Friday Prayer

 

Please pray with me:  God of mystery and marvel, in these final dwindling hours of 2023, give us moments to pause and gaze at the rearview mirror of life.  Help us see how the months and weeks of this past year have filled us with moments of joy and love, peace, and hope.  Help us embrace that which is unresolved and may be unsolvable in our lives.  Help us process our grief honestly, naming and noticing the pain and heartbreak.  Help us honor the beautiful ordinariness of life.  So often, O God, amid the bustle, life is a blur, and we do not always sense the Sacred or get glimpses of Your grace.  Thank you, O God, for moments when You interrupted and disrupted our lives this past year ~ awaken our Sacred Imaginations to where You showed up unannounced in 2023.  Help us embrace this present moment, for where we are, there You are too.  Right here in this moment, in all its beautiful brokenness and hopefulness and messiness.  Right here in this breath and the one after that.  For all that will unfold on this final Friday of 2023, let us continue to sense a Christmas promise and possibility, that You show up in the angels still softly singing that we can’t always hear and stars still shining if we just look up to show us the way.  And as we begin to bid farewell this year, we pray for the days to come.  We offer You are prayers for 2024.  We realize and recognize, O God, that You are not a genie in a bottle.  Our holy relationship with You is not one we can control or contain.  You don’t come with demands or decrees.  We name our hopes and dreams, because when we do, You begin to collaborate with us to create something we never knew was possible. Still creating, cooking, crafting, and caroling God, meet us here with a song that we begin to sing this day and every day for weeks to come.  Amen. 

The Herod of the World today

 

As we continue this week to listen to the wisdom of the poets and prophets, we turn today to a prayer by Ann Weems.  Slow savor these words with me to see what is evoked within you.

 

The Christmas Spirit By Ann Weems

The Christmas Spirit is that hope
which tenaciously clings
to the hearts of the faithful
and announces in the face
of any Herod, the world can produce
and all the inn doors slammed in our faces
and all the dark nights of our souls
that with God
all things are possible,
that even now unto us
a Child is born!

 

I wonder, who are the Herods in your life?  Who are those who come in with demands and decrees?  Who are those whose anxiety drenches you?  What does it mean that God is born not according to cultural scripts of might, power, and wealth, but born in a barn and then disappears for years on end ~ remember Jesus’ public ministry began when he was 30 years-old?  When have you like Mary and Joseph felt pushed aside or ignored, even as the Spirit of God grows in you and around you?  Let’s face it, most of what trends on social media is not about the beautiful ordinariness of life, but we seem to love the ache and pain and brokenness of humanity.  I love the line, “even now unto us a Child is born!”  That Christmas is not just about the past, it is the present, right here and now.  Just as Christ was born into Rome oppression, so too Christ comes into the world where humans still hurt and harm each other.  Just as Christ was born in an out of the way barn, so too Christ come amid the fringe and fray today.  Just as Christ was born in a time when people barely took note, so too by now most of the world is moving on from Christmas, stores are deeply discounting decorations to make room for Valentine’s Day candy.  Yet, as people of faith, we continue to dwell in the mystery of Christmas to let this awaken us to what God is up to right here and now.  May the poems, prayers, and words this week stir within your soul that we might continue to name and notice we are in Christ’s presence this day and every day. Amen.

Wednesday Prayer

 

This week we are leaning into and listening to poems and prayers.  We are letting the words of our sisters and brothers sing to our souls.  Today, I share one of my favorite poems from Amanda Gorman, “New Day’s Lyric”

May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren't ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.

This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren't aware, we're now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once altogether beaten,
Now all together beat.

Come, look up with kindness yet,

For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,
In a new day's lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we've fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.

Tuesday Prayer

 

Yesterday, I shared with you two beautiful poem/prayers that blessed you on Christmas Day.  Today, we turn to the beloved words of prophet and pastor Howard Thurman.  I invite you to slowly savor these words.  I encourage you to pause after each line to let what you are reading soak and sing to your soul.  I invite you to let these words into the story you are telling yourself and co-authoring with God. 

