the open office

Learning to Wait

May we learn how to wait
And not run away

May we discover in the darkness
The uncontrollable truth at the heart of all things

May we let go of our ideas of God
And our ideas about ourselves

May we let go of our precious wounds
And be open to unexpected healing

May we let go of our desire to matter
And stay with ourselves

May we let go of our compulsion to describe God
And stay with the mysterious presence of Christ

May we not be afraid
When nothing is happening

May we not be ground to zero
By the empty ache

May we not be too proud
To receive love when it comes

Like a child's tears falling
On the lonely dryness of a prayer that seems to be going nowhere

(this was initially written for advent, with a couple of phrases stolen from Rowan Williams)

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Liturgy for the Celebration of a Birthday

The People are furnished with full glasses.

Infinite God, ageless and timeless,

God who was born and counted time with us,
God who knows each hair on N’s head (an alternate liturgy shall be said for the bald)
Thank you for N’s years that have passed.

The first toast is drunk, remembering joys and sorrows.

Infinite God, ageless and timeless,

God who rose eternal and sees far ahead
God who traces out each step N might tread
Thank you for N’s years still to come.

The second toast is drunk, a prayer of  hope for the future.

A cake may be presented, and a traditional song sung.
A third toast is drunk, a celebration of the present.

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Technorati Tags: Birthday Liturgy

Liturgy for the Dedication of a Child

We used this for the dedication of our son, Elias.

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Technorati Tags: Dedication of a Child

Welcome//Start Here

Welcome to The Open Office.

The idea for this site is very simple: to be a tool for groups exploring a rhythm of life that has a liturgical edge to share resources.

Click [ here ] to view all Resources currently uploaded, or search using the categories to the right.

An 'Office' has traditionally been a set of readings and prayers that Christian communities, often in monastic communities or orders, have published to allow their members to  follow a common rhythm.

The Open Office is an attempt to affirm that liturgical rhythm, but using resources written by people 'on the ground', rather than published and canonised from on high.

Each post is categorized to allow users to search through the normal headings of an Office: morning, noon, evening and night prayer, plus prayers and liturgies for festivals, birthdays and pretty much anything else. All of life can be celebrated, lamented or remembered together.

 

Search using the blogbar above left, or by 'recent posts', or by categories on the right.

And enjoy your stay.

If you would like guidelines on posting, then please click [ here ]

If you would like to join us and post your own resources, please email theopenoffice {at} vaux {dot} net. This is an open-source project, so we'd love to welcome you.

Posting Guidelines

We welcome anyone wanting to share their liturgical resources; to help the site function well it would be great if people could follow these simple guidelines.

1. The title should succinctly reflect the gist of the piece.

2. Bold for 'everyone join in' // Normal Text for 'leader' // Italics for instructions

3. Please stick to the default font format.

4. PDFs of pieces can be uploaded, but please give an introduction in the post to give a feel for the piece.

5. Please categorize thoughtfully and accurately. To ensure your piece is part of the 'full list', please make sure you select Resources as one of your categories. And if you are part of a group, please categorize that too.

6. Keep comments open; no trackbacks please.

7. Please try to include the Creative Commons license. Just copy this html code into the end of the post:

<p>
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width: 0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/2.5/88x31.png"/></a>
<br /><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/" rel="license">CopyLeft Licensed</a>
</p>

8. If you are using Ecto, LiveWriter or any other blogging software you can do the Creative Commons bit automatically. You could also add extra Technorati tags to help people find stuff.

9. Like all Open Source projects, we welcome all positive users, and reserve the right to edit, delete or block contributors who don't act in the right spirit ;-)

Want to join us?

If you'd like to add your, or your group's resources to this site then please email us at

theopenoffice {at} vaux [dot] net

Well then send you an invite to become a Guest Author. You don't need a Typepad blog to join, and it's all free. Once you're in you can post or edit your stuff.

Like all Open Source projects we welcome positive users and reserve the right to delete, edit, block or revoke membership of those who don't use the site with the right spirit. You know it makes sense.