Prayers for Navajo Homes

In the category of something worth praying for . . . .

In Monday’s New York Times, there was an article by Dan Frosch about uranium contamination in many homes in the Navajo Nation. It seems that many Navajo houses show high levels of poisonous uranium left over from the days when these Native Americans mined the element for the U.S. government. You can read the article for a better understanding than I can give you about the physical impact of the poisoning. I was struck by what the article said about the spiritual toll it has taken on the Navajo:

Ms. Lane described the difficulty of watching families, particularly elders, leaving homes they had lived in for years. She told of coming upon two old miners who died before their contaminated homes could be rebuilt. “In Navajo, a home is considered sacred,” she said. “But if the foundation or the rocks are not safe, we have to do this work.”

Later in the story, a Navajo man whose home is contaminated andwill likely be destroyed, said, “In our traditional way, a house is like your mom . . . It’s where you eat, sleep, where you’re taken care of. And when you come back from the city, you come back to your mom. It makes you feel real good.”

When we use our prayer beads this week, I suggest we pray for the people of the Navajo Nation who must lose their homes – even if it is temporary. I also suggest we remember all people, both here and abroad, who are homeless. Here is a Navajo prayer to get you going:

Today I will walk out, today everything evil will leave me,
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever,
nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.

In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

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Guest Blogging

Dragonfly wings

I am making my first appearance as a “guest blogger” this Thursday on Awake is Good,  Janice Lynne Lundy‘s excellent blog on meditation, contemplation and plain old spiritual awareness. Jan is the author of Your Truest Self and is a spiritual teacher and retreat leader based in Traverse City, Mich. While much of her work is founded on Buddhism, she has an interfaith focus – something I think you all know I believe in profoundly.

Last month, Jan commented on one of my blog entries and mentioned the practice of “metta prayers,”  something I had never heard of. I asked her to explain to all of us what that was, which she did in another blog entry. Soon we were engaging in an email exchange that is culminating in me submitting something for her readers who may or may not have experience with prayer beads.

So, on Thursday, I’ll make an announcement here about my “appearance” on her blog, with a link, and I hope you will all engage in a conversation with Jan’s regular readers about how you combine contemplative prayer with beads. There will also be a giveaway of a copy of my book, so be sure and get hooked up on her blog for that!

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