Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.
–Rumi, in Earth Prayers From Around The World: 365 Prayers, Poems, And Invocations For Honoring The Earth, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon (Harper Collins, 1991), p. 40
[Given this week’s gospel lesson about seeds, I thought it would be appropriate to include a handful of prayers about our Mother Earth from a beautiful little book that I bought when I became a young pastor, Earth Prayers From Around The World. It nourished me then…and now. I hope these eclectic prayers, borrowed from different traditions, resonate and grow within you. –Jim Marsh, Bread of Life Church]
