Monday Meditation

-
Baruch atah Adonai 
elohaynu melech ha'olam 
asher kidshanu 
bemitzvotav 
vetzivanu 
l'hadlik 
ner shel Shabbat.

Praised are You, 
Adonai our God, 
Sovereign of the Universe, 
who makes us holy with commandments 
and instructs us to kindle
the lights of the Sabbath.

Fill us with love,
God who forms us from love.
Fill us with hope,
God who always shows us hope.
Fill us with peace,
God who sends us peace.

[pause for meditation]

Open our minds
and show us the truth
of our higher being.
Reveal our true selves:
humans made in your image,
incarnated on this planet
to enjoy a brief physical moment.

Help us enjoy this moment
and revel in simply being,
rather than constantly fighting over
what’s mine and what’s not;
which religion is more true;
which way of life is more correct.

When we realize we are all
part of your infinite Spirit,
and that you desire nothing more than
to simply be,
then who is right
and who is wrong
become moot.

We are all right
if we are living righteously:
at peace with you;
at peace with one another.
In love with you,
which makes us love each other.

Fill us with hope for a better day
and compel us to act as joy-givers,
rather than hate- and fear-mongers.
Make us right with each other,
by making us right with you.

[pause for meditation]

Just beyond
the trappings and illusions
of this thinly veiled world
that tricks us into believing
we are unloved,
the situation is hopeless,
and that peace is but a dream,
is a world of chesed—
a world of loving kindness lived by all.

Make us examples
of that loving kindness,
by energizing and healing us.
We pray also
that your healing energy
be felt within those
whom we lift silently in prayer today.

[pause and experience God’s healing energy]

Great and mysterious Adonai,
as we journey closer
to the birth of the Christ child,
help us understand
that the Christ is also
born within each of us
every second of every day.

This season we celebrate the birth
not only of the Christ child
born in Jerusalem 2000 years ago,
but also the Christ child
waiting to be born—
begging to be born,
inside every single one of us,
every day.

It is only when the Christ
surges to life within us
that we become
the healing light of the world
Jesus asks us to be,
and the exuberant beings of love
you, Our Holy God,
designed us to be.

Make us that light now.
Make us that love now.
Fill our world with peace now.
Fill our souls with hope now.

In your many names we pray,
Amen.

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