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Reflections on the oneness of God — and our interconnedtedness through love — as reflected in the Jewish prayer called the Shema

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Weekly Meditations

Oneness is not sameness. ― Lois Farfel Stark
 
… Be my Oneness. — Maren Tirabassi

… You the one in all, say who I am. Say I am You. — Rumi
 
I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything. — Alice Walker

This God lives in all and all live in God. We belong together; we belong to one another. —Sister Catherine Nerney

… we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. What we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. — Brother Thomas Merton

All being(earth and planets, waters, all growing things, animals, humans, angels, and God) can rightly be spoken of with “one voice,” as John Duns Scotus (1266–1308) put it. We Franciscans call it “the Univocity of Being.” What I am you also are, and so is the world. Creation is one giant symphony of mutual sympathy. — Father Richard Rohr

SONGS about ONENESS

Undivided(excerpt)— Tim McGraw, Tyler Hubbard   … I think it’s time to come together
You and I can make a change
Maybe we can make a difference
Make the world a better place
Look around and love somebody
We’ve been hateful long enough (hateful long enough)
Let the Good Lord reunite us
‘Til this country that we love’s
Undivided (come on)

You either go to church or you gonna go to Hell Get a job and work or you gonna go to jail
I just kinda wish we didn’t think like that
Why’s it gotta be all white or all black?
And when we gon’ learn to try on someone’s shoes sometimes? (That’s right)
When we gon’ start to see from someone else’s eyes?
… We’re all the same to God No matter what we get His love
I’m tired of lookin’ left or right
So I’m just lookin’ up …

Interrelationship — Thich Nhat Hanh
You are me, and I am you.
Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.
I support you; you support me.
I am in this world to offer you peace;
you are in this world to bring me joy.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: Imago Divina Prayer ~ Praying with an art image (full article: http://www.unforcedrhythms.org/a-still-centre/resources-for-contemplative-prayer/imago-divina-prayer-praying-with-an-art-image/)

Imago divina is an extension of lectio divina or holy reading, a simple way of praying with an image or artwork instead of with Scripture. It leads us naturally from a rational consideration of how a painting might connect with our current life, to a personal response in prayer and a gentle resting in the love of God, the beginnings of contemplation. Lectio divina emerged as a practice in the early Church, finding its way into European monasticism through Cassian and St Benedict. Nowadays, along with other forms, Lectio, Imago, and Terra Divina (the holy reading of the natural world) are experienced by followers of the Way, as gifts of grace and growth in Christ.

The following suggestions may help you to befriend an image and allow it to speak to you …

Imago divina – Find an image that attracts your attention – one you like or don’t like, and find a place for the image within your space. Allow yourself to be invited into the mystery it might hold for you – at this time.

  • Lectio (reading) trusting that the Holy Spirit is there to help you, ‘read’ the image really SLOWLY. Some people find that systematically moving your eyes from left to right and top to bottom, helps to slow them down and notice detail. Let the image move deeply into your being, like nourishing rain into the soil. Allow it to touch you.
  • Meditatio (reflecting) – reflect on the art work (or part of it) that has touched you, exploring what it means to you here and now. Let the image resonate with your personal situation; believe that through this process God is communicating with you, perhaps giving an encouragement or a challenge, or calling you to a deeper awareness of God’s love for you.
  • Oratio (responding) ..now respond and talk to God about what you have been thinking and what you have noticed. You might pray your response or write in your journal, even sing or dance or paint your response …pray as the Spirit moves you.
  • Contemplatio (resting) ..in this final and most important stage, sit quietly with God, at rest in the presence of the One who loves you. Do not worry that you may appear to be doing ‘nothing’. Trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in the depths of your spirit, deepening your faith. Let the image and its message move from your head to your heart to dwell there in peace-full silence.

Resources:

Say I Am You ― Rumi
I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.
I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove, and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,
and the falling away. What is, and what isn’t.
You who know Jelaluddin, You the one in all,
say who I am. Say I am You.

