Circle Of Grace

This is a meditation that uses the loving-kindness meditation within a Christian context. The meditation begins with coming home to the breath and body and then expands to locating one's self within the circle of grace. The meditation grows by inviting people into the circle of grace and offering them lloving-kindness blessings. We end with an awareness that all of humanity belongs within the circle of grace and we can breathe with that awareness and both receive and extend blessing.

Transcript

This is a meditation called Circle of Grace.

It's a meditation that works with the loving-kindness meditation that people are so familiar with.

It intentionally uses the notion of grace,

God's love and favor towards us that is unearned and undeserved.

And by this grace,

God forgives our sins,

Enlightens our minds,

Stirs our hearts,

And strengthens our will.

So I invite you to get situated wherever you are.

You may be choosing to be in a seated position or lying down or maybe even standing.

If you happen to be driving while listening to this meditation,

I clearly invite you to keep your eyes open.

But if you're not driving,

I invite you to close your eyes or cast them down,

Drawing attention to your inner landscape.

And use this opportunity to come home to your breath.

Meditation is this beautiful opportunity to practice coming home to ourselves.

And when we come home to ourselves,

We draw ourselves home to a loving God.

A loving God that is always right here waiting,

Waiting for our return with every breath.

So drawing your attention to the breath,

Noticing the feelings and sensations of air moving in and out of your nostrils.

Just delighting your attention right there in your face.

Noticing this life-giving air moving in and out of your body.

Most of the time,

There is very little,

If any,

Effort in our breath.

Our body does it all on its own.

So this is an opportunity to simply notice what our body already beautifully does all by itself.

And then lowering your attention down into your chest.

Noticing that slight rise and fall of your chest as the life-giving air moves in and out of your body.

You may even want to place a hand on your chest to get more of a sense of that slight rise and fall.

And then lowering your attention even further down into your diaphragm.

See if you can notice a slight expansion and deflation of your belly as the life-giving air moves in and out of your diaphragm.

Just keeping a light touch on this anchor of attention.

And if you notice that your mind wonders,

No worries.

That's simply a mind being a mind.

Use it as an opportunity to notice,

Oh,

My mind is not where I want it to be.

So let me walk it back home.

Walking the attention back home to the breath,

This life-giving air moving in and out of your body by way of the diaphragm.

And then lowering the attention even further.

Dropping your attention down to your hips and the space between the hips,

The lower back and the lower abdomen.

Just seeing if you can notice any sense of breath in this area.

Allowing the breath to fill you up.

To drop all the way down into the lower part of your torso.

Filling you up with the breath of God.

And releasing.

So let's use this opportunity of attention being down in the hips.

And grounding yourself in your hips.

You may even want to rock yourself back and forth on your sits bones to get a real sense.

And then pulling through the hips,

Elongating the spine.

So staying situated in your hips,

Pulling through to elongate your spine.

Beautifully done.

Because we want our backs to be nice and long,

Not rigid,

But nice and long.

A nice long back pulled through the hips sends a signal to the brain that you're awake,

You're alert,

You're here,

You're present.

Even though your eyes may be closed or cast down.

A nice long back signals.

I'm here.

I'm paying attention with ease.

You may want to do a couple shoulder rolls or shoulder shrugs to release any tension.

From this place where so many people hold tension and stress.

And when that feels complete,

Leaving the shoulders in a back position,

Creating an opening through the chest.

I like to think of this open chest as creating more room for the breath of the spirit to come and land and move.

And just for a moment,

Let's slow our breathing down.

So on the in breath and the out breath,

Elongating the breath by a beat or two or three.

Noticing the wisdom of your body.

What feels responsive in terms of elongating your breath?

What feels too long?

What feels too short?

Noticing and expecting there to be an ease in the elongation.

And if at any point you notice that your mind is drifting,

No worries.

It's just a mind being a mind.

Again,

Use it as an opportunity to walk your attention back home.

Back home to this elongated breath.

Beautifully done.

Allow that rhythm of breath to come back to a normal rhythm.

No longer.

Elongating the breath.

In this moment,

Simply seeing yourself with warmth and compassion and love.

A sense of curiosity of just being exactly where you are and curious about what that is.

And I invite you at this time to imagine that you are sitting within a beautiful,

Large,

Wide,

Broad circle.

And realizing that you are sitting within a circle of grace.

You are a beloved.

You belong within the circle of grace.

Ready to receive God's love and favor towards you.

And just breathing with the sense of awareness of,

Ah,

I do belong within the circle of God's grace.

This holy,

Abundant,

Ever widening,

Ever expanding circle of grace.

So I invite you to draw an image to your mind's eye of yourself.

This image could be of you at any time,

Any season of your life.

You may be a young child.

You may be an adolescent.

You may be your current self.

Whatever age and stage you find yourself.

And whatever image comes to mind,

See if you can work with some clarity for that image.

And so I'm going to offer some blessings,

Some prayers of loving kindness.

And I'll offer a space after I say them so that you can either aloud or quietly to yourself say these blessings aloud to this image of you.

And you may want to place a hand on your chest.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you receive the peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

May you receive God's love.

And allowing yourself to simply be with this sense of blessing.

We're going to change it just slightly in this next round to the pronoun I.

And see if there is a way in which you can have a felt sense of receiving the blessing.

May I be safe and protected.

May I be healthy and strong.

May I receive the ease and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

May I receive God's love.

