The purpose of our daily meditations have been, from the beginning, to assist one another to pray the news. Not just watch the news. Or avoid the news—which is certainly a temptation at this moment in history when there is such an overload of bad news every day.
One must protect oneself from too much news and too much bad news even as one does pray the news.
Two days ago, someone thoughtfully sent me this prayer and thought I would appreciate it—which I do. So I want to share it with you readers of our daily meditations.
It comes from Rabbi Irwin Keller and was composed in 2016. It is called:
A Prayer Before Reading the News
My God, the soul you have placed in me is pure and vulnerable.
I am afraid that looking at today’s news will be painful.
Encircle me in a robe of light
so that I can witness the wounds of the world
without being wounded myself.
Let me learn what I need to know in order to be of my greatest use,
without being overwhelmed by despair.
I feel your protective light now as I open myself to the world’s suffering
and the world’s joys. Amen.
I appreciate what Rabbi Keller is reminding us of: How the News bring pain and wounds and suffering with it—the Via Negativa on steroids–and sometimes triggers overwhelming despair.
So we should admit how vulnerable we are and encircle ourselves in a robe of light as we “witness the wounds of the world.”
A good practice indeed. That is how we should read the news. And to know that we are not alone.
And look too for the news that announces the “world’s joys” as well as the world’s sorrows. Pay attention (Mary Oliver’s definition of prayer) to the goodness and joy in the news as well as the suffering. The Via Positiva invites us in if we allow it to.
This includes good people trying to do good things. The good creation blessing us daily from the rising of the sun to the silent mystery of the moon. The good and beautiful creatures that befriend us on a daily basis. The prophets or spiritual warriors who remind us how generous and light-filled we humans can be. Those doing good work.
This too is being circled in a robe of light, it is God-among-us, as the Psalmist tells us in his creation story of Psalm 104, “God comes robed in a robe of light.”
See Matthew Fox: Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions.
And Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jen Lustig, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.
Banner image: Distressed by the news. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Queries for Contemplation
Do you find Rabbi Keller’s prayer useful at this time of stressful news when one is tempted to either run from it all or to collapse under the weight of it all? How do you “pray the news” and stay grounded and brave and connected to joy?
Recommended Reading
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.
8 thoughts on “On Praying the News in Times of Danger and Darkness”
In addition to meditation, my husband and I (for the past six years or so) have been in the habit of sharing the following before we go to sleep at night: we ask each other what we were grateful for during the day, and then we tell each other what we experienced as our “thing of beauty”. It can be something in nature, a song or a sound, artwork, movement, an experience – anything that touched us in a way that felt beautiful. We also try to compliment clerks or others during our day who have been helpful to us, even in minor ways. All of these things help to lessen the blows of some of the harshness we hear about on a daily basis and give us strength to be people with personal courage and kindness.
The enclosed prayer by Rabbi Keller is very helpful for us in our Faith development as spiritual warriors to find that balance of trying to always be aware, open, and honest to GOD’s LOVING LIVING PRESENCE in our daily lives, compassionate and prayerful with others in joy and suffering, even when they’re physically far away in the news. We carry Everyone/Everything within us beyond time as part and Co-Creators of GOD’s LOVING DIVERSE ETERNAL EVOLVING ONENESS….
Thank you for Rabbi Keller’s prayer. It is a support I need at this time.
In terms of “good people trying to do good things” I take this opportunity to recommend the very active World Beyond War community:
World BEYOND War
February 13, 2025
Dear Matthew,
I am asking God to surroundme with his/her robe of light, but even as I know God’s love, I am wondering what God or I can do when I just heard that the new head of the education department has NO prior experience in leading an education department. I am a former teacher, this strikes hard. Then one moment ago I hear Robert Kennedy is head of Health and Human Services. As much as I cling to my faith I feel despair coming like a tornado to sweep me into a land of darkness. I am reaching out to the Lord God and your readers to give me hope in a world so disconnected to God’s love. My deepest thanks. Rosalie
I write in a gratitude journal every single day to ground myself in the things that cannot be touched by the news or the evil going on in the world—like a beautiful sunshiny day or a kindness someone has given to me or a visit with a friend or loved one or an inspiring program or a good joke—and the list is endless. DM’s like this also help keep me grounded in what cannot be perverted or spoiled. Contemplative/meditative practices also help. Taking action also helps; contacting our elected representatives may seem fruitless, but you never know what seeds you might spread by speaking to an intern. And IMO there is nothing wrong in taking time to retreat to grieve or just escape it all! But I do think as well that we need to face the reality that a coup is going on and may well succeed and plan accordingly how we are going to be able to sustain ourselves and others.
Well said, Sue (as always).
Over the years, whenever I realized that I felt pulled off-center or strongly disconcerted by other people’s/groups’/authorities’ ideas or assertions, I’ve found it essential to back up, take a breath, and remind myself to do a “check in and re-set” with my deeper levels of intuition, go deep within to sit with the Truths I carry from a lifetime of soul-lessons: as a God-centered mystic, as a woman, as a disabled elderly human being, as someone who has been through many challenges — these Life-lessons are all in my soul’s toolkit.
So I try to sit for a while with an issue or someone’s assertion, go down into myself to ask, “Why does this feel wrong or deeply unsettling? What’s at the root of this idea or assertion that they’re trying to convince me to carry within my soul? What does it really imply at its core, and to what extent does that align with the core Truths that I hold — the God’s-Love/Mystical Revelation/Jesus-Taught Truth? My core Life-lessons Truths? What do they actually want me to believe, and why?”
But I also always have to ask myself: “Are my insecurity and my issues the reason for this discomfort? Is it ME? Or is this both their issues and mine, clashing in our brooding Jungian shadows? Is this one more thing I need to work on??”
Reconnecting to the Truths I hold, searching my soul, and clarifying the other person’s/ group’s ideas and motivations — this is what helps me regain my center.
Amen!
LOVED the prayer, will be using it and sharing it widely. Bless you!