Prayer Cycle / Soul of a Pilgrim / Day 6
Day 6: The Practice of Beginning Again
Video, Audio and Written Guides for Morning and Evening Prayer
Morning Prayer
OPENING PRAYER
We awaken to a new day ready to begin again. If we have lost focus or presence on the journey, we embrace the invitation to recommit. The God of Newness calls us to remember every moment is an opportunity to meet the sacred.
OPENING SONG
Behold I Make All Things New
Refrain:
Behold, I make all things new.
Behold, I make all things new.
Behold, I make all things new.
Let there be light, let there be light.
FIRST READING: Howard Thurman
Every moment is a divine encounter, every facet is an exposure to the boundless energies by which life is sustained and our spirits made whole. Thus we live joyfully into life and its restraints.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Wisdom open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 103:1-8, 13-16
Bless the FOUNT OF WISDOM, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless her Name.
Bless the FOUNT OF WISDOM, O my soul,
and forget not all her benefits.
She forgives all your sins
and heals all your infirmities;
She redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with mercy and lovingkindness;
She satisfies you with good things,
and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.
SHE WHO IS WISDOM executes righteousness
and judgment for all who are oppressed.
She made her ways known to Miriam and Moses
and her works to the children of Israel.
WISDOM’S womb is full of love and faithfulness,
slow to anger and overflowing with faithful love.
As a mother’s love for her children flows from her womb,
so too does WISDOM’S love for those who revere her flow from her womb.
For she herself knows whereof we are made;
She remembers that we are but dust.
Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
When the wind goes over it, it is gone,
and its place shall know it no more.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 15:23-24
(The father) was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a prize-winning heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.
SILENT CONTEMPLATION
PRAYERS OF CONCERN
Persistent Mother, release us from the shame, fear, and disappointment that so often accompany the task of beginning again. Tune our hearts to the joy you experience welcoming us in each moment. When we feel heavy with the grief and tenderness of starting fresh, hold us in your embrace and dance us into a community of curious beginners.
Sung Response – O Pilgrim God, renew us on our journey.
God who makes all things new, turn our faces to the light of your freedom, justice, and rebirth breaking through and taking form in us. Plant in us seeds of trust in your presence that grow into the fruit of radical courage. Inhabit our imaginations. Teach us to delight in inventive possibility. Open our ears to listen to your voice of creativity speaking in each person we encounter.
Sung Response – O Pilgrim God, renew us on our journey.
Ever-Creating God, surround us with your renewing love. Gather us into the story of your persistent grace. Guide us with cloud and flame; sustain us with manna and living water. Midwife us through our fears, birthing us into new relationship. Sit with us in our questions, and strengthen our next steps with the assurance that you begin again with us.
Sung Response – O Pilgrim God, renew us on our journey.
CLOSING SONG
Breathe In
Refrain:
Hands open to the day.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Hands joined as if to pray.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
CLOSING BLESSING
Spirit of the fresh morning air,
allow us to see all the places where newness
is being born into the world,
the bud of a flower just breaking open its petals,
the turning of the sea’s tides,
a gaze into the eyes of another and seeing their beauty,
the river stone being rubbed smooth.
Help us to remember that we are always being called
to begin again, like the Prodigal One returning home
to a loving parent’s embrace, hold our shame or heartache
at wandering so far from you, reveal to us the feast
you prepare where tables are piled high with the sweetest of fruits.
SUNG AMEN
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer: Written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Behold I Make All Things New by Alana Levandoski from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
First Reading: Howard Thurman, Meditations from the Heart, Beacon Press, 1999. page 106.
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Psalm Translation: Wilda C. Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church © 2021 Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY 10016, used by permission. (Year W) page 18-19.
