Mechtild of Magdeburg, a thirteenth-century mystic, once asked, "How shall we live?" This hospitality mantra is based on her answer.
Be welcoming to all.
A Blessing for Hospitality
May your heart be a welcoming door where all your light and darkness live in unison.
May you love all those parts of yourself equally and bring them into the home of your heart.
May nothing within you or in others be rejected, divorced, turned away, dismissed, or replaced.
May you trust that you are a work in progress and loved unconditionally by the Source that created you.
May your acceptance of all that you are be the doorway to accepting others.
May you see the wounds of others as not their true selves.
May you know that underneath our hurts lies our essence.
May you always seek to find that essence in yourself and in others.
May you welcome everything as everything belongs.
May love make a home in you where you welcome yourself and others.
May you come to see that if you love yourself and others, you will always be at home.
There is no place like home.
— Kaki Grubbs, Spiritual Literacy Certificates Program, 2024 Cohort
Other Prayers
Across Boundaries
For the Russian whose language I will never understand, the Chinatown that has food I don’t think I could eat, the man who bows five times a day in prayer, outside the bus on a mat; for the way I seem to others with my pierced ears and down vests, I pray. Let me appreciate how other I am to others in order that I may be surprised by friendship across boundaries. Amen.
— Donna Schaper in Prayers for People Who Say They Can't Pray
Many Mansions
There are many mansions in my Heavenly Parent's home. John 14:2
What a challenge this verse presents to every form of religious exclusivism. There is no one way, no single truth for everyone that we can display as a bumper sticker or hold up on a sign at a football game. God's love offers a home to the human family in all its diversity.
Daily Prayer: Let me celebrate today the magnificent inclusiveness of Your love by making room in my heart for all my brothers and sisters in all their rich diversity.
— Ron Miller in Wisdom of the Carpenter
One World
O God:
You made One World.
You have blessed us
with the knowledge
to travel the universe.
Please guide us
to reach over the oceans,
across physical and political boundaries,
to share our knowledge
with emerging nations,
to help us all realize
our full potential,
in order for us
to help ourselves and each other.
Together and with your help
we can make this One World
a better world for everyone.
Amen.
— Erlinda Brent in Lifting Women's Voices: Prayers to Change the World by Margaret Rose, Jenny Te Paa, Jeanne Person, Abagail Nelson
Prayer for Tolerance
O Thou God of all beings, of all worlds, and of all times,
We pray, that the little differences in our clothes,
In our inadequate languages,
In our ridiculous customs,
In our imperfect laws,
In our illogical opinions,
In our ranks and conditions which are so disproportionately important to us
And so meaningless to you,
That these small variations
That distinguish those atoms that we call men, one from another,
May not be signals of hatred and persecution!
— Voltaire in Men Pray: Voices of Strength, Faith, Healing, Hope and Courage by Editors at Skylight Paths
