Past Prayers of The Day
October 2000
October 31, 2000
Grandfather, Great Spirit,
you have always been, and before you nothing has been.
There is no one to pray to but you.
The star nations all over heaven are yours,
and yours are the grasses of the earth.
You are older than all need, older than all pain and prayer.
Grandfather, Great Spirit,
fill us with light.
Give us strength to understand and eyes to see.
Teach us to walk the soft earth as relatives to all that live.
Help us, for without you we are nothing.
- Grandfather, Great Spirit, Lakota Indian Prayer
October 30, 2000
For cities and towns, factories and farms, flowers and trees, sea and sky,
Lord we praise You for the world and its beauty.
For family and friends, neighbors and cousins
Lord, we thank You for friendship and love.
For kind hearts, smiling faces, and helping hands
Lord, we praise You for those who care for others.
For commandments that teach us how to live
Lord, we thank You for those who help us to understand your laws.
And for making us one family on earth, the children of One God
Lord we praise You, who made all people different, yet alike.
- Jewish Liturgy
October 29, 2000
O Mother, with your oceans, rivers, and other bodies of water,
you give us land to grow grains on which our survival depends.
Please give us as much milk, fruits, water, and cereals as we need to eat and drink.
O Mother, bearing folk who speak different languages,
and follow different religions,
treating them all as residents of the same house,
please pour, like a cow who never fails,
a thousand streams of treasure to enrich us.
May you, our motherland, on whom grow wheat, rice, and barley,
on whom are born five races of humanity,
be nourished by the clouds,
and loved by rain.
- Hymn to the Earth, from the Atharva-Veda (Hindu)
October 28, 2000
"Let us therefore no longer pass judgement on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another."
- The Bible, Romans 14:13
October 27, 2000
I wasn't able to update. Sorry!
October 26, 2000
Hear me, four quarters of the world.
A relative I am!
Give me the strength to walk the soft earth.
Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand.
Look upon these faces of children without number,
That they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.
This is my prayer; hear me.
- Black Elk
October 25, 2000
O Creating God,
who spreads the earth like a carpet for the sun,
like the skin of a sacrificed beast,
listen to our prayer.
O Creating God,
who places the winds in the forests,
puts wings on horses, milk in cows, virtue in human beings,
who puts fish in the waters, sun in the sky, wind in the mountains,
O Creating God,
who tilts the cup of the clouds on the three worlds,
heaven, earth, and middle sky,
lord who drenches fields of barley with rain,
O Creating God,
who floods earth and sky with sweet milk
when hills are clothed with cloud
and the storms come rushing,
We sing to your glory, O Creating God:
You stand in the universe,
You hold it in your power,
You measure the earth with the sun.
We do not question your power, O Wise God,
like shining rivers that flow, and flowing
do not fill the sea
into which they flow...
If we have ever sinned against a friend,
if we have ever sinned against a brother or sister, mother or father,
if we have ever sinned against a neighbor or stranger,
O Forgiving God, forgive us.
If, like gamblers at dice, we have cheated,
cheated knowingly or unknowingly,
O forgiving God, forgive us.
Fogive us, restore us, and love us.
- A prayer to Varuna, the sky god, from the Rig-Veda, one of the four core Hindu scriptures.
October 24, 2000
I wasn't able to update today. Sorry!
October 23, 2000
When dreaming, I'm guided through another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't want to leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
Can you take me higher?
To the place where blind men see
Can you take me higher?
To the place with golden streets
Although I would like our world to change
It helps me to appreciate
Those nights and those dreams
But, my friend, I'd sacrifice all those nights
If I could make the Earth and my dreams the same
The only difference is
To let love replace all our hate
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
Up high I feel like I'm alive for the very first time
Up high I'm strong enough to take these dreams
And make them mine
- "Higher" by Creed
October 22, 2000
Creating God, in you everything on earth and in the heavens is bound together in perfect harmony. If we lose the sweetness of the waters, we lose the life of the land. If we lose the life of the land, we lose the majesty of the forest. If we lose the majesty of the forest, we lose the purity of the air. If we lose the purity of the air, we lose the creatures of the Earth.
Open our eyes to behold your creation. Create in us a new spirit of awareness of our place in you delicate balance; transform our hearts that we may reclaim our sense of awe and wonder. Quicken our understanding that we may acknowledge our responsibility and strengthen our resolve to work with you for the healing of your creation; through our Holy God, Savior of the world.
- The Web of Life, From The Earth Charter
October 21, 2000
Fire of the Spirit,
life of the lives of creatures,
spiral of sanctity,
bond of all natures,
glow of charity,
lights of clarity,
taste of sweetness to the fallen,
be with us and hear us.
Composer of all things,
joy in the glory,
strong honor,
be with us and hear us.
