Neurodiversity is only now being widely understood for the unique ways it affects how we interact in all kinds--even church. Learn how to honor and celebrate neurodiversity, creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and understood. This book is your guide to fostering a church that truly reflects the love and acceptance of Christ. .

Blessed Minds: Breaking the Silence about Neurodiversity is a profound exploration of how the church can embrace and honor neurodiversity. Affecting up to 20 percent of Americans, neurodiversity includes autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and several other conditions. Through personal stories, historical context, and theological insights, beloved author Sarah Griffith Lund unpacks the concepts of neurodiversity, mental health, and disability. This book challenges the stigma surrounding neurodivergent individuals and offers practical steps for creating inclusive and supportive faith communities. With themes of vulnerability, compassion, and justice, Blessed Minds is a call to recognize the divine nature of all minds and to foster a church environment where every individual is valued and celebrated.

More about Sarah:
Sarah Griffith Lund loves to partner with others to share hope and healing. She is an ordained minister and has served as pastor to churches in Brooklyn, NY, Minneapolis, MN, and New Smyrna Beach, FL. Rev. Dr. Lund served as Regional Minister in the Florida Conference of the United Church of Christ and as a Vice President for Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. She holds degrees from Trinity University (BA), Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv), Rutgers University (MSW), and McCormick Theological Seminary (DMin). Rev. Dr. Lund received the Dell Award for Mental Health Education at the 30th General Synod of the UCC. She currently serves as Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice on the national staff of the UCC and as senior pastor of First Congregational UCC of Indianapolis, IN. Rev. Dr. Lund is the author of several books and blogs at www.sarahgriffithlund.com.

Let the seat You offer 
Be the reminder I need 
To trust Your promise 
To lighten every weariness 
With Your renewing pause. 

Yes, grant me grace 
To turn aside and notice  
Your outstretched mercy seat 
Already waiting for me 
To discover 
Your holy gift 
Of rest that renews my body 
And restores my soul. 

Grant me courage 
To give up my plans 
Just enough to receive  
The gift You offer 
With outstretched invitations 
Revealed at every turn. 

Let this seat of grace 
Position my body and soul 
To noticed anew your creation 
Often overlooked in my rush 
To tend my anxious worry. 

Yes, by this of 
Your invitation 
Made known in Christ 
Grant me grace to trust 
Your necessary call to rest 
And through it receive 
The joy You yearn to offer.

-DMLH, March 2025

Often this Presence gets covered over by hurry, worry, or fear. But life doesn't have to be this way. Another way is possible. The meditative prayer/poems and photographs in this collection are offered as portals to help you discover this Presence already meeting and holding you right where you are. Such titles as "Beginning Again," "Desert Joy," "Unhinged," "Spirit Fruit," and many more invite you to encounter this Holy Presence discovered in every season of life.

They are grouped into three sections: Yes, Love, and Thank You. Each section offers reminders of Love's affirmation, desire, and call. They are an invitation to slow down and linger into an awareness of the Love that holds all of life, including your own.

Photographs are also provided as an alternative opening to this always-present Presence. Remembering what St. Francis once shared about nature being God's first Bible, each prayer is accompanied by a photograph often captured from nature. The pictures intersect with the words of the prayers but may be used in their own right as invitations into the soul's beckoning silence.

A holy blessing awaits your discovery and deepening so that your heart and life may blossom and radiate more love and beauty into the world. Yes, Love, Thank you! Click here to purchase.

 Form us with loving resolve

 To bear Your light and hope

 Into a season fraught

 With fear and despair.

Form our thoughts

 With Your alive Word of Love

 Able to fashion new creations

 Out of every crushing chaos.

Mold our hearts 

 Into vessels of grace

 Sorely needed in every time

 But especially needed

 In this present moment.

Fashion our words 

 With a grace that celebrates

 And builds up the beloved other

 Forming space for thriving

 Of body, mind and spirit.

Strengthen our resistance

 To everything within and around

 That dares to diminish 

 Your vision of a world made new

 Where everyone joyfully thrives.

Transform the world 

 Again and again and again

 With Your Holy Christ-love,

 And break down every division,

 Giving space for new beginnings

 In answer to every death

 Daring to claim the final word.

Raise in us Your resurrection,

 Always offered as Holy gift

 Calling us forward in love

 For the good of the other

 Planting your just peace

 Throughout the whole creation.

Yes, bless us for this 

 High and Holy calling

 Revealed with Your 

 Spirit-born Christ-light

 Able to dispel every night

 Of our misguided making.

And may Your deep love form us, 

 Heart, mind, body, and soul

 Into a resolution of grace

 Able to heal the world.

