Posts Tagged ‘spirit’

 

Light, Overflowing

Posted on: August 16th, 2018 by Alden

A meditation about the seeing God’s light inside of us all. See also, “Sowing Light” and “Light of God.” This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Light, Overflowing
The light in me
Sees the light in you,
Is the light of God.

Oh brilliance!
Sparkling from your eyes.
Radiating from your chest.

Oh wonder!
Shining around us.
Shimmering with amazement.

Oh glory!
Overflowing my heart.
Touching your soul.

The light of God
Sees the light in you,
Is the light in me.

© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer

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Postscript: And one more called “Secret Light.”

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, 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. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

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Photo Source: USFWS National Digital Library

A New Way of Being

Posted on: August 8th, 2018 by Alden

A meditation on waking up to the brilliance inside. I began writing this at a ManKind Project (MKP) advanced leadership training workshop. This is one of many meditations that have their roots in MKP trainings, such as “Wild Broken Heart,” “This Man’s Heartbeat” and “My Work Remains.”

A New Way of Being
This waking up
Is never easy,
When being asleep is so gentle,
So familiar,
So welcome,
And a new way of being
Is so hard to find,
So hard to live,
And so hard to keep.

Journey beyond the horizon,
Where joy and grace flow freely,
Where love is sacred medicine,
Where music sings and brilliance dances,
Where the arc of eternity bends to bless you.

This waking up
Is always surprising,
For being awake is so vibrant,
So vital,
So alive,
And a new way of being,
Shimmers with ancient wisdom.

Come to a place
Where there is no more
Thirsty water or hungry bread,
No more heartless heartbeats,
Breathless breathing,
Vacant motion or screaming silence.

Come to a place radiant with light illuminated
And life enlivened,
Where beauty glistens and awe shimmers,
Where the pulse of your soul
And the wonder of creation
Beat with the pulse of the universe.

© 2018 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: Maya Angelou’s poem “Alone” — read during the workshop — includes this:
“…How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone…”

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: Alden Solovy

You without Peace

Posted on: April 20th, 2018 by Alden

Here’s a meditation for those who yearn to find G-d’s blessings, but cannot let them in. I’m reminded of a comment at Limmud Vancouver 2018: “We fear that we won’t find G-d. But what we fear, even more, is that we will.”

You without Peace
Oh you without peace,
Who yearn for G-d’s blessings
But push them away,
Feeling their presence
And blocking their arrival,
Hoping for grace
Without gracing the hope
Of holy communion,
Of blessings and wonder,
Know this:

Your heart is beautiful.
Your love is pure.
Your longing sings with truth.
Your journey is righteous,
Your path is lonely,
And G-d yearns for you
To keep searching
For the holiness and light
That surround us all.

© 2018 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

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: NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection

Beshalach: Manna

Posted on: January 21st, 2018 by Alden

In Parashat Beshalach, G-d begins to provide manna for the Israelites wandering in the desert. If you look carefully, with your heart, with the eyes of your soul, you’ll see that manna never stopped flowing from heaven. Love is everywhere. Blessings abound. God’s gifts are yours.

Manna
Manna still flows from heaven,
Riding on beams of light,
Warmth and heat,
Awe and passion,
Wonder and glory,
Feeding this grateful heart.

Manna still flows from heaven,
Summoned with beams of prayer,
Mourning and jubilation,
Praise and thanksgiving,
Hope and yearning,
Praising G-d’s Holy Name.

Manna still flows from heaven,
To sustain this land,
To nourish this soul,
To enliven the days
And bless the nights
With bread of life
From the Soul of the Universe.

© 2018 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

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Postscript: See also “Recipe for a Life.”

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: Medical News Today

Spiritual Vandals

Posted on: November 14th, 2017 by Alden

A song of the Spiritual Traveler, the one who has a profoundly unexpected experience with angels at the gates of mercy. As a result of that one moment, the Spiritual Traveler will never be the same again. This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Spiritual Vandals
At the gates of an ancient city
A spiritual vandal cracked into my heart.
Stunned,
Expecting the blood of my grief and shame
To sizzle on the hot stone,
Ready to shout,
‘How dare you touch that sacred place,’
I saw a river of light flowing through me.
Starlight. Moonlight. Sunlight. Your light. My light.
Light from the moment of creation.
So much radiance and glory.
Suddenly on my knees,
My forehead on the pilgrim’s path,
I wept.

