Tag: Episcopal

Wind Chimes: 1 Dec 2012

World AIDS Day is December 1

The sounds in the chimes today seem to carry until the whole world is filled with their hope. What do you hear?

December 1 is World AIDS Day

This is a day of prayer, study, reflection, and action. Some statements and information for you:

A Statement on World AIDS Day from The Rev. Mark S. Hanson (Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and The Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori (Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church)

World AIDS Day 2012: Esperança’s Esperança a reflection from the field by an Episcopal Relief and Development worker

The UN Press Release for World AIDS Day

On Twitter search/see: #worldaidsday

A Prayer on World AIDS Day

Loving God, you show yourself to those who are vulnerable and make your home with the poor and weak of this world; Warm our hearts with the fire of your Spirit. Help us to accept the challenge of AIDS. Protect the healthy, we pray, calm the frightened, give courage to those in pain, comfort the dying and give to the dead eternal life. Console the bereaved, we beg you, and strengthen those who care for the sick. May we, your people, using all our energy and imagination, and trusting in your steadfast love, be united with one another in conquering all disease and fear. —Author unknown

Shannon, Maggie Oman (2009-12-22). Prayers for Hope and Comfort: Reflections, Meditations, and Inspirations (pp. 170-171). RedWheelWeiser – A. Kindle Edition.

“Black Friday” began the “Shopping Season” and retailers are relentless in keeping us focused on buying often and buying more. “#GivingTuesday” was an invitation to give and use your “buying power” in a way that benefits others for more than just a day.

I intend to keep that invitation in front of us throughout the “Shopping Season.” I believe (and am acting on my belief) that It is always the right time to be generous. If you haven’t participated in “#GivingTuesday” how about today? ~dan

2 Suggestions for giving on this Day (one global, one local for desert dwellers)

  • The “Health Fund” of Episcopal Relief and Development. (Navigate to “Health” on the Donate Page to designate your donation go to ERD’s Health Fund)
  • Desert AIDS Project. Located in Palm Springs, California, the Desert AIDS Project (DAP) seeks to “meet the evolving medical and social service needs of people living with HIV/AIDS by providing direct services and advocacy, while working to prevent new infections through education and outreach.”

#GivingTuesday™ is a campaign to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations.

Mission Statement
Go to the Home Page for #GivingTuesday
Wind Chimes for November 27, 2012

divider line

Image: UN Press Release for World AIDS Day

Wind Chimes: 30 Nov 2012

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted *
and will save those whose spirits are crushed.

Psalm 34:18
(from Morning Prayer, 11/30/12)

As always, the chimes sound, moved by the wind. Do the chimes sound comfort as you listen? Do the chimes sound like a call to action? What do you need in this moment? What do you hear?

How will this happen?

How will the Lord be “near” the brokenhearted unless one who knows the Lord goes—with compassion and empathy—and is present for as long as it takes? How will the Lord work to “save those whose spirits are crushed” unless one who knows the Lord goes with—conviction and courage—and acts on behalf of and with them? How will the Father’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, unless we who know the Son (and the Father who sent him) act accordingly? What do you hear?

Continue, please, the spirit of #GivingTuesday

“Black Friday” began the “Shopping Season” and retailers are relentless in keeping us focused on buying often and buying more. “#GivingTuesday” was an invitation to give and use your “buying power” in a way that benefits others for more than just a day.

I intend to keep that invitation in front of us throughout the “Shopping Season.” I believe (and am acting on my belief) that It is always the right time to be generous. If you haven’t participated in “#GivingTuesday” how about today? ~dan

Looking for a “reputable” nonprofit organization that helps others?

CharityNavigator-logoI encourage you to find out more about your favorite nonprofit on Charity Navigator. It is also a great starting point if you have an idea about what kind of efforts you would like to support but don’t know which nonprofit would use your gift wisely.

divider line

#GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday™ is a campaign to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations.

Mission Statement
Go to the Home Page for #GivingTuesday
Wind Chimes for November 27, 2012

Wind Chimes: 29 Nov 2012

Episcopal Relief and Development Gifts for Life Catalogue
A great place to continue #GivingTuesday generosity

What does “upside down” sound like?

Year C Lectionary features Luke’s Good News (Gospel)

We’ll begin “Year C” In our three-year cycle of lectionary readings this Sunday, December 2nd. Year C features the Gospel according to Luke. Here is a glimpse into Luke’s Good News:

Luke’s Gospel is the most broad-minded and the most forgiving. Every chance he gets, Luke has Jesus forgiving people, right up to the good thief on the cross. Luke is quite ready to see God as generous, gratuitous, and merciful. Mercy and inclusivity—Jesus’ ministry to outcasts, to Gentiles, to the poor—are emphasized a great deal in Luke. Luke’s Gospel is also called the gospel of women. Far more than any other evangelist, Luke brings women into Jesus’ life and shows Jesus’ very positive way of relating to women, especially for his time and culture.

