Tag: prayer

The eternal and essential truth–until we love a thing in all its ugliness we cannot make it beautiful. ~G.K. Chesterton.

The View From Above

Beauty is seldom left alone.

Even here, on this crisp December day, San Francisco Bay grandeur arrayed below, I notice broken booze bottles and evidence of furtive, illegal acts at my feet. The sad truth grips me–there is no vista in this world untouched by human hubris and shame. There is litter on Mt. Everest, plastic floating on the furthest reaches of the sea.

I’m struggling inside for the cause of beauty.

The streets below, laid out in a precise grid, could tell a thousand tales of heartache and cruelty, of windows opening on empty futures.

I can’t pretend.

Truth, beauty and goodness must be examined in their context, un-cheapened by shallow sentiment or denial, or I refuse to believe they exist at all.

I pace in silence, begging God to fit me with new lenses to see what can’t be seen. How grace can exist side by side with the foul and emerge unsullied. How love and hatred can boil in the same stew and love still remain pure. How joy can live under the same roof with pain and still refuse to be silenced.

Prayer Makes Beauty

Do you pray? Do you sit, closed eyes peering through the malodorous vapor of ill-winds and poisonous lies and refuse to blink until your vision is restored?

Do you watch, alert for the first hint of light, and listen for the gentle song of Love that permeates the universe beyond the noise? Are you the one, in the early morning hours, lifting your head, sniffing for a scent, reaching to touch treasures just beyond your grasp?

Do you refuse to believe that what you can see is all there is? Have you held tight the hope that something higher, something powerful, someone with unstoppable purpose is wending his way through our years, our fears and tears?

Have you lifted the ugliness of the world–the people, the painful, the pitiful–to God in prayer, convinced that beauty will prevail, that goodness will never be snuffed out by evil?

If your answer is yes, thank you. You are saving the world. You are saving me.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16

May God bless you with beauty this New Year. I am spending a few days away from my blog–see you next week!

Prayer is nothing else than an intimate friendship, a frequent heart-to-heart conversation with Him by whom we know ourselves to be loved. ~Teresa of Avila

Some of our windows always seem to face north, where colors are muted and shadows are long. Light doesn’t flood–it plays in the corner, elusive and longed for and hugged to our hearts.

And though night has been vanquished a thousand times over, hope doesn’t accrue like unused vacation. With every new twilight we learn how to wait. Every new dawn finds us needy for mercy.

Am I describing you? Do you find the light fades quickly in the “room” you inhabit? What do you do to  keep the darkness at bay?

Prayer is often the last thing I think of, yet it never has failed to be just what I need.

Prayer anchors me in the moment and keeps worry in its place. Without that firm tether my mind wanders ahead, my life bleeds into the unknown. And I forget the presence and present moment of God–the here where I’ll find him, how he’s working right now.

Prayer can be more than its conventional posture. Here are some habits that let in the light.

6 Prayer Habits

1. With each new touch of your hand–a coffee mug, the knob of a door, a small hand, a checkbook, a book or a hammer–whisper a prayer of gratitude and trust.
2. Pray for the one who is now within eyesight–waiting in line, at the cross walk, one cubicle over. Root your thoughts in the real, in what matters, in the people God loves.
3. Invite God to sort through the voices you hear. Make separate piles, the kind and the cruel, writing them down. Sift through for the true, send the rest through the shredder–let God’s grace have the last word.
4. Walk through a day with the theme word of THIS. When anxiety threatens, turn your mind to this moment, this encounter, this person, this decision, this task, whatever grace has been given at this time.
5. Share your lunchbox with Jesus, let him see what you chew on, that which chews you. Lay your burdens and worries, self-loathing and anger before his wise presence. Write, shout, whimper exactly where you are. Then let him respond.
6. Sing the truths of God’s word. Pray an old hymn. Listen to lyrics that remind you of light.

What other prayer habits have been helpful to you? I would love to hear your ideas.

Photo, Fountains Abbey, Laura Windes