A Simple Prayer

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Janet Salbert

God of Glory, whose light shines upon all creation,
Lead each of us to notice what is shimmering with your Presence. Even amid the dying leaves, a season when animals and insects go deep underground, increase our trust in your plan. We add to this season our mourning cries for the devastating losses and conflicts in our world. Use this pit in our stomachs to confess, to move toward another, to stand together in ways that extend hope. Make us become a shimmering reflection of your loving Presence for another. Amen.

A Simple Prayer in honor of my eldest’s birthday:

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Janet Salbert

Creative One, who is the maker of our wildest dreams,
You lead us through unknown territory and after placing the precious gift of life in our arms, you send us into new worlds. You repeatedly bring us into the fullness of human experience through love alone. Silently, we pause during this day, in hope, like a roomful of hushed midwives, ready for new life to be delivered sending us out once again. Amen.

It also happens to be his. eldest son’s birthday, too!

A Simple Prayer for Easter Season

Posted on April 29, 2023 by Janet Salbert

Living God, who raises all to new life,
Slow us in these moments, turn us around, for we don’t recognize you. You aren’t found where we expect you. You don’t appear as we desire. Clear away our expectations, open us to ways we don’t understand. Send torrents of living water through the desert valleys of today. Strengthen us to live amongst selfish and deadened politics. Bring us to meet new formed community in gardens of grace where resurrection prevails and death is no more. Thanks be to Christ.

A Simple Prayer for Holy Week

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Janet Salbert

Releaser of Captives, whose grace goes out ahead of us.
In stillness and silence, your powerful Presence reveals all that holds us from living fully. Open our hearts to your leading through this Holy Week ahead. Give us an honest clarity at our private rationalizations and our comfortable self-deception. Help us surrender ourselves with you so that we can be purified of our idols and addictions. As we break free, we trust that others gain their freedom also. May we go forth as monks in the world, gently and firmly, placing each step with mercy and peace. Amen.

A New Season

Posted on November 4, 2022 by Janet Salbert

Simple Prayer:

Creator of Beauty, who colors outside the lines to a new season,
As this season changes the earth, new light comes in through open spaces and dark nights blanket us in. Teach us to accept, adapt and change in response to both. Reveal new patterns and designs in our relationship with you until the colors of your mercy extend hopeful layers to all people. And together, we breathe thanksgiving. Amen.

Delicate Touch

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Janet Salbert

Maker of the heavens and earth,
who arrives in flickers of translucence,
Fill us with your breath in this moment and set our intention on finding your Presence in this day. Open us to all the ways you work to restore our bond with your creation. We so often fear spaciousness, we are afraid of letting go, we cling to the towers of our own making. Transform us with your delicate touches of grace where we might acknowledge the fullness of your Presence. Remind us to remain watchful for the reverent flow of life where Love emerges inviting us to enter in. Amen.

Pray Without Ceasing #2020

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Janet Salbert

This is my first post this year. Not for any lack of prayer. I am offering daily prayer on Facebook Live each Monday thru Thursday on the Manassas, VA, Grace United Methodist Church page. Please join me there. I hope together we can grow in our awareness of both the beauty and the suffering around us. Come, Spirit, Come to fill us and move us!

Withering Beauty

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Janet Salbert

God of mercy, whose creation is ever before us
Even the falling leaves whisper their consent. Even the fading flowers express their beauty as they wither. Help us to recognize the visible strength found in delicateness. Slow our pace, remind us to pause as living things return to the earth. Increase our trust in the rhythm of the seasons that follow. You breathe your goodness and gladness in us, make us satisfied to breathe in you this day. Amen.

2 Cor 4:16-18
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Tender Souls

Posted on September 18, 2019 by Janet Salbert

Harvester of Souls, who nurtures us through the deep, fragrant soil of the earth,
Each of us belong to your tree, some of us grafted by cuttings, some of us pollinated by generations, all of us tender and fragile in our ripening. Hold us in your branches to nestle in safety, until we find ourselves ready to explore beyond toward brighter light. Set us free in your fields of grasses, to touch the countenance of everything that is alive, accepting the love with which you labor to strengthen us all. Amen.

Matthew 9:38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

Living Words

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Janet Salbert

Holy One,
Help us return to our old words, words that we have used up and thrown out,
words that once gave us life , that now, we might live in them anew.
Breathe the word, in long slow gulps, until it fills our being,
Until we become that word for the sake of the world, living words for others.
Let us fill this world with…mercy, peace, kindness, compassion, justice, gentleness, strength, love, presence, goodness and…..
Thanks be to You, Amen.

“Whoever drinks the water I shall give, it will become in you a spring welling up to endless life.” John 4:14

Janet Salbert

Put Out Into the Deep

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