Posts Tagged ‘wonder’

 

Every Heart

Posted on: November 23rd, 2011 by tobendlight

Aurora BorealisThis is a prayer in praise of G-d’s radiance and majesty in the world, creating a lovely transition from Shabbat into the week. It carries the age-old Jewish longing that the power of rejoicing in prayer will herald a time of wholeness, holiness and peace, echoing the theme and rhythm of the Aleinu. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows. This prayer will appear in my forthcoming book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

 

Every Heart
Let us exalt
Your Holy Name.
Proclaiming Your Majesty.
Proclaiming Your Sovereignty,
Proclaiming Your Splendor.
Let our limbs announce Your Radiance,
And our voices declare Your Glory.
Let us sing and shout,
So that the hills echo with praise,
And the streets pulse with prayer.
So that the seas swell with rejoicing,
And the cities vibrate with thanksgiving.
Then the universe will expand with wonder,
And the heavenly host will join in the song.
The gates of righteousness will burst open.
The path to mystery will shine.
The way to holiness will sparkle.
The route to beauty will gleam.
Every heart will turn to You,
Adonai our G-d,
In joyous surrender.
Every heart will know gratitude and love,
Happiness and consolation.
Justice and mercy will reign,
And peace will hallow the earth.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Other prayers of praise include “Dance Hallelujah” and “Sing Hallelujah.” Here’s a link to prayers of Thanksgiving.

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Photo credit: Iowa State University

Evening Blessings

Posted on: November 20th, 2011 by tobendlight

Jewish liturgy includes a set of morning blessings called Birkot Hashachar. Those blessings include a set of one line prayers that remind us of G-d’s gifts of renewal each day. This creates the practice of reciting a daily morning gratitude list. “Evening Blessings” is an attempt to create a night time version of this prayer.

Evening Blessings
Blessed are You, Adonai Our G-d, Sovereign of the universe who has given us (me) the…
…gifts of the body.
…delights of the senses.
…beauty of the heart.
…dignity of the mind.
…radiance of the soul.
…mystery of the spirit.
…blessings of Your Word.
…majesty of Your wisdom.
…presence of Your glory.
…wonder of being.

Blessed are You, Adonai Our G-d, Sovereign of the universe,
For these and all Your gifts, we sanctify and praise Your Holy Name.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Here’s a link to my version of “Morning Blessings.” Also check out: “Quick Meditation for Today,” “Quick Meditation at Noon,” “Your Name: Quick Prayer at Dusk” and “Quick Meditation at Night.”

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Quick Meditation at Night

Posted on: October 29th, 2011 by tobendlight

earth_seen_from_space_at_night_1600x900This prayer is to thank G-d for the gift of today (this very day) and of tomorrow (the day about to come). It’s another in my series of “quick meditations,” including: “Quick Meditation for Today,” “Quick Meditation at Noon” and “Your Name: Quick Prayer at Dusk.” These meditations are for use when prayer time is brief. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

Quick Meditation at Night
G-d,
Thank you for the gift of this day,
The one ending,
And the one about to begin.
Help me to see the moments and the hours,
Those I’ve spent and those to come,
As blessings, as teachers.
Guide me to service for Your Name’s sake.
Grant me comfort and rest
So that I may return to the new day
With a sense of joy, hope and peace.
Then, G-d of old,
I will become a source of love,
A beacon of wonder, awe and grace.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Check out: “Quick Meditation for Today,” “Quick Meditation at Noon” and “Your Name: Quick Prayer at Dusk.”

For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. Connect with To Bend Light on Facebook and on Twitter.

Photo credit: Open Walls

I Am Breathing

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 by tobendlight

Red Sunrise LakeThis is a meditation on the simple joys of breathing, hearing and seeing, but it’s really about the hope to embody in my own life the simple, gentle act of being. Here’s the piece, along with a photo I took of a sunrise over Lake Michigan one summer morning. To listen along as you read, click on the triangle in the bar below.

 

I Am Breathing
I am.
Breathing.
I am breathing.
A prayer runs through it.
A prayer of hope.
A prayer of love.
A prayer of wholeness and heart.

I am.
Hearing.
I am hearing.
A song runs through it.
A song of joy.
A song of wonder.
A song of thanks and praise.

I am.
Seeing.
I am seeing.
A light runs through it.
A light of hope.
A light of love.
A light of wisdom and grace.

I am.
Being.
I am being.
My life runs through it.
A life of mystery.
A life of awe and splendor.
A life exalting G-d’s Holy Name.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Other songs and prayers of the spiritual traveler include: “Come Walk,” “Leaving,” “Remember,” “Bird is Bird” and “Soarbird.”

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

Prayer Released

Posted on: July 17th, 2011 by tobendlight

800px-Candles_flame_in_the_wind-otherHere’s a meditation asking G-d to help give us voice to the prayers hidden deep in of our flesh and our bones. It’s similar to “For Prayer,” but carries a deeper sense of yearning. So far, I’ve written 11 prayers about prayer, including one to be said “Before Writing a Prayer” and one for “After Writing a Prayer.” To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

 

Prayer Released
There’s a prayer stuck in my throat,
Longing to be given voice,
Yearning to be heard.

There’s a prayer stuck in my limbs,
Longing to be given power,
Yearning to be seen.

There’s a prayer stuck in my lungs,
Longing to be given breath,
Yearning to be given life.

G-d of Old,
Release the prayer hidden deep in my bones,
The prayers that move through my veins and through my heart.
Let my body become a blessing of joy and service.
Let my being become an instrument of holiness and light.
Let my life praise creation with all of my deeds.

Ancient One,
Use my voice,
My limbs,
And my breath.
Set free this chorus of sacred love,
This symphony of
Radiance and splendor.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: This is another offering in my series of prayers about prayer, including: “For Prayer,” “Prayers of My Heart,” “Whispered Prayer,” “To Pray” and “Prayer for You, Prayer for Me.”

