Dear Friends,
We are back from Rwanda, safe & sound! Life is so so different there yet amazingly through our shared spirituality we experience a closeness with our sisters there. Please pray for them & for our sisters in the DRC, some of whom were with us but who live in such dangerous situations & minister to some of the poorest people in our world.
The reflections today are straightforward in that they focus on some very basic Christian values – values we all share whatever our circumstances.
The blessing today is the Repose blessing from the New Dawn CD. Please can we include all our sisters (400+) in Africa in it.
Love to you all
Gratitude
Gratefulness offers a merciful path for walking through life with our eyes and hearts wide open. It supports us to attend to the potency of what is life-affirming, beautiful, and moving in our exact moments of broken-heartedness. It invites us to sit with paradox in more fully noticing the magnificence of humanity as we face the mire.
Kristi Nelson
The hardest part is people.
So, Lord, help me face them
without rancour or disappointment.
Help me see the pain behind their actions
rather than the malice;
the suffering rather than the rage.
And in myself, as I struggle
with the vise of my own desire –
give me strength to quiet my heart,
to quicken my empathy,
to act in gratitude rather than need.
Remind me that the peace I find
in the slow track of the seasons
or an uncurling fern frond,
is married to the despair I feel
in the face of nuclear war.
Remind me that each small bird shares atoms
with anthrax, with tetanus, with acid rain,
that each time I close my heart
to another, I add to the darkness.
Help me always to follow kindness.
Let this be my prayer.
Karen Holden
A Litany of Generosity
Spirit of Life and Love,
Bless me with a generous heart
A generous heart that knows how to give…
When I feel as though I do not have enough to share,
When I feel unappreciated,
When I believe my gifts will fall short of what is needed, expected or desired,
When my enemy is in need of mercy, whether asked for or not.
Spirit of Life and Love,
Bless me with a generous heart
A generous heart that knows how to accept with grace…
When I receive gifts that I fear are undeserved
When I am forgiven by those I have hurt
When I am hurting and comfort is received.
Spirit of Life and Love,
Bless me with a generous heart
That I may give joyfully,
Receive gratefully,
And create loving kindness in my life and the lives of others.