Tag Archive for "redemption" | To Bend Light

Posts Tagged ‘redemption’

Cry, No More

Posted on: September 26th, 2012 by tobendlight

This prayer is about having compassion for ourselves while repairing the damage we’ve done to self and others. I wrote it after my first Yom Kippur in Jerusalem, my first in Israel as an oleh chadash. I use it on Yom Kippur and during the Counting the Omer, day 10, “compassion in discipline.” It appears in my book This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

Cry, No More
Cry no more for the sins of the past.
Rejoice in your repentance and your return.
For this is the day that G-d made
To lift you up from your sorrow and shame,
To deliver you to the gates of righteousness.

Remember this:
Love is the crown of your life
And wisdom the rock on which you stand.
Charity is your staff
And justice your shield.
Your deeds declare your kindness
And your works declare your devotion.

Cry no more for your fears and your dread.
Rejoice in your blessings and your healing.
For this is the day that G-d made
To raise your countenance and hope,
To deliver you to the gates of holiness.

Postscript: “This is the day that G-d made” (Psalms 118:24) is used in our liturgy, including the service of praises, Hallel. Here are links to prayers for Elul, prayers for Rosh Hashana, prayers for Yom Kippur and prayers for Sukkot. Here’s a link to yizkor and memorial prayers.

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: Gospel Newsroom

Awake You Slumberers!

Posted on: September 22nd, 2012 by tobendlight

“Awake, ye sleepers from your slumber, and rouse you from you from your lethargy. Scrutinize your deeds and return in repentance.” – רמב”ם

Are you awake? Are you listening? Are you fully present in this moment? Are you fully present in your life? Are you fully present in G-d’s world? When you hear the call of the Shofar on Yom Kippur, when the great Tekiah sounds, will you be ready to rise up and live a life in service to G-d’s holy word?

Here are links to five meditations about waking up to some of G-d’s gifts – truth, joy, holiness, love and Torah – posted now in anticipation of Yom Kippur. They follow the same rhythm and structure: an introduction of three short stanzas; the assertion that G-d’s gifts are present in the universe; a call to reengage with purpose (“Awake you slumberers!”); a reminder of what we may have forgotten; and a call to action.

Here is a taste of “Let Joy:”

“…joy is in the dawn and the dusk,
The silence and the great expanse,
The flow of light from G-d’s grace,
Divine wonder and awe,
Calling out to you dear sisters and brothers:
‘Awake you slumberers!
Awake you who sleepwalk through…”

Are you ready to “Let Truth,” “Let Joy,” “Let Holiness,” “Let Love” and “Let Torah” guide your life? Each of these meditations is aimed at helping us back to G-d’s gifts. And each of these links also includes audio of the meditation.

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Rhythms, Revised for Elul 5772

Posted on: August 17th, 2012 by tobendlight

This meditation is about contrasting rhythms of life, time moving in a straight line and holiness moving in circles. Although it can be said at any time of the year, it has particular relevance during the Hebrew month of Elul and on Rosh Hashana. I’ve changed a few key words to soften the language. Here’s a link to the orginial prayer, posted in July, 2010, and a list of more prayers for Elul.

Rhythms (Revised for Elul 5772)
Gracious and compassionate One,
G-d of time and seasons,
You’ve made a world of mystery and wonder,
A world of moments and millennia,
Clarity and confusion,
Illness and health,
Life and death.
Time moves forward,
Steadily into the unknown,
Steadily from the seen into the yet-to-be.
In Your wisdom, G-d of All Being,
Time also moves in cycles and seasons,
Carrying us from the holy to the mundane back to the holy,
A loving pattern of power and grace, comfort and hope.

Protector and Redeemer of Israel,
Grant me wisdom as my life moves forward through the flow of time.
Grant me strength as it turns through the circles of holiness.

Blessed are You, Holy One, who creates and sustains
The rhythms of our lives.

Postscript: Here’s a list of prayers for Elul, another one of prayers for Rosh Hashana, a list of prayers for Yom Kippur and one more for Sukkot. And here’s a link to yizkor and memorial prayers.

Please use these prayers. See “Share the Prayer!” in the right hand column.

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Unlock Your Heart

Posted on: August 5th, 2012 by tobendlight

This is part prayer, part insight, part inspiration. It’s about the yearning for a certain kind of nobility that comes from allowing G-d’s gifts to enter our hearts, the kind of nobility that requires self-confidence, self-care and self-discipline. I use this prayer for the 14th night of the counting of the Omer, Nobility in Discipline.

Unlock Your Heart
Come,
Unlock your heart,
Open the gates
So your soul may enter.

