Angels can fly

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity.

G. K. Chesterton

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Dear Lord

It is another day

Here I am, in the place that I was born

Meeting people who have known me all of my life

Who have know my family

Who knew my parents

There is an odd weight to being here

Did I live up to community expectations?

Has my life honored my parents

My family

Am I the kind of man people expected me to be?

Am I the kind of man my parents would be proud of?

Am I the kind of man I want to be?

Am I the kind of man God wants me to be

No wonder I sometimes have “feet of clay” (Nebuchadnezzar and I, we are like “this”)

Oh, I have done OK

I am educated

I think I have done some good in this world

But oh those mistakes

Oh those moments of failure

Oh those hidden flaws

That I am all too aware of

But God, I am who I am

And all I can do

Each day

Is abide in you

And just be, in the moment

Be the best person I can be in that moment

I need lord the lightness of the angels

I need to travel light

Realizing that no one, even You

Takes me as seriously

As

I

take

myself

Lord this day, deliver me

From the weight of my own

expectations

Hear My Prayer

Everybody prays whether [you think] of it as praying or not. The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad. The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to yourself but to something even more familiar than yourself and even more strange than the world.     Frederick Buechner

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Lord

Hear my prayer

as I sit here watching the sun crawl across the valley where I was born

hear my prayer

as I think about friends I have had my whole life

hear my prayer

as I struggle with things done and undone

and sink into my anxiety

hear my prayer

as I look at the latest picture of my granddaughter

hear my prayer

as I sip my first cup of coffee

hear my prayer

Lord

Help me to remember

That all of life becomes a prayer

Love and Fear

Just finished the book by Rohr.  May have to read it again.  So full of things to think about.  To Ponder.  In this time of anger and hate.  Of war and rumors of war, one thing that Rohr said jumped out at me yesterday.

“I believe fear is almost always behind hate…. For fear to survive, it must look like reason, prudence, common-sense, intelligence, the need for social order, morality, religion, obedience, justice, or even spirituality.  It always works.  What better way to veil vengeance than to call it justice?  What better way to cover greed than to call is responsible stewardship?”

I am going to have to think about this one.  The cloaking of fear, and hate, in the garments of faith.  I think I see this being done.  On both ends of the spiritual spectrum.  And it makes me wonder, how many things do we do out of fear?  How many of our supposedly righteous actions for God, are really about us? And our stuff?

I have no doubt that as people of faith, we seek to do good.

But how many times are our responses really about us, and our fears?

Our greed

Our anger

Our needs?

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Oh Lord

I want to be a person run by faith

Who walks through each day, allowing your presence and love to flow through me to the world

But Lord, there is that lurking thing called fear

In fear I become entrenched

In fear I do good things in order to feel more secure in your love

In fear I seek the love and affection of others

In fear I criticize

In fear I hold fast to my possession

But you tell us Lord

That perfect love casts out fear

You are perfect love

And you tell us that you are in us

I know that I will never, perfectly

Be free from fear

Help me to be so full of you

That there is less room for fear