A prayer/meditation for the sacredness of community

I've never posted a prayer here before, and I thought I'd give it a try. If it flies like a lead balloon, it will be the first and last at the same time! (If you want to use/adapt these words, feel free! Permission granted!)

Let’s settle into our selves now for a moment, allowing the time and space we need to reconnect with the wisdom within, with the sacred as we understand it. 

Each day of our lives, we contend with challenges and we encounter wonders. We have our deep sorrows and our enlivening joys. And most of the time, we face life in our essential aloneness. 

We join together in community because we have come to know somehow that our aloneness is not enough. We have learned that the myths of individual self-sufficiency are false and toxic. We have learned that independence weakens us and our world while interdependence strengthens us all. 

Alone, we struggle to find the strength to cope with hard realities. We cast about for answers with nothing to hold on to. Alone, we fail to be present to life’s wonders and to know the deep satisfaction that comes of appreciation and gratitude. Alone, our perspective narrows until we can see little more than the inside of our own eyelids and our immediate frustrations. 

Together though, we find strength. At our best times, our togetherness brings a courage into our hearts that we could not have expected. It brings a force of love that threatens to burst from our usually tentative hearts. It deepens our longing for justice throughout our world. 

Together, a spirit emerges among us. We understand this spirit in so many different ways and know that no words are adequate – no images accurate – no understandings sufficient. 

And yet we know that the something that becomes present participates with us to recreate our lives and our world. It is to this spirit that we address ourselves now. 

Unnameable spirit, be in us and among us. May we come to open our hearts to all that is. May we be with one another in authenticity and in compassion. May we broaden our view to take in all manner of things without judgement. 

Help us to be a community of spirit – a community where love becomes real, where acceptance is unconditional, and where justice is a necessity. 

Amen