ONENESS

oneness: the quality or state or fact of being one: such as
a : singleness
b : integrity, wholeness
c : harmony
d : sameness, identity
e : unity, union
— Merriam-Webster

Synchronicity is when two physically unrelated events express a deeper common oneness. — Elizabeth Bernstein, Wall Street Journal

… the grace of God can come in and fill the holes left by our community’s failure, and that’s just too beautiful and too real to miss. Welcome… — Nadia Bolz-Weber

I want to know what God knows. I want to see the world through God’s eyes. I want to lose myself in the divine all. That’s how I want to experience God. That’s how I want to make sense out of religion. — Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. — Erwin Schrodinger

Oneness is less a goal toward which life is pressing, as it is a return to the truth in which we have always been held. —Catherine T. Nerne, link to full article: https://cac.org/oneness-weekly-summary-2019-09-28/

If I go into the place in myself that is love, and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That’s the entrance to Oneness. — Ram Dass

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love. — Eckhart Tolle

The noblest men of all ages, Christian saints of the most transcendent spirituality have attained their wonderful development through the spiritual rays of this planet because of the intense feeling of Oneness with the divine and with all that lives and breathes in the universe. — Max Heindel

The cosmic self reminds us that oneness with God is not intended to be a private experience. Because all people live and move and have their being in God (Acts 17:28), it is not just me and God that are one. Even beyond this, because everything that exists is held in the unity that is Christ (Colossians 1:15-17), everything that exists is one in Christ. — Richard Rohr, link to article: https://cac.org/oneness-2019-03-29/

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. ― Desmond Tutu

All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything. ― Swami Vivekananda

I am one with the source insofar as I too act as a source by making everything I have received flow again. — Raimon Panikkar

Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe, too, the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web. ― Marcus Aurelius

A spiritual journey is becoming what one has always meant to be-come and always was. One with God’s Spirit. ― Jazz Feylynn

Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. ― Kabir Edmund Helminski

Just as sure as each knot on a fisherman’s net does not physically connect so far as each knot forms continuous connection to make the whole -which works perfectly; know that in the broader picture of life, all things are connected, including you. Even when you feel otherwise disconnected from another – the whole always works perfectly. ― Gillian Duce

We have each had a taste of nondual consciousness: the face of our beloved, a child at play, the sound of running water, the intimacy of darkness in the middle of a sleepless night. Our lives move in and out of nondual consciousness. In these moments, we intuitively use the word God for the infinity of the primordial preciousness with Whom we realize ourselves to be one. — James Finlay

To be one with everything is to have overcome the fundamental optical illusion of our separateness. We establish boundaries to try to reinforce individuality, but what we get is isolation and alienation. We think we have bodies instead of being our bodies, and the result is alienation from our bodies. We distinguish between our self and the natural world, and we end up exploiting the environment from which we feel estranged. We think we are separate from other people, and the result is a breach in our knowing of our underlying shared humanity. Boundaries disrupt the flow of participative energy between elements of creation that can be distinguished but that are intimately interrelated. — Richard Rohr, link to article: https://cac.org/oneness-2019-03-29/

SHEMA PRAYER’s STATEMENT of GOD’s ONENESS

Each of us, no matter how seemingly different we are from one another, are created by God. The Shema calls on us not merely to listen, but to remember that despite our differences, there is one force of connection and transformation in the universe that animates and unites us all… The force that we call Adonai, others call by other names. Each of us has our own particular path, but ultimately they lead to the same place. Beginning with listening and ending with oneness, the Shema invites us to deepen our capacity to listen — to ourselves, to the Divine, and to those around us, to develop an I-thou relationship with the rest of humanity. Its daily recitation reminds us to build bridges rather than barriers so that we may touch upon — even if only for brief moments at a time — that place in which we all are one. — Rabbi Adina Allen

Hebrew: YHWH ‘elohenu YHWH ekhad / English: Lord our god Lord one  — Tim Mackie, The Bible Project

As you can see, we’ve got four words. Depending on where you place the word “is,” you can end up with different sentences.

