Forgive Me

I’d like to do a centering and stilling exercise again using a prayer written by Ted Loder from his book of poems called Guerillas of Grace. The name of this poem is – Gather Me To Be With You. 

We’re going to use it as a prayer again. When we listen to a poem or prayer that someone else has written, we practice an embodied spiritual life, and so we practice being present with our whole person – with our body, with our thoughts, with our feelings, and we trust that the place the Spirit is at work can be in all of those places. And so we pay attention to what’s going on in my heart when I listen to this prayer, or what thoughts begin to rise when I hear these words, or what do I notice going on in my body as we move through the prayer?

So let me read to you a section from this prayer – Gather Me Now To Be With You – (Forgive Me) 

Oh God, gather me to be with you as you are with me. 

Forgive me for claiming so much for myself 

That I leave no room for gratitude.

For confusing exercises in self-importance with acceptance of self-worth. 

For complaining so much of my burdens that I become a burden. 

For competing against others so insidiously 

That I stifle celebrating them and receiving your blessing through their gifts. 

Oh God gather me to be with you. 

Now let me read that one more time and again ask you to pay attention to what’s going on in your own interior, and if there are words or phrases that you identify with.  

Oh God, gather me to be with you as you are with me. 

Forgive me for claiming so much for myself 

That I leave no room for gratitude.

For confusing exercises in self-importance with acceptance of self-worth. 

For complaining so much of my burdens that I become a burden. 

For competing against others so insidiously 

That I stifle celebrating them and receiving your blessing through their gifts. 

Oh God, gather me to be with you. 

And if there is a word or a phrase that you find yourself identifying with or resonating with, to repeat it just silently, in your own heart, expressing to God what is true.

Come Holy Spirit. 

I’d like to just ask as you heard that prayer read, if there were words or phrases that you found yourself identifying with, that reflected something true that was going on in your own interior? 

And then whatever comes out in that moment, whatever you speak, I would explore with you, in such a way that we would be listening together, to where God may be at work in your life.