- Hildegarde of Bingen (Adapted)
October 20, 2000
For blue of stream and blue of sky,
Father we thank thee.
For pleasant shade of branches high
Father, we thank thee
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For the beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in heaven, we thank thee.
For this new morning with its light,
Father, we thank thee.
For rest and shelter of the night,
Father we thank thee.
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything that goodness sends,
Father in heaven, we thank thee.
- "Lord of Creation" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
October 19, 2000
O Holy God,
may we love and respect all your creation,
all the earth and every grain of sand in it.
May we love every leaf,
every ray of your light.
May we love the animals:
you have given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Let us not trouble them;
Let us not harass them,
let us not deprive them of their happiness,
let us not work against your intentions.
For we acknowledge that to withhold any measure of love from anything in the universe is to withhold that same measure from you.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
October 18, 2000
You are my shepherd.
I shall not want.
You cradle me in green pastures.
You lead me beside the still waters.
You restore my soul.
You guide me in paths of righteousness for You are righteous.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and staff comfort me.
You spread a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You soothe my head with oil; my cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in Your house forever.
- The Bible, Psalm 23
October 17, 2000
O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds and whose breath gives life to all the world: hear me.
I am one of your many children. I am small and weak. I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever to behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made, my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise, so that I may know the things you have taught my people, the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, O Great Spirit, not to be superior to others but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me ever ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes so that when life fades as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.
- Tom White Cloud
October 16, 2000
Give us the spirit of the child.
Give us the child who lives within:
The child who trusts, the child who imagines, the child who sings,
The child who receives without reservation, the child who gives without judgement.
Give us a child's eyes, that we may receive the beauty and freshness of this day like a sunrise;
Give us a child's ears, that we may hear the music of mythical times;
Give us a child's heart, that we may be filled with wonder and delight;
Give us a child's faith, that we may be cured of our cynicism;
Give us the spirit of the child, who is not afraid to need, who is not afraid to love.
- Sara Moores Campbell
October 15, 2000
Almighty God, Creator:
The morning is yours, rising into fullness.
The summer is yours, dipping into autumn.
Eternity is yours, dipping into time.
The vibrant grasses,
the scent of flowers,
the lichen on the rocks,
the tang of seaweed.
All is yours.
Gladly we live in this garden of your creating.
- Celtic Prayer
October 14, 2000
O Source of peace, lead us to peace, a peace profound and true; lead us to a healing, to mastery of all that drives us to war within ourselves and with others.
May our deeds inscribe us in the Book of life and blessing, righteousness and peace!
O Source of peace, bless us with peace.
- Gates of Repentance
October 13, 2000
May every creature abound in well-being and peace.
May every living being, weak or strong, the long, and the small, the short and the medium sized, the mean and the great,
May every living being seen or unseen, those dwelling far off, those living near by, those already born, those waiting to be born,
May all attain inward peace.
Let no one deceive another. Let no one despise another in any situation.
Let no one, from antipathy or hatred, wish evil to anyone at all.
Just as a mother, with her own life, protects her only child from hurt, so within yourself foster a limitless concern for every living creature.
Display a heart of boundless love for all the world in all its height and depth and broad extent,
Love unrestrained, without hate or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk, sit or lie, until overcome with drowsiness, devote your mind entirely to this: It is known as living the life divine.
- Buddhist
October 12, 2000
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, forever. Amen.
- The Lord's Prayer
October 11, 2000
Where hate rules, let us bring love;
where sorrow, joy.
Let us strive more to comfort
others than to be comforted,
to understand others,
than to be understood,
to love others more than to be loved.
For it is in giving that we receive,
and in pardoning that we are pardoned.
- Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
October 10, 2000
As we are together praying for Peace,
let us be truly with eachother...
(silence)
Let us be aware of the source of being common to us all
and to all living things.
(silence)
Envoking the presence of the Great Compassion,
let us fill our hearts with our own compassion -
towards ourselves and toward all living beings.
(silence)
Let us pray that all living beings realize
that they are all brothers and sisters,
all nourished from the same source of life.
(silence)
Let us pray that we ourselves
cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.
(silence)
Let us plead with ourselves
to live in a way which will not deprive other living beings
of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live.
(silence)
With humility, with awareness of the existance of life,
and of the sufferings that are going on around us,
let us pray for the establishment of
peace in our hearts and on earth. Amen.
- From A Buddhist Litany For Peace - Thich Nhat Nanh
October 9, 2000
O God, beautiful as the moon, warm as the sun, powerful as the earth, bestow your blessings upon us to uplift humankind. In this holy place, grant that peace may defeat discord, unselfishness may conquer greed, sincere words may overcome deceit, and that respect may surmount insults. Fill our hearts with joy, uplift our spirits, and fill our bodies with glory.
- From Prayer of Love, Light, and Power - Kurama Temple
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