  1. The Lord our God is one Lord.
  2. The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
  3. The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

At the end of the day, the meaning between these options isn’t drastically different, but each one has a different emphasis. Is the point that the Lord God is one and not many (#1 or 3), or is the emphasis on the fact that only the Lord is our God (#2)? Does the Shema claim that Israel’s God is one being, or is it highlighting that the Lord alone is Israel’s God and not any other? This last meaning seems to fit the overall context of Deuteronomy much better. In other words, the Shema isn’t trying to make a philosophical statement about God’s essence or being (that God is “one”). Rather, the Shema is a pledge of allegiance to the Lord God of Israel that excludes allegiance to any other gods.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
― TS Elliott

COMMENTARY on ONENESS in HEBREW SCRIPTURE & GOSPELS

… all being is rooted in the ein sof, the holy oneness of creation. — Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

… it’s often the case that our diversity and differences evoke division and misunderstanding when really, our differences as the body of Christ should stir unity – they should be celebrated as unique expressions of His love. — Dean Ussher

Unity is not the same as uniformity. Unity, in fact, is the reconciliation of differences, and those differences must be maintained. We must actually distinguish things and separate them, usually at a cost to ourselves, before we can spiritually unite them (Ephesians 2:14‒16). Perhaps if we had made that simple distinction between uniformity and true unity, many of our problems, especially those of overemphasized, separate identities, could have been overcome. The great wisdom of Pentecost is the recognition through the Spirit of an underlying unity amidst the many differences! — Richard Rohr (full article: https://cac.org/we-turn-around-one-thing-2021-05-23/)
 
That causes me to wonder, how many of our differences could be transcended if we allowed the power of the Holy Spirit to reign in our lives? It is not new news to say we live in a divided country and world. Are those divisions beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit? … And, so, I want to end today with two questions. First, how many hearts and minds could the Holy Spirit transform if we prayed for the Holy Spirit to have its way in our community? And here’s the second question, which informs the first: what if, in terms of that which divides us, we applied … the 20/80 principle – that each person can be 20 percent certain about what he or she believes is true but commits to be 80 percent curious, inquisitive open-minded? That would lead to the dangerous reality, for some, of being more able to hear the Holy Spirit speaking – in ways each can understand – and being one. — Jean Hansen

Our hunger to belong is the longing to find a bridge across the distance from isolation to intimacy. Every one longs for intimacy and dreams of a nest of belonging in which one is embraced, seen, and loved. Something within each of us cries out for belonging. We can have all the world has to offer in terms of status, achievement, and possessions. Yet without a sense of belonging it all seems empty and pointless… There is some strange sense in which distance and closeness are sisters, the two sides of the one experience. ― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes

Slowly we begin to see that both the one and the many are held together in the One—the Eternal Godhead. And as we come to know our self within this One, we also come to know our oneness with all that is held by the One… — Richard Rohr, link to article: https://cac.org/oneness-2019-03-29/

Jesus is a divine guest inside of you all the time – one who loves, understands, sees and hears you. He wants to live in oneness with you… to be the centerpiece of everything you do. — Joyce Meyer
The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me: my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, and one love. —Meister Eckhart, link to article: https://cac.org/oneness-2019-03-29/

Oneness — Center for Action and Contemplation): Week’s Summary of Posts

When we carry our small suffering in solidarity with humanity’s one universal longing for deep union, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together. (Sunday)

God is the force that is binding, moving, sustaining, and transforming all of humanity and all of creation with every breath and every evolutionary shift on our planet. (Monday)

The whole thing is one, just at different stages, all of it loved corporately by God (and, one hopes, by us). Within this worldview, we are saved not by being privately perfect, but by being “part of the body,” humble links in the great chain of history. (Tuesday)

The freeing, good news of the Gospel is that God is saving and redeeming the Whole first and foremost, and we are all caught up in this Cosmic Sweep of Divine Love. (Wednesday)

Oneness is less a goal toward which life is pressing, as it is a return to the truth in which we have always been held. —Catherine T. Nerney (Thursday)

A heart transformed by this realization of oneness knows that only love “in here,” in me, can spot and enjoy love “out there.” (Friday)

9/11 Reflections

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

Offered by one of our colleagues, local rabbi:

WAGE PEACE by Judyth Hill
Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Play music; memorize the words for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the out breath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

