I keep your word in my heart, LORD,
so that I might not sin against you.
(Alleluia)
Bring me to understand
the way of your laws, LORD,
And I will meditate on
your wondrous works.
(Alleluia)
(adapted from Psalm 119)
Tags: Call to Prayer, Centering Prayer, Psalms
So many people in the world who need our help. So many needs around us that far-outweigh our personal resources. It seems like such a huge, overwhelming task that we often step away – afraid to even begin.
The answer can be quite simple.
——-
Christ Jesus,
We are at times like strangers on this Earth
when faced with the suffering
of so many innocent people.
But – like on the morning of your resurrection -
you come to us and say to us:
“Peace be with you.”
Enable us to believe in your presence,
this hidden treasure.
You send us out, then,
to communicate your Peace.
It renews the face of the Earth.
- Amen
Keep the faith!
Tags: compassion, Peace, suffering
Jesus said:
If your brother wrongs you
seven times in a day,And seven times comes back to you and says,
‘I repent,’Forgive him.
Ask yourself today: is there less compassion within us for those who never ask?
Keep the faith!
- Amen
Tags: compassion, forgiveness
One of the greatest inspirational songs I’ve ever heard was one that WETA-FM in Washington, DC played every morning at 6:00 am for many years. I’m not sure if they still do, but in those early training school days of my retail career, I was up in suit-and-tie and on my way to class with the other trainees at 8am, then meetings at 9, and having my little section of the giant store open at 10. When I found the song playing each day at that time, I set my radio alarm so it was the first thing I heard every day. Not realizing it at the time, it was like a morning prayer, or reading the daily office before starting the day. All done in less than four minutes.
No loud alarms, no jumping out of bed, no choking down scalding coffee as I ran out the door. I just got up and started my new day.
It followed me from training days, to crawling up through drudge (and some grudge) positions. It followed me to the greatest day job I ever had involving an entire store, in which I had to make large-stroke decisions on the merchandising direction and look of the entire store, not just departments. Then it grew on to doing the same with multiple stores all across the country. Every step along the way – the usual expected office stress aside – it all begin simply with my beginning each sunrise as A New Day.
The career continued forward from there, and I stayed with the song for as long as I was able to work that with my early morning schedule. Retail hours get crazy some times and you’re doing double shifts or closing late, and it’s not so easy to get up every day at 6am like FM radio station clockwork.
When we moved to (back to) North Carolina to try my hand at a start-up company, we had left that regularity, and in a few years’ time I’d stumbled upon this contemplative practice that I write about so much here. It became that same continuity of spirit and serenity. I had to get up a lot earlier to get things done: 5 am each day so I could read through the liturgical readings for the day from the Lectionary (that would be Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel readings for the day.) Then 20 minutes for a timed “sit” – a time of silent prayer in the darkness of the early hours, in that quiet still-sleeping house, usually with the greyhound napping at my feet. The perfect prayer partner: he understood that the three chimes leading us into prayer was the beginning of this time of great silence, and the three chimes at the end was when he opened his eyes, looked up at me, and knew that the day was afoot, tail gently thumping the carpet!
After this meditation, for the first 2-3 years I wrote a homily each day: not so much sermonizing, as it was a sort of “note-to-self” back to me on what I had just read, and what(ever) had come out of that time of contemplation. I still go back and read those manuscripts and wonder at the growth and closeness to my God that I grew into more deeply on the pages.
It all began with a song.
“You Are The New Day” sung by The King’s Singers became an “old chestnut” of the group, and was seen quite often on PBS television stations as their sign-on/sign-off videos back in the days when television stations did not run 24 hours a day, and had to sign off at midnight. Often with some rendition of the National Anthem. Then they signed on again at some wee hour of the morning, and some used “You Are The New Day” for that.
