Music and meditation

I've been meaning to leave this here in my moodlings since before Canadian Thanksgiving! Sharing this information isn't just about appreciating music like my usual Music Appreciation Mondays, but about inviting my readers to participate in it and use it for prayer.

I've posted many times about Taizé in these moodlings, as I've been singing and praying the music of the Community since the early 90s or maybe even earlier, but I only managed to visit what I soon recognized as my spiritual home for the first time in 2014. My experience there was an affirmation of the importance of ecumenism in my life, and it's part of my reason for serving with the Community of Emmanuel at Inner City Pastoral Ministry. 

I deeply believe that Christians can and should pray together as much as possible, regardless of theological and dogmatic differences between churches, and the prayer of the Taizé community is a beautiful way to do that. We gather to listen to scripture and let it speak to our hearts without interpretation, we spend time in silence together, opening ourselves to God, we offer the prayers of our hearts, and we sing beautiful harmonies together, uniting our spirits.

Here's the schedule for the rest of the 2024-2025 season, and an invitation to a very special evening's peace prayer the day before Remembrance Day (this Sunday already!) We will gather, as the brothers of Taizé do every Sunday evening, and sit in silence before God for 30 minutes, praying for peace. The remainder of the hour-long prayer will be a simplified version of what happens in Taizé three times a day. 

I hope you can join us. If you would like a printable version of this poster, please contact me @ the email address under "The Moodler -- Maria K." on the right sidebar, and I'll be happy to email you a copy. Or better yet, come to the prayer and you can have a hard copy that I've already printed.

With the wars happening in our world and concerns about the election for our neighbours to the south, we can use all the peace we can pray for!

For Ukraine

A couple of special friends -- well, so many Canadians, really -- are very worried for their country of origin. My favourite prayer for peace has been running through my head incessantly these last few days. 

For Maryana, Pavlo, their mom, Luba, in West Ukraine, for all in the regions under threat of violence -- and especially for a change of heart in the aggressors. 

Grant us your peace, O God, may it fill all our days...

Sunday Reflection on a Monday: We are all one body

I found myself short of time and words for moodling yesterday, Corpus Christi Sunday, but this morning during centering prayer, so many words came to me about how every person on our planet is part of one body, God's presence in the world, through our many faiths. Faith means that we believe in beauty, goodness and truth, though we express our belief in God in so many different ways. And I can't help but feel that we really need to pray together more often, in spite of our differences.

This coming Sunday, there's a perfect opportunity for people of different faiths to pray together for peace. Our Southside Taizé Musicians group and the community of the Sai Baba Centre on Whyte Avenue are joining together in a Prayer for Peace, inviting people of all faiths. If you are in the vicinity, I hope you will join us for silent meditation followed by two peace chants and refreshments. Perhaps our combined prayer will help with the peace process with North Korea, or give some respite to other places of conflict. One never knows how prayer is answered.

Our prayer this Sunday is inspired by the brothers of the Taizé community, who gather every Sunday evening with the young pilgrims who come to them from around the world. All sit in silent meditation for a time, and at the end, the brothers lead a simple prayer-song for peace. It is one of the most powerful prayer experiences I have ever had, and it is what we will do on Sunday with everyone who gathers with us.

Humanity's body has been divided into factions for too long. It's time to become aware of our oneness and to lift our hearts and souls to the God who makes us one, to pray for peace among all.

A prayer for Paris (and other places)

O God,
it's so hard to understand this.

The kind of hatred that would
motivate young people
to blow themselves up outside soccer games
or shoot fans at a rock concert or restaurant
is not something we experience
on a daily basis.
Yet it seems there are many who do.

How do we reach them?
How can their angry hearts
be transformed into loving hearts?
How must we be different
so that the anger and violence in them melts away?

Bless all those who mourn,
and those impacted
by the trauma of shootings and bombings
and violent events the world over.

We grieve with them,
and we pray that you will show us all
how steadfast love and faithfulness can meet
and where righteousness and peace
can kiss each other in justice and truth
in all the situations like these.

Even more basically, show us how
it is not
them vs. us
or
us vs. them,
but that we are all one family,
your children.

Free us from our fears,
keep us open to those in need,
and help us to do your will.

