Contemplation – Wandering and Wondering

Mid-week meditation – Literary Version

Here is a fun and interesting writing prompt that you can take into any book or character in the Bible. Frankly, you can use it in secular ways as well.

Take a word – Book of the Bible, Character, Value. I suppose even a short verse.
Write it vertically like you want to create an acrostic poem
Then write a story / poem being sure to include words that begin with those letters.

This is a fun and interesting way to engage with the text.

Here is an example of one that I wrote for Genesis (specifically Genesis 1:1-2)

Generally, in the beginning, we believe, is where things started, but our beginning begins in the deep. A deep that

Existed before time: a place of void and darkness, but also of possibility and

Newness. Nothingness is not nothingness if it is describable, if it is navigable, if it

Exists. So what was before there was? What was this vast

Sea that the wind blew on? How was it born? How did it begin? Was there something before that melted

Into the primordial soup? Or was this the beginning of God’s

Soup recipe? Set one part chaos to simmer. Stir lightly with the movement of the Spirit. Wait. Watch. And voila– Life!

Ode to the one I never knew:

A minister’s memory

By Rev. Dawn M. Adams

I stand.

I speak.

I reminisce,

but I never had a coffee

or beer

or donut with you.

We never sat on the porch and talked.

We never took a walk,

or called each other on overwhelming days.

And yet,

I remember.

I share.

I weave together your life.

I’ve never seen your face (except in a picture).

I’ve never held your hand.

I’ve never seen the mischievous twinkle in your eyes.

I have, though, laughed your jokes retold,

cried at your loss,

wondered about you more than people realize.

Before your family came into my office,

I never even knew you existed.

I didn’t know your name until your family gave it to me so that I could

write the liturgy of farewell and print the bulletins;

and yet you fill my heart.

You were dead before I even met you;

yet, you are alive now in my memory and written on my heart.

It is a sacred act – to re-member:

to put back together somethings that’s been torn apart,

to make space for the mourning and the pain,

and also to allow for joy and love to reemerge.

I never heard your voice,

but I did get the blessing of hearing from many who loved you.

I heard about how you met your spouse,

or why you never chose to marry –

about that car you lovingly restored,

about your famous stuffed shells.

I heard about your hopes and dreams,

about your travels,

and your accomplishments;

sometimes about the things you wish you had done,

but didn’t;

or about the challenges you faced.

Sometimes, I’ve heard about your own losses,

and even sometimes your own misdeeds.

I’ve watched pain, bewilderment, shock, anger, disbelief, satisfaction, horror, gratitude flicker.

I have witnessed the heartache left by your absence.

I’ve heard the testimony of your loved ones about who you were to them.

I’ve heard a lot about you;

and spoke about you before a gathered congregation.

You have died.

You no longer walk this earth.

I never knew you in this life;

and yet, I find myself thinking about you.

Your memory is a blessing to me.

To bury someone is a sacred act;

To prepare to bury someone and hear the stories of a person’s life is a privilege.

It is a holy calling to walk with loved ones to the graveside.

It is an honor to get to know those we did not know in life.

I didn’t know you

and yet I did.

Blessings to you and to all who knew you.

Using Words and Style as a Writing Prompt

This week in mid-week meditation, I offered two prompts based on the same poems. I randomly picked poems and then asked AI to remove punctuation and capitalization and randomize the words. The first prompt invited the writers to write using the words before them as a base.

For Example, here were my words:

films intentionally loving of the their feet while art culture borders hesitation possibilities fire paint artists loud or wall see and creative canvas kind-based canvas directed sprinting mumblings conscience limitations and all us deliberately windstorms blast motivation into with quality do art their struggle quiet questions without run does to and with move people or intentionally paint and has loving and and life-centered does toward can’t doubts with cameras name has create misrepresentations has blasts gates culture ideas advance and see a world centered civilization and and and the talk and struggle move escape and searching not and good or feet questionably questionably phones gates has ideas doubts the loving own toward move fire justice of people their advance loving art themselves has of not people computers its civilization paint forward clear canvas intentions blasts daily and pen paper question run run or walls feet as mumblings based with community run paint souls good rulers with and name quietly paint searching artists and loving has definitions and has gatekeepers and daily windstorms loving loving canvas with toward and and paint the

I gave us 15 minutes, this is what I wrote:

Untitled

To intentionally paint the world with love creates life.

