Tag Archives: Love

A Prayer for Spacious Places

When hard pressed, I cried to God;  they brought me into a spacious place.–Psalm 118:5

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This is a prayer for those spacious places where we find peace, love, and freedom. These places are both physical and metaphysical. They are urban, suburbia, rural; they are the homes of our friends, the tents of our lovers, the blankets of stars.

Oh universe of all things great and small,

I have seen the wonders of this world, and my heart.

I have been split open by the view from the tallest mountain, by the stars shining from the tallest building, by climbing the tallest tree.

These places have broken the broken parts of me,
where grief and pain have made me small and petty.

I have seen so many places where anger has made everything small,
where tiny pebbles of hate burn without fire.

I wish to live only in places where I can be my biggest self.

Places of risk, possibility, enormity, and freedom.
Places that are so immense they terrify and inspire me.

Yet, out of all the spacious and immense places I have been,
from the tallest tree that I have ever climbed
to the view from a building trying to reach the heights of Babel,
the most spacious place I have ever known is love.

Let me live there always.

Amen.

A Prayer for the Dead

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Dear God,

They say that dead men tell no tales,
but I am not so sure.

I think, perhaps, it is only the dead that can tell us anything at all.

Through their death they show us the mirror of mortality.

They show us the flaws in our own lives.

The deaths of those we cherish tell us each the stories of our own ends,
and give us the power to rewrite them.

I believe it is every person’s last gift, to shed light on living through their dying.

Those who I morn have taught me lessons, have told me their stories, and have given me strength to change my own.

So I ask that the dead be blessed, as they have blessed me by living and dying.

Amen.

A Prayer for Community

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Communities can sustain us, they can support us, and they can help us succeed. Communities can also fall apart, they can break our hearts , and they can fail us. This is a prayer for all our communities, in all their forms.

Dear Spirit of Universal Love,

Let me find communities of wisdom.

Help me seek out communities that love me as a whole person, that challenge me in just the right ways, and that allow me to connect with something greater than myself.

Help me find healing with the communities in my life that have let me down or caused me harm.

Let me connect with new communities and with scattered members of communities I was a part of in the past.

Let the spirit of unconditional holy love stretch from me to every member of the communities I cherish.

Amen

…and We’re Back!

We here at Searching Sophia’s Pockets are back from our Summer Hiatus and ready to bring you new wisdom, love …and lint in the form of new prayers and posts.

We are still focusing this year on prayer, and we still would love for you to join us in sharing your thoughts about prayer, your own prayers, or the ways you have used our prayers with us. For more details check out our submissions page, or e-mail us directly at SophiasPockets@gmail.com

Thank you for continuing this journey with us.

 

With Wisdom, Love …and Lint,

The Searching Sophia’s Pockets Team

A Prayer for Joyous Moments

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Not all moments are full of joy, not all lives are brimming with happy events, but we can always find a joyous moment or two even in the saddest times. They shine, not like beacons, but like tiny birthday candles in a field of darkness. They are glimpses of something better. 

Dear God of Joy,

In the midst of my despair I have found a moment of joy,
and for this I am so grateful.

I am grateful to myself for taking the time to enjoy this joyous moment,
grateful to those who were there with me, and grateful to the moment itself.

This joyous moment has given me a glimmer of happiness.

This joyous moment has filled me with a sense of divine compassionate love.

Help me be a joyous moment for those in need of one,
and help me find joyous moments everywhere.

Amen.

Like all the prayers on this site, this prayer is just a beginning, so everyone is welcome to modify it, customize it, and re-create to better fit their own journey and beliefs. If you would like to share you re-creations, we welcome you to do so in the comment section, or to submit your reworking of this prayer or your own prayer.  

A Prayer for Our Bodies

At every age, in every form, our bodies are with us, holding us. They are the embodiment of our hearts, our spirits, and our minds. So today we offer a prayer for our bodies.

Oh Divine Essence of the Universe,

I am praying for my body, for the ways it moves, and the ways it doesn’t,
for the parts of my body that provide me pleasure and the parts that are causing me pain.

My body is the temple of my soul, my spirit, and my heart. It is a place of embodied beauty.

My body has not always been kind to me, nor me to it. Sometimes I have not loved my body, sometimes I have not treated it well.

Let me meet my body in a place of peace.

I want to love my body, I want to be grateful for the things it does provide me, in its own unique way.

I also want to value the bodies of others, as temples of their souls and spirits.

I pray for the wisdom to honor all bodies.
I pray for the strength to love all bodies.
I pray for all bodies.

Amen.

Like all the prayers on this site, this prayer is just a beginning, so everyone is welcome to modify it, customize it, and re-create to better fit their own journey and beliefs. If you would like to share you re-creations, we welcome you to do so in the comment section, or to submit your reworking of this prayer or your own prayer.   

Another Prayer for New Beginnings

As we embark on THE YEAR OF PRAYER, we wanted to offer this prayer for our new journey and all the other new journeys starting this time of year. We have offered prayers before for new beginnings, but because we are all constantly beginning again, we offer this one as well.

