FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

Welcome to Friday Favorites! As we continue along in the first month of the new year, enjoy these posts and podcasts that will help set a good tone for living faithfully, creatively, and communally. Praying that 2021 will be a good year for all of us.

Love,

Lisa and Prasanta

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10 Fresh Ways to Read Your Bible in 2021 via Traci Rhoades (practical ideas for getting started or picking the Bible back up again)

What Are We Expecting in the New Year? via Ed Cyzewski (are we expecting to find God each day? or are we expecting the worst to happen?)

Homesick via Elizabeth Gatewood (finding home and rest in a community that is bound together in mutual concern)

Hospitable Hospitals and Space to Grieve What’s Lost via Lore Ferguson Wilbert (finding space to doubt, fear, and grieve all that has been lost)

And All Shall Be Well via Marjorie Maddox (a poem with no beginning or end)

Creating Courageously During Difficult Days via Shawn Smucker and Maile Silva (how should creative people engage with culture during these difficult days?)

A PRAYER FOR THE NEW YEAR FROM HOWARD THURMAN

Posted on by Lisa Deam

As we ring in the new year, let’s pray with Howard Thurman, the 20th-century theologian, mystic, and civil rights leader.

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Through the Coming Year

Grant that I may pass through
The coming year with a faithful heart.

There will be much to test me and to make weak my strength before the year ends. In my confusion I shall often say the word that is not true and do the thing of which I am ashamed. There will be errors of the mind and great inaccuracies of judgement which shall render me the victim of my own stupidities. In seeking the light, I shall again and again find myself walking in darkness. I shall mistake my light for Thy light and I shall shrink from the responsibility of the choice I make.  All of these things, and more, will be true for me because I have not yet learned how to keep my hand in Thy hand.

Nevertheless, grant that I may pass through the coming year with a faithful heart. May I never give the approval of my heart to error, to falseness, to weakness, to vainglory, to sin. Though my days be marked with failures, stumblings, fallings, let my spirit be free so that Thou mayset take it and redeem my moments in all the ways my needs reveal.  Give me the quiet assurance of Thy Love and Thy Presence.

Grant than I may pass through
The coming year with a faithful heart.

Source

FRIDAY FAVORITES FOR PRAYER AND WRITING

Posted on by Lisa Deam

This is a wonderful season in the year and in the life of the Church. We recently rang in the New Year, and on Monday we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child. Epiphany ushers in an entire season that lasts until Ash Wednesday.

For this week’s Friday Favorites, Prasanta Verma and I are including posts about the New Year and the season of Epiphany, as well as some good resources for reading and writing to kick 2020 into high gear.

Wishing each one of you a blessed season!

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New Year, Same Past via Cassidy Hall (the new year may not bring sudden joy, but it does bring the miracle of being)

A New Year’s Prayer for Nearly Everyone via James Martin, S. J. (how to do an annual examen on the model of St. Ignatius of Loyola)

What is the Season of Epiphany? via Daniel McDonald (learn about how Epiphany is more than just one day and how it ushers us into God’s story)

The Day of Epiphany Is Here! via Emily Huff (the Epiphany tradition of chalking and blessing the home)

7 Simple Ways to Read More This Year via Anne Bogel (tips and strategies if you’re resolved to read more in the new year)

How to Gather Momentum When Your Writing’s at a Standstill via Ann Kroeker (how to rev up your engines if your writing projects stalled over the holidays)