Tag Archives: prayer

a humble prayer

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today

let me own no opinion
let me be led
let me not try
to construct meaning,
envision purpose,
steer my craft
there is plenty here
in this receptive place
enough to do
in learning, listening, following
that I don’t need
to pull a plan from the air
don’t need to
invent or vaunt myself
it’s enough
to be here.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 25, 2012

Music in background: “Simple Moments” by Isaac Shepard




Lullaby for Edward

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Spirit current, take this man
Move as him in light and sound
Bear him on a journey of remembering

Fill the hollow of his soul
Let him know himself as whole
Coursing joy and steady strength engendering

All that he has been since long before the dawn of time
Let it flow through him in a reverberating chime
Bring him through the shadow of these weary days
Fill his heart with laughter and his lips with praise
Let him fly in surety that everywhere he’s roamed
He’s always been in your embrace
And so forever home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2012



In this house of prayer

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In this house of prayer
that is me —
everything I am —
With daily intermittent bursts
I find
the freedom from all other law

No weight of history
no drag of social norms
no march of time
no fear, no fading sense
no falling off of purpose
no decay
can touch the being
I am learning here

Surrendered to the dawn of the divine
my every move impelled
by that which constantly
surprises me
I find its grace, its elegance
so intricate, so fine
unfolds my joy to feel
the Soul-force that comprises me

In this house of prayer
I learn to move in love
to see that this is what I am
and all I live to prove.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, “Fleeting Moments”)

Deliverance Prayer

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Deliverance Prayer (background music “The Blessing” by Isaac Shepard)

Bring my soul up out of Egypt
Walk me step by patient step
out of the patterns that enslave me
Release me from the lockstep
that doesn’t look
that is afraid to seek the kinship of a smile
 
Teach me to spin out on the leaf edge
of the wind
and twirl into the knowing
of the infinite variety —
Intricacies which Life has ever blessed
 
Let me no longer follow
the commands that run them over
that allow us three or four straight norms at best
Unclamp my feet from marching
Free my toes
to find the subtle footholds
midst the wildness of the river
 
Free the rivers, too
and let us all please tumble brightly
down the perfect, wild, unchanneled 
course that we were born for
Let us know each other 
deeply, truly, freely
 
Bring my soul up out of Egypt
That I may worship
My Good.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2012
 
photo by Edward Mulhern
 

Grace for Today

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“Give us this day our daily bread;
Give us grace for today, feed the famished affections;”*
Today this verse
that I have heard
these many years
rang with potent meaning
in my ears
For now I notice
it affirms that I am hungry
that this deep gnawing, this distraction
is a need
that keeps me turning
since I yearn for something
surface day won’t feed
I yearn to move
in the strong current of affection
feel the tide of powerful connection
not to stand alone, to be unmoved
but to be moved in perfect balance
pouring out my care
into the network of our oneness
feeling the reverberation running back
filling in the ocean of my lack.
* From the Lord’s Prayer with Mary Baker Eddy’s spiritual interpretation


©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2011



Ranging

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What starts as early morning bliss
may bolt—grow gangly in the climbing sun
and come to feel like hunger
and pace, in search of consummation—
Some outlet, some release
some clasp of hands
to close the circuit
and bring peace.

What soothes the ranging heart?
Is there a circle big enough
and close enough
to draw it in?
A quest for it to take
A stepping forward?
—An act of prayer
that settles it in channels
where it can deepen
as it flows down
to its sea.


©Wendy Mulhern
August 12, 2011



Restoration

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This is the place I need prayer more than poetry
listening more than expression
here where transmission is stretched and distorted
and practice is far from profession
The picture is lost in the turbulent medium
all I can do now is wait
seek the source, let it shine the true image out once again
in its original state.
Here in the stillness you need no bravado
alibi, justification
here you’re forgiven and freed for tomorrow
to ring in your purest vibration
So we’re restored, and so we will be
united in love, reconciled, whole, free.


©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2011



Resistance and Yielding

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A friend taught a workshop in kinesthetics about resistance and yielding.  She helped us experience the extremes of those opposites so we could recognize them in our bodies, and then to consider a way of moving that might integrate the two.  
Integration
There is a rhythm of the tension and release
a gathering, and then a flowing
I speak of giving birth,
and many smaller things:
telling a story — giving all the words
their needed space, their needed hush
so in their turn they can pour forth
with their needed rush
and prayer — the sweet immersion
into silence, the waiting pause that builds
until the stillness is profound enough
to welcome in the Word
There is a time to hold your breath
to be a vessel where the forming hopes distill
till they well up and tumble forth
along the channels of Life’s will.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2011



Aftermath

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It’s said, “nothing is new under the sun.”
One stupid moment — months of work undone

    Regret shrugs on a robe of anger and gets up

to storm around. Knocking down the shrines
of time together, snarling, stumbling —
hands too numb to put a thing to right
So who will save this house? What prayer
can piece together shards of broken care
can lift the tender, trampled stalks
can bind them so their heads can stand again?
Hush, hush. Lie down.  And let the bed
take over, for a time, the work you left
Surrender to the will of what compels
the roots to sprout, the seeds to lift their heads
It won’t be you who shines the rainbow through
but you will see it on your land made new.


©Wendy Mulhern
April 24, 2011


Held in Love

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Today I wanted to write a poem about a wonderful feeling that comes to me sometimes, in early morning prayer or just in sudden moments, a feeling of being suspended in Love.  It’s about feeling completely cared for – not weightless but with every part of me supported and nothing strained.  And with ‘every part of me’ including everything I love, all those I care about.  Maybe the poem does better than these words.
Held in Love
Everything I am, and all I’ve tended –
my loves, my children, all their early flights
my own delayed attempts to shine my light
are held forever safe in Love suspended.
I never felt this free; though I pretended
my intellect could take me to a height
where I could chart a course and judge it right,
my dreams still squirmed unsure, over-extended.
But now I feel Love’s grasp on us so sure
each one established in our perfect sphere
all our connections elegant and pure
we never need be anywhere but here.
All that Love ordains for us endures
Love carries us, Love’s way is always clear.


©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2011