Celebrate!

We have much to celebrate this 4th of July Weekend. Perhaps, taking time out to take stock of our lives is a good start to that celebration. And then thanking the Author of this celebration is essential. After offering words of gratitude, then turn our prayers to others.

This is not a lesson on prayer as, I for one, have difficulty expressing how to pray. But I have found another's lesson I'd like to share with you.

Pray for One Another

We often wonder what we can do for others, especially for those in great need. It is not a sign of powerlessness when we say: "we must pray for one another." To pray for one another is, first of all, to acknowledge, in the presence of God, that we belong to each other as children of the same God. Without this acknowledgment of human solidarity, what we do for one another does ot flow from who we truly are. We are brothers and sisters, not competitors or rivals. We are children of one God, not partisans of different gods.

To pray, that is, to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the "Beloved," is to learn that that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers. And so intimacy with God and solidarity with all people are two aspects of swelling in the present moment that can never be separated.

~~Here and Now
The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life
by Henri J. M. Nouwen
compiled and edited by Wendy Wilson Greer

So it is that on this weekend when we Americans have so much for which to be grateful, I encourage you all to stop and pray for each other. Pray for me! I will pray for you. Pray for peace and understanding. When we do this we know we have a captive audience, an attentive ear. Why not take advantage of it?!

~~~^j^~~~

Thanks be to God!!!