Tag Archive for "blessing" | To Bend Light

Posts Tagged ‘blessing’

The Pulse of Holiness

Posted on: December 28th, 2017 by Alden

Yesterday, in the early morning, two ideas drifted in and out of my consciousness as I drifted in and out of sleep. Love, and holiness. After waking, this is what I wrote.

The Pulse of Holiness
The love
That echoes love
That whispers love
That breathes love
In the quiet stillness of morning
Is leading you toward light,
Toward understanding,
Toward G-d.
For love is the pulse of holiness,
The beating heart of radiance and wonder,
The rhythm of creation,
The energy of blessing,
The starburst of the divine.

The love
That echoes in your heart
Resonates eternal
With all beings,
With all souls,
With the wisdom of the ages,
And the wisdom of the earth.

Yes, love is the pulse of holiness.
Let it flow through you.
Let your countenance shine majesty
From the core of your being
To the edge of the universe,
To fill the world
With splendor.

Postscript: See also, “Evidence of Holiness.”

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: NASA

To Hear Me Sing

Posted on: December 20th, 2017 by Alden

This is a prayer of yearning, yearning for healing and for the support of others along the way.

To Hear Me Sing
Are you awake enough to hear me?
Are you alert enough to see me?
Are you present enough to stand with me?

Brother, I need your courage and your vision.
Sister, I need your strength and your wisdom.
The shadow of doubt
Has darkened my sight,
And the cold wind of despair
Has settled in my bones.
Loneliness and grief
Have wrapped themselves
Around my heart.

G-d of Old,
What secret truth
Have You hidden in this longing?
What Torah
Have You concealed in this yearning?
What moment of discovery will come
When this sorrow breaks
And I begin to sing again?

Brother, walk with me through this darkness.
Sister, walk with me toward the healing light.
Source and Shelter,
Guide us back –
Through troubling days
And sleepless nights –
To joy and wonder,
Awe and splendor,
Quiet and peace.

Postscript: See also: “We are Music.”

Photo Source: Amoré

Falling in Love with Prayer

Posted on: April 4th, 2017 by Alden

What is prayer? Perhaps an invitation to holiness and healing, bending the light from heaven toward tikkun olam. Have you ever fallen in love with a prayer? That’s the theme of my ELItalk, “Falling in Love with Prayer.” Please check it out. Loving prayer is a favorite topic of my work, including “Rise on Wings,” “Prayers of My Heart,” “Whispered Prayer” and “Prayer for You, Prayer for Me.”

Invitations
Quiet now.
Listen.
Breathe.
And listen.
Blessings float gently around you.
Your prayers set them free.

Oh, you hidden delight of heaven.
Oh, you secret gift of G-d.
Welcome you majesty and splendor.

Prayers are invitations,
Beckoning holiness and awe,
Radiance and wonder,
To join in this moment,
Summoning compassion and grace,
Healing and hope,
To spread their wings.

Quiet now.
Listen to the blessings from the earth
And the prayers in the wind.
They yearn for you,
Calling out
To join in the chorus.
Breathe and sing out
With your spirit and your voice.

Oh, you hidden delight of heaven.
Oh, you secret gift of G-d.
Welcome you majesty and splendor.

Postscript: Other prayers about prayer include: “For Prayer,” “Prayer Released” and “To Pray.” And here are four related prayers: “For Devotion,” “For Humility,”“For Joy” and “For Service.” This prayer first appeared here on October 24, 2012.

Please check out my Meet the Author video and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: ELItalks

Being a Blessing

Posted on: November 1st, 2015 by Alden

What does it mean to be a blessing in the lives of the people around you? It means nothing less than listening – listening with your ears, your eyes, your heart and your soul – and responding to others with love and compassion. This is a meditation on becoming a blessing in the lives of others. This prayer will appear in my forthcoming book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

Being a Blessing
If you ask for rest, I will sit with you.
If you ask for comfort, I will stay with you.

If you ask for hope, I will yearn with you.
If you ask for love, I will sing with you.

If you ask for stillness, I will breathe with you.
If you ask for peace, I will dream with you.

If you ask for joy, I will laugh with you.
If you ask for healing, I will pray with you.

If you ask for warmth, I will become a blanket.
If you ask for refuge, I will become a shelter.

If you ask for help, I will become a blessing.

