Mary's Musings: On 2020

By Mary Bridges
Chaplain

It is an understatement to say 2020 has been a year unlike any we have experienced. Judging from my visits with residents, the consensus is the hardest part is not knowing what it is going to be like tomorrow, next week or next year. Our world has changed so much. I always try to focus on the positive in life instead of the negative. Take some time to reflect on the things that have not changed.

Beginning July 27, we began exploring the “Peace Prayer” in our weekly hallway and lobby chapel services: “Make Me an instrument of Your peace.”

In Kent Nerburn’s introduction to the prayer, he writes, “It shines through all the contradictions and illuminates the way of the spirit like a light from the heart of God. It is profoundly and decidedly Christian yet irrefutable and fundamentally universal. It is a gentle hand guiding us.”

My prayer for our residents, staff, family and friends as you look to the “Peace Prayer” for guidance is simple and heartfelt: Gracious God, bring peace to the hearts and minds of all your children and your creation. AMEN

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy;  

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.  

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

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