Excerpts from recent musings … Skip if you've been keeping up.

Praying for Realness

Oh God, who sees me, knows me, and loves me while seeing through my pretensions. There is nothing I can tell you about myself that you do not already know. I am laid bare by your penetrating gaze and your Word divides by thoughts and attitudes, sorting them out in ways I cannot even comprehend. You know all about me and still I have the urge to hide and cover myself with the leaves of shame. Crack my facade, dissolve the masks I wear. Give me the grace to be real today, real and vulnerable, and open and compassionate with myself and others. Your love validates my existence and your mercy gives me courage to embrace the ugliness I see in myself, the impurity of my motives, the haughtiness of my words, the impulsiveness of my poor choices. 

They are a part of all I have been and am becoming and I am not stuck in them, nor do they define me.

You define me and in freeing me to be me and become more, Your message from Jesus to me and through me that there is a possibility of joyous repentance and kingdom purpose ring true.

You know me and yet you choose me, in love, to be one of yours! I cannot wrap my mind around the grace of it, but I receive it that I may give it.<Deep, mystical, penetrating prayer of heart and scripture from the pen of Mendelssohn. When the solo cries out, the singer alone, there is mournful pathos. As the prayer progresses and the chorus joins in agreement, there is a movement of confidence and even joy. So it is when others meet us before the throne of grace, whether near or far, joined in common prayer. We are lifted and we become a force with which to contend. God enters into the prayers of His people and assures them of His presence and grace.Make me, like Francis, an instrument of your peace today. I am not worthy, but I am available.

Because I follow Jesus, I ask this in His Name. Amen.

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Deep, mystical, penetrating prayer of heart and scripture from the pen of Mendelssohn. When the solo cries out, the singer alone, there is mournful pathos. As the prayer progresses and the chorus joins in agreement, there is a movement of confidence and even joy. So it is when others meet us before the throne of grace, whether near or far, joined in common prayer. We are lifted and we become a force with which to contend. God enters into the prayers of His people and assures them   of his presence and grace.

o  

Mendelssohn/ Liszt – On Wings Of Song – Mendelssohn composed and brought the depths of his soul to bear upon the essence and Liszt arranged for piano. Gentle and reassuring – Just what I need for the day

and …

Spiritual Disciplines for Highly Distracted Souls – That is my next book … well, one of the next ones — if I can concentrate enough to finish it .

Seriously now, some of you know exactly what I mean.

And you are the folks who are my kin in this particular skin.

We struggle to focus, but we must focus to struggle.

We know the deep value of grace in our lives be because we guzzle it like cool water on a scorching day in the sun. It is cooling balm to our blistered flesh. It is food for our souls when we are starving.

God, if my concentration is what is required to seek and find you, I am in trouble. Actually, I am in trouble … have been … will be, but I am not hopeless.

My concentration comes through distraction, through poly-focus, and through serendipitous discovery. 

I see you in the commonalities of multiplicities.

I hear your voice arising from the cacophony of sounds in a dissonant chorus of groaning cries.

I see your face in the contorted faces of broken people.

I grasp your Word in the recurring themes of unlikely sources that echo your truth and highlight the verses that I read just yesterday or this morning as I struggled to keep my mind from wandering.

I sit as long as I can and listen. I walk as far as I can without veering off the path. I keep coming back to you and you are always there.

It is neither my mood nor my mind that guide me, Oh Lord of clarity, but your ever present hand and upon you, I lean. 

I will follow you today. I commit my day to you.

I am easily distracted and often torn. I am likely to bounce from thought to thought and project to project, but I know that you are present in the midst to order my days and my moments ….

And in the precious, fleeting stillness of this moment, I commit all my moments and days … and this day, in particular, to You.

Amen.