Nick's Bytes: prayer

Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts

Sunday, April 20, 2014

EASTER JOY featuring KATZ

Easter is a time of celebration, the Highest Holy Day in the Christian Year. It is a time of joy! I know of little more joyous that the KATZ that I have been sharing in this blog for the past eight years.

Please

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

A Fool's Prayer

The Fool’s Prayer

~ Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept--
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say--
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders -- oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

A New Beginning?

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. ~ James 1:27

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. ~ Isaiah 1:17

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

St. Patrick's Breastplate: For my shield this day I call...

Because of the pain, sorrow, anger and compassion for the horrendous suffering in Boston yesterday, I include in my meditations the powerful prayer known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate

St. Patrick's Breastplate
For my shield this day I call:
A mighty power:
The Holy Trinity!
Affirming threeness,
Confessing oneness,
In the making of all
Through love…

For my shield this day I call:
Christ’s power in his coming
and in his baptising,
Christ’s power in his dying
On the cross, his arising
from the tomb, his ascending;
Christ’s power in his coming
for judgment and ending.

For my shield this day I call:
strong power of the seraphim,
with angels obeying,
and archangels attending,
in the glorious company
of the holy and risen ones,
in the prayers of the fathers,
in visions prophetic
and commands apostolic,
in the annals of witness,
in virginal innocence,
in the deeds of steadfast men.

For my shield this day I call:
Heaven’s might,
Sun’s brightness,
Moon’s whiteness,
Fire’s glory,
Lightning’s swiftness,
Wind’s wildness,
Ocean’s depth,
Earth’s solidity,
Rock’s immobility.

This day I call to me:
God’s strength to direct me,
God’s power to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s vision to light me,
God’s ear to my hearing,
God’s word to my speaking,
God’s hand to uphold me,
God’s pathway before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s legions to save me:
from snares of the demons,
from evil enticements,
from failings of nature,
from one man or many
that seek to destroy me,
anear or afar.

Around me I gather
these forces to save
my soul and my body
from dark powers that assail me:
against false prophesyings,
against pagan devisings,
against heretical lying
and false gods all around me.
Against spells cast by women
by blacksmiths, by Druids,
against knowledge unlawful
that injures the body,
that injures the spirit.

Be Christ this day my strong protector;
against poison and burning,
against drowning and wounding,
through reward wide and plenty …
Christ beside me, Christ before me;
Christ behind me, Christ within me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me;
Christ in my lying, my sitting, my rising;
Christ in heart of all who know me,
Christ on tongue of all who meet me,
Christ in eye of all who see me,
Christ in ear of all who hear me.

For my shield this day I call
a mighty power:
the Holy Trinity!
affirming threeness,
confessing oneness
in the making of all -
through love…

For to the Lord belongs salvation,
and to the Lord belongs salvation
and to Christ belongs salvation.

May your salvation, Lord, be
with us always.
(Domini est salus, Domini est salus,
Christi est salus;
Salus tua, Domine, sit semper nobiscum).

Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Prayer

I pray you'll be our eyes

And watch us where we go

And help us to be wise

In times when we don't know

Let this be our prayer

As we go our way

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe

I pray we'll find your light

And hold it in our hearts

When stars go out each night

Remind us where you are

Let this be our prayer

When shadows fill our day

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

Give us faith so we'll be safe

We ask that life be kind

And watch us from above

We hope each soul will find

Another soul to love

Let this be our prayer

Just like every child

Needs to find a place

Guide us with your grace

Give us faith so we'll be safe

Need to find a place

Guide us with your grace

Give us faith so we'll be safe

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Coal Tattoo

Travelin' down that coal town road. Listenin' to my rubber tires whine.
Goodbye to Buckeye and white Sycamore. I'm leavin' you behind.
I've been coal miner all of my life. Layin' down track in the hole.
Gotta back like an ironwood, bit by the wind. Blood veins blue as the coal. Blood veins blue as the coal.

Somebody said, "That's a strange tattoo you have on the side of your head."
I said, "That's the blueprint left by the coal. A little more and I'd been dead.
Well, I love the rumble and I love the dark. I love the cool of the slate,
And it's on down the new road, lookin' for a job. This travelin' nook in my head.

I stood for the union and walked in the line and fought against the company.
I stood for the U. M. W. of A. Now, who's gonna stand for me?
I've got no house and I got no job, just got a worried soul
And a blue tattoo on the side of my head left by the number nine coal. Left by the number nine coal.

Some day when I'm dead and gone to heaven, the land of my dreams.
I won't have to worry on losin' my job, on bad times and big machines.
I ain't gonna pay my money away on dues or hospital plans.
I'm gonna pick coal where the blue heavens roll and sing with the angel band.

~ Coal Tattoo by Billy Edd Wheeler

Ever since I first heard of the disaster at the Upper Big Branch coal mine,Bill Ed Wheeler's song, Coal Tattoo, has been going through my mind. As you can perceive from it;s lyrics, it isn't a happy song. I know, have played, and sung 4 or 5 songs about cola mining and miners. None, from 16 Tons to the Spring Hill Disaster, are happy songs.

Coal mining does seem to me to be a very "happy" line of work. It does seem, however, to be an addictive line of work, as the songs indicate. It seems that one can literally "get cola dust in my veins," as one miner said, to the point that one continues mining even knowing the odds that he/she may die in a mine. (See Miner was prepared to die, family says).

El Cabrero, who writes the blog Goat Walk, lives in West Virginia and knows more about coal mines than I shall ever know. In his today's blog post, Follow the Trail, El Cabrero writes that the Massey coal company that owns the Upper Big Branch coal mine has "a long trail of fatalities and safety violations." I assume that the miners who worked in the Upper Big Branch coal mine were aware of that.

I learned quite a bit about coal mining from the songs and poetry I've heard, sung and read. But links that El Cabrero posted today has taught me more than songs and poetry have:

Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety ~ New York TIMES
Coal Tattoo Blog ~ The Charleston Gazette
Lincoln Walks at Midnight blog ~ Lawrence Messina
Mine owner ran up serious violations ~ MSNBC

I urge you to expand your knowledge of this disaster by reading El Cabrero's blog Goat Walk, following his links, listening to the songs, and hearing the poetry.

I planned on ending this post with the video of me pickin' and singing Coal Tattoo. However, I am certain that most of the regular readers of Nick's Bytes have seen that amateur production more than once. If you haven't or if you really want to again, you can see and hear my guitar and me on YouTube by clicking HERE.

The song with which I have chosen to end this post was written by the grandson of a coal miner, Dwight Yoakam Miner's Prayer:

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Light

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within. May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it. And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm. And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star. And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it. May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God. And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.

~An Ancient Scottish Blessing