Posts Tagged ‘praise and blessing’

 

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.

© 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: Connection to Healing

In Gratitude for Your Gifts

Posted on: January 10th, 2016 by Alden

Ashrei ArtThis prayer of gratitude is one of my few attempts at an English alphabetic acrostic. Here, the acrostic is in second word of the first two sets of indented lines, and the first word of the third set. Many Psalms are Hebrew acrostics, such as Psalm 145, the core of the Ashrei. Many classic piyyutim also incorporate acrostics. A sample of the poetic structures of famous piyyutim can be found on Wikipedia.

In Gratitude for Your Gifts
Guardian of my life.
Guide of my spirit:

In Awe we seek You,
With Blessings we reach You,
In Communion we call to You,
With Devotion we come to You.
With Enthusiasm we turn to You,
In Faith we trust in You,
With Gratitude we look to You,
In Humility we yearn for You,
With Inspiration we return to You,
In Joy we praise You.

Source of all being,
Light of the earth:

In Kindness You heal us,
In Love You sustain us,
In Mercy You forgive us,
With Nobility you bless us,
With Openness You hear us,
With Peace you comfort us.
In Quiet we hear You,
With Radiance You bestow divine gifts,
With Splendor You renew the world,
In Trust You’ve given us free will.

Soul of the universe,
Grant us:

Understanding to follow Your word,
Vigor to live by Your law,
Wisdom to follow Your path,
Yearning to study Torah,
Zeal for justice and peace.

© 2015 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: The original version of my prayer “Elijah” is an acrostic, although when I revised and expanded the prayer, I chose to forgo the acrostic. I haven’t experimented with much with this form. Dealing with several letters – in particular, ‘x’ – is a challenge. In this prayer, I’ve chosen to avoid the issue by leaving it out.

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