-DMLH, November 2024

O Love,

 Saturate me

 With Your summer stillness

 Opening deep within

 The space unnameable 

 Formed by You

 For Your mystery

 Of unfolding love.

Pause me with scents

 Scattered by flowers

 Coming into bloom

 Fed by Your sun and rain.

Fix my gaze 

 On your gentle motion

 Of morning sun rising

 And landing on everything

 In joyful abandon

 Born of Your abundance.

Let me rest in You

 Trusting Your promise

 Announced by birds

 Singing their summer song.

By this of You 

 May worry be put to rest

 And wonder be given space

 To rise in worship of You

 And all You make possible

 In Your grand unfolding

 Hinted at and revealed

 By flowers and birds

 And daily revolutions

 Of eternity’s evolution. 

Yes, baptize me anew

 With this of Your spirit

 And Your saturating

 Summer stillness…

-DMLH, July 2024

Blossoming God,

  Open the petals

  Of my often closed life

  With Your irresistible light

  Of goodness and grace

  Revealing resurrection

  Surprises at every turn.

Stretch every petal of me

  Too often closed to You

  And Your promises

  Of possibilities unknown

  Except by consent

  To Your motion of Love.

By this of You

  Reveal the beauty

  You plant by seed

  Into every living being

  Impossible to know

  In its buried beginning

  Yet made visible

  In a time envisioned

  By Your loving desire.

Yes, stretch me open

  Into awe and wonder

  At Your blossoming beauty

  In every living being

  And even in me.

Let this of Your Christ-love

  Pull wide the petals

  Of Your whole creation

  In response to Your light

  Of soaking, searching love

  Touching earth with eternity.

And may Your hidden beauty

  Rise again and again today

  In the midst of ordinary turns

  Made extraordinary

  In the noticing,

  The savoring,

  And the thanksgiving

  Called forth

  By these amazing moments

  You so readily reveal.

And let it cause

  Just enough

  Resurrection revelry

  To stop the madness

  And turn the world

  And me toward You.

                            Amen.

Music: Waking Us by Quiet Lake

O Love,

  Let me turn

  Aside in awe

  Of morning’s fire

  Rising in silences

  That speak a Word

  Recreating the world.

Your Holy Presence

  Unnameable, yet voicing

  A song within uncontainable.

Your “yes” of yearning

  Meeting hearts that burn

  In hurt and hope

  Of all that dares to rise

  In resurrection’s answer

  To every period 

  Placed by the world's way

  As the final word.

Yes, Love,

  Let me turn aside

  And see the fire

  Of the morning sky

  Begging me to pause

  Into the pulse of Pentecost’s

  Flame of love 

  Uncontrollable as light

  Rising and landing

  On everything and everyone

  Without exception 

  In reckless abandon.

Let Your “yes” 

  Be answered by my own

  Granting again and again

  My heart’s deepest desire

  Discovering the truth

  That You never stop

  Holding the whole creation

  Drenching it with the fire

  Of Your Holy Love.

Loving God,

  Grant me grace

  To receive Your Sabbath

  Rest and renewal

  So often resisted

  In frenzied rush

  Toward inertias

  Of my own making.

Let breathing space

  Awaken me to Your breath

  Given as gift in every moment

  For a soul sustenance

  Often taken for granted

  Yet bearing the miracle of life

  Into my body, mind and spirit.

Let sacred pause still me

  Into awe and wonder

  At mysteries little and large

  Too often taken for granted

  By a heart and mind overfull

  With distractions dividing

  My attention at every turn.

Settle me enough

  To notice Your precious pulse

  Pressing Your life through me

  And in others around me

  Permeating Your whole creation

  Already singing a song of praise

  If only I will stop and listen

  To birdsong of early spring.

Yes, let your Sabbath gift

  Bear me up in light and love

  And offer rest from my restlessness

  In discovery of Your resurrection

  Already bearing its eternal motion

  In this body of me and the world.

Here…now…yes…thank you, Love.

                                          Amen.

Music: A Kind Word by Moments

O Love,

  Form us ever anew

  United and uniting

  Bearing a vision larger

  Than we can imagine.

Form the puzzling

  Predicaments of our day

  Into something precious

  And beautiful and good.

Yes, take all that is scattered

  Embracing every fragment

  And fashion something new

  Beyond what is known

  In a world full of hurt

  Yearning for something more

  That heals, renews, and blesses.

Let no pressure

  Of present predicaments

  Often repeatedly rehearsed

  Be greater than the grace

  You pour out to cleanse.

Ready us for new creations

  Even now beginning to rise

  Through Your connective strength 

  Otherwise thought impossible

  Save for Your unrelenting love.

