I just read an email about a meeting I’m attending for our Hospitality Committee tonight at church, and I’m down for the closing prayer! Everyone usually brings in an inspirational book they’ve been reading and shares a passage or two as the devotional prayer.
I don’t read inspirational books. I read murder mysteries and Sci Fi, and so far nothing in the Complete Lord Peter Wimsey, or Douglas Adams’ Salmon of Doubt is striking just the right chord. The last semi-religious book I picked up I selected because on the cover it said, “When I hear the word “spiritual” I want to get a gun…” Can anyone recommend a website that might contain some help, or direct me to a book I could quickly grab at the library (if I have to take time to search through books, I will wander off to the cookbooks and knitting books and miss the meeting!). Preferably something that deals with coping with our daily stresses, or loving one another in a spirit of hospitality, or any sort of sticky-sweet stuff that might convince them I’m not just on this committee so I can bake?
Yes, I’m asking for help with my homework! But I truly didn’t read the agenda until just now, and I have to go visit my dying aunt this afternoon, and I’m a bit pressed for time! I just don’t read that sort of thing for fun or profit, so I don’t know where to begin. My sister gave me The Elm Creek Quilts Sampler…anyone familiar with that can think of any passages in there that might work? It doesn’t have to be overly religious…just inspirational.
I don’t know how adventurous the readings get, but this e. e. cummings poem is one of my favorites, and reads aloud much more easily than most of his work. It just oozes joie de vive. Here’s the first verse (of three):
Chaplain: Let us praise God. O Lord…
Congregation: O Lord…
Chaplain: …Ooh, You are so big…
Congregation: …ooh, You are so big…
Chaplain: …So absolutely huge.
Congregation: …So absolutely huge.
Chaplain: Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell You.
Congregation: Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell You.
Chaplain: Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and…
Congregation: And barefaced flattery.
Chaplain: But You are so strong and, well, just so super.
Congregation: Fantastic.
Humphrey: Amen.
Congregation: Amen.
Hello, Lord, it’s me again. We’re doing pretty well here, and we have you to thank for that, I reckon. The stuff that isn’t all right is probably our own fault. If you can find the time maybe you can help us to be better people; I know you’re pretty busy, Lord. There are a lot of folks worse off than us, and we hope you’ll give them a hand. It makes us sad to see 'em suffer.
Lord, please talk some sense into the people on earth who keep trying to kill each other. We are all Your children, but we can be mighty foolish sometimes. Thanks again, and we’ll be talkin’ to You again real soon. Amen
Here’s something you might find fits your needs. Maybe it’s more suited for harvest time, but it could also work for spring and summer in a pinch:
“Out In The Fields With God”
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds at play ;
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees,
The foolish fears of what may pass,
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new mown hay ;
Among the hushing of the corn
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born,
Out in the fields with God.
I’ve known this poem for years, but only have it written on paper. Found it on the 'Net, though, at this site.
Thank you all for your help. After laboriously copying poems and scripture by hand (because my prnter decided not to work and the set-up disc is at my daughter’s) something on the Book of Common Prayer site about Daily Devotions reminded me that I’d seen a copy of our church’s Daily Devotions For Lent 1979 tucked on the bookshelf. My father, who passed away in 1980, had written a short devotion for the booklet (as had I, but I liked his better) so I used that. As it turned out, one of the women on our committee had typed up the booklet and had provided her then-husband with a devotion to submit, so she was thrilled to take a look at the booklet again after all these years. But I never would have remembered it was sitting right there, tucked between some books on gardening, without your help! Thanks!
One of my favorite writers on spirituality is Anne Lamott. I copied down a bit from her most recent book to hang on the inside of my medicine cabinet (repository of Thoughts to Ponder chez twicks):
