Guarantee

Prayer theme: The communion of the Holy Trinity You awaken today and all around you are signs of conflict. You read the newspaper, scan the Internet, listen to the news, talk with a family member or co-worker, feel the stress in your shoulders or stomach, and you realize that there’s tension everywhere.

You’re part of a world where everything and everyone is related, but most everything and most everyone have trouble just getting along. God intended harmony, but discord’s the raucous symphony that plays twenty-four hours a day.

This is exactly why you rise and greet the day with prayer to the Holy Trinity.

Pound for pound, there’s more goodness around you than you can imagine. There are more angels with you, more saints for you, more loving companions near you than you can now see. But without the Trinity, the babel of a world gone mad would long ago have drowned out the music of this goodness.

The Trinity is many things, but it’s at least this—it is our guarantee that despite appearances all things hold together. Harmony, not discord is the center of all things. Today, you rise to welcome this truth, gather yourself into this Center, and pray for the faith to dwell there no matter what comes your way.

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Everywhere

The companionship of angels saints . . . Angels are heavenly beings—supernatural, sometimes visible, sometimes not. How many they are and what they do is not yours to know. It’s enough for you to know that there’s an unseen dimension and a thin line often separates the invisible from the visible. Angels can appear to you in a blaze of pure light—if so, they’ll put you on your face in fear and awe. But most times angels appear in human guise. They appear abruptly and slip away quietly. They’re so natural that you’re tempted to think they’re a neighborhood kid or a co-worker down the hall. Only they’re not.

When they’re gone, they’ll have left you some gift—not usually something you’ll hold in your hands, but something you’ll need to take into your heart. Figuring out what that gift is and what it means is the work the angel’s left you to do.

There are saints too, present and past, whose lives will guide to you (Hebrews 12.1). Saints are simply those who’ve made it their aim in life to abandon themselves to God. They’re not always nice, and often not pretty. But they’re good. Saints are utterly natural. They can be the kid next door, the person down the hall. Departed saints will guide you from the pages of a book. Present saints care for you when you’re hurting or sick. There’s a band of them, past and present, praying for you now. You can take that to the bank.

The point is, as you curve yourself open to the goodness that’s all around you, open also to the serendipitous companions God’s sending your way today—visible and invisible. When you rise and pray, welcoming the “companionship of angels and saints,” open yourself to this heavenly and earthly host. They’ll surprise you with a word, a kind gesture, a firm and sometimes-unwelcome challenge, a nudge, a whisper on the wind. Listen. Watch. They’re everywhere.

On this journey, you’re never alone.

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Sufism: bridge between East and West

Here's an excellent essay by one of my favorite authors.  Muslims in the Middle.  New York Times, August 16, 2010 William Dalrymple's book, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East, helped inspire my own pilgrimage in 2007.  That tale is told in my little e-book, Returning to the Center: Living Prayer in a Distracting Word/The Spiritual Memoir of a Twenty-First Century Pilgrim (available for free download here).

In this essay, Dalrymple explores why the mystic arm of Islam, Sufism, makes a perfect bridge between East and West, moving beyond Islamic, Christian, Jewish, and secular extremism.  It's an apt corrective to so much of the mis-information being bandied about today, especially as September 11 draws near once again.

I commend not only Dalrymple's essay (reprinted from the New York Times), but also the website diversejourneys.com, and more, the Rand Corporation's 2007 Report, Building Moderate Muslim Networks.

Companions

The companionship of angels and saints . . . You’ve curved yourself open again and embraced the goodness of creation all around you. While you’re at it, curve yourself open to those around you.

The journey you’re on, into the fullness of God, can seem lonely. The traffic’s often going a different direction. Yet God will send companions, but much of the time they’ll not be the companions you’d choose for yourself. This is why paying attention to the curvature of your heart is important. When you feel like you’re traveling alone, you’ll likely curve in upon yourself again. You’ll be tempted to judge others, become self-righteous. Your apparent isolation may make you feel abandoned, and therefore a bit ornery.

Truth is, there are more with you and for you—more who love you—than you have eyes to see (2 Kings 6.16-18). Surely you’ve got at least a few family and friends somewhere around you. With this part of the Rule you express your intention to open yourself to them.

But there’s more. God’s also surrounded you with a host of angels and saints—natural and supernatural beings whose ministry is mostly unseen. So, as you rise today it’ll do you good to say hello to them, and open yourself to whatever they may bring your way.

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Determination

The goodness of earth and sky and sea

When you rise and pray this way, you’re separating yourself from the pessimism and crankiness that can easily poison your heart. You’ve served notice that, while there are plenty of real problems in our world—some you’ll face even today—you’re determined to rise above the hand-ringing and finger-pointing and name-calling that are so toxic.

That determination means you’ll live a life uncommon.

But it’s you who’ve chosen to work with the grain of the universe, rather than against it. God pronounced the world good, and goodness is the essential nature of things. If you see things any other way you’ll sin against the Sacred and most likely end up with a handful of splinters.

Instead, pick up a ripe midsummer peach. Toss yourself into a pile of autumn leaves. Saunter in the snow. Dance in the rain. Caress a baby’s face. Cradle an old person’s hand. Savor a glass of wine or a fine green tea. Watch the waves crash against the shore. Count the stars. Bend down and pick up a handful of this good earth. Smell the musty aroma of life.

True, the earth can reel and rock. The sea can rise against us in terrifying power. The sky can send a gale to rip and tear at all we hold dear. But pound for pound, goodness far outweighs the bad.

So arise and welcome the zillion tons of goodness beneath you, the infinite benevolence above you, the unbounded charity all around you. And smile. All is good.

But if for some reason things aren’t so good for you right now, if pain and darkness and fear crowd in against you, things shall be good again.

God says so.

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