A few years ago, the group performed a once-off variation in concert with a Christmas theme version of the lyrics, written by group member Philip Lawson. I first heard it live when they sang it during an interview on one of the Satellite radio stations, speaking with my friend Robert Aubry Davis. Like the audiences who heard it in concert, I fell in love immediately, and was glad to hear that they finally recorded the Christmas version because of the intense international popularity of this simple song.
The performance below is not by the Singers themselves, but done by a larger choral group, The Cambridge Singers, directed by John Rutter. With only the slightest variation to the original text, Lawson’s verses transform this most gentle love song into a Nativity cradle song for the rest of us – for the ones looking on.
Listening to the Christmas version, I’m reminded that – just as with my alarm clock going off to this sweet melody all those years at 6 am – what we are witnessing at the Nativity is indeed a New Day. And just as with the radio-alarm going off each morning – it is up to us to remember what this day represents, and to find our own ways to spread it forward in gentle peace and love.
On this Christmas, may we each find our own New Day.
Keep the faith!
- Amen
Born on a New Day
performed by The Cambridge Singers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
directed by John Rutter
Christmas lyric variation by Philip Lawson
You are the new day.
Meekness, love, humility,
Come down to us this day:
Christ, your birth has proved to me
You are the new day.
Quiet in a stall you lie,
Angels watching in the sky
Whisper to you from on high:
‘You are the new day.’
When our life is darkest night,
Hope has burned away,
Love, your ray of guiding light,
Show us the new day.
Love of all things great and small,
Leaving none, embracing all,
Fold around me where I fall,
Bring in the new day.
This new day will be a turning point For every one,
If we let the Christ-child in, And reach for the new day.
Christ the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Healing sadness, ending strife,
You we welcome, Lord of Life.
Born on a new day,
You are the new day.
———————————————–
To see a popular PBS Television spot featuring the original King’s Singers version, please click on this link: You Are The New Day
You Are The New Day
Performed by The Kings’ Singers
Lyrics by John David
You are the new day.
I will love you more than me
and more than yesterday
If you can but prove to me
you are the new day
Send the sun in time for dawn
Let the birds all hail the morning
Love of life will urge me say
you are the new day
When I lay me down at night knowing we must pay
Thoughts occur that this night might stay yesterday
Thoughts that we as humans small
could slow worlds and end it all
lie around me where they fall
before the new day
One more day when time is running out for everyone
Like a breath I knew would come I reach for the new day
Hope is my philosophy
Just needs days in which to be
Love of life means hope for me
borne on a new day
You are the new day
Tags: advent, Christmas, contemplative prayer, Inspiration, Meditation, Peace, Video
Joseph – The Dad of Jesus. He gets left out of the Christmas story quite a bit as he seems to be there to uproot Mary and get her off to Bethlehem for a tax census and then scoot her out to Egypt, and that’s about it. We know he was an older man with children from a previous marriage (the siblings of Jesus) and that his betrothed was quite a bit younger. We don’t know why the age difference, or how they came together as a couple and then a family, since that is insignificant to the larger Nativity story.
What I like most about Joseph is that he was just a “guy” much like the apostles later on. A carpenter. He worked for a living and was a good Jew. And he ended up in a strange (and dangerous) situation with this single mom, and just her word for it that this was all God’s idea. No angels came and told Joseph what was up until the very eve that his (espoused) wife gave birth!
He adjusted pretty well for an old guy.
The story of Joseph seems more contemporary than the stories around it in the gospels: they lived in a very regimented time with lots of marriage laws and inheritance laws, including the inheritance of one’s bride, in certain situations like the death of a guy’s brother. Yet here, Joseph has choices to make. Marry this young woman (who could well be a harlot, or insane!) and take in this child as his own. Joseph gets to set the example for the rest of us that – even though many laws and regulations might stick us with the people we are kin to, part of our life is also choosing the family around us. Friends, BFFs, Neighbors, FWBs, you name it.
Then it gets more complicated with our Exs, their kids, the kids’-kids, and the kids’ friends we collected along the way as our “mostly-kids.” Old roommates. And about 4 people that you can’t remember exactly how it is you know them, but they’re on the list, anyway.
