ELASTIC
PRAYER by Elizabeth Foster
Be a gardener.
Dig a
ditch,
Toil and sweat,
And turn the earth upside down
And seek the deepness
And water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
And make sweet floods to run
And noble and abundant fruits
To spring.
Take this food and drink
And carry it to God
As your true worship.
--Julian
of Norwich
The
shape of prayer and to whom it is addressed are no longer as
important points to me as long as they are done with love and enlarge
people. By that I mean, having the will and faith to act on your
principles with care for yourself and the other. The more I live,
the less I understand love or God. It seems to me to be a
developmental issue of being inter-independent and to be a point
psychologically of authority and of being true to yourself. In other
words, don’t sweat the small stuff and just do it. It then is
possible to be moved less by yourself or the other, loving and being
compassionate equally, be it a person or yourself, a patch of garden,
family, baking bread, hiking, etc. Whenever you are opening to more
and allowing the spirit within you to lead your ideas and feelings,
you are praying. It is just as powerful a prayer to feed a child
food as it is to preside at a religious ceremony. As Rabbi Abraham
Heschel said: “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is
holy.” It is not a holier prayer from an ordained person or a
housewife. Whether serving at a church ritual, working to support
yourself
and/or your family in an office, prayer can be heard. In fact,
whatever you do, if you are transported beyond yourself to more
[which you might notice if you can feel joy or elation] and if you do
so in a loving manner, then you are praying. We do not need to know
if it is spirit within or without, address prayer, but feel much less
taken up with our own selves and open up to more. Prayer is more
elastic this way and takes many shapes from painting, to sports, to
studying, to gardening, to walking in the woods or visiting the sick.
Apprehend
God in all things,
For
God is in all things.
Every
single creature is full of God
And
is a book about God.
Every
creature is a word of God.
If
I spent enough time with the tiniest creature - even a caterpillar
–
I
would never have to prepare a sermon.
So
full of God is every creature.
--by Meister Eckhart
Unitarian Universalist
Congregation
in Milford