PRAYER for 9/11 by Rev Gail Doktor

Holy Love is bigger than our languages and names for Godself. And so, however we might address the Source of Holy Love, on a day that touches many faith tradittions, let us turn our hearts toward love.
         As an act of prayer, let us remember. And remembering, may we learn, that we might create a different future for generations yet to come.
         We are a nation comprised of many ages, colors, creeds, languages, faiths, ethnicities, and stories. Our forefathers and foremothers, whether they already lived here, arrived here by choice, or came without volition, have contributed to creating a land that— at its best—seeks to broaden the experience of freedom and access to justice for all of its people. Over the centuries this nation, which is upheld by people like you and me, and people different from you and me, has grown to be stronger and striven to become ever-more inclusive. Our differences contribute to that resilience and strength.
         At its best, this dream of freedom that encompasses all people continues be the foundation of our ideals: we are— or may become — home and sanctuary for all kinds of people.Although we know, when we look honestly at our own history, that we must often engage in civil struggle to attain transformation,  we remain committed to doing so.
         Yes, we get it wrong sometimes. Then again, we keep trying, and often enough, we also get it right.
         Today we pause to remember: in Jackson, in the Mt Washington Valley, and around the nation. People held moments of silence. People walked with flags. People sang. People played bagpipes. People rang steeple bells. People rolled in fire trucks, police cruisers, and ambulances. People gathered. People remembered, and told the story again.
          This morning, just like 20 years ago, we are a country in the midst of growth. We do not live in a state of finalized perfection, but a creative and imperfect, messy and mighty, living experiment in liberty. When we remain motivated by our nation’s ideals, we act not out of fear, but out of courage and compassion. We build toward a sustainable peace for our own times and generations yet to come.  
         Today, we remember the attacks that killed people from 93 nations: originally 2,753 people in New York; 184 people at the Pentagon; and 40 people on Flight 93. Thousands more were injured, either immediately or in the aftermath of rescue, recovery and rebuilding. Others died or were incapacitated due to complications from living and serving around those sites. Wars have been waged, and peace-building attempted, in response to the events of 9/11: thousands more lives are included in that ongoing legacy, too.
         Yes, terrorism was aimed at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For a period of time, the land, water and skies in and around Manhattan, New York, western Pennsylvania, and in Arlington County, Virginia became sites of trauma, loss. Also sites of heroism. Now they are places of remembrance and learning.
         Today we acknowledge the victims: brothers and sisters from 93 nations, not just ours. People of every imaginable faith. People who spoke different tongues. People of every hue, who created a rainbow of humanity. People who woke up, traveled into the city, and started their days, to live common lives.
         These people, largely, were not warriors, but civilians. And in the every-day-ness of their living and doing, they told stories much like ours. They had families. Partners. Children. Siblings. Friends. Communities that expected them home again.
          They had dreams. They played. They worked. They prayed. Most of them did not expect or ask to bear names that have become synonymous with a nation’s story about itself.
         Among them, the city’s first responders—who have become symbolic of our nation’s first responders —served at great risk, and on that day, ran toward danger rather than away from it.
          All of them, men, women, children, both civilians and those who served a specific call, carried names that have indeed, and unexpectedly, have become a different kind of prayer.
         Brothers and sisters, let us lift up today, not the message that those who sought to force change through violence would have us learn. May we resist acting out of fear. Those who instigated violence believed that they could clip the wings of our imaginations, and topple our beliefs out of the sky.
         Instead, let us remember, and honor, the lives of common people whose lives have taken on an uncommon meaning, May we remember, and doing so, reclaim, rebuild and re-imagine, here in our own local community and across our country and around the world, a bigger vision that embraces peace. One that still has feet, but also wings.
         May we struggle together to achieve our shared ideals. May we seek to do the next right thing, motivated by compassion and courage. May we continue to expand, within our own borders, the great promise of freedom so that it is accessible to all of our nation’s children, through a civil process that—at its best—gives birth to justice, cultivates peace, and recognizes the dignity and value of every human soul.
         Peace. May this be the lesson we choose to learn, in remembrance of those events, in recognition of those lives forever lost or changed. Peace — sustainable and healthy and equitable and accessible in its abundance for all people. May we remember the names and stories of our brothers and sisters, those who died and those were carry the trauma and hurt in their changed lives. May we add our own stories to theirs, as we are called to engage in the great civil work of peace that is the legacy of this day.
         Peace is not the dream of one nation, but necessarily, it is the prayer of all peoples in all nations all over the world. Shalom. Salaam. Peace.
         Amen