The Work of Christmas

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among others,

To make music in the heart.

I encourage you today to open your heart to how in the coming year you might be open to those who are lost who cross the path of life.  Who are those who are hurting and how can you be a wounded healer (note this is a phrase from Henri Nouwen who said we don’t heal others because we have it all figured out. Rather, we heal others when our pain meets their pain).  Who are those who are in prison ~ noting this could be physical or emotional or depression or spiritual prison (we can get locked into theologies that have nothing to do with God). How might we heal our nation this coming election year?  How might you be at peace through your words and actions?  Perhaps, it is the final line about making music, singing with gusto, letting loose the song God is composing and conducting in your life that informs and influences all the above!  Let this beautiful poem prayer sing to your heart this day and week.  Amen. 

Merry Christmas!!

 

Blessing That Meets You in Love — Jan Richardson

It is true that / every blessing begins / with love,
that whatever else / it might say,
love is always / precisely its point.

But it should be noted / that this blessing
has come today / especially to tell you
it is crazy about you.

That it has been / in love with you / forever.

That it has never / not wanted / to see your face,
to go through this world / in your company.

This blessing thought / it was high time
it told you so, just to make sure / you know.

If it has been shy / in saying this,
it has not been / for any lack of / wanting to.

It’s just that / this blessing / knows the risk
of offering itself / in a way that / will so alter you—

not because it thinks / you could stand / some improving,
but because this is / simply where / loving leads.

This blessing knows / how love undoes us,
unhinges us, unhides us.

It knows / how loving
can sometimes feel / like dying.

But today / this blessing / has come to tell you / the secret
that sends it / to your door:
that it gives itself / only to those / willing to come alive;
that it vows itself / only to those
ready to be / born anew.

 

A Blessing for Love to Come at Christmas by Kate Bowler

 

God, we are waiting for love,

not the simple kind or the sweep-you-off-your-feet kind,

but the absurd kind.

 

The kind wrapped in rags,

resting in a bucket of animal feed.

Love enough to save us all.

 

Blessed are we who look for Love

deeper, fuller, truer—than we have ever known,

than we could have ever hoped for.

 

Blessed are we who seek You,

the light that dawned so long ago

in that dark stable.

Love given.

Love received.

Receive this gift, dear one.

Love has come for you.  Amen.

 

May the hope, peace, love, and joy of this Christmas Day find a manger size space in your heart to rest and reside every day in 2024.  With God’s love to you, beloved ~

Friday Prayer

 

Wherever you are this morning, whatever is stirring within you, whatever thoughts or to-do lists or demands and decrees the “Caesar” of your mind keeps making on you, I invite you to set that aside and breathe. 

 

Breathe in God’s presence that found room in the straw of a manger and dustiness of a barn.

 

Breathe in God’s hope that danced on the face of Jesus and is found in the eyes of every baby.

 

Breathe in God’s peace that knows us fully from the top of our head to pinkie toe.

 

Breathe in God’s love that holds us unconditionally, even when the present isn’t perfect and the sticky buns on Christmas morning are burnt.

 

Breathe in God’s joy that God’s expectations for our preparations are to open our lives as much as we possibly can.

 

Breathe in Emmanuel, a truth that God is with you right now and promises to stay with you.

 

Breathe in the music of this season that invites us to come, all ye faithful (even if the wi-fi signal of your faith is weak to non-existent).  To come and adore God in the flesh and we find our own mortal flesh silent and still.  To come and begin to sing with the angels from the realms of glory and awaken a song we want to go tell it on the mountain.  To come even as we wonder what child is this, how in the world does God being born in a barn make any sense amid what we consider normal?  To come with the shepherd and wise ones and stand in the straw as God lays away in a manger.  Come as you are trusting that it isn’t about gifts or packages or perfectly made egg casseroles, this is about our human, less than perfect life, that God enters with grace and love to make a home within us so that we might live this truth every day this year.  Wherever you are, God is.  Whatever is stirring with you, God receives.  Whatever the demands or decrees that are spinning in your life, breathe and be with God.  Breathe and be with God.  For the prayer, O Come, o come Emmanuel is answered this day and we will celebrate together on Christmas Eve Sunday.  God’s hope, peace, joy, and love to you until we gather to sing out for all Sarasota to hear.  Amen.   

