Morning

I’ve never been good at new year’s resolutions, so I gave up even trying years ago.  I’m sure somewhere along the way I swore off desserts after 8 pm.  Didn’t work.  Just look at my waistline.  I really do love my ice cream. 

One thing I’ve tried to incorporate in my life over the last decade or so is a regimen of zen meditation.  I’ve gotten started a few times, but after a week or so, I remember, “Oh, yeah.  I was supposed to meditate this morning.  Hmmm.  So it goes, I guess....”  

Still, like coming back to the breath countless times with no fault, no guilt, here I find myself.  I am hoping a little time every morning -- at least every weekday morning -- might help me reconnect with some ground that can keep me focused on my book and, well, life in general.  

I always hope to be doing the right thing.  Last week a friend connected my spiritual style to that of a miner.  “I love how you keep digging and mining for sources of inspiration and support for your own soul/spirit/life.  You are a miner and therefore you will never be at rest,” she wrote.  She went on to say her own miner’s life directs her into “as close a way as I can figure to walking through it all with any kind of integrity.”  I know I’m in good company.

So last week, the first week of January, I began a new practice of morning meditation.  In the hope of getting me focused for the quiet, I adapted a prayer I recently found as my forward for the day.  The original prayer addresses God.  I would rather address the Spirit of the Universe.  

Morning

Spirit of the Universe, I have come into the quiet and stillness of your presence to begin this day, so that out of these meditative moments I may take with me a quiet serenity which will last me through the rough and the smooth of this day’s life. 

I have come to find wisdom; that I may know when to speak, and when to keep silent; when to act, and when to refrain from action. 

I have come to find peace, so that nothing may worry or upset me, all through today. 

I have come to find courage, to be patient not to give up hope, when hopes are long in coming true; to accept disappointment without bitterness and delay without complaint. 

I have come to find love, to listen to your love so that all through today I may love, without being attached, that nothing may make me bitter or unforgiving. 

I have come to begin the day with you, so that I may be able to continue it, and end it with awareness of you. 

And I have come this day, O Spirit, to be real, transparent as a mountain stream, with a heart open and spontaneous as a child. 

Hear this, my morning prayer, for the hope of social justice and for the sake of all in the world.   Amen.

Finding myself sitting in a straight chair at the sliding glass doors that face our back yard, I then reach over and start the timer on my iPod.  I try to find a focal point to get lost in, somewhere out back.  Birds distract me.  But I sit, chin up, listening to my breath, just trying to be present, hoping that if anybody has anything to say, I’ll be able to hear it.  I’ll see how it goes.  

 How does your spiritual life go?  Care to share?  ;-)

Today’s Elder Idea:  The challenge is not to mourn what is lost, or over; nor regret that a good experience has come to an end; but rather to gather up all the pieces and take them with me into the next phase of my praying.  

Suzette Cayless

Order of the Holy Cross Companion

‘Morning’ adapted by and then from Kent Ira Groff  (Associate of Holy Cross) from a prayer found in a Roman Catholic seminary in India.  

image:  I mean, morning, you know?  And busy already.  Photo by Tom Schaefer.  


Sorry, but I can't correct the line just above.  The thought is by Suzette Cayless.