Splendor.

Radiance.

Awe.

Let the spark of holiness
And the gift of humanity
Meet in the core of your being.

Wisdom.

Glory.

Truth.

Let the echo of the ages
And the yearning for tomorrow
Sing a duet of eternity.

Mystery.

Majesty.

Wonder.

Then, dear sisters and brothers,
Your hands will become a fountain of blessings,
And your eyes will become wells of love.
Your words will resonate with Torah,
And your deeds will glorify G-d’s Holy Name.

Postscript: Other songs and prayers of the Spiritual Traveler include: “Come Walk,” “Bird is Bird,” “River,” “Soarbird” and “I am Breathing.” Click here for more songs of the Spiritual Traveler.

Please check out my ELItalk “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: Pieces to a Complicated Heart

My Mitzrayim

Posted on: June 10th, 2012 by tobendlight

I am fresh off of a Call of the Shofar Seasons of Transformation workshop. One of the men told a story about the mitzrayim that we carry inside ourselves, the mitzrayim I carry in me. Mitzrayim, Egypt, the place of my physical bondage, is also the place of my spiritual bondage. This prayer, written two years ago, echoes that theme.

Today I repost this prayer in honor and tribute to the men and women who’ve taken the brave step of facing their personal mitzrayim in Call of the Shofar, the participants of this past weekend in Israel, the staff men and Shofar leadership. To listen while you read, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

Egypt Inside
This I confess to myself:
I have taken Egypt with me.
I’ve kept myself a slave to grief and loss,
Fear and anger and shame.
I have set myself up as task master,
Driving my own work beyond the limits
Of reasonable time and common sense.
I’ve seen miracles from heaven,
Signs and wonders in my own life,
And still wait for the heavens to speak.

G-d of redemption,
With Your love and guiding hand leaving Egypt is easy.
Leaving Egypt behind is a struggle.
In Your wisdom You have given me this choice:
To live in a tyranny of my own making,
Or to set my heart free to love You,
To love Your people,
And to love myself.

G-d of Freedom, help me to leave Egypt behind,
To hear Your voice,
To accept Your guidance,
And to see the miracles in each new day.

Blessed are You, G-d of wonder,
You set Your people on the road to redemption.

Postscript: I also thank my brothers in The Mankind Project who encouraged me to participate in Call of the Shofar. Click here to read my prayers for and about men. Here’s what I wrote when I first posted this prayer on March 29, 2010: “Leaving Egypt is the quintessential Jewish metaphor for the road to freedom. Leaving is only the beginning of that road. Leaving Egypt behind, leaving slavery behind, is much more difficult.”

Being Present

Posted on: May 30th, 2012 by tobendlight

Here’s a prayer about living fully, being present in the moment. This piece appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

Being Present
G-d, help me live this day
In a way that draws Your favor,
That summons
Your gifts and Your blessings,
That attracts holiness and light.

Give me courage and strength,
Hope and understanding.

Help me to be present in my life.
Help me be present in my day.
Help me be present for others.
Help me be present for myself.

Let me live awake and aware,
Vital and energetic,
Casting off the chains of doubt and fear.

G-d of hidden worlds,
G-d of secret realms,
G-d of trial and triumph,
You have given me moments and choices,
Hours and opportunities,
Days to build
And days to renew.
Let me live this day with wisdom,
Awake to the moments of healing,
Dedicating my hands and my heart
To the work of creation.

And Your gifts will appear quietly,
Gently,
Sweet like morning dew
To refresh my heart.

Postscript: This prayer echoes the themes of my three-part meditation about the rhythm and flow of life. These meditations are written to be recited in order: “Leaving,” “Arriving” and “Now.”

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: Vionnaswatching

Season of Sorrow

Posted on: May 16th, 2012 by tobendlight

This is a prayer to turn seasons of sorrow into seasons of hope. Many of my friends appear to have a season that they associate with sorrow, a time when endings and bad moments appear to cluster. I wrote this in late March, thinking about the third anniversary of Ami’s z”l death. I’ve come to think of April as my season of loss. But I also met her in late April, just after my birthday. Two huge gains. Why did I let my sorrows define the season? This appears in my book, This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day.

Season of Sorrow
This is my season of sorrow.
A time when struggles recur and challenges arrive,
A time of endings and distress.
In this season I’ve known
Moments of pain,
Moments of sadness,
Moments of confusion.
Times of loss and
Times of grief,
Moments that stripped me of wisdom
And left me crushed and breathless,
Cold and in deepening shadow.