There are no limitations

Civilization tries to rule

setting borders

and erecting walls.

It misrepresents truth

and sews doubts,

leaving society lost and lonely.

Daily windstorms tattering the art

that has so lovingly been created.

But the art of love

offers possibilities beyond the gates culture has created.

Love offers justice

it leans in with questions

and listens.

It paints quietly, slowly, subtly,

and brashly, without hesitation using bold strokes.

There are no gate keepers here

simply lovers loving:

a world searching for good,

souls seeking and searching

for new canvases on which to

paint beauty and possibility.

Then, I offered them the opportunity to read the actual poem. Mine was Art IV: Remembering Gwendolyn Brooks by Haki R. Madhubuti.

We then took an additional 10 minutes to write a poem based on the style they noticed in the poem. This is what I created:

Remembering Ezekiel Kallberg

children are fed what we feed them

they cannot forge on their own.

they are reliant on what we bring – good or bad.

children not only fill themselves

with the nutrients we provide;

But also the love, the wonder,

the hope, the resilience we fill them with

children absorb our ways

without us ever needing to

speak and perhaps even

before their ears can hear

outside the womb.

what shall we offer this

hungry one – ancient

dusty artifacts, a diet of anger

and war, a meal made

of mush,

or shall we choose to gather

them in our lap and blanket

them in love,

shall we surround them with

support and welcome them

into wonder.

shall we put before them a

feast which tantalizes them

and invites them to taste,

touch, sample

and decide for themselves

their favorites.

and perhaps even one day

teach them to cook.

Neither of these are perfect poems, but the process is like putting compost around your garden. The nutrients seep in and before you know fruit is produced.

I encourage you to give it a try and see what your process might seed.

Midrash Writing to understand deeper

The past two sessions of our Mid-Week Meditation, the literary edition, we have explored the concept of midrash (the idea of filling in the missing aspects of a biblical text). Last week, in worship, we read the story of the Paul and Silas getting put in prison which begins with their excising a demon from a slave girl who follows them calling out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved”. Sadly, the text (Acts 16:16-40) says that Silas rids her of the demon not to cure her or help her, but in his annoyance. The story then pivots to the trial of Paul and Silas who are sent to prison for this crime and this poor slave girl is left without her “gift” and still in slavery. In the sermon, I asked people to think more about this gift, who she was, how she was marginalized on multiple fronts, and even dared to wonder if what Paul and Silas did was helpful or harmful to this girls future.

In our meditation group, I asked them to think even more about this girl and write her story. Because so little is written about her, the leeway of what might be written is pretty wide.

This week I offered them pictures of Biblical stories like Rahab’s red cord, Moses being put in the basket and sent down the Nile, the rubble of the walls of Jericho, the woman at the well with Jesus, etc. Instead of writing from the perspective of the human characters in the story, I invited them to write from the perspective of an inanimate object. Mine for example was told from the perspective of a tambourine that the daughter of Jephthah (Judges 11:30-40).

Both of these exercises, while not scripturally sound, invited participants to interact with the scriptural texts in way they had not before. It opened up questions and curiosities; and invited us into a much deeper conversation.

I invite you to try either of these writing exercises and share them with us below.

Two for the day

Presence

I stuck my hands in the dirt –

my fingernails give evidence to my folly.

I bent down,

dug holes,

and implanted hope into the ground

declaring another year will come.

I breathed the air deeply. It cleansed my airway, my lungs, and my mind.

Now it is as if cotton balls have been pulled from my ears

and scales from my I eyes.

The world brightens around me, and I am gifted with the chatter of God’s creation.

I hear the vibrating hum of the wings of this spring’s first hummingbird,

The water ripples of two geese gliding by,

The call of the loon across the lake,

The twitter,

twitter,

twitter

of the unseen.

I ask myself, “Is it this simple?”

“Can it be this simple?”

“Is it this simple?”

Rest in my garden, little one, and you will be renewed.

A morning picture on the lake that my husband took.

The Patient Fisherman

The fishermen have come to the lake.

They set their lines oh so patiently

and then seem only to wait.

Are they waiting for fish?

Or are they waiting for You to come by an holler,

“Follow me!”

They do not seem anxious in their waiting,

but instead extraordinarily patient:

Not a muscle twitches.