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Dear Spirit of Creation,

Here I am again. Starting over, beginning anew. Each new journey is different, and each new journey leaves many possible paths untraveled.

Let me be reminded of why I chose this new beginning, let me bask in the hope of this new start.

I ask that this new start be filled with fresh ideas and steady support, with the excitement of newness and the wisdom of experience.

Spirit of Ever-Renewing Creation, create with me this new beginning and let it be blessed and a blessing for others.

Amen

Like all the prayers on this site, this prayer is just a beginning, so everyone is welcome to modify it, customize it, and re-create to better fit their own journey and beliefs. If you would like to share you re-creations, we welcome you to do so in the comment section, or to submit your reworking of this prayer or your own prayer.   

Forgive Me My Wrong Impressions

By: Jenni Taylor, Author in Chief

You fear heaven, the source of spiritual peace; you fear nature, the haven of rest and tranquility; you fear the God of goodness and accuse him of anger, while he is full of love and mercy.–Khalil Gibran

“You fear heaven”, says Gibran, and I am taken back to the childhood bewilderment of heaven as a place of limited space for well behaved little boys and girls. If God is so big, why isn’t heaven bigger? If God loves us, why is there a time limit on his forgiveness? If God created the trees and mountains and forests, why would he choose a city of gold to live in for eternity?

“You fear nature,” says Gibran, and I look around my apartment where the windows are never open because the air is polluted and murky. I remember days of wandering free and hugging trees and now I can’t remember the last time I threw my arms around a tree trunk feeling it’s bark and life and comfort.

“You fear the God of goodness,” Gibran says, and I feel the walls come up around my heart when I try to pray. Maybe he is angry with me. Maybe he is disappointed. Maybe it will be better to slip through my life quietly and not bother him with requests when I haven’t held up my end of the bargain.

“He is full of love and mercy,” Gibran says.

He is full of love and mercy.

He is full of love and mercy.

He is full of love and mercy.

I let this mantra enter my heart.

And I know God, the fabric of the universe, this connecting force of creation, rebirth, and new beginnings, this intangible palm holding all pasts, presents, and futures of every living thing, is not to be feared, nor to be bargained with. All my questions, my insecurities, my doubts, come from human fallibility and not from an all-encompassing fountain of love and mercy.

Forgive me my wrong impressions, and help me to see the bigger picture. Help me to embrace heaven on earth, the beauty and healing power of nature, and the fact that your love and mercy is bigger than my fears. Amen.

A Prayer For Healing, A Blessing In Disguise

By: Autumn Elizabeth, Editor in Chief 

Prayer for Healing, Blessings, Interfaith, weepingI have a friend who is in the midst of battling cancer, but this friend is just one of many who needs healing. Lately, I find myself praying for healing often, a little too often for my liking. My private prayer journal is filling up with friends asking for good thoughts as they heal from surgery, for strength as they heal from broken hearts, for spiritual healing for this broken world or simply prayers that they will feel the healing power of love as they struggle with death and dying. This is the prayer I say when I get these requests:

Dear God,

Give_____ what they need in abundance.

Let them feel the wholeness that comes from being loved,

because they are indeed loved.

Let them find a way to heal their wounds seen and unseen.

Let me find a way to help them the best I can.

Amen

This is a prayer of healing, but this prayer isn’t just about healing for others. By saying it so often, I have found a blessing there too, in disguise. In praying that others are healed, I am freeing myself from the awful feeling of uselessness that comes with loving those who are suffering, and for me feeling that I am doing something is a huge blessing.

i was not raised, neither by my church nor my family, to be useless, I was taught to serve, to help, to work, and to persevere. But in these recent times of so much hurt and suffering to those so near and so dear to me, I have often felt useless.

I struggle with questions like: What can I do to heal this world? How can I help when I am so far away? What use are my skills with words in times like these? But I have found that in praying for the healing of others, I too am healed. In praying for healing, I am blessedly useful. Thus, the prayers of healing I offer are, in some small way, my biggest blessings.

What is Modesty in a Multicultural World?

We decided to have each member of our staff reflect on the question: What is Modesty?  Our Writing Intern, offered her perspective as Muslim woman, our Editor in Chief tried to define modesty. Today Our Author in Chief, Jenni Taylor, asks what this complex topic might mean in a multicultural world.

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I find myself at a loss when it comes to defining this word, modesty. It is a word that has caused infinite amounts of trouble around the world rather than the freedom and security that should come with spiritual truths. Love, joy and peace certainly haven’t been nearly as controversial, culturally or in my own life. Why modesty?

Currently working in China, leggy skirts and shorts are perfectly acceptable for work while shoulders or a loose blouse will earn a chastising commentary. In other places, in other times, ankles, or hair, or wrists are considered immodest.

I understand clothing modesty is only one facet of the word, but it leads us to a rather important piece of wisdom: values, even spiritual ones, CAN be cultural.

So, I’d like to gently point out that all values may contain validity, but are not equal in importance. If a value leads us to the judgement and closed hearts then maybe it merits less of our attention. In our multicultural world, multiple definitions are always acceptable, each culture can define things differently, and I can define things for myself while allowing everyone else to do the same.