And just giving yourself a moment to breathe with the sense of receiving all this loving kindness,

These blessings and prayers as you sit within the circle of God's grace.

Really opening yourself,

Being aware of how much our loving God wants you to be safe and protected.

God wants you to be healthy and strong.

God is sending the Advocate,

The Holy Spirit,

To breathe in and through you and offer you ease and peace and joy.

God is pouring God's love into your heart space in this very moment.

Can we be still and receive God's love?

And you can let that image of yourself dissipate fall away from your mind's eye like it's drifting on water.

And next I invite you to invite someone who loves you dearly.

There is no questions asked.

You know without a shadow of a doubt this person loves you and has your back no matter what.

Draw an image of them into your mind's eye.

This may be a loved one,

A friend,

A family member,

A teacher from long ago.

It may be a pet.

It may be Jesus.

It may be an angel.

It may be someone who is no longer with us on earth but is ever present.

And eternal life may even be a guardian angel of yours.

So you have a sense of their presence even though their physical presence is no longer here.

Just whoever comes to mind.

In this round of prayers it's as if this person is offering you these blessings.

And again see if you have a felt sense of receiving as they're saying,

Sharing,

Offering these blessings.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you receive the ease,

Peace,

And joy of the Holy Spirit.

May you receive God's love.

So sitting within this circle of grace with this person who loves you dearly,

Breathing with the sense of blessing upon your life,

Your body,

Your soul,

Your spirit,

Your heart.

Just breathing in as you take and receive the blessings that are coming your way.

And this person can stay with you in this circle of grace.

Remember it's a big,

Wide,

Vast circle of grace.

Next let's invite someone into the circle only if it's responsive to you.

Someone that feels difficult.

Somebody that it's maybe hard to be around and rubs you the wrong way.

My spiritual director calls these people sandpaper people because they rub.

There's a grittiness.

So you don't have to sit close to them in the circle.

But see if you can imagine them somewhere in this circle of grace.

So there's an awareness that even though they're difficult,

They too belong.

They belong in this circle of grace.

Let's offer them these blessings.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you receive the ease and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

May you receive God's love.

Now it may feel like a bit of a stretch.

But simply for imagination to practice a sense of well-being and what it means to live in a state of grace.

Being able to receive God's grace from God and from others.

And also being able to extend and offer that grace to others.

Let's imagine for just a moment this person can find it within themselves.

To offer you these blessings.

So now they're saying back to you with all the gentleness and kindness and generosity that's within them.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you receive the ease,

Peace,

And joy of the Holy Spirit.

May you receive God's love.

So just breathing with this sense of receiving these blessings from someone,

It was maybe difficult to feel as if there's ever a sense of blessings flowing between the two of you.

See if you can stay open to both the receiving and the giving,

The offering.

And now let's add again to our circle of grace,

Inviting whoever you want,

As many people as you want,

Friends,

Family members,

Pets,

Neighbors,

Someone maybe that you've been carrying on your heart.

Just invite everybody in into the circle of grace that is wide and vast and expansive.

And see if there's someone within the circle who you've been worried about,

Concerned about,

Somebody that you've been carrying around in your heart and in your mind,

Let's offer them these blessings.

May you be safe and protected.

May you be healthy and strong.

May you have ease and peace and joy.

May you be able to receive the ease and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

May you receive God's love.

And as you breathe,

Just imagine all these people within the circle of grace,

All together in unison,

Feeling both the receiving of blessing,

And then also in the spirit of generosity,

Which is a gift of the Holy Spirit,

This sense of flow,

Where blessing is moving in and between everyone within the circle.

And for this last round of meditation,

Of loving kindness meditation,

I want you to see if you can imagine that all people of the world,

That the circle of grace is big enough and vast enough and expansive enough for all of humanity.

All God's people,

Which is every single human being and animal,

Every living being belongs,

Is worthy in God's love and abundance of being within the circle of grace.

The circle of grace excludes no one because God's love and generosity and blessing is that vast.

So in this last round,

We're sitting in awareness,

Realizing every human being in the earth is sitting in the circle of grace with you.

So let's use we.

May we,

Every single one of us,

Be safe and protected.

May every single one of us may we be healthy and strong.

May all of us may we receive the ease and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

May we be open to receive the ease and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

May we be open to receive God's love.

So in these last moments of meditation,

Breathing with all of humanity,

A felt sense of both receiving and being a source of blessing to others.

Holding in the awareness of your heart that we all belong.

Every single one of us,

Because of the goodness and vastness of our loving God.

Everyone belongs.

There is abundant room for everyone within the circle of grace.

So for all of us,

May we have the courage to be open,

Willing to receive God's love,

God's favor and goodness towards us that we can't earn,

We can't hustle.

There is no way to fully deserve,

And yet God offers it to us in his loving abundance.

Because even though we can't earn it and even though we don't deserve it,

God still finds us not only loved,

But favored.

God favors God's creation,

And by this grace,

He forgives all the ways that we wonder and drift and turn away from that love.

By that grace,

God stirs our hearts and enlightens our minds and strengthens our will to God's will.

So as you move from this place of meditation,

I pray that these blessings will continue to provide a ripple effect into every moment of your day and night,

Where you become a vessel that is always open to receiving.

In the organic ways in which the movement of the Spirit happens,

You then are both a willing receiver and a willing giver of God's grace,

Bestowing blessing and kindness and love and a sense of generosity and peace and joy with every single person you encounter.

Every animal,

Every living being is worthy of blessing and joy.

Amen.

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