Spiritual Care Sunday #11

 a prayer for love, love, love

by Kate Bowler 

Lord, the shadowed world 
is full of troubles.
So give me the good, 
inconvenient work of love.

Link my life to others 
so that their worries 
become my own.
Give me errands I don’t want 
which ease the burdens of others.
Divert me from the plans I’ve made 
to zip from A to B
when you have better ideas. 
Put my hands to work 
with a less-grumbling heart 
and let their dreams drift into my own.
 
You’ve given me tools to use 
and ideas to fashion 
that will bring me neither recognition, 
nor money, nor praise.

You’ve made love such a sneaky thing. 
The more we love as you do, 
the less we are keeping track of it at all.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spiritual Care Sunday #16

Image
  In one of the essays in the book  In the Shelter  by Padraig O'Tuama, he reflects on his time as a chaplain at the De La Salle Pastoral Center in West Belfast where he led day long retreats for schools. He talked about a simple prayer time that he shared with the students using the gift of imagination. It usually lasted only about 4-5 minutes total.  In essence, this is what he invited them to do below:  Imagine yourself taking a walk in a lovely place of your own choosing.  Picture the scenery in your mind with the colors, sights, and smells around you.  At one point on your walk, you see a stranger coming towards you,  and on closer inspection,  you realize it is Jesus.  He greets you by your name..... and you all engage in a conversation.  Imagine what you would say  and then listen for Jesus' response. He relayed a story about a teenage boy who went on one of these imaginative prayer walks and imagined himself walking thr...
Read more

Spiritual Care Sunday #19

Image
Here's the last "Spiritual Care Sunday" as this is our last week of internship....  I heard this in a sermon recently about suffering and it reminded me of the work we have done and are continuing to learn to do in spiritual care: May (they) shape a new space in your heart to embrace (hardship) as a teacher who has come to open your life to new worlds. May you find in yourself a courageous hospitality towards what is difficult, painful and unknown.   May you use (your hardship) as a lantern to illuminate the new qualities that will emerge in you. May your fragile harvesting of this slow light help you release whatever has become false in you. May you trust this light to clear a path through all the fog of old unease and anxiety until you feel a rising within you, a tranquility profound enough to call the storm to stillness.   May you find the wisdom to listen to your (suffering) ask it why it came, why it chose your friendship, where it wants to take you, what it wants y...
Read more

Spiritual Care Sunday #14

Image
I have not read the Narnia books in quite some time, but recently, I came across this wonderful passage about Eustace being "undragoned." What a wonderful word- UNDRAGONED! It seems that this might be a bit of how we could describe some of the transformation work of CPE!  “Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it.” “You mean it spoke?” “I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did....
Read more