Reflections on the name of God, written as YHWH, but replaced by ‘Adonai’ in spoken version of the Jewish prayer called the Shema, and other names for the Divine.

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

How I long to see
among dawn flowers,
the face of God.
― Basho

God’s name is not known; it is wondered at. — Gregory of Nyssa

He is who He was, and He is also who He will be because the great I Am never steps out of the present tense. ― Tony Evans

I am a passionate seeker after truth which is but another name for God. — Gandhi

You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion. — Meister Eckhart Tolle

He loves each one of us like there is only one of us to love (when God whisper your name) — Max Lucado

Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight. — Maya Angelou

SONGS about NAMES of GOD

The incarnate Word is with us,
is still speaking, is present
always, yet leaves no sign
but everything that is.
— Wendell Berry

The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things,
I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever …
— Mary Oliver

When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy; where before there was fear, now there is courage; where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning. — John O’Donohue

Just as a person is in relation to you a father
and in relation to another either son or brother —
So the names of God in their number have relations:
He is from the viewpoint of the infidel the Tyrant (qaher);
from our viewpoint, the Merciful.
— Rumi, Divan e-Kebir, tr. Annemarie Schimmel

With us, the name of everything is its outward appearance;
with the Creator, the name of each thing is its inward reality.
In the eye of Moses, the name of his rod was “staff”;
in the eye of the Creator, its name was “dragon.”
In brief, that which we are in the end
is our real name with God.
— Rumi, Mathnawi I:1239-40, 1244

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; as a Buddhist, whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, good shelter. These are not sufficient. A good motivation is what is needed: compassion, without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity. — Dalai Lama XIV

RESOURCES about the name of God:

YHWH: The Tetragrammaton

The Tetragrammaton, referred to in rabbinic literature as HaShem (The Name) or Shem Hameforash (The Special Name), is the word used to refer to the four-letter word, yud-hey-vav-hey (יהוה), that is the name for God used in the Hebrew Bible. The name, which some people pronounce as Yahweh and others (mostly Christians) as Jehovah, appears 5,410 times in the Bible (1,419 of those in the Torah). — My jewish Learning (full article: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-tetragrammaton/)

The letter from the Holy See explains that the Divine Name as revealed in the Old Testament, יהוה (YHWH), has been held as unpronounceable as an expression of reverence for the greatness of God. The directive notes that “in recent years the practice has crept in pronouncing the God of Israel’s proper name,” known as the holy or divine tetragrammaton, written with four consonants, YHWH, in the Hebrew alphabet. In order to vocalize it, it is necessary to introduce vowels that alter the written and spoken forms of the name (i.e. “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”). Citing theological and philological reasons, and in keeping with tradition, the letter reminds the bishops that “from the beginning… the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context nor translated into any languages into which the Bible was translated.” Historically the Divine Name was rendered in Hebrew as Adonai, in Greek as Kyrios, and in Latin as Dominus. — Letter to Bishops Conferences (link to full resource)

The most common name of God in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton, יהוה, that is usually transcribed as YHWH. Hebrew script is an abjad, so that the letters in the name are normally consonants, usually expanded as Yahweh in English. Modern Jewish culture judges it forbidden to pronounce this name. In prayers it is replaced by the word Adonai (“The Lord”), and in discussion by HaShem (“The Name”). — wikipedia

GOD’S NAME for US

The great struggle of the Christian life is to take God’s name for us, to believe we are beloved and to believe that is enough. ― Rachel Held Evans