They keep just a soft finger on the line

ready . . .

Both of these poems were written by me and all rights are reserved. Permission is given to use in a religious or educational setting with attribution. Both pictures are taken in Wolfeboro, NH. The loons by me and the fog on the lake by George Adams. All rights reserved.

A Spring Squall in New England

By Dawn M. Adams

The wind dances through the falling snow, which twinkles and shimmers

as it lay itself upon the ground –

each flake bent over like a ballerina folded and waiting for the next note to spring to life.

The bluster rattles the windows and threatens to draw us back into winter,

but the crocus and the Lenten rose stand defiantly against the onslaught.

Tomorrow the sun will melt away the snow

and the winds will subside.

Locals will go out without a coat and claim,

“Spring is here!”

written during a spring squall April 2025

Prayer of Transformation

As I planned for Lent this year, I came by this beautiful prayer by Rabbi Jack Riemer, the Likrat Shabbat. I was so taken by the idea that all we have we need, we just have to choose to participate and use what we’ve been given, so for each week of Lent I altered the original slightly to reflect different aspects of where this might be true and used it throughout Lent, excluding Palm Sunday.

NOTE: I find this slight alteration of poems and prayers to be a very effective way to maintain the strand or a theme throughout a liturgical season without becoming too boring. I encourage you to try it and I thank Worship Design Studio creator, Marcia McFee, for teaching it to me.

This is the original by Rabbi Jack Riemer:

We cannot merely pray to you, O God,
to end war;
For we know that You have made the world
in a way
That man must find his own path to peace.
Within himself and with his neighbor.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,
to end starvation;
For You have already given us the
resources
With which to feed the entire world,
If we would only use them wisely.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,
to root out prejudice;
For You have already given us eyes
With which to see the good in all men,
If we would only use them rightly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,
to end despair,
For You have already given us the power
To clear away slums and to give hope,
If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,
to end disease;
For You have already given us great minds
With which to search out cures and healing,
If we would only use them constructively.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,
For strength, determination and will power,
To do instead of just pray,
To become instead of merely to wish.”

Here are the alterations that I added for the subsequent weeks:

Week 2

We cannot merely pray to you, O God,

to mend relationships that we have torn;

You have taught us forgiveness and you encouraged us to ask for forgiveness.

From there, we must work together.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to end violence;

We must choose to turn away and set down our weapons.

We must open our ears and our hearts

seeking a different path in difficult moments.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for equality and equity;

We have to be willing to make space

for equality and equity to exist.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for open hearts,

We too have to be willing to be transformed

and to listen as much as we talk.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for the restoration of the earth;

We too have to be willing to change our ways,

to take only what we need, to seek new and better ways,

and perhaps to limit our desires.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,

For ingenuity, creativity and willingness,

To do instead of just pray,

To become instead of merely to wish.”

AMEN

Week 3

We cannot merely pray to you, O God,

to end strife;

for we know that You have made the world

in a way

that man must put down their weapons

and turn their spears into pruning hooks

and their swords into plowshares.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to end violence;

for You have already taught us the way of peace.

You have shown us the path of nonviolence

and forgiveness and yet we refuse to follow it consistently.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to extinguish hatred;

for You have already shown us that we are all siblings,

created in your holy and sacred hand.

You have led us on the path to righteousness,

even if we often veer and stray from the path

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to end disunity,

for You have called out that we should all be one.

You have encouraged our relationships

and even sent your son so that we might see what is possible.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to end poverty;

for You have already shown that poverty is a creation of mankind

and not of you.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,

for wisdom, clarity, and generous spirits

to do instead of just pray,

to become instead of merely to wish.”

AMEN

Week 4

We cannot merely pray to you, O God,

for all to be well;

For we know that You have invited us into co-creation

so that together we might work for peace.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for children to have safe housing and full bellies;

For we know that you have already given us the

resources

with which to make this real

if we might only open our hands and our hearts.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to create a just world;

for you have sent your son to show us the way

and yet too often we ignore the path or wander off.

Help us to find the way to fulfill your hope.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for the end of want,

for You have already given us the power

to create a more equitable society.

Inspire us to be more diligent in the work before us .

