Ruth Williams

Hat Made of Ham

And a Hat Made of Ham One of the most important characters in my life is my dog, Sheena. She's thirteen, has cataracts, arthritis, and a tumor on her running leg the size of a golf ball, but being part Border Collie, she's still on the job as the canine-keeper of this family – her flock, if you will. Every so often, as I'm walking down the hall, I'll suddenly...

Heart's Desire

Heart's Desire Love is such an important theme in my life.It's the beat of my heart.  The spring in my step.It fills my home each day.  It drives me to give back to others.And yet, there's something...

Coffee and Apathy

Coffee and Apathy Commiserate. "Bitch and moan." Kvetch. The English offer each other "tea and sympathy." What we do here in the states could be better described as "coffee and apathy." Most of us have become fairly adept at seeming to care about the travails of our fellow travelers on the road of life. We issue the appropriate...

Clearer Vision

Clearer Vision Looking at the world the way it seems to beis such an exhausting endeavor.It takes a lot of energy to process the bad news,to deal with the crotchety co-workers,and to budget my time and talents.Re-train my mind so that I see what might be, first.Be with me as I look at what is and sift through itto find that kernel of...

Career Girl

Career Girl Everybody who works heretells a story with their clothes.Some have on suits; I’m wearing a uniform.Make me proud of myself and what I doas I go to work each day.Let the people I work withknow that I’m here to do a job,and I mean business.

Truth in Advertising

Truth in Advertising Politicians and preachers have something in common - besides occasional sex scandals and corruption - and that is, the uncanny ability to always stay "on message." The same holds true in the world of advertising.  I've written some copy for ad campaigns, and one of my favorites this year was for a charitable entity here in New Jersey,

In this Mourning

In this Mourning The hardest part was standing vigil,shaking clammy hands, kissing mascara-strewn cheeks,all of us trying to find words of comfort.Help me feel the warmth in every covered dish and bouquet of carnations.Platitudes and pat answers don't...

Sacred Space

Sacred Space There are eight million stories in the naked city,all of them overlapping.Help us find a way to take our homes with us,to carry them inside us so that we're never lost.Create a mobile sacred space for each of usso that there's no need for us to clash or collide.Help us to play well with others. Allow us a portion of Your eminent...

Hotline to Heaven

Hotline to Heaven You have to admit:You made me mouthy,gave me big dreamsand great expectations.I even carry a portable soapboxwith me in case I need to vent. But whatever I need to say,and however I express it,I know You hear me.I might say it in a colorful way,but always intend reverence,

Overcoming Obstacles: Prayer for Rose Marie

Overcoming Obstacles: Prayer for Rose Marie Recently the team has been discussing a new way to reach out to our community, by making the prayer request feature of Prayables more prominent. We are in the process of making a prayer request forum to add to the PrayPals Community. This will make it...

All I Ask

All I Ask Food on the table.Heat for the winter months.A decent day's wage.Restful sleep, all the way through the night.Please provide for us...

Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks Every year at this time, the family comes together,traveling from afar to the old homestead.Help me plan and prepare the feast for my family.Allow us to eat our fill of these homemade delicacies and enjoy each other's company.Even with all these perfect pieces,the puzzle is incomplete without prayer.Bless us with a spirit of gratitude as we commemorate Your...

Miracle Grow

Miracle Grow This part is the tilling of fallow ground.The careful cultivation of the soil of my soul.What feels like a crisis grows into crowning glory.What looks like too much to bear is really just enough to bear fruit.You've brought me through so many things,

Forgiven for Good

Forgiven for Good There's a reason the sun rises anew each day.Every day is a completely clean slate.Cherry-picking bad memories and rolling them around in my head all...

The Daily Scoop

The Daily Scoop Mystics find meaning in the minutiae of our daily doings,but I've...

Warm Welcome

Warm Welcome You can't know someoneby sizing them up at first glance.It takes effort to really connectwith another human being.So many things separate us,like color, age, and language.But all it takes is heart to come together.Help us to live what we say we believe,and keep the door open to...

