IN ANOTHER'S WORDS

             Lent

 Prayer  Fasting   Alms

 This week let's focus on 

 a marvelous way to pray.

Dear All of Us,
So, way back when,
how did you get a start at prayer?
For most of us it was as children,
sharing in our mother's prayer.

As a little boy my Mom
        taught me
The Sign Of The Cross

     "In the name
     of the Father, and
     of the Son, and
     of the Holy Ghost.
                         Amen

    moving the right hand
    to my forehead, then
    to my chest, then
    to my left shoulder, then
    to my right shoulder.

At first Mom said the words.
Soon I joined in with her.
Eventually I was able to go solo.
      I learned to pray
      by at first praying

  IN ANOTHER'S WORDS.

To this day, and a lot of 
different prayer experiences later,
 I sometimes still pray

  IN ANOTHER'S WORDS.

Their prayer, their
      Soul Say,
 guides me down
 wondrous, refreshing,
 new paths to the divine.
 It expands my
 spiritual spectrum,
 enables new
 soul sensitivities
 and articulations.


            Please
  see, sense, savor, this
          Soul Say
          
IN ANOTHER'S WORDS,

   those of the mystic
     and theologian
      Karl Rahner:

"Only in love can I find you,
           my God.
In love the gates of my soul
        spring open,
  allowing me to breath
  a new air of freedom
 and forget my petty self.
 In love my whole being
        streams forth
out of the rigid confines 
      of narrowness
and anxious self-assertion,
which makes me a prisoner
    of my own poverty
      and emptiness.

In love all the powers
         of my soul
     flow out toward you,
wanting never more to return,
but to lose themselves completely
            in you,
    since by your love
 you are the inmost center
        of my heart,
       closer to me
  than I am to myself.

        But when I love you,
   when I manage to break out
    of the narrow circle of self
          and leave behind
         the restless agony
    of unanswered question,
      when my blinded eyes
no longer look merely from afar
       and from the outside
upon your unapproachable brightness,
and much more when you yourself,
     O Incomprehensible One,
    have become through love
    the inmost center of my life,
       then I can bury myself
           entirely in you,
       O mysterious God,
         and with myself
        all my questions."

              WOW!!

         What Soul Say!!

         Wish I'd said that,

             prayed that.

      Well, actually, I just did,

      IN ANOTHER'S WORDS

      and we all can as well.

         
         Thanks, Mom!!

         "In the name
       of the Father, and
       of the Son, and
       of the Holy Ghost."
                        Amen



           In the Soul Say,
        
           in the prayers,

     IN  ANOTHER'S WORDS

that follow below, please do just that.

       Take time and quiet to 

               Soul Sense

               Soul Say

 them over the next weeks and more.

   

            Let's all allow for

 

              Holy Leisure.

     The speed bumps of fast 

will bottom out the peace and joy of

          Slow Soulful Savor.

Like an extraordinary wine,

these prayings are for slow sipping.

             Thank You!!

     Holding you and all of us in

             God's Dear Love,

                John Frank
 
                   *****


       For those new here,

please see the information about

       "frankly speaking"

  at the bottom of this posting.
          

         ************
           

          PRAYER

IN ANOTHER'S WORDS

     


Native American Prayer

     
O Great Spirit,

  whose breath gives life

         to the world,

 and whose voice is heard

     in the soft breeze;

           We need

 your strength and wisdom.

 Cause us to walk in beauty.

Give us eyes ever to behold

  the red and purple sunset.

        Make us wise

 so that we may understand

   what you have taught us.

   Help us learn the lessons

       you have hidden

   in every leaf and rock.

   Make us always ready

        to come to you

      with clean hands

       and steady eyes,

     so when life fades,

   like the fading sunset,

our spirits may come to you

       without shame.

             *****



Mechthild of Magdeberg



O burning Mountain, O chosen Sun,

O perfect Moon, O fathomless Well,

O unattainable Height,

O Clearness beyond measure,

O Wisdom without end,

O Mercy without limit,

O Strength beyond resistance,

O Crown beyond all majesty:

The humblest thing you created

sings your praise. Amen

               *****

You might enjoy the book

             Prayers

                by

     
        Michael Quoist

             ******

Dag Hammarskjold


Thou who art over us,

Thou who are one of us,

Thou who art:

     Give me a pure heart,

     that I may see thee;

     a humble heart,

     that I may hear thee;

     a heart of love,

     that I may serve thee;

     a heart of faith,

     that I may abide in thee.