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

to bring an end to suffering;

for we must be willing to do the work necessary to help,

we must be willing to step in and offer help,

we have to be willing to stand up and against wherever the suffering originates.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,

For compassion, hope and courage,

To do instead of just pray,

To become instead of merely to wish.”

Week 5

We cannot merely pray to you, O God,

for peace on earth;

We must be willing to work with you hand in hand.

We must be willing to decenter ourselves

and to work toward a common good.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for the care of our siblings;

we must open our hearts to hear their pain

and be willing to step in and step up on their behalf.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for kindness to prevail;

We each must take steps each day to make it so.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for love,

we need to practice love,

we need to grow in love,

and we need to learn to receive love.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God,

for health;

we must participate in creating a healthy world,

in caring for one another,

and participate in our health and supporting the health of others .

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,

For open minds, open hearts and a willingness to follow,

To do instead of just pray,

To become instead of merely to wish.”

Impermanence

Today in our mid-week meditation group we made prayer bracelets.

The process was gift and the reminder I found in prepping for the class was worthy.

A while ago, I found this book “A String and A Prayer” on my bookshelf and began reading it in preparation for this class. I used some of the prayers in the back as our opening and shared some of its insights during our class:

-The word bead is an offshoot from its Old English origin “bede” which means prayer.

-In Sanskrit the name of a pray bead chain is called a mala.

-That the practice of putting together prayer beads can be a spiritually significant as the practice of praying with them.

-It is said the the Desert Mothers and Fathers would carry a specified number of beads in their pockets with they would drop to the earth throughout the course of their day as they prayed.

And then finally –

-All prayer bead jewelry will eventually fall apart.

This final one sounds depressing, but it is real. It perhaps struck me especially funny because at our our last confirmation meeting when we created the Protestant equivalent to prayer bead rosaries (which by the way are named such because the beads were apparently made out of crushed rose petals) we worked very hard at crimping and trying to secure our creations so that they would be indestructible. Impermanence is not something that we like to think about much. In Christianity, with the exception of Ash Wednesday and perhaps Good Friday, we have a tendency to focus on the eternal and ever-lasting, brushing aside the reality that life here is guaranteed to end. Perhaps though, the reality of our relatively short mortals lives and the reality of our impermanence might be a gift that might allow us to more fully stop and take in the world around us, celebrating the beauty and appreciating the relationships. Recognizing our impermanence may not be a morbid thought that freezes us in fear, but instead a freeing realization that allows us to better notice the many blessings that abound.

Whether or not you choose to create a prayer bracelet yourself, I hope that you might ponder their impermanence and yours as well. Your life may be all the richer having done so.

A Prayer of Gratitude for the Limitedness of our Lives

Holy One,

We are thankful for this time you have granted us on earth. Let us not waste it, nor take it for granted. Let us have clear view of its limits that we might be all the more thankful for the time we have. Grant us the insight that each breath we take is a blessing.

And when at last our time is short and we can feel the true fragility of life coming our way, let us be able to say that we were thankful for the opportunity, that we were thankful for the friends that we met, and that we were thankful for the time we had.

We give you thanks for each breath, each moment, and for our very life however long or short it might be. AMEN

Blessed to be a blessing

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12:2-3

Can you imagine a world where we walked around consciously blessing one another and the world around us? Might this simple act deflate the tensions and anxiety that pervade our society. Could you imagine if we sought to find the holy chard (tikkun olam) that everyone and everything contained? or sought the holy fingerprint of the potter himself (Isaiah 64:8)?

What would it mean to begin to see the world as holy, to act as if it were, and to encourage it to be so? The act of blessings is an ancient practice that perhaps we should reinstitute. Doing so does not require an act of congress, nor a majority vote, it simply means that you and I make it so. Maybe, if we are lucky, the practice will grow.

Step one is simply to look with new eyes and see the beauty before us (Remember beauty is not always external; and beauty is not always what society names it to be.).

Step two is to name what you see or what you hope to see. If I were blessing my fireplace this morning, I might offer a blessing for the many days of warmth that it has brought to my house allowing me to be comfortable and to invite friends and family within. If I were blessing a person, I might offer a hope, “May this new year offer you opportunity and growth. May you find your footing, feel your strength, and be granted the courage to live fully into who you were meant to be.”

Step three is to share your blessing. You may say it quietly to God, say it aloud to the another person, or maybe take a moment to drop a note or a text to let them know that you are thinking about them. You might even post it on social media.