Friend Indeed

Friend Indeed I’m supposed to be good with words, but my friend is so sick.She needs me to cheer her up, to crack wise in my funny accent.I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.What I do know is Who will bring tomorrow.All I can tell her is that there is always hope.Speak through me as I comfort and encourage her,a...

Poultice for the Soul

Poultice for the Soul Nobody reads the newspaperthe next day because,well it’s old news.Please help me find a wayto put these things behind me...yesterday’s ways,old habits,antique relationships,limited mind-set.Clear the decks for meto make way forthe bounty,the beauty,the...

Saving Grace

Saving Grace Now that I’ve been the recipient of grace,please give me a gracious spirit.Remind me that I’m not omniscientand can’t know what life is like for anyone else.Put me on notice that I’m not a judge on a tribunalticking off each little sin and magnifying it.

One Love

One Love Gratitude to Youfor laying down the foundation of faith.Praise to Youfor building this home filled with hope.Glory to Youfor this temporary templethat houses my soul.Adoration to Youfor teaching me through trialsand abiding with me through it all.

One World

One World Enable us to actually meet each other before we think we know someone.Remind us that nobody fits neatly into a box on a census form.We all came from somewhereand nobody owns the Earth.We're all sub-letting here, till our time is up,so grant us camaraderie and kinship.Not tolerance....

Work in Progress

Work in Progress Sometimes I wonder what I can teach my children.I can't even help with homework anymore.Then, when I think they’re not listening,I realize they’ve picked up my bad habits.Make me aware of my impact.Let me see through Your Jeweler's glassthe gem I will be and not the rough edges and flaws.Count to...

Officer of the Peace

Officer of the Peace To protect and to serve.It's my mottoas an officer of the lawand as a person of faith.I'm here to protectmy family and community.I'm here to servethe people and my Maker.Guide me to the peoplewho need my helpand enable meto restore the peace.

Giving Back

Giving Back As You've blessed me,help me be a blessing to others.Show me what I can bringto the table so someone elsecan have a better quality of life.Help me to share what I have,even if it's just my time, so that I knowthere's a child who can sleepin a warm bed tonight,or a senior who will have a good meal,at least for today.

Come Fly with Me

Come Fly with Me As we get ready for our trip,there’s so much to prepare,suitcase, passports, tickets, ID.Some consider You their co-pilot, but I know better.I know You’re holding up the plane,smoothing out the turbulence,making all the connections for us.Sit with us in coach, share these ancient packs of...

Breaking it Down

Breaking it Down Funny thing is:I know more than the "experts."Amazing thing is:I've got miracles happening as we speak.Odd thing is:faith is my version of oxygen.You could say imaginary thingshold the world togetherand separate it at the same time,like the equator or the lines on the highway.Call my beliefs...

Not so Bad

"Ivan the Not so Bad" After All "True story."  I love that phrase, even though it's something of an oxymoron.  Is it true?  Or a story someone made up?  There are true stories that stay with me through the years, like the one I saw recounted on "20th Century with Mike Wallace," about a man accused of...

Wholeness

Wholeness Thank You for this day of exhaling,of unprecedented blessingand finally relief.This is the day the wound started healing.The moment the rift began to mend.The storm has passed and we still have each other.

Going Viral

Going Viral Here's my soul's Status Update:I know the power of words.I've been wounded by an off-hand comment.I've been uplifted by unexpected praise.A bad attitude can be catching.From the sniffles of sarcasm to the contagion of criticism.These days, it's not just birds that "tweet"and you really can "friend" someone you've never...

Perspicacity

Perspicacity Please give me visionthat can see the genuine article,hearing that senses lies,and a taste for what is substantive.Please grant me a connectionto what’s pure and right and just.Protect me from the disingenuousand those with a hidden agenda.

Work/Life

Work/Life This is the world I live in.This is where my heart resides.Most of life takes me awayfrom the people and the place that I love.We work overtime our whole liveswith the hope that one daywe'll have time to savor.At work, there are challenges aplenty.Long, boring meetings, deadlines and delays.With the filter of faith, I...

Walking with You

Walking with You For now, I'm in the ante-room of life, waiting,perusing month-old magazines,fully expecting You to wave that flag when the race begins.Little do I know, it's already fully underway.Motivate me to see beyond the confines of faithand to move from waiting on You to walking with You.I ask that You...

