God, meet us where we are, but leave us not there.
Call us, again, towards Your Grand Dream meant for us and for all.
Be that light which draws us on.
Be that voice which speaks truth to us in the night.
Be that work of challenge or hope which stirs our spirits.
Be that presence which sustains our walking.
We ask it as we seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Amen
Almost Christmas: A Prayer
Can it be true, O God;
That dreams do come true and that hope does turns outward;
Touching and transforming lives and world?
Can it be true, O God;
That the day will come;
Maybe now is;
When weapons of war will be remade into tools to feed?
And, when our eyes and hearts catch a glimpse of the ever present Holy;
In the midst of the everyday moments of our lives?
Can it be true, O God;
That we will find the will and the courage;
To remember the forgotten?
And to lift up the fallen?
And to exalt those now pushed to very edges of life?
Can it be true, O God?
We pray that it is.
For such is the promise of Christmas.
An Advent Prayer
O God, we hear, again, the echo of those ancient words:
“The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.
And following on the heal of those words, we add these:
May it be so, O God, may it be so.
For in a hundred different ways we know something about the darkness;
From deep darkness which threatens to swallow us up;
To shadows which push in upon us from the edges of our lives;
From heart-ache and heart break;
To a nagging sense of emptiness that leaves us longing for something more.
And what we need, O God…
And what we hope for and long for;
Is some glimpse of that great light:
That not only pushes back the darkness, but also begins to show us the way;
From where ever it is we are right now;
Towards that place we long to be.
Amen
A Prayer…
O God, ever and everywhere present…
Meet us in this moment.
Now.
Just as we are.
Each of us, in many ways, walking contradictions;
Broken and whole at the very same time;
Ordinary humans living lives tinged with the Holy.
And, just as we are we pray;
Pausing long enough to allow life as it is and the world as it is;
To come face to face with healing and hope and gratitude and grace.
We pray for all those who find themselves in need.
Those whom we know and love.
And, those who fall within the circle of Your concern and care.
And, knowing joy as well as sorrow, we say Thank you;
For life.
For love.
For all that and all whom sustain us each day.
For all this and more…
Our prayers, O God.
Amen.
Rebuilding Homes/Building Hope
We first spoke in the late fall or early winter of 1979.
She was (and is!) a Roman Catholic sister who had just moved to the small community of Hurley, Virginia located in the heart of Appalachia. At that time I was on the staff of church in suburban Chicago doing youth ministry. We were looking for a new location for one of our summer work trips that the congregation where I was working did each summer. She had heard about us from another organization. Without ever meeting only talking on the phone, we decided that we would take a chance on each other. So, in the summer of 1980 I, along with 3 other adults and a dozen high school youth wound our way through the Appalachian mountains to Hurley and spent the next two weeks repairing homes. Tomorrow I leave to do it all again. This time leaving from New York with six other adults and 20 high school youth. We will spend the next week working on three homes doing what we can to make them safer and stronger for the families who live there.
I used to think what was most important was the work we did.
Now I am not so sure.
Yes, roofs that do not leak;
And, floors without holes;
And, safe front porches;
And, windows that are secure;
Are all vitally important.
But, what is just as important is the hope that is renewed.
The reminder that someone cares;
That in the midst of the work, someone will stop for a moment and listen to the stories that need to be told;
That we learn each other’s names:
And that at the end of the week we leave with a hug good-bye and with tears in our eyes.
One of the quotes that I will ask the group to this about this week is this:
“Poverty is slow death.”
That is true in a physical sense.
Being poor is crushingly hard physically.
But, it is also true emotionally and spiritually as hope fades and despair closes in. Next week I hope that while we rebuild portions of three homes, we will do an even better job of building hope. A hope that will linger long after we have returned home.
Not Quite There, But Thinking About Easter
If Easter is only about what happened to Jesus;
It is then all pretty easy and safe;
Kept all in the past;
Using the past tense of verbs
That don’t connect then with today.
But, if instead
Easter is about what happened to them;
And the choices they made;
Those who cowered in fear as they watched him die:
And who fled for their life the first chance that they had;
Then it is also about me
And the choices I make.
If that is the case
Easter is anything but easy.
Instead challenging us with hope which runs strong
In the direction of life.
