ferrini

My delight in death
exceeds the pleasure of a merchant
who makes a vast fortune,
or a victorious war god,
or a sage in a total trance.
Like a traveller taking to the road,
I will leave this world and return home -
My life is over and my karma is done with -
I am approaching the ground of primal perfection.

Longchenpa, (1363) Tibet

Great Spirit,
give us hearts to understand;
never to take
from creation’s beauty more than we give;
never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of
greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the building of
earth’s beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.
Give us hearts to understand that to destroy earth’s
music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;
that to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a
house of stench;
that as we care for her she will care for us.
Amen.

U.N. Environmental Sabbath program

O Great Life-giving Spirit
whose commanding voice I hear in the winds
and whose warm breath gives life to all in the world

Hear me
one seven-billionth of the humans on the planet earth.
I am a natural part of the universe -
as natural and necessary as the rocks,
the trees, the birds and the mice
no more important – nor any less.

Let me walk in beauty
let my spirit see the dynamic spirit of life in all that exists
with no prejudice or malice toward any creation.
May I begin to remember who I am in the natural order of things
May I come to know what time it is
in my life and in all life.

Great Spirit of Love
Connect my heart to my head
Make me wise
that I may understand the things you have taught all people.
in every heart close or far from my own.
Make me courageous when the cold winds of life fall upon me.
Give me strength and endurance for everything that is harsh
everything that hurts
everything that makes me squint and wince.

I seek strength not to be greater or lesser than my brother or sister
but to remove the tough and slimy obstacles to equality
that have made their home inside myself.
Prepare me to move through life ready to take what comes.
Comfort me and caress me when I am tired and cold.
Unfold me
the way your gentle breezes unfold the leaves on trees.

Oh Spirit of Creation
make me always ready to come to you with clean hands
and straight eyes
so when life fades as the fading sunset
my spirit may come to you without shame.
Let me remember every day that the moment will come
when my sun will go down
my river will join the vast ocean
and this rock which has bounced along so many bumps
will finally come to rest.

Give me a great sky for setting into
a crystal-clean ocean for flowing into
and an unpolluted earth for my final resting place.
And when it is time to for me to join the earth again
may I come steadily and with glory.

Fran Peavey