Now I wait at the gates
For you.
To invite you close,
To let me see the fissure in your heart
Ready to burst,
To touch it with love,
To crack you open
So that you can see the majesty and the beauty
That flows through us all.

Listen,
Dear sisters, dear brothers:
Do not fear the vandals who guard
The gates of mercy.
For mercy is love,
And love is light,
And light seeks light,
And these angels only want to show
That it’s been inside you
All along.

© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer

Postscript: See also “Come Walk.”

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: Photo by Alden Solovy

My Life in Yours

Posted on: October 23rd, 2017 by Alden

About four years ago I wrote a love song. As I strolled alone along Jerusalem’s old railway walking path, these words simply appeared. Strange. I wasn’t dating anyone, so why would a love song simply appear? Here are two versions of “My Life in Yours,” the first is a song of yearning for love; the second, which follows, is a wedding prayer recited by one partner to the other or said together in unison. The differences in the two are small, but key.

My Life in Yours – A Love Song
When my heart whispers for you,
When my breath calls your name,
When my eyes sparkle with your grace,
I will plant my life in yours.

When my hands yearn for your healing,
When my ears tune to your voice,
When my pulse beats with your footsteps,
I will plant my life in yours.

The sky, the sea, the horizon,
The moments, the days and the years.
The light, the hope, the glory,
The hours, the seasons, the tears.

When your heart whispers for me,
When your breath calls my name,
When your pulse beats with my footsteps,
I will plant my life in yours…
I will plant this life in yours.

My Life in Yours – A Wedding Prayer
My heart whispers for you,
And my breath calls your name,
As my eyes sparkle with your grace,
I plant my life in yours.

My hands yearn for your healing,
My ears tune to your voice,
As my pulse beats with your footsteps,
I plant my life in yours.

The sky, the sea, the horizon,
The moments, the days and the years.
The light, the hope, the glory,
The hours, the seasons, the tears.

Now your heart whispers for me,
And your breath calls my name,
As your pulse beats with my footsteps,
I plant my life in yours.
I plant this life in yours.

© 2017 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: I recorded myself singing the tune to this piece to share here, but I’m too shy — yes, I said shy — to post it. Here are links to my prayers about love: “Let Love,” “The Cut That Heals,” “For New Love,” “To Seek Your Love,” “A Heart of Love” and “A Moment of Love.” Several of these prayers appear in my new book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

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. If you like this prayer, please post a link to Facebook, your blog or mention it in a tweet.

Photo Source: Alden Solovy

Sacred Silly

Posted on: June 20th, 2017 by Alden

This playful and unexpected prayer/poem makes fun of my own seriousness about writing prayers and liturgy. And I need a break from the intensity of affairs in both my allegiances, Israel and the U.S. This prayer appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings and includes a line from Psalm 100: “Serve Adonai with gladness…”

Sacred Silly
Wouldn’t it be fun,
Just one time,
To secretly slip a goofy prayer
Inside the siddur,
Say, in the middle of the Amidah,
Where an unsuspecting Yid
Like you or me
Might just crack up
In sacred silliness,
Holy happiness,
Loving laughter,
As a testimony
To the juicy joy
Of Jewish jubilation?

So serious
These liturgists,
These poets and paytanim.
Let’s g’faw for God.
Let’s laugh out loud in praise.
Let’s giggle in thanksgiving.

.עבדו את-ה’ בשׂמחה, בֹאו לפניו ברננה
Iv’du et Adonai b’shimcah, bo-u le’fanav birnanah.
Serve Adonai with gladness, come before G-d’s presence with singing.

