I've been reading Listening for the Heartbeat of God, a book on Celtic Spirituality by Philip Newell, and in it I found a wonderful prayer from a Scottish minister named George MacLeod:
Almighty God,
Sun behind all suns,
Soul behind all souls,
show to us in everything we touch
and in everyone we meet
the continued assurance of thy presence round us,
lest ever we should think thee absent.
In all created things thou art there.
In every friend we have
the sunshine of thy presence is shown forth.
In every enemy that seems to cross our path,
thou art there within the cloud to challenge us to love.
Show to us the glory in the grey.
Awake for us thy presence in the very storm.
till all our joys are seen as thee
and all our trivial tasks emerge as priestly sacraments
in the universal temple of thy love.
... a lovely prayer, I think, to hold close to our hearts this Christmas season...
But for my facebook post today, because I keep those carefully free of references to God and Christ, I'll write instead this other thought, paraphrased from the Buddhist teacher, Adyashanti:
Think on it: all the harm we do
comes from believing what's not true.
... and lest these two thoughts seem unconnected to you, let me point out that the truth MacLeod's prayer points to is that God (or spirit, if you prefer that language) resides in all things, all events, all people. The harm we do -- any of us -- is when we forget that's true.
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