Yes, persistent One

  Awaken us to the truth

  Of being already joined

  By You for a joy unbelievable

  Except as we entrust our lives

  To You who always holds 

  Everyone and everything

  In a marvelous mystery

  Not of our making 

  Yet urging our consent.

O Love,

  Form and re-form our hearts

  For nothing less than this

  Of Your unifying desire

  To rise ever anew in us

  In some precious proclamation

  Of what You make possible

  When Your people anywhere

  Turn toward each other

  In love, for love, by love

  And say yes again to You, O Love.

Let this be the good news

  Proclaimed through our life 

  Formed by Your uniting

  To be united with others

  For the healing of the world,

  That Your joy may rise

  Everywhere for everyone.

                          Amen.

Prayer by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
Intro and Outro Music by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
Music with prayer, Letting Go, by Moments

O Love,

  Bless this temple body

  Given as gift by You

  Enlivened by Your Spirit

  For worship and work

  In thanks and praise

  Of all You make possible.

Form in me a reverence

  For care of this gift

  Of body given by You

  For the purposes of love

  To build Your justice joy

  For the full flourishing

  Of everybody’s body.

Bless my ordinary eating

  With your Holy Spirit

  And awaken me

  To Your precious presence

  Bearing Your life-giving

  Energy of eternity

  Here and now. 

Grant me grace

  To savor the sacramental sip

  Of Your life-giving water

  Forming and reforming

  Each cell of the universe

  Of universes you form

  In every living body.

Quiet my mind and heart

  Enough to hear Your pulse

  Bearing Your life large

  In this little body of me.

Yes, Love, 

  Bless this temple body

  That I may walk and work

  Speak and keep silence

  And reverence this gift

  Formed by You

  For reverencing You

  In every other body

  Also formed by You.

                        Amen.

Prayer by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
Intro and Outro Music by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins

 Lead me step by step

 On this Holy Week road

 And form Your will and way

 In answer to the weariness

 And worry of the world

 So easily residing in my soul.

Let the same sustaining spirit

 You poured into Christ Jesus

 Be poured ever anew into me 

 Answering every resistance

 Begging me to distraction

 From Your gracious gift

 Of a life fully alive

 Despite twists and turns

 Formed by the world 

 And also by me.

Yes, Love,

 Walk me into this week

 In reverent, holy wonder

 Revealing Your mysteries 

 Easily overlooked or ignored

 In rush to lesser things

 Urging a numbness 

 Of heart and mind and soul.

Moment by moment 

 Hour by hour

 Day by day

 Etch Your Holy story

 Anew in my heart and mind

 Answering every sorrow

 And anguish of the world

 With just enough light

 To lead me on Your path

 Toward a rising unimaginable

 Except by You who forms

 The impossible into the probable.

Let this motion of You 

 Renew not only me

 But Your whole creation 

 Whom You love into life

 That Your wholeness and fullness

 May emerge ever anew

 In the least likely of places

 In the most difficult circumstances

 Using people often overlooked 

 By the powers and principalities

 Of a world practiced in resistance 

 To Your Holy motion 

 Of resurrection renewal.

O Love, 

 Walk me into this week

 Transforming every cross

 Of the world’s making 

 From death into Life

 Giving rise to something Holy

 Beautiful, loving and good

 That Your joy may finally 

 Find its way into the heart

 Of your very human family.

Yes, Love,

 Sustain me on this walk

 Down Your Holy Week road

 Forming my little love

 With Your large Love

 Into some sacred cross 

 Of Your Holy intersection.

Prayer by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
Intro and Outro Music by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins

Loving God,

O snap!

 Said too much.

O snap!

 Said too little.

O snap!

 Got distracted

O snap!

 Ate too much.

O snap!

 Too little sleep.

O snap!

 Unexpected turn.

O snap!

 Cut off.

O snap!

 Worry day.

O snap!

 Plans changed.

O snap!

 Tired of waiting.
O snap!

 Weary of winter

O snap!

 Lost my voice.

O snap!

 Came undone.

O Love, 

 Restring my life

 For some new song

 Tuned with grace by You.

(And if you can,

 Make it just a little bit  Snappy! )

Thanks for listening.

 Amen.

Prayer by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
Intro and Outro Music by the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins
Music with prayer, Forever and a Day by ltebloomr

Loving God,

 For the gift of a new day

I give You thanks

 For breath of body

I give You thanks

 For silence of soul

I give You thanks

 For work that matters

I give You thanks

 For blessed memories

I give You thanks

 For little delights

I give You thanks

 For a family of love

I give You thanks

 For the gift of difference

I give You thanks

 For a body to inhabit 

I give You thanks

 For Your present presence
I give You thanks

 For the tear that tugs

I give You thanks

 For the radiant smile

I give you thanks

 For questions of youth

I give you thanks

 For wisdom's weight

I give You thanks

 For your Eternal embrace

I give You thanks

O Love, 

 May nothing of this day

 Pass before me 

 Without thanks 

 And praise of You.

