Tag: Jesus

An interpretation from the Aramaic

O Creative breath,

ebbing and flowing through all forms,

soften the ground of our being

and hollow a place for the planting of your presence.

Moving to the heartbeat of your purpose,

make us the embodiment of your compassion.

Fill us with your creativity

that we might bear the fruit of your vision.

Give us the wisdom to produce and share

what each one needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled webs of destiny that bind us

as we release others from the entanglements of past mistakes.

And let us not be seduced

by that which would divert us from our true purpose,

but illuminate the path before us.

For you are the ground of the fruitful vision,

the birthing power, and the fulfillment,

as all is gathered and made whole once again.

Psalms for Praying – Psalm 1:

Blessed are those

   who walk hand in hand

  with goodness,

   who stand beside virtue, 

   who sit in the seat of truth;

For their delight is in the Spirit of Love,

    and in Love’s heart they dwell

day and night.

They are like trees planted by

streams of water,

     that yield fruit in due season,

and their leaves flourish;

And in all that they do, they give life.

The unloving are not so;

    they are like dandelions which 

the wind blows away.

Turning from the Heart of Love

    they will know suffering and pain.

They will be isolated from wisdom;

    for Love knows the way of truth,

    the way of ignorance will perish

    As Love’s penetrating Light

breaks through hearts

filled with illusions:

forgiveness is the way.

-by Nan C. Merrill

We are already in union with God. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), a saint and mystic revered to this day by Eastern Christians, wrote some words that point beautifully to this “force field” that we call the Body of Christ. It is a living organism created by those who live in love, much more than any mere religious organization.

Symeon describes this cosmic embodiment created by God’s grace and our response, naming the divine union that all the Bible is forever inviting and edging us toward. He is sharing his own experience of his divine embodiment. Here, in Symeon’s hymn, scripture has become spirituality. This prayer, religious verse, in its twenty-seven mystical lines honestly say it all.

We awaken in Christ’s body

as Christ awakens our bodies,

and my poor hand is Christ.  He enters

my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully

My hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

(for God is indivisibly 

Whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once

He appears in a flash of lightning.

Do my words seem blasphemous? 

Then

Open your heart to him,

We wake up inside Christ’s body

Where all our body, allover,

Every most hidden part of it,

 Is realized in joy as Him,

And He makes us utterly real,

And everything that is hurt, everything

That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

Maimed, ugly, irreparably

Damaged, is in Him transformed

And recognized as whole, as lovely,

And radiant in His light.

We awaken as the Beloved

In every last part of our body.

-by Symeon the New Theologian

Christ has no body now but yours,

no hands, no feet on Earth but yours.

Yours are the only eyes

with which his compassion

can still look out on a troubled world.

Yours are the only feet

with which he can go about doing good.

Yours are the only hands

with which he can bring his blessing to his people.

Christ has no body now on Earth but yours.

-St. Teresa of Avila