Loving-Kindness Prayer - In Case You Missed It

In case you missed it, in a sermon this fall, I featured the Loving-Kindness Prayer. It seems fitting, as we preach and teach this Advent season on the Gift of Presence, to offer you this prayer to use as an Advent spiritual practice. Enjoy!

First, get comfortable.
Place your feet on the ground. Close your eyes or look down.
Breathe in slowly and exhale.
As you breathe in, imagine the breath of God filling you.
As you breathe out, relax into God’s loving arms.

When you feel comfortable resting with the flow of your breathing, picture someone in your life who loves you, or who loved you unconditionally. Evoking and giving yourself over to feeling the qualities of the selfless love and kindness they accord you, or accorded you, and the whole field of their love for you—right here right now breathing with these feelings.

Whenever you feel ready, see if you can become the source as well as the object of these same feelings. In other words, take on these feelings for yourself as if they were your own rather than those of another. Cradling in your own heart these feelings of love and acceptance and kindness for yourself beyond judgment of any kind.

Now as you bring this loving kindness closer to yourself, hear this prayer whispered to your heart: May I be safe and protected and free from harm. May I be happy and contented. May I be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible. May I experience ease of well-being. (Repeat)

We will now expand the field of loving-kindness, inviting others. It is helpful to start with one person for whom you naturally harbor feelings of loving-kindness. Can you hold this person in your heart with the same quality of loving-kindness you have directed towards yourself? Whether it is a child or a parent, a brother or a sister, a grandparent or other relative near or distant, a close friend or a cherished neighbor, singly or together. Breathing with them in your heart. Holding them in your heart. Imagining them in your heart as best you can. Directing your feelings of love and acceptance and kindness for them beyond judgment of any kind. And wishing them well: May they be safe and protected and free from harm. May they be happy and contented. May they be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible. May they experience ease of well-being. (Repeat)

Now bring into your heart someone for whom your relationship is more neutral, or even people you don’t know at all, or who you have only heard of secondhand, friends of your friends for instance. And again, cradling them, or them in your heart, wishing them well: May they be safe and protected and free from harm. May they be happy and contented. May they be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible. May they experience ease of well-being. (Repeat)

Finally, as Jesus calls us to love our enemies, we expand the field of awareness to include one or more individuals who are actually problematic for you in one way or another, with whom you share a difficult past, perhaps. Who may have harmed you in one way or another, who, for whatever reason, you consider to be more of an adversary or an obstacle than a friend. You may not be ready at this time to forgive them for what they may have done to hurt you, or to cause you or others harm. Right now you are simply recognizing that they too are beloved by God, that they too have aspirations, that they too, in all likelihood, desire to be happy and safe.

Directing your feelings of love and acceptance and kindness for them beyond judgment of any kind. And wishing them well: May they be safe and protected and free from harm. May they be happy and contented. May they be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible. May they experience ease of well-being. (Repeat)

In the final moments of this loving-kindness prayer, rest here in the radiance of God’s love, and rest in your own intrinsic love and kindness. Affirm that this practice can be nourished on a regular basis if you are drawn to keep it alive.

We end with a verse from 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

As we wait for the arrival of Jesus, let this prayer remind you that God is with us – Emmanuel.

-Deacon Deb