Dear All
This weekend we have All Saints Day & then the Commemoration of All Souls. So life & death & the call to all of us to grow towards being saints ourselves & to recognize the saints we live amongst are the themes of our attachments. We hope you will find something from one or more of them that will lead you to reflect.
For our blessing this week we will have Rutter’s ‘Go Forth’.
With love to you all as we celebrate these special days and move into November.
Reminder Info for those who join us at Blessed Sacrament for Evening Prayer: we won’t be there on Tuesday 4th Nov.
Dying in order to live more fully
Anonymous
I believe in death.
I believe that it is part of life.
I believe that we are born to die,
To die that we may live more fully;
Born to die a little each day
To selfishness,
To pretence,
And to sin.
I believe that every time we pass
From one stage of life to another,
Something in us dies
And something new is born.
I believe we taste death
In moments of loneliness, rejection,
Sorrow, disappointment, & failure.
I believe that we are dying before our time
When we live in bitterness,
In hatred,
And in isolation.
I believe that each day
We are creating our own death
By the way we live.
For those with faith,
Death is not extinguishing the light;
It is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
Shirley Erena Murray
For Everyone Born
For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star overhead,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!
For young and for old, a place at the table,
a voice to be heard, a part in the song,
the hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
for young and for old, the right to belong,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!
For gay and for straight, a place at the table,
a covenant shared, a welcoming space,
a rainbow of race and gender and colour,
for gay and for straight, the chalice of grace,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!
For just and unjust, a place at the table,
abuser, abused, with need to forgive,
in anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy,
for just and unjust, a new way to live,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!
For everyone born, a place at the table,
to live without fear, and simply to be,
to work, to speak out, to witness and worship,
for everyone born, the right to be free,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!
INCARNATION
I will not die an unlived life,
I will not go in fear
Of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
To allow my living to open to me,
To make me less afraid,
More accessible,
To loosen my heart
Until it becomes a wing,
A torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance:
To live.
So that what came to me as a seed,
Goes to the next as blossom,
Goes on as fruit.
DAWNA MARKOVA
Let There Be Life
Danaan Parry.
From the point
From which all life flows
It flows to me. My part is to accept this life
Consciously
As a manifestation of God on earth.
It is I
Who brings light and love
Into this existence.
No angelic being can do it for me.
Yes, heartily do I accept
This responsibility!
Yes, gladly do I accept
The God in me!