Morning
Prayers
“Ancient
sun, eternally young/ giver of life and source of energy,
In
coal and oil, in plant and wind and tide/ in spiritual light and human embrace,
You
kindle the heavens, you shine within us.
(for
we are suns with hearts afire—we light the world as you light the sky/ and find
clouds within whose shadows are dark)
We
give you thanks for your rays…”
Congregation
of Abraxas (from Earth Prayers, p.129, Harper San Francisco, 1991)
I
wonder how many of us are down on our knees praying this first morning of 2021.
Whether we admit it or not, we are feeling a bit desperate about the Covid-19 tsunami
that is rolling across our land. In Alabama now, 40% of tests are positive for
the virus. As we enter this new year, we so want to hear good news, to believe
that we are almost out of the woods. We ended very dark year and are now approaching the light of a more positive future.
We are
on the move—sunlight is gaining by minutes each day—and we are getting closer
to vaccinations that will slow down the spread of the virus and eventually
protect us. Since this is a pandemic wrought by nature, perhaps we should pray
to the elements and listen to our own inner intelligence that we so often
ignore. Here is a Yokuts Indian prayer to the elements:
“My words are tied in one with the great
mountains, with the great rocks, with the great trees, in one with my body and
my heart.” (Earth Prayers, p.127)
It reaches back past notions of human independence and
hubris to an understanding that we are part of nature and must align ourselves
with it to survive.
We
should not enter 2021 without contemplating our individual role in bringing
about that bright future we so desire. I hope each of us will take a few
minutes to ask for enlightenment. Here is a prayer from Dream of the Earth
by Thomas Berry:
“Give me a candle of your Spirit, O God,
as I go down into the deep of my own being. Show me the hidden things. Take me
down to the spring of my life and tell me my nature and my name. Give me
freedom to grow so that I may become my true self—the fulfillment of the seed
which you planted in me at my making. Out of the deep I cry unto thee, O God.
Amen”
To be sure, human behavior
has brought us to this place, and human behavior is required to get us out of
it. When we can do what my mother often counseled me to do, “get down off your high-horse”
and align ourselves with all of humanity, and with “all our relations”—the natural
world, the earth, the cycles of the cosmos—then we will know our true names and
grow into our own nature by the grace of God and Mother Earth. May it be so.
Blessings of the new year to each of you.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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