Encouragement for a lifelong journey of faith

Category: Praying with Peace Songs (Page 1 of 2)

February 5, 2017 – Hear our wail

This week we’re using a variety of songs as aids to our prayers. Singing and praying often go hand in hand.  These songs are peace themed, meant to help us pray for the peace of Jesus in our lives and in our world.

Today’s Bible reading and an excerpt

Read Matthew 2

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”

Today’s song and an excerpt

Buzzing of a Bee [spoken word song] by Blew Kind, Circle of Hope Audio Arts: Song and Lyrics

“…Hear our wail
Mother Justice of the great deep
Father Refuge in the shadow of your wings..
Hear our wail…”

More thoughts for meditation

The story of this song is on Circle of Hope audio arts website:

“Blew Kind wrote this spoken word piece preparing for the event in Fall of 2014 called “Peacemaking in an Era of Drone Warfare” put on by the Philadelphia Interfaith Network Against Drone Warfare, of which we are a contributing member along with The Brandywine Peace Community, Mennonite Central Committee (East Coast), Red Letter Christians, The Alternative Seminary, and American Friends Service Committee.

The military plans on building and opening a US Drone War Command Center in Horsham, PA, just outside of Philadelphia. We first performed this piece at the coalition event with Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and a viewing of the short documentary “Wounds of Waziristan” and then at a monthly peace vigil outside the Air Guard Station, the future home of the command center. Try to listen as she connects violence and white supremacy to drone warfare and calls into question its morality and our need to root ourselves in Jesus to fight against their propagation.”

“A voice is heard” “Hear our wail”. This prayer of lament is spoken on behalf of those whose wail is literally not heard by their assailants, who fly faceless, heartless drones from far far away and high up in the sky from where they cannot clearly see the ground and hear nothing of the wailing of it’s victims. 90% of drone victims are non-combatants: women, children, civilians. The most vulnerable of society suffer the most in any kind of war. But God hears. God is close to those who suffer. God suffered himself. God hears where others have shut their ears. Imagine yourself the relayer of laments to that ever compassionate ear. He will hear and he will act for the suffering, and in so doing he will inspire you and others to do the same.

Pray

“…Hear our wail
Mother Justice of the great deep
Father Refuge in the shadow of your wings..
Hear our wail…”

February 4, 2017 – Remedy my barren heart

This week we’re using a variety of songs as aids to our prayers. Singing and praying often go hand in hand.  These songs are peace themed, meant to help us pray for the peace of Jesus in our lives and in our world.

Today’s Bible reading and an excerpt

Read Hebrews 12:1 -13

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Today’s song and an excerpt

Song for Sophie Scholl, by Zatopecks Lyrics

“…this song’s for Sophie Scholl…
Aquinas in her hand and the white rose by her side
‘We will not be silent
We are your bad conscience
We will not leave you in peace’
The White Rose will not leave you in peace
Oh this song’s for Sophie Scholl, but I know it’s impossible
Though you died sixty years ago”

More thoughts for meditation

At age 21, Sophie Scholl and friends were “The Society of the White Rose,” an underground non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. They made and distributed leaflets opposing the atrocities of the Nazi government, calling on the Christian faith and conscience of the German people to resist. They called themselves Germany’s “bad conscience” and promised to not be quiet about the atrocities, When they were found out they were executed for treason.

The British punk band Zatopecks picked Sophie Scholl to be their icon, preferring to look to her heroic life for inspiration over against more sexualized versions of media icons, typified in the song by Marylyn Monroe (who, to be fair, had a much more complex and human existence in her lifetime than what was exploited from her).

Circle of Hope also looks to those in our transhistorical family of faith, like Sophie Scholl, who paved the way in their time for us to take steps of faith in our time.

Telling stories and singing (or listening to songs) about their faith bolsters ours.