Second Reading: Luke 15:23-24. Scripture quotation is from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Prayers of Concern: Written by Cassidhe Hart
Sung Response: Tune by Betsey Beckman, lyrics by Christine Valters Paintner and Simon de Voil, sung by Simon de Voil and Alexa Sunshine Rose
Closing Song: Breathe In by Peter Mayer from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Closing Blessing: Written by Christine Valters Paintner to companion her book The Soul of a Pilgrim (Ave Maria Press)
Please note: All of the songs and prayer responses are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs & responses have accompanying gesture prayers and/or dances created by Betsey Beckman that can be found on the corresponding DVD (each album has a DVD companion). Audio and video recordings of the Prayer Cycles are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
Evening Prayer
OPENING PRAYER
This evening we gather before the Spirit of Wonder and Revelation, opening the eyes and ears of our hearts to see and hear what new voice is emerging. We hear the reminder of the prophet Isaiah that Godde is always making something new and we had no idea it was happening. We pray to leave our cynicism behind and step into dreamtime with renewed hope.
OPENING SONG
Now I Am Revealing
Now I am revealing new things to you, revealing new things to you.
Now I am revealing new things to you, revealing new things to you.
Things hidden and unknown to you, created just now, this very moment.
Things hidden and unknown to you, created just now, this very moment.
SUNG PSALM OPENING
O Wisdom open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Repeat)
PSALM 67:1-7
May God be merciful to us and bless us,
show us the light of her countenance and come to us.
Let your ways be known upon earth,
your saving health among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide all the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the people praise you.
The earth has brought forth her increase;
may God, our own God, give us her blessing.
May God give us her blessing,
and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of her.
SUNG DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Maker, Lover, and Keeper; as ago, in this breath, and will be ever. Amen, Amen.
READING OF THE NIGHT: Desert Fathers
Abba Moses asked Abba Silvanus, “Can a man lay a new foundation every day?” The old man said, “If he works hard he can lay a new foundation at every moment.”
Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.
CLOSING POEM
How to Feel the Sap Rising
Walk as slowly as possible,
all the while imagining
yourself moving through
pools of honey and dancing with
snails, turtles, and caterpillars.
Turn your body in a clockwise direction
to inspire your dreams to flow upward.
Imagine the trees are your own
wise ancestors offering their emerald
leaves to you as a sacred text.
Lay yourself down across earth
and stones. Feel the vibration of
dirt and moss, sparking a tiny
(or tremendous)
revolution in your heart
with their own great longing.
Close your eyes and forget this
border of skin. Imagine the
breeze blowing through your hair
is the breath of the forest and
your own breath joined, rising and
falling in ancient rhythms.
Open your eyes again and see it
is true, that there is no “me” and “tree”
but only One great pulsing of life,
one sap which nourishes and
enlivens all, one great nectar
bestowing trust and wonder.
Open your eyes and see that there
are no more words like beautiful,
and ugly, good and bad,
but only the shimmering presence of your
own attention to life.
Only one great miracle unfolding and
only one sacred word which is
yes.
CLOSING SONG
Viriditas
Let my soul be greening with the living light.
Let my heart awaken morning from the night.
Let the Spirit guide me to presence true and whole.
Viriditas, viriditas, the greening of my soul.
Credits
All songs and texts used with permission
Opening Prayer: Written by Christine Valters Paintner
Opening Song: Now I Am Revealing by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Sung Psalm Opening and Doxology: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan from the album Monk in the World: Songs for Contemplative Living
Psalm Translation: Wilda C. Gafney, A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church © 2021 Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY 10016, (Year W) page 34.
Reading of the Night: Saying of the Desert Fathers, edited by Benedicta Ward, Liturgical Press, 1984. Silvanus 11.
Closing Poem: “How To Feel The Sap Rising.” Excerpted from The Soul of a Pilgrim, copyright ©2015 by Christine Valters Paintner. Used with permission of the publisher, Sorin Books®, an imprint of Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, www.avemariapress.com.
Closing Song: Viriditas by Betsey Beckman from the album Singing with Saints and Mystics
Please note: All of the songs and prayer responses are published on CDs in the Abbey of the Arts collection. In addition, these songs & responses have accompanying gesture prayers and/or dances created by Betsey Beckman that can be found on the corresponding DVD (each album has a DVD companion). Audio and video recordings of the Prayer Cycles are available at AbbeyoftheArts.com.