Postscript: Other prayers about blessing and being blessed include: “Be the Blessing,” “These Blessings,” “Receiving Blessings” and “A Moment of Blessing.”

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Photo Source: Free Methodist Church in Canada

Breathe

Posted on: July 12th, 2015 by Alden

This prayer is a simple reminder to breathe and the gifts that coming from simply being. It includes a space to include a name, yours or someone else’s, so that you can use it as reminder to yourself or as a hope for someone else. Six other pieces of mine include the instruction to breathe. Three of my favorites are: “Sing Praises,” “We Are Music” and “Invitations.”

Breathe
Listen, dear __________ (your name or another name),
Remember to breathe,
Remember to fill your chest
With the sweet taste of living,
To fill your heart
With a gentle gift of peace.
The breath of God
Surrounds you.
Let it flow through you.
The pulse of the universe
Beats with you.
Let it enliven you.
Invite your inhale,
The willingness of this moment.
Release your exhale,
And surrender to being.
Fill your lungs.
Feel them.
Feed them.
Heal them.
And you will know,
The majesty of now,
And the mystery
Of forever.

Postscript: My three other prayers with the instruction to breathe are: “Choosing to Heal,” “Let Your Heart Stir” and “Rules for Being Me in Jerusalem.”

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Photo Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library

Praise for Healing

Posted on: May 27th, 2015 by Alden

This is a prayer to be said after recovery from illness. Although I’ve written several specific prayers — such as “Cancer Remission” and “Upon Recovery from Surgery” — this is my first general prayer of thanks for physical recovery. It’s an adaptation of “Inviting Healing,” which appears in my book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

Praise for Healing
Radiance and awe.
Splendor and wonder.
The energy of being surrounds me
Flowing day-by-day
From the holy realms.

These gifts of holiness
Flow into my hands,
Into my body,
Into the core of my being.

The energy of life flows
Into my limbs,
Into my chest,
Into my heart.

Thank you
Source and Shelter,
For opening the well of healing to me,
Bringing renewal and hope.

G-d of Old,
Healer and Guide,
You have blessed me with life,
With days of joy and yearning.
You have blessed me with Your care,
Leading me back
To a life of wholeness and peace.

Postscript: Thanks to my friend, Rabbi Len Zukrow for the idea for this prayer. He asked me if I had a something that could be used at a communal Shabbat gomel service for all who’ve recovered from illness. As a result, I put this together. Other healing prayers include: “For Surgery,” “For a Critically-Ill Child,” “For a Critically-Ill Mother,” “For a Critically Ill Father,” “For Cancer Treatment” and two Hospice Prayers. See also: “Quick Prayer for Healing,” “Quick Prayer for My Healing,” “Quick Prayer for Healing (Specific)”and “On Recurrent Pain.”

Photo Credit: Agility Recovery

The Gifts of Our Lives

Posted on: April 4th, 2015 by Alden

This new prayer of gratitude includes an alphabetical acrostic. Acrostics were a mainstay of Jewish liturgical poems, known as piyutim. This piece combines the acrostic with a four-part structure that repeats in each of the internal stanzas, using the metaphor of G-d as “well,” “source,” “foundation” and “crown.” In an early draft of a prayer called Elijah, I spelled his name with the initial letters in each of the opening lines, but later revised the piece to broaden its scope, losing the acrostic.

The Gifts of Our Lives
With gratitude and appreciation
We give thanks for the gifts
Which flow into our lives day-by-day.
A river of divine blessing.

For You are the well of Abundance,
The source of Beauty,
The foundation of Courage
And the crown of Dreams.

You are the well of Energy,
The source of Faith,
The foundation of Grace
And the crown of Hope.

You are the well of Insight,
The source of Justice,
The foundation of Kindness
And the crown of Love

You are the well of Mercy,
The source of Nourishment,
The foundation of Our Lives
And the crown of Peace.

You are the well of Quiet,
The source of Righteousness,
The foundation of Strength
And the crown of Truth.

For You are the well of Understanding,
The source of Vitality,
The foundation of Wonder
And the crown of Years.

With gratitude and appreciation
We give thanks for the gifts
Which flow into our lives day-by-day.
A river of divine blessing.

Postscript: Note that this acrostic is incomplete, it that I did not create lines for the letters ‘q’ and ‘z.’ My other prayers of gratitude include several favorites: “Fresh Delights,” “Now,” “One Gift,” “Unseen Lands” and “Sacred Cargo.”

