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 August / September / October 2010 Issue
TO THE READER:
In this, Forward Movement’s 75th anniversary year, we both celebrate our past and look toward an exciting and challenging future. We celebrate the past by offering in these pages a retrospective of some of the best meditations to appear in Forward Day by Day over the past 75 years. A team of volunteer readers reviewed every meditation ever to appear in the publication and recommended over 1,300 to our editors. From those 1,300 recommended readings, our editors chose ones that address the scripture passages called for in the lectionaries now in use in the Episcopal Church.
With the church and publishing both changing rapidly, Forward Movement looks to a future that will continue publishing our core product, Forward Day by Day (with current circulation of 265,000 copies, throughout the Anglican Communion), but will expand our ministry to include downloadable resources (such as Zeteo), online communications (connect with us on Facebook and Twitter) and devotional communities, and new ways for readers to communicate with our authors and editors (have you shared any comments yet?). We do not yet know what all this will look like, but our Board of Directors and staff are eagerly exploring the possibilities.
The prayers in the back of this issue's print version (see these prayers below) are prayers of thanksgiving, chosen because they give thanks for things many people would not consider blessings. Even in times of struggle and uncertainty, there is much for which to give thanks.
--RHS
Prayers included in Forward Day by Day print edition:
I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast so set eternity within my heart that no earthly thing can ever satisfy me wholly. I thank thee that every present joy is so mixed with sadness and unrest as to lead my mind upwards to the contemplation of a more perfect blessedness.
--John Baillie
O God, it is good to feel the disciplines that school the spirit: I thank thee for the trials and troubles which have wrought in me some hardihood of soul.
--Miles Lowell Yates
Lord, what thou wilt command,
Hearts' gladness or hearts' grieving,
I will rejoice, believing
That both are from thy hand.
--Edward Mörike
Help us, O God, not to be embittered against those who treat us harshly. Thank you for the gift of laughter. Save us from hating our oppressors, and may we follow the spirit of your Son Jesus Christ.
O God, life has taken a good deal from me, but I begin by thanking you for all that life has left to me.
--William Barclay
I thank you for the suffering and trials of my life, which are also gifts and which, together with my mistakes, are among my most important teachers.
--Native American Omaha Indian Prayer
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Editor's Notes to the Reader