               Amen

               *****
        
          
          Alan Paton


O Lord,

   open my eyes

    that I may see

    the needs of others;

    open my ears

    that I may hear their cries;

    open my heart

    so that they need not

    be without succor;

let me not be afraid

to defend the weak

because of the anger

of the strong,

    nor afraid to defend the poor

   because of the anger of the rich.

Show me where love and hope

   and faith are needed,

   use me to bring them to those places.

And so open my eyes and my ears

   that I may this coming day be able

   to do some work of peace for thee.

                     Amen

                      *****


   Many find much good in praying 

                 THE PSALM'S

                       *****




An Affirmation Based on Romans 8: 31-39



We shall not be separated from God's love

that comes to us in Christ Jesus -

       Not by life or death,

       Not by depression's darkness

       nor any addiction's snare,

       Not by an abusive past

       or any co-dependent habits.

We are more than conquerors

because of the power

of God's love for us.

We shall not be separated

from the the love of God

       by a fall from sobriety

       or a failed marriage,

       by painful memories

       or financial disasters,

       by cancer's attack

       or AID's havoc.

God's love is as constant

as the rising sun,

and there is nothing

that can come between us

and God's Love through

Christ Jesus.

              *****


A Reflection On Prayer



In my soul there is a temple, a shrine,

a mosque, a church where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar

where no walls or names exist.

Is there not a region of love where

the sovereignty is illumined nothing,

where ecstasy gets poured into itself

and becomes lost, and where

the wing is fully alive

but has no mind or body?

In my soul there is a temple, a shrine,

a mosque, a church that dissolve,

that dissolve in God.

        Rabia (c. 717-801)

                  ***** 

        
       A Poetic Prayer Pause
     

This beautiful prayer that follows 

is about aging.

That's one of the things 

I'm about these days.

I am graced by both!!

Please permit me to share a sharing.



 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


When the signs of age

begin to mark my body

(and still more when

they touch my mind);

when the ill that

is to diminish me

or carry me off

strikes from without

or is born within me;

When the painful moment comes

in which I suddenly awaken

to the fact that I am ill

or growing old;

and above all

at that last moment

when I feel I am

losing hold of myself

and am absolutely passive

within the hands

that have formed me;

in all these dark moments,

          O God,

grant that I may understand

that it is You

(provided my faith

is strong enough)

who are painfully parting

the fibers of my being

in order to penetrate

to the very marrow

of my substance

and bear me away

within Yourself.

*************




For all those new to

"frankly speaking"

a warm welcome!

- It is posted by mid-day Thursday

   east coast USA time at

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

   and can be bookmarked

   for ready access

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Please take a few minutes to read

    KNOW YOUR SOURCE

               and

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

      for a bit of orientation -

          top right above

               
                Thanks   

        See you next week!!


***************************








  











  



















 

  





  













    

KEEP IT SIMPLE

                            BEFORE WE GET STARTED

                            If you have time this week 

                            please scroll down past 

                                  KEEP IT SIMPLE,

                            which follows here, 

                            or go to Blog Archive

                            to the right here for

                            Thursday, FEBRUARY 18, 2021

                            and take a little 

                            time and soul with 

                                  GOD SUNG.

                            It flowed from my heart.

                            I would love to share it with you.

                            I pray it will encourage your heart.

                                         Thanks!

                                             John Frank

Dear All of Us,

How about that Marie Kondo.

She's piled up a lot of

 "do ray me"

by showing people 

how to throw out much 

of what they've piled up

in their living space.

Marie is the diminutive 

Japanese hostess  of

    "Tidying Up" 

It's on Netflix and her

  KonMari Method 

counsels us to simplify,

to keep only those things 

that speak to the heart,

and discard what

no longer sparks joy.

Great way to "tidy up" the house.

Great way to "tidy up" the heart.

Great way to "tidy up" the spirit this Lent.