Photo Source: Heaven Now

Vayakhel-Pekudei: For the Gift of Art

Posted on: March 10th, 2015 by Alden

In this week’s double torah portion, Vayakhel-Pekudei, the master artist Bezalel is named to direct the creation of the tabernacle, all of its symbols and tools, as well as the vestments of the priests. From Impressionism to Dada, from sculpture to photography, from Michelangelo to Chagall to Hokusai, the visual arts are amazing. Here’s another prayer celebrating creativity. It follows the same structure as the others in this series, which is explained in the introduction to “For the Gift of Song.”

For the Gift of Art
G-d, we give thanks for the gift of art,
For pencil and paint,
For glass and fabric,
For metal and stone,
For the gift that sees wisdom and beauty hidden in Your works,
For the skill and love that creates and crafts,
Releasing divine radiance for others to see.
Hear this prayer for those who fashion art
Revealing the secret glories of Your creation.
Make their works Your vessel.
Let heaven pour its vision through them
So that they overflow with Your light
Drawing others to Your glory.
So that when we see their works,
Our souls turn back to You in appreciation.
Together, we offer our gratitude back to heaven,
And rejoice.

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Postscript: Be sure to check out the other prayers in this series: “For the Gift of Song,” “For the Gift of Words,” “For the Gift of Dance,” “For the Gift of Music,” “For the Gift of Laughter,” “For the Gift of Torah Scholarship” and “For the Joy of Learning.” This prayer first appeared on this site on July 2, 2010; this version has slight modifications.

Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons, ‘Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif)’ by Robert Delaunay

Soul Shine

Posted on: February 1st, 2015 by Alden

This meditation is about allowing our souls to fill our hearts, to fill our minds and to fill our bodies with the radiance of heaven, so that we can bring that light into the world as tikun olam, the act of repairing the world. The meditation recognizes the majesty within each of us, declaring that that glory must be shared. This piece appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

Soul Shine
Let your soul shine
In your chest.
Let your heart sparkle
In your eyes.
Let joy
Fill your limbs with radiance.
Let love
Fill your hands with splendor.
You are the instrument
Of G-d’s music,
The tool
Of repairing the earth.
You are the voice
Of wonder and awe,
The song
Of hope and tomorrow.

This gift,
This majesty within,
Is not yours to keep.
It is not yours to hold.
It is not yours to hide.

Let your soul shine
Luminous, elegant,
Brave and true,
A beacon of praise,
A lantern of song,
A summons for holiness
To enter our lives
And this world.

Let your soul shine.
Set it free.
Set it free to fill the space
Between the here
And the unknown
With abundance
And with blessings.

Postscript: If you enjoyed this meditation, you might also like: “Fresh Delights,” “Come Walk,” “Let Me” and “This is the Place.” And for musical accompaniment, here’s a link to the Allman Brothers Band singing “Soulshine.”

Photo Source: tomboyArt on Esty

Tending Gardens

Posted on: January 6th, 2015 by Alden

Some gardens are tended by our hands. Others are tended by G-d’s will. This is a meditation on both the willingness to act in order to create beauty, as well as the power of refraining from action in order observe the beauty that arises from this amazing planet. This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Tending Gardens
Wildflowers bloom,
A field of colors,
A meadow on a hillside,
Wild and free,
Tended by sun and rain,
Gently painted by the will of the earth.

Another place of delight,
My garden blooms,
A blueprint from my heart,
Guided by my hand
Tended with love and affection
Planted according to my design.

G-d of splendor,
Grant me the willingness to plant gardens
And the wisdom to leave other gardens
To Your loving hand.
Teach me the beauty of doing
And glory not doing.
Grant me the power to act
And the strength to refrain.
Let my will to create,
And my willingness to accept,
Find balance and harmony
In my heart and in my hands,
So that my doing,
And my not doing,
Serve Your will
And Your world.

Postscript: Other prayers that use the “garden” metaphor include: “Life as a Garden” and “Garden of Blessings.”

For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Photo Source: Alden Solovy

Posts Tagged ‘blessing’

The Pulse of Holiness

To Hear Me Sing

Falling in Love with Prayer

Being a Blessing

Breathe

Praise for Healing

The Gifts of Our Lives

Vayakhel-Pekudei: For the Gift of Art

Soul Shine

Tending Gardens

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