Hello Music that Makes Community Friends, 

As the current Monday Morning Grounding season comes to a close, we will be taking a summer break. After our summer break, Monday Morning Grounding will resume from August 25, 2025-December 8, 2025. Same Zoom link, same time. 

Monday Morning Grounding will be the space for four in-depth Advent song and text preparation sessions on September 22, 29, Oct. 6, 13, 2025 as a follow-up to our Introduction to Advent Paperless Music on Thursday, September 18, 2025 at 4 pm Pacific / 7 pm Eastern.

Those who show up find that they are fed, filled and grounded for the week ahead, particularly in these turbulent times. You’ll leave with a song to carry you through the week. If you can’t regularly make it to Monday Morning Grounding, we wanted to share the resources from this past season with you. Although they were particular to a day and this season, in some respects, they are timeless and timely songs and poems for the coming days as well.

Monday Morning Grounding Songs We Sang: April 28-July 28, 2025

April 28, 2025

Leader: Nancy Willbanks
Host: Amy Steenson

Song: Christ Be with Me by Ruth Cunningham
alternate words by Lea Morris

- Video on Youtube
- Included in the Singing in Community Songbook, published by Augsburg Fortress

Texts:
Through any door by Steve Garnaas-Holmes 

- Text on Website

Song: Weaving Our Lives by Alexa Sunshine Rose

- Video on YouTube

May 5, 2025

Leader: Amy Steenson
Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: I Can Do Small Things by Paul Vasile
text Saint Teresa of Calcutta

- Music on Website

Text: For feeling like your work matters by Kate Bowler
from The Lives We Actually Have

May 12, 2025

Leader:  Nancy Willbanks 
Host: Amy Steenson

Song: Cradle Me by Deborah Dougherty
text by Roy T. Bennett

- Music on YouTube

Texts:
This is to Mother You by Sinéad O’Connor

- Text on YouTube

Song: My Heart, O God, Is Calm and Still by Carson Cooman
text Mary Louis Bringle 

- Music on Website

May 19, 2025

Leader: Amy Steenson
Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: To listen is to lean in softly by Ian Carrick
text by Mark Nepo

- Music on Website

Text: Invitation by Mary Oliver
from The Lives We Actually Have

- Poem on Website

May 26, 2025

Leader: Bird Treacy
Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: Circle Chant by Linda Hirschhorn
from Rise Up Singing!

- Music on Website

Text: Making Peace by Deise Levertov
from Breathing the Water

- Poem on Website

June 2, 2025

Leader: Edith Troup
Host: Amy Steenson

Song: All will be well by Steven C. Warner

- Video on YouTube

Texts: 
Quote by Jen Wilhoitte

- Text on Website

TRUST by Thomas R. Smith

- Poem on Website

St. Therese’s Prayer by Minnie Louise Haskins

- Text on Website

June 9, 2025

Leader: Anne Hunter-Eidson
Host: Amy Steenson

Song: Chorus from Spirit, Open My Heart by Ruth Duck
an Irish melody

- Music on YouTube

Text: A Strange Song that God is at Work by Richard Hester

- Poem on Website

Song: Refrain from Canticle of the Turning by Rory Cooney

- Music on YouTube

Bonus: Magnificat Chant

- Text on YouTube

June 16, 2025

Leader/Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: Carry This All by Alexandra "Ahlay" Blakely

- Music on Website

Text: You Do Not Have to Hold the World Alone by Ari Satok

- Poem on Website

June 23, 2025

Leader/Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: When I was in Trouble by Bill Doggett
text from Psalm 120:1

- Included in the Music by Heart: Paperless Songs for Evening Worship Songbook, published by Church Publishing

Texts:

The Hundred-Twentieth Psalm - A Song of Degrees by Laurance Wieder
from The Poets’ Book of Psalms

Psalm 120 by Nan C. Merrill
from Psalms for Praying

Psalm 120 translation by Pamela Greenberg
from The Complete Psalms: The Book of Prayer Songs in a New Translation

Song: In This Circle by Joan McMillan

- Video on YouTube

June 30, 2025

Leader: Nancy Willbanks
Host: Amy Steenson

Song: How shall we come together? by Maggie Wheeler

- Music on Website

Text: PLEASE by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

- Text on Website

Song: The Way Knows by Lyndsey Scott

- Video on YouTube

July 7, 2025

Leader: Amy Steenson
Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: Stone by Stone by Taya Mâ

- Music on Website

Text: Study the Stone by Jon M. Sweeney
from Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul

Song: Standing Stone by Melanie DeMore

- Music on YouTube

July 14, 2025

Leader: Edith Troup
Host: Amy Steenson

Song: I will give you rest by Ana Hernandez
text from Matthew 11:28

Texts:

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

- Poem on Website

Embers by Richard Wagamese

July 21, 2025

Leaders/Co-Hosts:  Nancy Willbanks & Amy Steenson

Song: Rest, Resist, Repeat by Nancy Willbanks

- Music on Nancy’s Substack Blog

Text:A Blessing for the Burned Out, Sun-drenched, and Soul-weary by Kate Bowler

- Poem on Website

July 28, 2025

Leader: Mary Martin Lane
Host: Nancy Willbanks

Song: The Way Knows by Lyndsey Scott

- Music on YouTube

Text: Psalm 139:1-10

If you have a song to share, or a poem, or both, you are welcome to sign up to lead all or part of our thirty minute gathering, (10 a.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Central, 8 a.m. Mountain, 7 a.m. Pacific). We ask that you come at least once to get a flavor of the gathering and we’ll put a link to the sign up sheet in the chat on Zoom. We stay on for a time of conversation, check-in and connection, for another 15 minutes.

If you just need to come to be filled, to find comfort, hope, space for laughter, fun and song, you are welcome to come just as you are, and receive.

Sincerely,

Nancy Willbanks and Amy Steenson