Almost seems that 

Marie has checked out

The Sermon On The Mount.

All through it Jesus counsels us

to keep only those things 

that speak and spark

joy to the heart -

God's and ours.

He tells us to clean house spiritually,

get ride of what clutters and confines,

clear out the stuff that 

piles up and keeps us down,

clean out much to open up for more

       SoulSpace 

for free and full living. 

Again and again and always 

Jesus simply tells us to go 

to our very center, see and accept 

God's presence and embrace there,

return the embrace to the GodLove 

who causes us to be and invites us

in on shared divine life and creativity.

Jesus shows us how crucial it is 

to get ride of the stuff 

that junks up and jinxes us,

so we are clear and clean 

for unencumbered living 

in God's Love. 

   KEEP IT SIMPLE

The traditional disciplines 

of Lent are

          - prayer

          - fasting

          - almsgiving

In The Sermon On The Mount 

         Matthew 6:1-18

Jesus tells us to keep them simple.

Unload self serving show.

Deep Six any grand standing at

showy almsgiving,

pompous prayer,

flashy fasting.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

There are some pretty popular

and sneaky ways of doing 

just the opposite, though.

We need to watch out for them,

clear them out:

-pledging a bunch at church 

 or charity and making sure 

 the powers that be 

 and as many members as possible hear of it

-being ever so "fetching" and current, 

sharing to show off 

at spirituality groups,

wrapping in the latest

spiritually fashionable words 

and references

-running on when giving 

 an opening prayer,

 dressing it up to be socially, 

 politically correct and preferred

-ever so subtly calling attention

 to the wonders fasting has done 

 for our spiritual physique and fitness.

-in church groups, 

 strutting our stuff - 

 our so wonderous insights 

 and mystical moments and musing.

It's all too much show and tell 

with not much soul to show or tell.

Jesus says forget playing to the crowd.

God wants intimacy, simplicity in our

           -prayer

           -fasting

           -almsgiving

They are meant to be

      "GOD US" 

living out our deep union.

Be discreet.

Otherwise it's as inappropriate 

as someone sharing details 

of their marital love making.

I've often visited Pleasant Hill,

The Shaker Village in Kentucky.

It's a place and experience 

of beautiful, simple spirituality.

         You see it.

         You feel it.

It's in the Shaker architecture,

clothing, furniture, tools, farming,

weaving, life style, heritage.

It's in their hymn,

one to often SoulSing

         

        Tis the Gift To Be Simple

      

        'Tis the gift to be simple,

        'tis the gift to be free

        'Tis the gift to come down 

         where we ought to be,

         And when we find ourselves 

         in the place just right,

        'Twill be in the valley 

         of love and delight.

         When true simplicity is gained,

         To bow and bend 

         we shan't be ashamed,

         To turn, turn will be our delight,

         Till by turning, turning 

         we come 'round right.

To be simple is to be uncluttered, 

free of false self and self promoting,

to be light and open.

It's to be ready for God,

because as Thomas Aquinas put it,

            "Deus est simplex."

          "God is simple"

so simply One there are no moving parts,

   The Oneness of Love That Is God.

We meet and merge

in simple, pure intimacy.

Tis the Gift to be Simple.

        Simply yours,

            John Frank

           ******

Many thanks and a warm welcome to

all our first time visitors here at

              frankly speaking

       spirituality for the street

- it is posted by mid-day on Thursdays

  east coast USA time

  johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

- an automatic email format is delivered

  Fridays - sign up is at top right above

- Blog Archive contains al past postings

  it can be accessed at 

  the lower right column above.

 LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU NEXT POSTING

                     ***************

           PLEASE SCROLL DOWN HERE FOR

           .

 

  

   

GOD SUNG

 

Dear All of Us,

If I may, what's your favorite kind of music:

folk, rock, opera, country and western,

pop, blues, classical?

There are so many ways to sing beauty aren't there?

Well, and it sure is,

God's favorite kind of music is you!

Yup, that's happily how it is.

God sings you, me, all that is into being.

We are GOD SUNG.

God has a vast repertoire.

All that God sings into being

blends in the chorus that is creation.

The  Dynamic, the Energy, that is God vibrates in Song.

