Keep Me In Touch With Myself
Selections from Guerillas of Grace by Ted Loder
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In this centering – stilling exercise, we’re going to continue to read a prayer written by Ted Loder called – Gather Me To Be With You from his book of Prayers For The Battle called Guerillas of Grace.
As we read this poem or this prayer again, I’m gonna ask you to pay attention to what is going on in your own interior as you hear these words, and then to note where you find identification or a point of resonance with anything that is in his prayer that he offers to God. So let me read it again.
Oh God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.
Keep me in touch with myself,
With my needs
My anxieties
My angers
My pains
My corruptions
That I may claim them as my own,
Rather than blame them on someone else.
Oh Lord, deepen my wounds into wisdom.
Shape my weaknesses into compassion.
Gentle my envy into enjoyment.
My fear into trust
My guilt into honesty
My accusing fingers into tickling ones
Oh God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.
Let me read this prayer again, asking you to again identify with a phrase or a word that is meaningful to you.
Oh God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.
Keep me in touch with myself,
With my needs
My anxieties
My angers
My pains
My corruptions
That I may claim them as my own,
Rather than blame them on someone else.
Oh Lord, deepen my wounds into wisdom.
Shape my weaknesses into compassion.
Gentle my envy into enjoyment.
My fear into trust
My guilt into honesty
My accusing fingers into tickling ones.
Oh God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.
As we sit quietly together in silence…Is there something you can recall, a word or phrase, that you can repeat silently to God as an expression of your own heart.
Come Holy Spirit
If you could now take and put into words, what phrase or what you found yourself praying back to God, what would you say?
Within spiritual direction whatever that you would speak next becomes an opportunity to explore where God may be at work in your life. In the role of spiritual direction that’s what we begin to listen to together.