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: Sam Mugraby, Photos8.com

On Connecting With Old Friends

Posted on: June 25th, 2011 by tobendlight

I wrote this prayer last year when Stephen found me online, 35 years or so after we went to Israel together on an AZYF trip. Here in Israel, I’m seeing old and new friends, many who’ve come into my life — or back into my life — via cyberspace. Earlier this week I spent a day with Eric, a friend from that same trip to Israel 35 years ago. Here’s a prayer for connecting with old friends. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below (website only). The text follows.

On Connecting With Old Friends
Fantastic. Amazing. Wonderful.
Frightening. Adventurous. Astounding.
My dear friend
(Add Name) ______________________________________
Has returned to my life after [years][decades][an eternity]
Of time and distance.
Help me to see the gifts we bring to each other –
The stories, the history, the moments of joy and companionship,
The challenges, the losses, the moments of pain and sorrow –
As a source of Your Divine wisdom and love.

Why now?
What lessons are here for me?
What memories will come galloping back into my heart?

G-d of mystery and wonder,
Grant me the wisdom to listen to this messenger of friendship and love.
Make this a moment of gentleness and understanding,
A moment of grace and forgiveness,
So that our lives are renewed to each other
In joy and thanksgiving.
May this reunion be a blessing to us both.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Here’s a traveler’s prayer that also celebrates the people we meet along the way: “On the Road.”

Please use these prayers. See “Share the Prayer!” in the right hand column. For notices of new prayers posted here, please subscribe. To read four to six mini-prayers each week, as well as notices of new prayers posted to the site, please join the To Bend Light fan page on Facebook.

Each Day

Posted on: June 13th, 2011 by tobendlight

A simple meditation on days of sweetness and joy, courage and valor, pledging a life of service to G-d. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below (website only). The text follows.

Each Day
To start this day with joy.
To end this day with peace.
To start this day with longing.
To end this day released.

Live each day with wonder,
With kindness, awe and grace.
Live each day with courage,
With trust, with hope, with faith.

Hold fast to sacred moments.
Hold fast to precious love.
Hold fast to one another.
Hold fast to G-d above.

Hold courage through the hours,
And humor through the tears.
Hold G-d above your sorrows.
Hold G-d above your fears.

To You I must surrender,
Oh G-d of hidden spheres.
You are Source and Shelter.
To You I pledge my years.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Here are two prayers about the gifts of life – “These Blessings” and “Morning Blessings” – and one with the same sing-song cadence of this prayer, “Come Walk.”  This prayer was written prior to my current trip to Israel.

Please use these prayers. See “Share the Prayer!” in the right hand column. For notices of new prayers posted here, please subscribe. To read four to six mini-prayers each week, as well as notices of new prayers posted to the site, please join the To Bend Light fan page on Facebook.

Offerings

Posted on: May 22nd, 2011 by tobendlight

hope-hebrew-t-shirt_designIn this simple set of rhythmic, parallel verses we affirm the connection between G-d’s gifts and our responses. The result is hope for a lasting dialogue with G-d. In communal worship this can be used as a congregational mediation or it can be read responsively. I use this prayer during week five of counting the Omer. It appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

Offerings
When G-d offers love, I offer my heart.
When G-d offers wisdom, I offer my mind.

When G-d offers beauty, I offer my senses.
When G-d offers silence, I offer my patience.

When G-d offers challenge, I offer my strength.
When G-d offers trial, I offer my faith.

When G-d offers pain, I offer my dignity.
When G-d offers fear, I offer my courage.

When G-d offers grief, I offer my endurance.
When G-d offers shame, I offer my amends.

When G-d offers death, I offer my mourning.
When G-d offers life, I offer my rejoicing.

When G-d offers joy, I offer my thanksgiving.
When G-d offers awe, I offer my wonder.

When G-d offers righteousness, I offer my blessings.
When G-d offers holiness, I offer my praise.

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

Postscript: Other prayers about G-d’s gifts include: “This Bounty,” “These Blessings” and “In Plain Sight.” This “Meditation After the Yom Kippur Vidui” is also about offering ourselves in service to G-d.

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: The Word in Hebrew

About the Heavens

Posted on: December 18th, 2010 by tobendlight

Helix NebulaThis is a brief meditation from a series of prayer/poems written in one of the many voices of the spiritual traveler. This is the voice of the one who has a question that doesn’t need an answer. We marvel at G-d’s gifts and wonder about the unknowable. The series includes: “About the Rainbow” and “About Shabbat.”

About the Heavens
Majestic Sovereign,
Artist of creation,
Why did You put the stars
Beyond our grasp?
Was it Your desire
To keep us searching the heavens
For luminous spirals,
Shimmering clouds,
Rings of glorious light?
Was this Your plan,
To summon us
To reach across the vastness
With hope and desire?
Or perhaps
Once You created the canvass of sky,
Once You took out Your watercolors,
Your oils,
Your charcoals,
Your pencils,
Your palette,
You couldn’t resist
The urge
To paint.

© 2010 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 Credit: Space.com

“Alden has become one of Reform Judaism’s master poet-liturgists…" - Religion News Service, Dec. 23, 2020

“Mesmerizing, spiritual, provocative, and thoughtful, Alden was everything you would want in a guest scholar and teacher.” – Rabbi Denise L. Eger, Congregation Kol Ami, Los Angeles, and Past President, CCAR

"Alden Solovy has become one of the most revered liturgists of the last decade…" - Jewish Post & Opinion, March 29, 2023

“Alden left everyone feeling inspired.” – Cantor Jeri Robins, Shabbat Chair, NewCAJE6