Those vibrations are what we call matter and spirit.

There's no end to it: quarks, photons, bodies, personalities, ideas, emotions, 

elements, pulsations, forests, mountains, oceans, sound, 

space spread universe.

GOD SUNG, we combine, compose, co-create: 

symphonies, synthetics, societies, structures, cabernet sauvignon, babies, 

concepts, concerts, pasta primavera, Honda Hybrids, Internet, governments, 

rituals - happily, endlessly evermore.

It's a delightful Sing Along.

Music pulsates in our bodies, our minds, emotions and motions.

It gets into us.

It flows through us.

It effects us.

GOD SUNG we are all that.

And before all that we are the song itself.

We are God Singing away.

We each and all are unique melodies.

God not only flows through us.

God's flowing is us.

God's vibration voices us.

That voicing creates the dynamic that we are.

GOD SUNG we GOD SING.

That's what we call our spiritual lives.

We are toe tapping vibrations of God's Being, God's Beauty, God's Love.

We each are a sacred song to be sung and shared.

God voicing us is not forced.

It is offered.

The spiritual life is our joyful acceptance.

Accepted, we break out in the unique, lusty singing of God that we are. 

We sing God with our bodies, spirits, minds, powers, opportunities and gifts 

- our whole being and all our doing.

It's a Love Song because GOD IS LOVE and we are GOD SUNG.

The spiritual life, better put, real living, is letting God sing us -

the tone, tempo, range, harmonies - the register we are played out in song. 

We are one with all else that is GOD SUNG - what a creative chorus!

The whole thing gets disturbed, though,

when we attempt to be independent composers of reality

rather than being GOD SUNG expressions of it.

That's our arrogance, pride, selfishness.

Everything then goes off key, is hard and harsh,

becomes a destructive dissonance. 

It throws the chorus of existence into chaos.

We can't create or sustain ourselves.

We can accept and be ourselves.

It's not a gotten.

It's a given.

We then share in God's creative composing. 

To stay on tune we need to stay tuned,

sensitive to the sometimes subtle, 

sometimes strong developments of God vibrating us.

At times we have to get into another key.

That is imperative and it can be darn hard.

I know.

In mid-life the score of my own being GOD SUNG shifted.

It wasn't quick nor was it comfortable.

It meant  four year of counseling and spiritual direction,

discerning a new direction and tempo to my being GOD SUNG.

At forty eight I had to leave every bit of earthly safety and security I had.

I could no longer in good conscience be part of nor represent 

the religious denomination of my up bringing, ordination,

and many years of ministry.

With it went career, position, pension and 

with it came a huge amount of public disapproval and disconnect.

Poison pen letters like: "You are a Judas", 

"Don't every again try to cross our threshold."

It just plain hurt, hardest thing I ever did.

I transferred to another religious denomination, 

one that gave me room to be who and how I am,

to be GOD SUNG in a new, authentic way,

a community with which I could be spiritually in harmony just as I am.

Yes, hardest thing I ever did and the best thing I ever did.

Freed up, God said "Let's let'er rip" 

and we sure have been doing that for thirty three years 

of renewed and vigorous music in ministry, marriage, family 

and come May, Grandboy arrives.

The composer sang me in a new, surprising and wonderful key.

Life isn't about establishing yourself, creating your own destiny,

scouring your own life song.

That would be terrible music.

That would be an attempt at being God, a false god at that -

the idolatry of self.

We don't create self.

We discover self.

That can mean changes in measure and metric over the singing of our years.

It may mean a shift in spiritual tonality, in prayer cadence.

It can mean an unexpected mystical moment, a new mode 

of care and service, a slow to suffering, a quickening to joy.

However, whenever we free flow,

                     GOD SUNG.

             In the harmony of us all

             so variously and beautifully

                      GOD SUNG

                      John Frank

If you can, please share "frankly speaking" with

            family, friends, colleagues.

                        Thanks!

As we do here every week, a for real and warm 

                       WELCOME

           to all our first time visitors. 

This week we were blessed with a significant surge 

in the number of good souls joining in with us 

           from right here in the USA.

