Jackson Community Church

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Weekly Meditations

Day 20: Grateful for Guidance

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Cultivate gratitude each day this month.

Day 20: Grateful for Guidance

  • Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
  • in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
  • Meditation: This scripture may seem to say not to use your own mind. Yet that’s not quite the message. After all, we were given the gift of intellect and discernment, as well as emotional intelligance. The balance of this text urges us to lean into the equilibirum of choice and path by listening with heart and mind attuned to Holy Love. How do you best listen to what direction is sustainable for you? Even our bodies hold knowledge and wisdom!
  • Spiritual Practices: Seek guidance on a decision you are facing. Spend time in prayer, journaling your thoughts and feelings about it. Ask someone who knows you well to reflect with you on your strengths and values. Take  a walk. Doodle it out. Imagine different choices, and live with them for several hours, as if they are real … how does your body feel and what does it tell you?

SONGS:

The Guest House –– Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 19

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Cultivate gratitude each day this month.

Day 19: Grateful for Healing

  • Scripture: James 5:14-15 — Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them.
  • Meditation: Relationship is its own form of healing. Sharing your challenges, whether physical or emotional or psychological or spiritual, within a trusted circle of friends and/or family may provide significant support. Both the energy and focus of putting your concerns and requests into prayer and also sharing your needs with your community offer forms of healing.
  • Spiritual Practice: Pray for someone in need of healing today, and reach out to them to let them know you are thinking of them.

SONGS:

From PRAYERS for UNCERTAIN TIMES

Mi Shebeirachi, One who Blessed Our Ancestors
M ay the one who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah,
Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless and heal those who are ill. May the Blessed
Holy One be filled with compassion for their health to be restored and their
strength to be revived. May God swiftly send them a complete renewal of
body and spirit, and let us say, “Amen.” — Traditional Jewish prayer for the sick

In the name of Allah, for Allah, O Allah, the Lord of this sacred, helpful earth,
the Lord of the light which is in it, the Lord of the body which is resting in it,
the Lord of the guardian angels, let it cure (my) disease. O Allah let this pure
earth be a source of abundant means of livelihood, useful knowledge and a
remedy for all (my) pains and ailments. — Muslim prayer — lmam Jafar bin Muhammad

Beloved Lord, Almighty God,
Through the Rays of the Sun,
Through the Waves of the Air,
Through the All Pervading Life in Space;
Purify and Revivify Us
And we pray, heal our bodies, hearts, and souls. Amen
Sufi prayer – Pir-o-murshid Inayat Khan

Thy name is my healing, O my God,
and remembrance of Thee is my remedy.
Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion.
Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor
in both this world and the world to come.
Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful,
the All-Knowing,
the All-Wise
Bha’i prayer — Bahá’u’lláh

Creator hear us, for we are your children . . .
We thank you for the lessons that you have taught us and
for the life that you have allowed us to lead . . .
We thank you for the white light that surrounds us, and for
that same white light which transmutes all negativity
into love and healing.
We thank you for the healing of our souls,
the healing of the Earth and for the healing of all humanity.
We call upon the power of the universe, to
allow us happiness, prosperity, healing and love.
We call upon the power of the universe for
good relationship to all things . . .
We honor you Creator, as we honor all things seen and unseen.
We honor you Creator, as we honor our ancestors,
as we honor ourselves.
AHO
Native American — Grant Redhawk-Two feathers

GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 18

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Weekly MeditationsTagged , , , ,

Cultivate gratitude each day this month.
Day 18: Grateful for New Chances

  • Scripture: Mark 12:31 –– I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
  • Meditation: Holy Love is always at work in our lives, opening new paths and opportunities. What is happening in your life that startles and surprises you? What is going on that confounds and confuses you, yet feels as if something is changing, moving, and possibly creating instances for growth?
  • Spiritual Practice: Reflect on an opportunity you might be hesitant about. Pray for courage to embrace it and thank God for the possibilities it brings. Tell one person about this chance you’re taking to explore the new opportunity in your life, so that you have an ally who checks in and helps you consider it.

SONGS:

For A New Beginning | John O’Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you

GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 17

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Weekly MeditationsTagged ,

Cultivate gratitude each day this month.
Day 16: Love of Neighbors

  • Scripture: Mark 12:31 –– You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
  • Meditation: Who is your neighbor? This is the question considered in the sacred text. Is it only someone whose address you know, whose face you recognize, who looks like you and thinks like you? Or is it someone beyond your familiar, comfortable circles of geography, affinity, and connection? Gratitude extends beyond us to those around us.
  • Action: Do something kind for a neighbor or someone in your community today. If it’s someone atypical for you to notice, even better!

SONGS:

Mending Wall — Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 16

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Weekly MeditationsTagged , , ,

Cultivate gratitude each day this month.
Day 16: Grateful for Grace

  • Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9 — My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.
  • Meditation: In what way has vulnerability become a channel that builds up your strength and resilience? In a sense, grace is love that shows up for you, whether or not you deserve it or earn it. Often it shows up when you don’t think you’re worthy of kindness and compassion. When have you allowed yourself to need and receive support and help? How have you experienced grace, when you were in need of hope and healing, and it was made available to you, in spite of yourself? What moments of grace have humbled you and changed your heart and mind?
  • Spiritual Practice: To whom have you been able to show grace, by giving compassion and kindess and love when it wasn’t earned or requested? What made this possible? Whom do you need to thank for daily moments of grace given to you?

SONGS:

Blessing — John O’O’Donohue

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of God.

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