Holy One,
Help me recall my seasons of joy,
To recall with hope and praise
Your gifts and blessings.
Moments of laughter.
Moments of kindness.
Moments of peace.
Times of health. Times of clarity.
Moments that lifted my spirit
And comforted my heart.

In truth,
These joys and sorrows
Are gifts of holiness,
Gifts of mystery,
Gifts beyond my wisdom,
My knowledge,
My understanding.

Rock and Redeemer,
You are my comfort and my strength,
My light and my truth.

Postscript: Here are other prayers about transitions and transformations: “Leaving,” “River” “Rhythms” and “Transitions.”

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!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

Powerful Men

Posted on: May 6th, 2012 by tobendlight

Here’s another prayer in my series for men. It’s a brief call to action — inspired by the men of ManKind Project around the world — summoning men to use their power in service of humanity. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

Powerful Men
Men of honor,
Men of strength,
The world yearns for you.
Your wisdom, your courage, your vitality.
The call has come.

Men of conscience,
Men of understanding,
Summon the energy that is deep in your belly,
Steeped into your bones,
That heats your blood and fires your eyes,
And hold it as rod and staff,
Guide and compass,
To build, to heal,
To honor, to bless.

G-d of Majesty,
Teach me to use this power
In service to others
In the name of holiness and love,
So that I become a source of compassion and grace,
A light of awe and wonder.

Postscript: Click here for a list of prayer and meditations for men. Two of my favorites are: “My Courage” and “My Work Remains.”

Prayer for the Jews of France

Posted on: March 19th, 2012 by tobendlight

A prayer for the Jews of France after today’s violence in Toulouse. Here is a link to a translation of this prayer into French, called “Aux Juifs de France.” See also: “At the Hand of Anti-Semitism: A Yizkor Prayer.”

For the Jews of France
Author of life,
Man has turned violent,
Cutting down children and their teachers
In Toulouse, France,
Our young and our leaders,
Our brothers and sisters,
Crushing lives,
Upending dreams,
Attacking hope with hatred.

Source and Creator,
Grant a perfect rest under your tabernacle of peace
To the victims of murder in Toulouse
Whose lives were cut off by violence,
An act of witless aggression
And calculated anti-Semitism.
Remember the survivors of this horror,
And the victims of any violence, suffering or despair.
Grant them shelter and solace,
Comfort and consolation,
Blessing and renewal.
Grant them endurance to survive,
Strength to rebuild,
Faith to mourn,
Courage to heal,
And devotion to each other.

Heavenly Guide,
Hand of love and shelter,
Put an end to anger and hatred,
Bigotry and fear,
And lead us to a time when no one
Suffers at the hand of another.

For the sake of our people,
And for the sake of Your Holy Name,
Grant the Jews of France Your protection,
Your wholeness and healing,
And Your peace.

Postscript: This is an adaptation of prayers I wrote in response to violence in Norway and attacks in Mumbai, which were based on two of my other prayers, “At the Hand of Violence” and “In Devastation.” Find related prayers in my “Liturgy for 9-11.” Ask others to pray for the Jews of France by posting a link to this prayer on your Facebook wall or blog.

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing. 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 take a moment to explore my book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

Photo credit: Soutien aux familles des victimes et à la communauté Juive de Toulouse on Facebook

To the Terrorist: We Stand Strong, We Pray for Peace

Posted on: March 12th, 2012 by tobendlight

Is it possible to pray for the terrorist? This is my attempt, written to commemorate 9-11 and reposted in 2012 as Israel faces a missile barrage from Gaza. This prayer is from “A Liturgy for 9-11.” To listen, click on the triangle in the bar below.

To the Terrorist
You who would hold the sky captive,
The sea prisoner,
The land in chains…

You who hide in caves,
Retreat to the wilderness,
Disappear behind false names and forged papers…

You who smuggle guns and arms,
Hide rockets in cities and bombs in homes,
Build weapons against the innocent and the bystander…

You whose designs are destruction,
Whose plans are fear,
Whose joy is hate…

You who harden your hearts
And wrap yourselves in death…
What evil has robbed you of your love,
Your compassion,
Your goodness,
Your humanity?
What lies have invaded your minds
So that you choose to die in order to kill?

We who love our lives and liberty
Stand firm and strong against terror.
We will defend our nation and our people.
We will protect our land and our homes.
And we pray for you to find hope and comfort
In lives of peace.

Postscript: This prayer was first posted on April 28, 2011, as part of my Liturgy for 9-11, which was written for the HUC-JIR continuing education blog Tzeh U’limad. It was reposted separately with audio on August 2, 2011. Here’s a prayer called “Israel: A Meditation” and one “For Peace in the Middle East.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing. 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.