Blessings can also be done quietly within your heart as a prayer to God. I started to bless my feet in the morning after my mother passed away. She had thrown blood clots in her legs which subsequently caused an unhealing foot wound and caused the loss of several toes. My kids even were known to refer to her as Grandma Boo Boo Foot because, in their memory, she could never wear two shoes and usually need the assistance of a wheelchair. So now when my feet hit the floor I try to remember that even getting up in the morning and standing is not a blessing that everyone is afforded.

A Blessing for Feet

I wiggle them awake

and say, “Thank you!”

I touch them to the ground

and say, “Thank you!”

I press my weight upon them

and say, “Thank you!”

“Thank you little toes

and feet

and ankles.

Thank you phalanges

and metatarsals

and navicular bone.

Thank you to my muscles

and my tendons

and all the nerves

that go into each step I take.

Thank you God for my feet.

Bless them as they carry me through my day.

AMEN

NOTE: All rights are reserved for this blessing or anything published on this page. Permission is given for usage in religious or educational settings with citation.

If you would like to read some more blessings including two of my own, check out Ruth Burgess’ book from Wild Goose Publications, Blessed Be God:

It takes a long time to create Bethlehem

This week’s mid-week meditation led to a powerful insight:

it takes a long time to create Bethlehem.

There is so much going on in the world, it came seem like a frivolous waste to gather and simply create art, but I have found this creative time to, in fact, be more important than ever. It is in these peaceful settings that we can take a moment to take stock of all that we have seen and heard and begin to try to understand our place and our calling within it all.

This week, when we gathered, our theme was mosaics. Given our time frame, we created our mosaics with paper, and I limited our paper to just solid colors. I offered the option of some pre-drawn blackline masters that I gathered from the internet and also had plain paper available. I tried to give people as little direction as possible because, like in each of our other weeks, the purpose is the reflection on our thoughts and the process more than the product that is produced.

People always find our time too short and these activities could easily be done on retreat in multi-hour blocks.

This was my creation based on Rublev’s picture of The Trinity. I was really caught by the idea that each of us have the capacity to be part of the trinity; thus the non-identification of the personalities. I also recognized how we need to be mindful of how we interact with one another. Even with our best intentions we sometimes press into each other’s space.

To help us be in the right mindset to create, we began our time together by putting our hands in the form of a bowl and filling our bowls with all the dread, frustration, anger, and worry that we brought in with us. After gathering it together in our own imaginary bowls, we placed the bowls below the cross in the center of the table and agreed that if stressful thoughts came our way we would give them over God through a symbolic gesture of hanging our worry on the cross. Once we released the troubles we came in with, we offered a prayer and lit our candle. Then I read a poem called Mosaic by Lily Whitelock (click here to read the whole poem) and offered a quote by Anita Krizzan. We were particularly enamored with the words of Lily’s third verse,

“Every word I know somebody else has told me.

Every smile I give someone else has shared.”

“We are mosaics. Pieces of light, love, history stars . . .Glued together with magic and music and words.

Anita Krizzan

We then created for half an hour, gathering back together to discuss and reflect on the process. There were many insights that individuals had about how they created, what they created, why they created; and there was one that took all our breath away. As one congregant shared this work:

She explained that she didn’t have enough time and would be taking this home to finish. She somewhat flippantly said,

“If you didn’t know, it takes a long time to create Bethlehem.” MC

When she said that, my heart stopped. It was a reminder to us all that within the struggle and frustration that we are all feeling these day, we need to remember that to create takes time, energy, perseverance, patience, and vision especially when your vision is as complicated and simplistic as love, justice, and compassion.

We closed with a simple prayer and all went out into the world with a little more hope and with clearer understandings of where we might fit into the larger picture and how our gifts and talents might be used.

If you decide to try to create, I’d love to see what you make. Please post in the comments.

Holy One, Sometimes challenge comes not in complexity but in simplicity. As your co-creators in life, help us to step back and take stock on that which is essential. Encourage us to release that which gets in the way of your vision of heaven on earth being made real in the world. Call us into partnership with you so that together we might together create a peaceful, loving, and just world. Remind us of the time when your son was born in a simple stable. Let us remember its simplicity and yet also his power to transform the world. May you use us to do the same way. AMEN