A bright and beautiful day...

It is 7 DEGREES outside - with the windchill it feels like minus 15 below zero - and it is beautiful, yes? Greeting the new day - and new year - brought to mind this prayer from The New Zealand Book of Prayer:

Let us be at peace within ourselves...

Silence

Let us accept that we are profoundly loved and need never be afraid...

Let us be aware of the source of being that is common to us all and to all living creatures...

Let us be filled with the presence of the great compassion towards ourselves and all living beings that has been alive and present since the beginning of time...

Realizing that we are all nourished from the same source of life, let us so live that others be not deprived of air, food, water, shelter or the chance to live...

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be a cause of suffering to one another...

With humility let us pray for the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth...

Gracious God, kindle in us the fire of love to bring us alive and give warmth to the world. Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth; lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust; lead me from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.
Amen.

Made me pray this great Lucinda Williams prayer/song right on the spot...

It could be God singing this - or my wife - or maybe both at the same time, I don't know - but it, too, is beautiful. Frederick Buechner put it like this in one of his Advent meditations:

When you are standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to the question, "God, are you true?" You say yes, I suppose, the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself. You say yes with your fingers crossed. You say it with your heart in your mouth. Maybe that way we can say yes.

God visited us in Christ and the world has never been quite the same since. It is still a very dark world, in some ways darker than ever before, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it. The threat of holocaust. The threat of poisoning the earth and sea and air. The threat of our own deaths. The broken marriage. The child in pain. The lost chance.

Anyone who has ever known him has known him perhaps better in the dark than anywhere else because it is in the dark where he seems to visit most often.

And that is another part of the challenge, yes? To discern - experience - accept and connect with the light within the darkness? Let's face it, the darkness ain't going anywhere: so where is the light being born?

Brother Steve Earle got it right - and learned it the hard way, too - in "Transcendental Blues."

In the darkest hour of the longest night

If it was in my power I'd step into the light

Candles on the altar, penny in your shoe

Walk upon the water — transcendental blues

Happy ever after 'til the day you die

Careful what you ask for, you don't know 'til you try

Hands are in your pockets, starin' at your shoes

Wishin' you could stop it — transcendental blues

If I had it my way, everything would change

Out here on this highway the rules are still the same

Back roads never carry you where you want 'em to

They leave you standin' there with them ol' transcendental blues

I want to pray more like that in 2009 - dance more like that, too. I want to find more of that light in the dark that is always there within me and the world... and I want to do it with people who are real. I want to trust that God has seen my sweet side even when I'm chanting those transcendental blues. And I want to be gentle and real for those I love. How did the prophet Lucinda Williams put it?

Is it much to demand

I want a full house and a rock and roll band

Pens that won't run out of ink

And cool quiet and time to think

Shouldn't I have this,

Shouldn't I have this?

Shouldn't I have all of this and...

Passionate kisses

Passionate kisses, whoa ohh oh

Passionate kisses from you!

You GO girl... cuz THAT'S how I wanna pray in the New Year!