+AMEN.

God restores us

Tonight is our annual Taizé Prayer for Peace. With Remembrance Day on Tuesday, it’s important to reflect on our world’s past conflicts, not to glorify our military, but to recall their sacrifices and to pray that peace and justice come to the trouble spots around the globe, and that they live in our own lives and hearts.

You’re invited to come and join us in our prayer for peace this evening at 7 p.m. at Strathearn United Church (8510 95 Avenue). A friend of mine was telling me yesterday that it has been proven that meditative practice actually has the ability to alter the state of certain things – so Alfred Lord Tennyson’s comment, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,” is truer than he knew.

Tonight we’ll be singing the beautiful chant in the video below in its original Italian, reminding ourselves that God does not push us away, but restores us through holy presence. The icon you see in the video, taken from the Bawit monastery excavation in Egypt, is now housed at the Louvre. It’s an image of Christ and Abbot Mena. I love how Jesus has his arm around his friend the Abbot, who was living in a dangerous time. I like to think that Christ has his arms around all those living in dangerous situations today, bringing them peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzSaV5IasyM

Il Signore ti ristora.
Dio non allontana.
Il Signore viena ad incontrarti.
Viene ad incontrarti...

Sunday prayers for peace

Today is the anniversary of the end of the First World War, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. In Canada, we call it Remembrance Day. When I was growing up, it was all about reciting "In Flanders Fields," watching old soldiers march or wheel past with medals decorating their chests, and imagining life in the trenches long before my generation of Canadians was born. But now, it's about so much more, with many peacekeeping missions in the last 40 years and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All present generations are affected by these wars, even though our country hasn't felt the full brunt of armed conflict within its boundaries for hundreds of years. Knowing people involved in or touched by war affects us all.

One evening two summers ago, when I pulled up to a parking booth, the attendant gave me my ticket with the comment, "be sure to enjoy your life today." I thanked her, and as there was no one else around, asked the reason behind her comment. Her eyes filled, she thanked me for asking, and she told me about her son, who had been killed in Afghanistan. The tears poured down her cheeks as she shared about Sgt. George Miok, a junior high school teacher who had volunteered for the reserves, and how she was heartbroken when he never returned. It turns out that our school Vice Principal knew George, and was on staff at St. Cecilia's with him, and when this letter arrived at the school. It makes George almost as real to me as his mom's tears did. And now there are so many stories like hers.

Today, I'm also thinking in particular about my friends from Syria, whose country is embroiled in a terrible civil war that is being fed by outsiders and nations who often don't even know the people who are affected by their illegal arms shipments and political sanctions. Today, around the world, many words will be spoken about peace as an ideal for which we strive. But peace has to be more than an ideal in Syria and other places like it for the sake of those who live there, and for their families far away. Peace needs to be a reality.

On this Remembrance Day we remember that there are far more losers than winners in any war. But if everyone on this planet thought of everyone as a brother or sister, and gave to those in need, everyone would win.

Tonight, our Taize Prayer service at St. Luke's Anglican Church will be for peace. Dona la pace, Signore. Give us peace, O God, we who trust in you. And make us servants of your peace. Amen.

Ten years ago...

... my husband woke me to kiss me goodbye, and mentioned that a plane had just hit the World Trade Towers in New York. I immediately thought Cessna and got up to make coffee. As we said our morning prayers at the back door, the second plane hit. When I turned on the radio five minutes later, it became clear that the planes were not Cessnas and I wondered what kind of world our children would inherit.

We walked my daughter to school, then I took my two kindergarteners (I looked after a friend's son at the time) and toddler to the local IGA for a few groceries. As we walked in the door, I saw people standing stock still in the aisles, listening to radio news blaring from the PA system, announcing that the first tower had just fallen. A thousand questions from the kindergarteners. We walked home with our groceries, I set the kids up with a game, and went to the basement to turn on the TV...

Two days later as I was reading a library book to my youngest about "what love is," I burst into tears. Jay went to get me some tissues, too little to understand why Mommy was crying.

Ten years and two wars later, what can we do but work for the equality that doesn't breed terrorism and pray for peace? I still love St. Francis' prayer the best:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.