Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
We are absolutely thrilled and delighted to release the first day of our new video podcasts for the Cultivating Seeds of Liberation prayer cycle! We are so grateful to Wisdom Council member and dear friend Betsey Beckman for all her video work and editing in putting these together. She invited many guest dancers to be a part of this project and helps us to bring the dance of liberation alive for all beings! She also provided generous financial support, which along with many other donations and wonderful Sustainers, which help us to continue to offer these as a free resource.
We will be releasing the seven days of morning and evening podcasts over the next seven weeks, one full day per week.
The theme for this prayer cycle emerged from a conversation the core planning team had many months ago when this project was in its beginning phase. We wanted to speak to the times we are in and the desire and necessity to be people of liberation, helping point the way toward freedom from all the systems that do us harm. The image of cultivating seeds spoke to us as acknowledging the way music and prayer can plant images of possibility within our hearts.
The monk and mystic nourishes a contemplative presence with the divine which is always in service to love. This love pours forth from God, and from our own hearts when we are in true connection. This inward journey to the depths of our being, is always in service to the collective of which we are a part. Love calls us out of ourselves and our narrow concerns to see how we are intimately intertwined with all living beings. Where one being suffers, we all suffer.
St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is today, knew this truth with his whole body and soul. In his connection to Love’s overflowing into his own life he was prompted to shed all the trappings of wealth that kept him from a full commitment to following the divine call. He met a leper one day and what would have once been bitter and repulsive to him, now he embraced the leper and saw him as one of his brothers. He knows that kissing the leper is kissing Christ. We are called to the same kind of vision and compassion.
Here is the opening prayer from Day 1: Love written by Claudia Love Mair.
Mother/Father of Life, Maker of all things, we come together guided by love, with the singular desire to live in love, with creation and with each other, because you are Love. Keep our feet on the path of love, holding hands with our fellow humans, especially those who we were taught were unlovable, unworthy of our time and attention, and to be feared or hated. We are so much more alike than we are different from one another. Help us to be mindful of this today and always.
Tomorrow our monthly contemplative prayer services return! Simon de Voil and I will be leading our community in song, reflection, and meditation and would love for you to join us. Our theme is Cultivating Seeds of Liberation to help celebrate our prayer cycle.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