Our Family.
The Cherry Tree Carol speaks to this guy-ness of Joseph, the Dad of Jesus. I can’t imagine being as patient as he was with the whole situation and I was glad to find this old carol that gives us a glimpse at his human side. The carol goes back probably earlier than 17th Century Europe, and made it over the pond to appear as an Appalachian carol.
In the story, while on their way to Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph pass through an orchard of cherry trees, and Mary says, “Could you reach up and pick me just one cherry from the tree?“
Joseph – with just a little traveling stress going on I’m sure – answers back, “Here’s an idea: why don’t you let the father of that kid in you reach up and pick you a cherry.”
In response, the Child within her calls the tallest tree to bow down, and so she picks her own, saying, “See! I have the power of the trees within me.“
Ouch.
Joseph realizes at once that he was out of line, puts Mary on his knee and says, “What have I done, Lord! Have mercy on me!“
It’s after this point in the story that the angel finally comes to Joseph and tells him that Mary will give birth that very night. The American lyrics also include the date of January 6, which was celebrated as Old Christmas in the mountains, up into the early days of the 20th Century.
In that moment of realization, Joseph goes from being an outsider looking in on the Nativity story, to the real Dad of Christ. He knows the difference between being the boy’s Father, and being his Dad. Joseph is the one who will see him through his early years, hold him proudly during the brit milah, teach him carpentry skills, take him to temple and see that he learns the ways of their people and their beliefs. He will do the things that a Dad does with his boy. No blood-kin necessary.
Joseph the Dad of Jesus taught us that if circumstances arise that we are not surrounded by our related family, we are still embraced and loved by our natural family: the people who are there when we call. The ones who care for and look after us. The ones who need us to care for and look after them. Sometimes it is with God’s guidance that these people fall into our lives, and sometimes it’s happenstance. Whichever the case, they are just as much family to us as cousins and aunts and uncles. And they deserve the same love and reverence as well.
What if your own family has kicked you out? What if they’ve all died off over the years and it seems that you are the only one left? What if there is an icy cold chasm between you and them and the ice never seems to thaw? Then don’t forget the others around you – the ones who laugh with you and worry with you. The ones who help you in a pinch or understand when you say “I just don’t feel up to it today,” knowing they’ll be back tomorrow or the next.
They’re all “guys” just like you and me. And the more we have in our lives, the more love we get to bounce around.
Keep the faith!
The Cherry Tree Carol
sung by Jean Ritchie
Lyrics (Traditional Mountain Carol)
When Joseph was an old man,
An old man was he,
When he courted Virgin Mary,
The Queen of Galilee,
When he courted Virgin Mary,
The Queen of Galilee,
As Joseph and Mary
Were walking one day,
“Here are apples and cherries,”
O Mary did say….
Then Mary spoke to Joseph,
So meek and so mild,
“Joseph, gather me some cherries
For I am with child….”
Then Joseph flew in anger –
In anger flew he,
“Let the father of the baby
Gather cherries for thee!”
Then Jesus spoke a few words,
A few words spoke he,
“Let my mother have some cherries;
Bow low down, cherry tree!
“Bow down, O cherry tree!
Bow low down to the ground!”
Then Mary gathered cherries
While Joseph stood around….
Then Joseph took Mary
All on his left knee;
Saying: “What have I done? Lord,
Have mercy on me!”
Then Joseph took Mary
All on his right knee,
“Pray tell me, little baby,
When your birthday shall be….
“On the sixth day of January
My birthday shall be,
When the stars and the elements
Shall tremble with glee….
***
As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing,
“Tonight shall be the birth-time
Of Christ, our heavenly king….”
“He neither shall be born
In house nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
But in an ox’s stall….
“He neither shall be clothéd
In purple nor in pall
But in the bare white linen
That useth babies all….
As Joseph was a-walking,
Then did an angel sing,
And Mary’s child at midnight
Was born to be our king….