Let joy rise up to the gates of prayer.
Let laughter shake the highest heavens.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, 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. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

Photo Source: David Goehring on Flicker

Prayer of Joy

Posted on: March 19th, 2017 by Alden

joy-with-white-backgroundThis is a prayer of gratitude for joy, with a reminder to live joy as a daily spiritual practice. It’s a meditation for daily use when time is brief. It’s in my new book This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

Prayer of Joy
G-d,
Thank You for joy and delight,
For wonder and awe,
For moments of gladness and celebration.
Grant me the ability to breathe gentleness
Into my hours and seasons,
So that I live awake to beauty,
To holiness,
To the radiance that surrounds us.
Grant me the wisdom to arrive each day
With passion and humor,
With song and dance,
With smiling eyes,
In service to myself,
In service to others,
In service to Your Holy Name.

© 2017 CCAR Press from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers For a New Day

Postscript: This piece originally appeared on March 29, 2013, this site as “Quick Prayer of Joy.” It appears in my new book This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

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: ThyBlackMan.com

Bind Our Hearts

Posted on: January 8th, 2017 by Alden

imageMazal Tov to my daughter Nikki Braziel-Solovy and her man Prometheus Kevin Trotsky on their engagement. This wedding day prayer alludes to the sheva brachot – the set of seven prayers said under the chuppah, the wedding canopy. Each of the stanzas contains seven lines. The middle stanza is an interpretation of the sheva brachot, borrowing hints and ideas from each of the seven prayers. This piece appears in This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

Bind Our Hearts
Hope and love,
Love and promise,
Promise and commitment,
Commitment and action,
A sacred pairing,
A holy union,
A celebration of life.

Let this cup of sweetness overflow
Into G-d’s glorious handiwork,
As we delight in creation,
Seeing the divine in each other,
Sharing this abundance with the generations
As loving companions and dedicated friends,
Rejoicing together, now and forever.

Bind our hearts with awe,
Bind our hearts with wonder,
Grant us wisdom and understanding,
Patience and forgiveness,
Days of radiance and light,
Nights of comfort and peace,
Lives of blessing, together.

© 2017 CCAR Press from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day

Postscript: See also “A Moment of Love,” “For an Open Heart” and “Blessing for a Spouse/Partner.”

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: Family Snaps on iCloud

Ha’azinu: We Are Music

Posted on: October 14th, 2016 by Alden

music-notesIn this week’s parasha Ha’azinu (Deut. 22), Moses sings a majestic farewell song, beginning by calling on the heavens to hear. The Haftarah (II Sam. 22:1-51) is David’s Song of Thanksgiving. This prayer/poem is about embodying the music of life, hearing the music created when we move in and out of moments together. This piece appears my forthcoming book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, from CCAR Press.

We Are Music
Quiet now.
Listen.
Breathe.
And listen.

You are music.
Your breath and hands,
Your smile and tears,
Your eyes and pulse,
Are notes that dance
In the space between us.

We are music.
A symphony conducted
By the rhythm of life,
By G-d’s hand,
By our choices, day-by-day.

Our notes play on,
Separately, together,
The sacred sound of living.
Our music waltzes,
Making melodies fresh and new,
Never heard again,
Bass lines that pulse from our hearts
To the Soul of the Universe.

Joy bends sorrow.
Sorrow bends hope.
Hope bends grief.
Grief bends love.
Love bends joy.

Quiet now.
Listen.
Breathe.
And listen.

The silence is your longing.
The silence is your yearning for a different song.
The music of your own will
Blocks your heart to the harmonies
Already dancing around you,
To the chorus already singing around you.

Oh, you hidden delight of heaven.
Oh, you secret gift of G-d.
We are music.
We are music.
The music plays
Through us.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

Postscript: While Moses calls on the heavens to give ear, this meditation calls on us to listen to our own — and to each other’s — hearts. This is my second meditation incorporating instructions to the reader into the prayer. The first is called “Invitations.” Both include this exclamation: “Oh, you hidden delight of heaven. Oh, you secret gift of G-d. Please see also: “Life as a Symphony,” “For the Gift of Song” and “For the Gift of Music.” This prayer first appeared on this site on Feb. 6, 2013.

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 Credit: Picks and Sticks Music

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