And the Word that had most recently come from the mouth of God was, “This is my beloved in whom I am well pleased.” Identity. It’s always God’s first move. Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God’s own. But almost immediately, other things try to tell us who we are and to whom we belong: capitalism, the weight-loss industrial complex, our parents, kids at school—they all have a go at telling us who we are. But only God can do that. Everything else is temptation. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

The love of God is not generic. God looks with love upon every man and woman, calling them by name. — Pope Francis

I believed that there was a God because I was told it by my grandmother and later by other adults. But when I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous. — Maya Angelou

God calls each and every star by name. It’s not likely He has forgotten yours. — Louie Giglio

USING OTHER WORDS for the UNPRONOUNCEABLE NAME of GOD

Historically the Divine Name was rendered in Hebrew as Adonai, in Greek as Kyrios, and in Latin as Dominus. — Letter to Bishops Conferencs (link to full resource)

Hashem is a Hebrew term for God. Literally, it means “the name.” In the Bible the Hebrew word for God is made up of four vowels, and according to tradition it was only pronounced on Yom Kippur by the High Priest. Saying God’s name was considered a very serious and powerful thing, so much so that one of the Ten Commandments prohibits us from saying God’s name in vain. As a result, people have come up with various substitutions. When reading Torah, we generally substitute the word Adonai for the four letter un-pronounceable name of God. Outside of reading and praying, God is often referred to as Hashem, a creative way of not saying God’s name. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, it’s kind of the opposite of how Voldemort was referred to as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” — My Jewish Learning (full article: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hashem/)

There are many other names for God in Jewish tradition, including Adoshem, Yah, Yahweh, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, El Shaddai, Av Harahamim, and Harahaman. — My Jewish Learning (full article: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hashem/)

Instead, a variety of pseudonyms are used, such as Adonai (Lord), Elohim (God) and HaShem (The Name). — My jewish Learning (full article: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-tetragrammaton/)
SOME WAYS of PRAYING the NAMES of GOD

See the songs above for some approaches to the 99 names and 72 names of God as acts of prayer.

Additional resources:
• Praying the names of God by the Navigators:
https://www.navigators.org/resource/praying-names-attributes-god
• Praying the names of God with Tony Evans: http://tonyevans.org/praying-and-pronouncing-the-names-of-god/ • Praying the names of God with Ann Spangler: https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/prayingnamesgod/
• 99 Names of God: https://marytn.medium.com/the-most-beautiful-names-of-god-99-names-of-allah-b898f624cada
• 72 Names of God: https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/1388270/jewish/72-Names-of-G-d.htm

REFLECTIONS on NAMES of GOD

Watches have watch makers, paintings have painters, designs have designers, and creation has a creator. ― Tony Evans

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. — Paul Tillich

God is the same, even though He has a thousand names; it is up to us to select a name for Him. — Paulo Coelho

There is no greater spellbinder of peace than the name of God. — GandhiIt has been said that people never do evil with more enthusiasm than when they do it in the name of God.  — Tony Campolo

God is a name we give to love. — Nancy Pickard

I guess if you’re doing God’s work, whatever you do is in His name. — Edward Zigler Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a thelogically defensible reading of the Bible. — Sam Harris

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think. — Maya Angelou

We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, Got got up. — Rachel Held Evans
Lo, for I to myself am unknown, now in God’s name what must I do? — Rumi

When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; when you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you. — Morihei Ueshiba

The God we worship writes his name upon our faces. — Roger Babson

We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There’s not much personal about the laws of physics. — Stephen Hawking

Many are the names of God and infinite the forms through which He may be approached. —Ramakrishna

Somebody said once or wrote, once: ‘We’re all of us children in a vast kindergarten trying to spell God’s name with the wrong alphabet blocks! — Tennessee Williams

We, like the people of Israel, would like to think we get to name God. By naming God, we hope to get the kind of god we need; that is, a god after our own likeness. — Stanley Hauerwas

I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine. ― Nadia Bolz-Weber

God wrote a book on suffering, and its name is Jesus. — Joni Eareckson Tada

Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn’t matter what his name is. — Joseph Campbell

The love of God is not something vague or generic; the love of God has a name and a face: Jesus Christ. — Pope Francis

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