        We are blessed by your presence

                  "frankly speaking"

              spirituality for the street

is posted by mid-day each Thursday

east coast USA time

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

an email edition goes out on Fridays

the sign up is at the top right above

Blog Archive

gives access to all past postings

right column 

                     In our days and ways

      "Let us make a joyful noise unto the Lord."

                          Psalm 100

                           ******

                        

 

   

 

LENT LOOK

 

Dear All of Us,

Look Out!!

Here comes Lent.

As Yogi Berra used to say:

"It's Deja Vu Again"

only with this Lent it's

Deja Vu Again and Again and Again and Still!!

In too many ways Lent-20 has lingered and lasted right into the now of Lent-21.

It shows no sign it's ready to wrap up in the customary forty days either.

An elongated, unending span dealing with the dark and difficult.

A rough time and reckoning.

As the Jewish expression has it "Enough already!!"

Enough, for sure.

Already, not a chance.

We are living our spiritual lives out here on the street of everyday life

traversing a painfully long stretch of Lent 

        - facing the dark, seeking the light

        - dealing with the the difficult, the disappointing, the dreadful.

        - seeing disorder and destruction, seeking a way forward and better

        - facing all sorts of death and longing for resurrection and life

          ( be it body, spirit, psyche, social, cultural, political, ethical, religious)

        - review, reflection, repentance, reform, renewal

For a year and counting it's been Lent on steroids:

 - seeing our sin, personal and social, and it's horrid consequence 

 - coming or failing to come to terms with that 

 - puzzling why pain

 - a year of tribulation and trial, discontent and "dis-ease"

 - fiction posturing as fact, lies camouflaging as truth 

   sinister political and media manipulation and misinformation, 

   an "altered state of consciousness" that dupes and dopes millions,

   precipitates and inflicts violence on the "other" 

 - rampant, rabid efforts to foul the most monitored, safe, certified,

   positively adjudicated election in the entire history of this threatened republic

 - COVID-19 moving and mutating in all sorts of ways and continuing 

   right through 2020 and now 2021, and that with a vengeance, 

   killing multitudes and making millions ill, 

   frustrating healthy human contact and connection 

   (family, friends, church, education, sports, the arts ), 

   throngs thrown out of work and  businesses into financial peril

 - racism outed ever more making it distressingly obvious that 

   black lives really don't matter to too many 

 - white supremacists darkening democracy

 - thugs rape our Capital causing five deaths and life scares on our nation

 - politicians on principle pause 

 - lots of religious leaders - how much spiritual leading and living?

 - confinements of all sorts, loss of control, frustrations, anxiety,

   confusions, disorientation, spirits stressed and arid.

In this long, long Lent there was/is no need to pick a Lenten sacrifice.

Oh, to just be able to give up candy or a glass of wine at supper for Lent!

No way!

Speaking of "way", a major model for Lent is the "way" the Chosen People

made their way from slavery to freedom and just kept losing their way.

Rather than follow the GPS God gave, they time and too many

went the wrong way, took dead ends and short cuts that kept them 

going nowhere fast for forty years. That routing got them 

in more than a few rough spots and caused them pain and peril.

A stubborn and "stiff necked people" that got stiffed 

trying to dictate direction, to fashion an alternate reality.

So how about us?

What needs rethink and repentance in our spiritual lives?

As individuals and as a people 

     - why are we where we are?

     - what wrongs and directions need righting?

     - what can we learn from our experience and pain?

     - what personal and communal "Golden Calves" need to be toppled 

       and melted to nothingness?

     - what false leaders and leads need to be banished?

     - what degree of honest "re -penance" is there?

     - how much desire is there for redirection to the real and right?

     - what are attitudinal and action changes forward?

     - what the promise possible?

                     Let's give all that a long, long

                                Lent Look 

                  for the next forty days and nights 

                                (at least).

                               God help us!

                                 John frank

                                   ******

            A for real Welcome to our first time visitors.

            It's tough stuff here this week for sure.

            Please do come back, though.

            We need to admit the dark 

            and we sure can find the light.

                               "frankly speaking"

                            spirituality for the street

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      May our plea and prayer be that of the blind man to Jesus:

                               " I want to see."

                                  Luke 18:41

                                    ******