Tag Archive for "hope" | To Bend Light

Posts Tagged ‘hope’

Peace Will Come

Posted on: July 29th, 2018 by Alden

This prayer will appear in my forthcoming book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press. This Joyous Soul offers a bridge between the language of traditional prayer and the language of personal experience. “Peace Will Come” reflects the yearning in the Amidah ending verse, oseh shalom. Read the title piece from This Joyous Soul by clicking here.

Peace Will Come
Peace will come,
Through the grace of G-d
And the actions of humanity:
Compassion and kindness,
Forgiveness and love,
Patience and gratitude,
Justice and mercy,
Empathy and understanding,
Each act a yearning,
Each deed a longing,
For wholeness and tranquility
In our world.

You who makes peace in the highest heavens,
Guide our hearts and our hands
In service to each other and Your world,
To bring peace to all the nations of the earth,
All people, everywhere.

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Postscript: CCAR Press is now taking pre-publication orders of This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings. It is a natural outgrowth of my first CCAR Press volume, This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, which provides prayers and meditations for the days and seasons of our lives.

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.” 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

Upon Starting a New Medicine or Treatment

Posted on: July 11th, 2018 by Alden

A simple prayer to be said by an individual on starting a new medication or beginning a new treatment.

Upon Starting a New Medicine or Treatment
G-d of health and healing,
In Your wisdom You have enabled us
To find remedies, cures, medicines and treatment
Hidden in creation.
May the [treatment / medicine] that I begin today
Carry Your blessings of healing,
Healing of body,
Healing of mind, and
Healing of spirit.

Blessed are You,
G-d of compassion,
Who heals with love.

[ctt template=”8″ link=”iVs1f” via=”yes” ]May the treatment that I begin today carry Your blessings of healing…[/ctt]

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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: Pexels

Dance in the Madness

Posted on: May 27th, 2018 by Alden

A song of the spiritual traveler about the dance between spiritual forces that uplift and those the can crush us. This is one of just a handful of my pieces that rhyme, including “Come Walk,” another song of the spiritual traveler.

Dance in the Madness
Joy is a bird that lifts you in flight.
Prayer is a beacon that pierces the night.
Faith is a prism that opens the light.
G-d is the answer of joy and delight.

Fear comes calling, a poisonous art.
Judgement, a knife that cuts you apart.
Sorrow, a clamp that crushes the heart.
Loneliness threatens to never depart.

On this journey, it’s certain, one thing is true,
Both joy and sorrow sit next to you
So dance in the madness,
There is nothing new,
And love everyone who is dear to you.

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Photo Source: Dale Robbinete/Lionsgate

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.

Photo Source: NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection

Abundance

Posted on: April 1st, 2018 by Alden

A new meditation on the flow of energy and abundance. The third stanza echoes Psalm 114:4, “The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like young sheep,” shifting the tone from meditation, to praise and hope for tomorrow. The final stanza closes with a blessing.

Abundance
The heavens sing to the stars.
The stars whisper to the sun.
The sun caresses the sea.
The sea dances with the land.
The land shares its gifts,
For abundance fills creation
With energy and light
And I breathe glory into my veins.

Cast your hearts to the rhythm of silence,
The pulse of eternity,
The wisdom of love,
The radiance surrounding us all.

Then, the mountains will skip like rams once more,
The hills like young sheep.
The rivers will roar
And the sky will shimmer in the flow of bounty from G-d,
The Source of all blessings.

Cast your fears to the wind,
Your doubts to the breeze,
Your losses to the earth.
Open your hearts,
And let the heavens sing to you.

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Photo Source: Alden Solovy

A Land Your Heart Knows

Posted on: March 22nd, 2018 by Alden

A new song of the Spiritual Traveler. It’s about hearing the music in your veins, the music in the wind and the music in the sky. It’s about trusting your heart, trusting your eyes and trusting your breathing…

A Land Your Heart Knows
There is a land
That only your heart knows.
But if you trust the music in your veins
You will journey to the place
Where love and power,
Innocence and wonder,
Merge inside your soul.
And you will emerge
Shimmering with light.

There is a dream
That only your eyes know.
But if you trust the music in the sky
You will rise to the place
Where limits become possibilities,
Where endings become beginnings,
Where horizons flow toward you in the color of light.

There is a moment
That only your breathing knows.
But if you trust the music in the wind
You will become a river of blessings,
A fountain of hope,
A well of healing,
And a source of peace.

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Photo Source: Alden Solovy

Seeking the One

Posted on: March 6th, 2018 by Alden

A meditation on seeking G-d and the flow of love, a song of the Spiritual Traveler. This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Seeking the One
Somewhere, in the middle of the ocean,
Unseen, unheard,
A white-capped wave breaks into one thousand seagulls soaring toward the sun, to become a ray of warmth sent back to earth.

Somewhere, inside your heart,
Unseen, unheard,
A golden prayer breaks into one thousand sparks soaring toward the Soul, to become a radiance of blessing sent back to earth.

You are the catalyst of holiness,
The alchemy of the divine,
The wisdom that flows from G-d’s river of light,
The hand that shares healing,
The heart that radiates love,
The seagull soaring toward the sun,
The spark soaring toward the Soul,
The one seeking the One,
Seeking the One,
Seeking the One.

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Postscript: See also: “Prayer with Wings,” “Rise on Wings: A Prayer of Borrowing” and “Give Love Wings.”

Photo Source: Alden Solovy

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.

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Postscript: See also “Recipe for a Life.”

Photo Source: Medical News Today

Art and Practice

Posted on: January 14th, 2018 by Alden

Send a blessing. Be a blessing. These are two of the arts and practices of inspiring love and sowing peace. Here’s a new meditation on embodying G-d’s gifts.

Art and Practice
These are the practices of love,
And the arts of peace…

Gratitude is the practice of sending blessings.
Compassion is the art of being a blessing.
Kindness is the practice of granting mercy.
Forgiveness is the art of being mercy.
Wonder is the practice of seeking holiness.
Humility is the art of being holiness.
Hope is the practice of seeing abundance.
Joy is the art of being abundance.

These are the practices of love,
And the arts of peace.
Gifts of G-d,
To share with each other.

Photo Source: Connection to Healing

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

Posts Tagged ‘hope’

Peace Will Come

Upon Starting a New Medicine or Treatment

Dance in the Madness

You without Peace

Abundance

A Land Your Heart Knows

Seeking the One

Beshalach: Manna

Art and Practice

To Hear Me Sing

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

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