Funny Bone

Funny Bone Fill my day with lightness and laughter.Let a good mood pervade the air.Connect us with comedy, puns, limericks.Take my mind off the tedium of workand the seriousness of life.Let me hear a great fish storyor a haiku...

Everybody's a Star

Everybody's a Star Celebrity gossip sites may call them the "Biggest Scandals of 2010," but I read these stories from a different perspective.  This was a tough year for me, and it taught me to view challenges through a "future filter."  That is, what did I learn from this experience that I can use going forward?  When the...

Golden Light

Golden Light Watch over our childrenwhile they're away at college.Defend the single mother and her childas they travel on an unfamiliar road.Hear us as we speak without words,clutching our purses tighter on the city street;rushing to close the windowsas the lightning storm approaches.I ask for particular protection...

Biological Clock

Biological Clock Trying not to see it as some great mysteryor some kind of cosmic test, butjust give me some idea.  Okay, a sign.Are we not meant to have children?We’re a loving couple, completely attuned to You;we’ve got money in the bank and a whole support systemof babysitters in...

Imperfect Parent

On Being an Imperfect Parent "I want to be just like my dad when I grow up - only without the drinking and smoking." One of my son's friends, at only eleven, summed up the downside of those two wonderful/bewildering neighborhoods: adulthood and parenthood. Now somebody's watching what you do. You can't get away with seeming invincible and omniscient once your kids hit puberty. They see you at your worst -...

Coal into Diamond

Coal into Diamond It takes years of pressure to turn a piece of coalinto a sparkling diamond.Thank You for second chances, and open hearts.Allow me a chance to grow in faith.Surround me with light and hope as we walk into the future...

Theway-itis

"Theway-itis" At the end of every night, I try "wind down" by watching the late news. A gang shooting at the Little League field. Thunderstorm tomorrow. I couldn't figure it out then, but it was actually winding me up, not down, and adding to the stockpile of stress in my mind.

Lost Weight?

Have You Lost Weight? It's been said that you can never be too rich or too thin.  But the latest winner of America's Top Model might just prove that cliche wrong.At 6 feet, 2 inches,

Action Verbs

Action Verbs Give me more than good intentions.Put wings on my prayers.Help me get past, "I feel your pain,"to, "Let's build a well for your village."Help me be an agent of changeand keeper of peace at the same time.Instead of my saying,"What's this world coming to?"Take me farther:"What can I do to make...

A Civil Tongue

A Civil Tongue My earliest memory from school is this:"It's a free country."Later on, I recall:"Everyone's entitled to their own opinion."What I didn't know then was the underlying truth –We're mostly soul, wrapped in flesh and blood.Please send a few thingsfrom bygone days to help us connect,like common courtesy, tact and gentility.Allow u...

Holding Pattern

Holding Pattern When it seems like you're up in the air with nowhere to land, hold on.  There's a clearing in the distance.When the past comes knocking and tries to bring you down,hold your head up.There's a new day on the horizon.When the...

Raising the Bar

Raising the Bar Today is the day of absolute abandon.Blessings beyond belief.New perspectives. Ancient traditions.Friends I haven't met yet.Listening deeply. Feeling fully.This is the day I say yes to everything.Life, love, risk, being in the moment.Surround me with the sound of church bells,voices chanting, and children...

Prism of Compassion

Prism of Compassion If you knew the whole story, you’d lead with love.The lady who bumped you on the sidewalk?She slept on the park bench last night.

A Soldier's Story

A Soldier's Story Bless the soldiers who sacrifice,who serve and do us proud.Protect these home-grown heroesout there in a foreign field,on the front lineswhere fear and fate intersect.Place them in Your perpetual care. Bring them back to us intact,back to the warmth of home,the smell of fresh bread,

Family Puzzle

Family Puzzle We're both divorced with children,and have made our peace with the past.What a gift you've given us, to start all over again,coming together as a blended family.Bless us as we weave our lives together,respecting former spousesand welcoming all into the fold.Make us a loving flock and remind us,that all it takes is a...