Silence. It’s Power. It’s Beauty.
Silence Awakens
The power and the beauty of silence in the title are not grammatical errors. Both statements are true: It is power. It is beauty.
The power from silence frees us to pay attention. Silence lets us let go of noises, words, cacophonies and other distracting sounds. That is a dual power: the power to quiet ourselves, to refrain from talk and to remain word free, and the power to listen to the quiet that surrounds our words. It really isn’t silence at all. Yet freed from bearing our words it is sometimes just as good as.That power empowers us to pay attention. To listen to hidden sounds we often overlook. The morning birds, the cat’s scratch in the litter box, a distant automobile’s hum, the rustle of leaves so faint it is almost its own silence. Silence frees those sounds that we may hear them. That brings home in unique ways our world’s peace and strength and motion.
Silence, too, is beauty. In the sound-free living room, I more readily imagine that I hear the ceiling’s corners breathing. Gently. When my voice is still and so my mind is too, freed from having to my next sentence, I can hear the fullness of my heart, hear it clear though it makes not a sound. My whispered slurp from coffee mug hardly escapes yet is the loudest sound before the day wakes up.
I substitute this beautiful, powerful word for “still”. Be silent, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)
Praying to Silence
Good Friend, GOD,
Thanks that we can pray to you without words,
enjoying the stillness and
the quietness
of your Presence and our Peace.
Thank you that we can let ourselves listen
to the sounds below the silence
beyond the sounds of living out loud
and hear your blessings
all around us.
Thank you, GOD. And so it is. Amen.
Love and blessings,
1 June 2017
Affirmations and Prayers
Heaven’s Affirmation
What’s the difference between an affirmation and a prayer?
Prayers and mantras have been around for thousands of years. Modern-day affirmations may have become popular thanks to French psychologist Emile Coue (1857-1926). He encouraged his clients to repeat, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better” as many as 20 times a day. The attention to self-positive statements has grown of late. Enter “affirmations” in Google and see these top returns:
- Affirmations That Will Change Your Life | HuffPost
- 101 Positive Affirmations to Practice Daily
- 19 Positive Affirmations That Will Change the Way You Think
- The Only 100 Positive Affirmations You Will Ever Need
- 25 morning affirmations to kick-start your day
I attach the hyperlinks to quell your curiosity, not because I recommend any of the 245 totaled there. In fact, I’m still chuckling at “101 Positive Affirmations to Practice Daily”. Who has the time?
For me affirming who I am is praying to myself. A statement I believe and seek to believe even more, to know as truth because it is. So, for me, the secret is to write my own affirmations. Among the lists above I may find one or twenty that “fits”. However, the truest fits are the ones I write myself.
Here’s my process:
- Who/what I am: I am a writer.
- What I do: I write every day.
- What makes it work:
- I write with commitment
- I write with energy
- I write with joy
- I write with enthusiasm
- Who/what I am, for emphasis: I am a writer.
Then I follow Coue’s pattern of 20 (or more) repetitions a day.
Does it work? Got me back to Prayerful Life. Has me working on two short stories. And several poems.
An Affirmation Prayer
Loving Spirit,
you give us gifts in so many ways,
so many forms.
We affirm our gratitude by praying thanks to you.
We pray to ourselves as we affirm what we will be.
As we determine what we will become,
you remind us we have power
to send our minds’ beliefs into our hearts
to live as truth.
Thank you, Great Friend, that we know prayer
to you and to ourselves.
And so we affirm it is. Amen.
Love and Blessings,
31 May 2017
In: Affirmation, Prayer, Praying · Tagged with: Affirmations, Prayer, praying
Praying Grace
Connected by grace
I was 8 or 9 one Sunday at Bea and Papaw’s for dinner. Everyone was at the table and Papaw said, “Tim, you say grace.”
My mind jumped to the then-popular George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. I bowed my head and whispered, “Goodnight, Gracie. Amen.” Fortunately, before anyone was upset, Dad added, “Amen!” and we dug into dinner.
That may have been the beginning of my effort to understand grace: what it is, what it means, why it’s referred to in so many ways. I’m thinking it must be grace that now, 60 years from that blessing, I’m finding clarity.
Before some meals, we said the blessing. Sometimes we said grace. I understood that we were blessing our food. I wasn’t as clear about grace. For both we said the same thing. Easy to understand now that I know it comes from the Latin gratus which means pleasing, thankful. “Thank you, God, for the food we are about to….”
More thoughts started coming together. We say grace. We can have it. We can receive it. We can know it. We can share it. If grace is God’s favor to us, the favor of being, then surely it is something we have, we receive it continually. The two big efforts are to know it and to share it. Maybe I shouldn’t put those out as efforts for anyone except me. For me, it does take effort to keep in my heart that I know God’s grace, so that I may share it.
Recently, I’ve rediscovered Richard Rohr and his Center for Action and Contemplation. At various points in his meditations over the past few years, he’s referred to “oriented spirituality”, “inner God experience”, “union with God”. But the very best of all is this……
“Basically, grace is God’s first name, and probably last too. Grace is what God does to keep all things God has made in love and alive—forever. Grace is God’s official job description.” (Richard Rohr, 2/1/2016)
Praying Grace
Good Friend Grace,
Thank you for the favor of being:
your being you, your creating the being me.
Thank you for the grace that glues us
seamlessly together as One.
Thank you for the power we have
to recognize our gratitude and know
it’s from and for your grace,
that you fill and wrap us with,
that you give us the freedom
to recover, whether early or late,
the freedom to discover
we are
we have
we know
we share
your grace.
And so it is. And so we let it be. Amen.
Love and blessings,
27 May 2017
In: God, Grace, Gratitude, Inner Peace, Joy, Love, Peace, Prayer · Tagged with: Energy, Grace, Joy, Love, Peace, Prayer
Memorial Day Thanksgiving
Our Memorial Symbol
Happy Memorial Day.
Every day and any day are perfect times to express gratitude to and for those who serve our country, our citizens, our safety and well-being. Then Memorial Day brings that gratitude to the front of our minds. Thus, today is the chance to hold in memorial those who have already served and to thank those serving now.
Therefore, to every individual now and through the entire existence of the United States, THANK YOU! this Memorial Day.
- Air Force
- Army
- Marines
- Navy
- Coast Guard
- National Guard
- Police
- Fire Fighters
- Emergency Medical Services
No matter your reason for joining your service of choice — desire to serve, to follow your heritage, to fulfill draft obligations, to find your certainty — you served this country. And we are thankful.
In my own way I honor all those who have made my earthly freedom possible.
Sweet Spirit,
On this special day we remember and respect
and relay our thanks for every man and woman,
for every soldier, airperson, sailor, Marine,
for every police officer, fire fighter, and emergency medical server.
Their efforts protect and preserve the freedoms of our nation.
Their sacrifices of physical safety and life itself
demonstrate time over time their commitment
to our way of life, to our precious democracy, to our independence
as a nation of individuals.
Sweet Spirit, we thank you for their service,
for their grace as our brothers and sisters.
So it is, and so we say amen.
Love and Blessings,
29 May 2017
US Flag image: — © Royalty-Free/Corbis
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