Heart thread - 04/11/2009 - Updated

Susankay writes:

Paul -- just got an email today telling me that my high school best friend, Mary Lou, is in the hospital getting blood units after a very bad GI bleed on Thursday. I was able to reach her by phone and she is being brave but still pretty scared. I ask prayers for her and her partner, Melissa, who is trying to keep everything going and keep ML cheerful.

Thanks.

susankay

From our congregational requests:

Eydie asks prayers of healing for her friend, Jan, who is recovering from surgery at the Westside Hospital.

also

I just heard from Deborah B. who has asked for our prayers for her husband’s mother, Erika. Erika had surgery a few days ago and was recovering as expected when her condition began to deteriorate. She has been stabilized but is still in serious condition.

We also hold in prayer the family as they have remained at Erika’s bedside (taking turns) throughout this critical time and continue to do so until they get her home.

Jane R shared news of the passing of one of our great elders.

Franciscan Sr. José Hobday, an influential spiritual lecturer, author and storyteller, died April 5 at age 80 at the Casa de la Luz Hospice in Tucson, Ariz.

Hobday, a Native American, thought that Christians have much to learn from the Native American tradition, including how to make prayer more creation-centered, how to have a greater appreciation of the connection between the living and the dead, how to love and respect silence and cherish solitude, and how to place a greater emphasis on celebration. Native Americans, she once said, have a tradition of creating sacred space within the natural environment and then "giving it back."

She also spoke of our need to cultivate a love for the land in order to stop the destruction of its beauty. She said she saw the Divine present in the people she met, ordinary people doing everyday things: an elderly woman with cancer, a supermarket worker, a truck driver, cowboys, policemen and especially the poor and downtrodden people of world.

Doxy asks ongoing prayers for Jim and his family.

So I will continue to ask for your prayers for the family. There are dark days ahead…it really does feel like Good Friday today.

Details at OCICBW on the following:

Motheramelia asks prayers for Caroline and Wayne.

Father Kenny for his Dad.

Also at OCICBW:
Susan S. asks prayers for her sister.

My youngest sister, Barbara, 52 years old, is now fighting her 3rd round of Breast Cancer.

For the repose of the soul of Alice whose passing was noted by Pagan Sphinx.

For Amber.

For Roseann and Gary.

For Lisa in her grief.

For Jane R's friend Deenie.

For Kirstin who helps make Open Cathedral possible in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

For those who will be baptized this Easter throughout the world.

For those throughout the world who face tomorrow and it is still a day of death and mourning.

Holy One, we hold these and countless others in our hearts as we stand before you, even as many - known and unknown - hold us in their hearts. The heart is really all we have to offer in the end, and it is the one thing you ask of us, knowing that everything else will follow. Hear us as we call to you, enfold those we remember and those we forget in your boundless compassion. Strengthen us to do what we ought, to accept what we must, and to do all with grace. Amen.

UPDATE
Via OCICBW late last night:

From KJ:

An extension of a previous request regarding my father, Lloyd. Additional tests have confirmed his cancer to be Stage 4. (Dammit! Amen.) That aside, he is in great physical shape and state of mind. The chemo plan appears arduous.

--the BB