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| Prayers for Living |
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A Prayer for Living
with Purpose
Gracious God, at times my days run together into
weeks, into
months, into years without any conscious thought on my
part. Then, suddenly I come to myself in the space of a
moment and realize how unaware and without purpose I
have
been.
Read
more of this prayer
from
Prayers for Living
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| Using Music to Hear the Holy |
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Music in its clear and repetitive form as found in
nature, and
music that is tonal and mixed by instruments and voice
resonates with the human soul in a way hardly
repeatable in
other prayer forms. It can touch both the left brain
and the
right brain, and it can even go beyond—to a
place past
words
or visualization. In that place we are open and
vulnerable,
and unexpectedly God comes and communion happens.
Read
more
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| Your Questions |
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How are we to
respond to acts of terrorism and the hatred
expressed by
self-proclaimed "enemies" of Christianity?
We are called to love God with all of our mind,
body, and
spirit and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
According to
Christ's own words in the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter
22),
"All of the law and the prophets hang on these two
commandments."
How then can we respond to those who hate us? How
can we
live with the legitimate fear of those who wish to
kill us?
Again, Christ points to love in the Gospel of Matthew
(Chapter 5). We are to love our enemies and pray
for them. We get no credit for merely loving those
who also
love us.
Read
more
Send
Us Your Dreams and Prayers for Peace
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Which Way Do I Go? |
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When we come to the point of needing to discern
something
in our lives, we wonder if we will have all the right
information, if we will have the wisdom to see which
is the
right course, if we will know which is the right
decision.
These anxieties can be relieved when we
recognize the truth that discernment is much more
than an
individual exercise of decision-making. We do not go
through
the discernment process in a vacuum. God
may not
send us a "message in a bottle" telling us what to
do, but
God gives us resources that can assist us in making
a proper
decision.
from Parting
the Clouds
by Renee Miller
What Matters Most
Discernment for us, therefore, involves listening
for more
than a settled interior resolve—listening for
more than
a clarity within our own conscious powers for what
we should
do. It involves listening, seeing, hearing, and
knowing what
we are to do and where we are to go as a result of
God's
leading and direction in our lives.
from The
Sacred Map
by the Rev. Canon Stephen Holmgren
A Musician's Story
 I sensed something coming…and knew that something wasnít quite
right with my life. I literally pleaded to God for all that
wasnít authentic and real to strip away. I prayed that I
would be the expression of what I came here to do in this
life.
I said, ìI donít know what it is
anymore,
but I think that thereís more that I came here to
do. Please,
please strip away anything that isnít true,
authentic and in
alignment with my highest expression.î
from an interview with
award-winning composer Gary
Malkin
Listen to "Be Here Now" and "The
Welcoming" from Gary Malkin's CD, Graceful
Passages: A
Companion for Living and Dying.
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