Sundry

A Prayer in My Pocket

When I was serving as an Associate Minister, the Senior Minister at that church once put me on the spot. He was asked to lead prayer at an interfaith gathering and responded saying he was not good at extemporaneous prayer but that “Douglas always has a prayer in his back pocket.” I always felt this was more than my colleague ‘passing the buck.’ It was a sincere compliment. Over the years, however, I had not imagined it to be literally true until recently.

A few months ago, I put on my brown sports jacket and noticed a paper folded up in the breast pocket. It was a prayer I had written and delivered for the vigil held last June for the shooting that had happened at The Pulse in Orlando FL. I must have tucked it into my jacket after speaking and forgotten it was there for half a year. “Shall we talk about homophobia and finding safe spaces? Do we bring up the need for better gun control laws? Can we talk about Islamophobia and about vulnerable communities being pitted against each other? O Spirit of Life and Love, can we simply talk about how much this hurts? Again?”

In my black suit coat pocket, I found the prayer I had written and delivered a year before the Pulse shooting; a prayer for the June 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME church in Charleston, SC. “We pray in solidarity with all those who have been touched by violence while seeking a community of support. May we learn, O Spirit, to be tender and gentle with the broken places in our lives and in the lives of our neighbors near and far.”

In another suit, I found the prayer I wrote for the December 4^th vigil in support of Standing Rock. “In this silent moment let us cry out for the suffering of our world.  In particular we cry out for the land and the water that is threatened in Cannonball ND; for the American Indians usually forgotten on the margins; for all those who suffer at the hands of police militarization and corporate greed. Oh, Spirit of life and of love, hear our cry.”

In the back pocket of my brief case, I found the prayer I wrote for the 15^th anniversary 9/11 vigil held at the mosque. “Let us set aside hate, and devote our lives to the ways of peace and justice.  Let us, O Spirit, encourage peace to grow in any garden it can find. Let us remember the tragedies of our days and commit to building a better world. Let us be emissaries of justice, ambassadors of compassion, agents of thee, O Spirit”

I am someone who always has a prayer in my pocket. Sometimes it is not a piece of paper from a vigil. Sometimes it is a stone, a piece of sea glass, or a slip of paper with the word “humility.” I once discovered tobacco in my pocket: tobacco from the prayer offering at the sacred fire in Oceti Sakowin camp. Again and again, I find these prayers in my pocket. And so, part of my work is to take in the pain and turmoil, to take in what is broken and then turn it back out into the world transformed as blessings. May peace prevail on Earth. May I do my part to bring peace.

Because we are all connected

Elisa taught me a lot. She was a member of the first congregation I served. She loved the children of our congregation. She loved the times when I would preach about spirituality and God. And mostly she loved to show up at every Social Action event our congregation hosted. She taught me about the connection between Social Action and Spirituality. “Look what we can do together,” she would say grinning at me as if revealing a secret.

Elisa was talking with me one afternoon about one of our justice projects. I made some off-handed comment about the division I thought lived between social justice and spirituality, as if they were opposites. She looked at me and said, “To me, doing social justice work is the essence of my spirituality.” Elisa’s career had been in the field of drug and alcohol addiction recovery. She saw the individual level of the addiction as well as the systemic level. “One of my core beliefs is that we are ALL connected. So if my fellow travelers suffer, I suffer. If I work to improve the lives of those around me, I will be better off as well as will future generations.”

Elisa always struck me as one of the strongest and best-grounded people I’ve known. Whenever I saw her, she seemed at peace, smiling. She wrote, “Although sitting on a mountain meditating can be helpful at times, I see little value in it if I do not then spread the love that such a connection to the divine affords me to others.” That was the heart of her commitment to our faith community. She could go off on her own to do spiritual work, but she needed a community to make a difference.

Over the years since co-officiating at Elisa’s memorial service, I have tried to integrate her perspective and all she taught me into my ministry. She would say we all have light. We need to let our light shine, she would say, “so others may not feel so alone and in the dark, and know that there is always hope.” That’s what she was doing at all those church Social Action events – shining her light, letting people know they were not alone and in the dark. Look at what we can do together! It is all connected.

Prayer by Reverend Douglas Taylor

9/11 vigil (15th anniversary)

September 11, 2016; at the Islamic Organization of the Southern Tier

Eternal Spirit

From whom all things come

and to whom all things return

We gather today as religious people from various traditions;

We gather as people reaching across our difference

Sharing our commitment to compassion and truth

Together despite the record of violence and distrust in society around us

In this silent moment let us give thanks for the blessings in our lives.

For home and family, for faith and meaningful work, we give thanks.

For our ability to gather in this way as people of peace, we give thanks.

In this silent moment we lift up those places in our own lives

and in our own hearts where burdens reside.

May there be peace, may there be grace, may there be support

In this silent moment let us cry out for the suffering of our world.

For refugees fleeing oppression and children haunted by cruelty.

For the wars across the waters far away from us,

and for battlegrounds created in nearby cities

For brutality and corruption, violence and distrust

Oh, Spirit of life and of love, hear our cry.

Hear our cry, of spirit, and help us to become instruments of thy love.

Let us speak up for the disempowered,

and be the voices of compassion and reason

for a world gone mad with cruelty and greed.

Let us set aside hate, and devote our lives to the ways of peace and justice.

Let us, O Spirit, encourage peace to grow in any garden it can find.

Let us remember the tragedies of our days

and commit to building a better world.

Let us be emissaries of justice

ambassadors of compassion

agents of thee, O Spirit

In the name of all that is holy

may it be so