-November 2022, DMLH

An Advent Prayer
Loving God,

 Thank-you for the gift

 Of beginning again

 When all seems lost

 Or weariness wears down

 The last inch of hope.
Yes, turn the page

 Of over-rehearsed despair

 Or dread of dullness

 Formed by too much

 Of just about everything.

 Form instead Your promise

 When night’s weight

 Seems too heavy for 

 Dawn’s readiness to rise 

 In surprises unlikely

 To be noticed by the world

 Yet formed by You 

 As the beginning place

 Of Your grand renewal,

 Starting as one small baby

 Still in formation

 Not yet ready to be born

 But quickening the senses

 With miraculous movement.

 Yes, form this advent

 Of Your grand reversal

 In me as I wait in wonder

 At what You will readily reveal

 In this long season 

 Of late dawn and early dusk.
Let me savor the beauty

 Of what I do not know

 Urging me to wait

 When all around me

 The world rushes 

 In frenzy of the overfull,

 The too much and the too soon.
Still me into the gift

 You so yearn to give,

 Of silence rising 

 From deep within 

 Touching everything 

 With Your cosmic creation

 Daring to form a new world

 Unknown by the old one

 Satisfied with a hypnosis

 Of over-rehearsed hopelessness.
Yes, grant me 

 An Advent awakening

 Muting every resistance 

 And releasing a new song

 Of thanks for Your grand gift 

 Of beginning again…

 Here…now…yes…thank-you.

-November 2022, DMLH

Dr. Sullivan is board president of Journey of Hope… From Violence to Healing and co-president of the Disciples Justice Action Network. He is an advisory board member of Catholic Mobilizing Network, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, OH, Death Penalty Action, Restorative Justice International, and the US Global Leadership Council. Dr. Sullivan is immediate past board chair of Ohioans to Stop Executions, and a former steering committee member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. He holds life memberships in the NAACP and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Academy of Homiletics.

Loving God, ripen me…

Grant me grace to love

That Your pulse may enliven me.

Grant me your joining joy,

Answering the fear of the world

With your radiant Spirit.

Grant me Your peace to share

In a world aching to rest

From fractious fighting.

Grant me Your patience

Grounding my soul in grace

That I may offer the same to others.

Grant me Your kindness

For every rough edge revealed

In myself and all your beloved.

Grant me a generous Spirit

Trusting Your resource is enough

For the gift of this day You give.

Grant me a flood of faithfulness

Filling my heart with resolve

To trust Your power in all things.

Grant me Your gentleness

For every hard thing

Daring to evoke anger or fear.

Grant me self-control

Freeing me from the prison

I so easily construct

With perpetual distractions

Covering over the gifts

You yearn to give.

Yes, Love,

Grant me grace to grow

In this sustaining Spirit

That is You in all things

Seen and unseen.

And let it be

More than enough

For today.

Rising Up
Loving God, 
Let all my work   
Arise from You 
Let all my noticing   
Arise from You 
Let all my hope   
Arise from You 
Let all my wonder   
Arise from You  
Let all my delight   
Arise from You 
Let all my gratefulness
Arise from You 
Let all my words   
Arise from You 
Let all my passion   
Arise from You 

Let all my peace
Arise from You 
Let all my joy   
Arise from You 
Let all my desire   
Arise from You 
Let all my love   
Arise from You.
For no good thing, 
No worthwhile dream 
Can ever flourish 
Apart from rising up 
In, from, and through 
You, O Love of Life.

-DMLH, August 2022©

More about the Rev. Dr. David Long-Higgins: The Rev. David Long-Higgins is the Conference Minister for the Heartland Conference. Dave’s passion is to see individuals and churches grow in their sense of the alive presence of God and all that this calls forth to be signs of good news in the world, so that all may flourish. Dave has served in a wide variety of capacities throughout the United Church of Christ. He is a graduate of Heidelberg University with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and music (violin performance). His Master of Divinity was earned at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton, Minnesota. He is also a graduate of the Wellstreams Spiritual Direction Program of the Spirituality Network of Columbus (Ohio). Prior to beginning his role with the Conference, Dave was a parish pastor for over 30 years. Dave and his wife Beth, who is also an ordained UCC clergyperson have two adult children, Andrew and Hannah. When not on the ministry trail Dave enjoys movies, playing violin and guitar, bicycling, travel, writing poetry/prayers, and photography.