Luke’s has also been called the gospel of absolute renunciation. For Luke, to be a disciple one has to let go of everything—not just money or other external idols, but inner idols and ego concerns as well. Luke advocates radically new social patterns of relationship. His is an upside-down gospel: “The first will be last and the last will be first” (Luke 13:30). Luke uses every story he can to show that what impresses people does not impress God, that people who think they are at the top are often, in God’s eyes, at the bottom, and that people who think they are at the bottom are, in God’s eyes, often at the top.

Adapted from The Good News According to Luke: Spiritual Reflections, pp. 38-40 and sent as an email by Richard Rohr. Online version of Daily Meditation: The Good News

Continue, please, the spirit of #GivingTuesday

It is always the right time to be generous. If you haven’t participated in “#GivingTuesday” how about today?

#GivingTuesday™ is a campaign to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations.

Mission Statement
Go to the Home Page for #GivingTuesday
Wind Chimes for November 27, 2012

Image: Cover of the 2012 Gifts for Life Catalog from Episcopal Relief and Development

Wind Chimes: 27 Nov 2012 #GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday™ is a campaign to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations.

Mission Statement
Go to the Home Page for #GivingTuesday

Compassion is in the wind that moves the chimes today. What do you hear?

Earlier today …

… I was reminded of the wisdom of Marian Wright Edelman (ht Diane Noble and Gratefulness.org)

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

Please make a difference today, no matter how small—it really does “add up.”

Let awareness inspire your giving today

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us. . . and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. . . .

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Photo: YouTube video introducing #GivingTuesday

Wind Chimes: 26 Nov 2012

#GivingTuesday Logo
Tuesday, November 27, 2012. Click to find out more

No one has ever become poor by giving.

Anne Frank

The wind does not require anything of you, it is a gift. The sounds made by the chimes do not require anything of you, they are a gift. Generosity sounds in the chimes today. How long will it last? Forever. What do you hear?

What a great idea: #GivingTuesday

Quote . . .We have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting deals. This year help create #GivingTuesday™, the giving season’s opening day.

On Tuesday November 27, 2012 charities, families, businesses and individuals are coming together to transform the way people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season.

It’s a simple idea. Find a way for your family, your community, your company or your organization to join in acts of giving. Tell everyone you can about what you are doing and why it matters. Join a national celebration of our great tradition of generosity.
And together we’ll create ways to give more, give better and give smarter.
~#GivingTuesday introduction

Go to the Home Page for #GivingTuesday

In gratitude

In gratitude, in deep gratitude
for this moment
this experience
these people,
we give ourselves to you.

Lead us out
to live as changed people
because we have shared the Living Bread
and cannot remain the same.

Ask much of us,
expect much from us,
enable much by us,
encourage many through us.

So, Lord, may we live to your glory,
both as citizens of earth
and citizens of the commonwealth of heaven
where our pilgrimage will be complete.

Pritchard, John (2011-09-12). Pocket Prayers for Pilgrims (Search term: gratitude). Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Photo: Logo for #GivingTuesday from the website for #GivingTuesday

Wind Chimes: 23 Nov 2012

A lake reflection

[Hannah] was deeply distressed
and prayed to the Lord,
and wept bitterly.

Hannah was praying silently;
only her lips moved,
but her voice was not heard

1 Samuel 1:10, 13 NRSV

Like a prayer, again, the wind sounds the chimes. What do you hear?

Prayer as a quest

The purpose of prayer is not prayer. The purpose of prayer is to come to love God as much as possible with all the insights into the nature and presence of God this world allows. […] in prayer we are seeking the God who is seeking us. … Prayer is the process of learning to listen.

“So What is the Prayer Life?” in Ideas in Passing by Joan Chittister (05/16/2011) excerpted from The Breath of the Soul: Reflections on Prayer by Joan Chittister (Twenty-Third Publications)

Prayer, like breathing …

Prayer is more like breathing. At times we may be especially conscious of it.…But breathing is never just one more task on our list of things to do. It is essential to life; without it we die. Prayer, like breathing, is essential to our life in God. Without it, our spiritual lives cannot be sustained.

From “Prayer” on Brother Give Us a Word a daily meditation of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE).

Be still

God says, “Be still and know that I am God.
I will be praised in all the nations;
I will be praised throughout the earth.”

Psalm 46:10 (New Century Version)

Photo: by Wing-Chi Poon on Wikimedia Commons

Wind Chimes: 22 Nov 2012

Grateful to hear the sounds at all, I pause and I pray. What do you hear? What is your response?

A Song of Creation: Glorify the Lord, all you works of the Lord

Invocation

Glorify the Lord, all you works of the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

I The Cosmic Order

Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord, *
O heavens and all waters above the heavens.

Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, *
all winds and fire and heat. Winter and summer, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold, *
drops of dew and flakes of snow.

Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O nights and days, *
O shining light and enfolding dark.

Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

II The Earth and its Creatures

Let the earth glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O mountains and hills, and all that grows upon the earth, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O springs of water, seas, and streams, *
O whales and all that move in the waters.

All birds of the air, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O beasts of the wild, *
and all you flocks and herds.

