Stones to Altars

“Prayer is a small fire lit to keep cold hands warm. Prayer is a practice that flourishes both with faith and doubt. Prayer is asking, and prayer is sitting. Prayer is the breath. Prayer is not an answer, always, because not all questions can be answered.”― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community

“So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars. Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies. Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears. Let us name the harsh light and soft darkness that surround us. Let’s claw ourselves out from the graves we’ve dug. Let’s lick the earth from our fingers. Let us look up and out and around. The world is big and wide and wild and wonderful and wicked, and our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable, and full of meaning. Oremus. Let us pray.” ― Pádraig Ó Tuama, Irish Poet and Theologian

May you be hurled into the big and wide world, rapt in amazement, wonder and awe.
May you swim in the deep end of magnificent, murky and meaning, buoyed in the ebb and flow.
May you build altars to kneel in praise, gratitude and joy, from the stones and flowers in your path.
May Amen be woven throughout the beginning, middle and end of each day.
Let us pray, receiving and giving, blessed and awake.
Amen.