This is what Sophie Scholl had to say about prayer in a letter to her brother Fritz:

“The only remedy for a barren heart is prayer, however poor and inadequate. As I did that night at Blumberg, I’ll keep on repeating it for us both: We must pray, and pray for each other, and if you were here, I’d fold hands with you, because we’re poor, weak, sinful children. Oh, Fritz, if I can’t write anything else just now, it’s only because there’s a terrible absurdity about a drowning man who, instead of calling for help, launches into a scientific, philosophical, or theological dissertation while the sinister tentacles of the creatures on the seabed are encircling his arms and legs, and the waves are breaking over him. It’s only because I’m filled with fear, that and nothing else, and feel an undivided yearning for him who can relieve me of it.”

Pray

Pray with Sophie Scholl: Remedy my barren heart. Relieve me of fear. May my yearning for you be undivided.

Want more? Go to the Circle of Hope Transhistorical Body blog for more stories of our loving, suffering Christian family

February 3, 2017 – Never be the same

This week we’re using a variety of songs as aids to our prayers. Singing and praying often go hand in hand.  These songs are peace themed, meant to help us pray for the peace of Jesus in our lives and in our world.

Today’s Bible reading and an excerpt

Read Luke 12:49-53

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Today’s song and an excerpt

Changes by 2 Pac Shakur Lyrics

“Learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant strangers
And that’s how it’s supposed to be
How can the Devil take a brother if he’s close to me?
I’d love to go back to when we played as kids
But things changed, and that’s the way it is
Come on come on
That’s just the way it is
Things’ll never be the same
That’s just the way it is
Aww yeah”

More thoughts for meditation

2 Pac Shakur had a way of musically tying, connecting the dots between war, poverty, criminal justice, and the black experience. His song “Changes” is both mournful and hopeful. 2 Pac didn’t claim to be a devout Christian; though he wasn’t hostile to Jesus. More often than God, he put forward himself and his music as a change agent set to restore dignity and unity to black Americans. But some of his music has enough hope and longing in it that it’s easy to set it to a prayer, and 2 Pac was still friendly to the truth and justice that Jesus brought when it was as real as Jesus really is and not fake.

Jesus knows that his presence disrupts the way that the world is ordered, that his too real love gets rejected and ends up dividing people , even families. Pray to see reality the way Jesus sees it, raw and real, with the kind of hope that Jesus has , too. 2 Pac’s lyrics might help with that. Jesus wants to take it as far and even farther than 2 Pac could do by himself, entering into our world so that “Things’ll never be the same.”

Pray

Disrupt my normal, our normal, with your presence

February 2, 2017 – Soldiers under God’s command

This week we’re using a variety of songs as aids to our prayers. Singing and praying often go hand in hand.  These songs are peace themed, meant to help us pray for the peace of Jesus in our lives and in our world.

Today’s Bible reading and an excerpt

Read Ephesians 6:10-24

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Today’s Song and an excerpt

Soldiers Under Command by Stryper : Lyrics

“We are the soldiers under God’s command
We hold His two-edged sword within our hands
We’re not ashamed to stand up for what’s right
We win without sin, it’s not by our might
And we’re fighting all the sin
And the good book, it says we’ll win
Soldiers, Soldiers, under command
Soldiers, Soldiers, fighting the Lords battle plan”

More thoughts for meditation

Maybe it seems a little backward to use songs about being a soldier as a peace prayer. Paul and Stryper wrote these words/lyrics not to encourage militancy, but to subvert it. You’d only have to take one look at Stryper, and most definitely at Paul, too, to realize that they weren’t outfitted to be soldiers AT ALL. Their sword isn’t a sword made of metal (heavy metal? ☺ ), it’s the word of God, wielded by the strongest muscle: the tongue. Stryper was holding microphones in their hands for their soldiering.

Pray

Be like Paul and Styper. Be subversive! Do some air guitar and air sword-play as you recite Paul’s poem or sing along with Stryper’s lyrics. Buckle on an air buckle, Put on an air breastplate, Tie on some air boots, and hold up an air shield. Lastly, set your air helmet on your head. What you are dressing yourself with prayerfully is the Spirit of God and his gifts to you, in place of military gear and much more effective.

Wanna keep going with this? Try Saint Patrick’s Lorica (Breastplate) prayer, which is in the same vein as Paul and Stryper.

P.S., if you are bothered by militant analogies or if you just can’t sit through 80’s hair band rock, it’s ok to skip it. No big deal.

 

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