O men and women everywhere, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

III The People of God

Let the people of God glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O priests and servants of the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, O spirits and souls of the righteous, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

You that are holy and humble of heart, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Doxology

Let us glorify the Lord: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

The Book of Common Prayer,  pp 88-90

Photo: by Booksworm on Wikimedia Commons

Wind Chimes: 20 Nov 2012

[Hannah] was deeply distressed
and prayed to the Lord,
and wept bitterly.

Hannah was praying silently;
only her lips moved,
but her voice was not heard

1 Samuel 1:10, 13 NRSV

Most days the wind constantly moves the chimes but we are not aware, we are easily distracted by other sounds. Slow down, pause, become aware, become attentive. What do you hear?

Every moment could be a moment of prayer

Consider prayer a lifting up of heart and mind to God with Brother David Steindl-Rast. This audio clip is approximately 3 minutes long.

Prayer as a lifting of heart and mind to GodPlay an audio clip

Begin with your experiences as you explore prayer

Quote . . .Most of us know the experience of prayer. We may remember prayers taught to us in childhood. Prayers offered in our church communities may have meaning for us. Many of us can recall a time of pain, agony or despair when a prayer was pulled out of us with surprising strength: “Oh God, help me, help me!” or “Why, God, why?”

Often we remember times of great wonder during which we experienced God’s presence. A sunset, a piece of music, or a baby’s smile he]ps us to remember that God speaks to us in many ways if we are open and willing to see and to listen. When our hearts are touched by the wonder of God we often respond with words of gratitude or praise or simply an inner smile of joy.

We are all pray-ers; we know how to pray. But when we think about learning to pray we forget our experience and turn outside ourselves for answers and insights. The first step in exploring the life of prayer is to begin with the experiences that are uniquely ours.

From an online essay, Exploring a Life of Prayer by Jane E. Vennard (archived on Religion Online)

A Morning Prayer

Lord you are in this place, Fill us with your power, Cover us with your peace, Show us your presence.

Lord help us to know, We are in your hands, We are under your protection, We are covered by your love.

Lord we ask you, today, To deliver us from evil, To guide us in our travels, To defend us from all harm.

Lord give us now, Eyes to see the invisible, Ears to hear your call, Hands to do your work, And hearts to respond to your love.

David Adam. Border Lands: The Best of David Adam’s Celtic Vision (p. 23). Kindle Edition.

Photo: by Sam Javanrouh and posted on Facebook by Indian Country Today Media Network on November 16, 2012.

Wind Chimes: 19 Nov 2012

Alone

[Hannah] was deeply distressed
and prayed to the Lord,
and wept bitterly.

Hannah was praying silently;
only her lips moved,
but her voice was not heard

1 Samuel 1:10, 13 NRSV

The chimes, barely audible, sound like a prayer today. What do you hear?

Prayer is

Prayer is, then, to speak more boldly, a conversation with God. Though whispering, consequently, and not opening the lips, we speak in silence, yet we cry inwardly. For God hears continually the whole inward conversation. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) Stromateis 7.7.

Cindy Crosby;Thomas C. Oden. Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B (Search term: Proper 28). Kindle Edition.

Prayer is

Prayer is responding to God,
by thought and by deeds,
with or without words.

From the Book of Common Prayer, page 856

Take our tears, Lord

Take our tears, Lord: to water the seeds of prayer.

Psalm 6:6–9

I grow weary because of my groaning
every night I drench my bed and flood my couch with tears.

My eyes are wasted with grief
and worn away because of all my enemies.

Depart from me, all evildoers
for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

The LORD has heard my supplication
the LORD accepts my prayer.

Take our tears, Lord: to water the seeds of prayer.

Claiborne, Shane; Wilson-Hartgrove, Jonathan; Okoro, Enuma (2010-11-09). Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (p. 168). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Photo: by epSos.de on Wikimedia Commons

Wind Chimes: 16 Nov 2012

“… I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me,
I was in prison and you visited me.”

Matthew 25:35-36 NRSV

What do you hear in the chimes: mournful sounds, hopeful sounds, noise, music?

Extending Veterans Day

Remember, thank, and care for Vets not only on one day a year, but every day of the year—it’s a common sentiment in most Veterans Day speeches. Yesterday (11/15/12) I shared a link to resources and a story of hope. Today I do the same. ~dan

Women Veterans Health Care

Quote . . .

Women Veterans Health Care: This web site provides information on health care services available to women Veterans, including comprehensive primary care as well as specialty care such as reproductive services, rehabilitation, mental health, and treatment for military sexual trauma.

Have a question? Go to: Women Veterans Health Care “Frequently Asked Questions”

A story of growing involvement

Arkansas ministry helps homeless veterans re-enter society gives you an idea about how one “house” and one diocese became more and more involved in reaching out to veterans. It is a story of hope and a call to others to become involved.

In the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego the Cathedral is following this path of involvement: Friends of Military Outreach and Support

Is your congregation getting ready to help? The VA may be able to help: Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships web pages of information and invitation maintained by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Video: “She wore these” from Veterans Health Administration on YouTube ~dan