Thursday Prayer

 

A prayer for this Thursday.

God amid the hustle and bustle of the census, when people grumbled and mumbled from exhaustion of travel, You came.  God amid the gnashing teeth of the powers that be and the burdens of daily living that sat heavy on the shoulders of ordinary people, You came.  God amid a world where the narratives of domination, money makes the world go around, and peace with a sword and fear in the hearts of people, You came.  Come again, O God, come again, this season and reside in our hearts, lives, and world.  Enter through locked doors and security alarm systems we have put around our lives to protect ourselves.  Enter through the words that drip with cynicism that are like a shield to protect us from being too vulnerable.  Enter through the messiness of a world where we blame others for brokenness, unwilling to admit and accept our own roles in co-creating this place we call, “Home.”  Enter with a Spirit that empowers us to the “already” and “not yet”.  Remind us that in the space between what is and what can be, You still light the way with “Hope,” “Peace”, “Love,” and “Joy”.  That these words would awaken within a way to live, be, and let loose Your presence for the sake of the world You so love.  Let the truths that we will encounter on Sunday night find space to rest and reside not just for a day or week, but every day in 2024.  All this we pray in the name of the One we await with anticipation to greet with anthems sweet, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

This week, we are opening our sacred imaginations to the poem prayer of Madeleine L’Engle.  I invite you to slowly savor these words with me again.

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

I find the closing lines of this poem to open my soul.  We don’t wait until the world is sane for us to proclaim and preach and live the good news of great joy.  The external scoreboard of life may not ever show that we are “winning” before we start singing out about joy to the world.  But it is those places of pain and grief and hurt and harm where God first looks to move in to our life.  What if the scars and wounds are the barn door and manger for God’s grand entry to your life this Christmas?  Can we let God’s love into those spaces and places we usually protect and keep tuck hidden the shadows?  Maybe Christmas isn’t just about the bright and beautiful, but also God’s love born in the places that are dusty and musty and are the last place we would look for God?!  May the light of God shine with love into the shadow places that we are not sure we want God to be born into this Christmas.  May the light of God enter softly like the sun rising in the cobwebbed corners of our soul where we have put all the clutter of life.  May the light of God enfold and hold you, trusting that even if all we can manage and muster is to open the door of our heart 1/8^th of an inch, that is enough for the Spirit to slip and slide into our souls to feel their worth.  Amen. And Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

Yesterday, we centered our hearts on the poem prayer, First Coming, by Madeleine L’Engle.  I want to return to these words again today.  I find that re-reading a poem prayer several times on different days can help open me in new ways.  What I thought yesterday might shift suddenly when I read this poem prayer today.  Read now again these words with me.

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

I am taken by the first two sentences.  God doesn’t need everything to be perfectly placed and beautifully wrapped before bursting and breaking into the world.  God comes still when we cry out for peace and the Heavens (not to mention the world) is unsteady.  God comes whether we are ready or not.  God comes amid the messiness and less-than-perfected-ness of this human life.  Pause with me on this part.  Where do you feel less than prepared for God’s entry?  Where are the closets of your life cluttered and crammed full of the stuff you shoved in there so that the living room of your life looked presentable?  What if God is in the messiness rather than the polished silver of the tea service?  What if God is found more in the exact place you least expect or prepared to receive God?  I pray today as you ponder these questions, you might encounter the present of Emmanuel with you in your life.  Amen.

Morning meditation

 

A week from today, wrapping paper will be scattered across the carpet as Christmas music blares from our Bluetooth speaker, and the aroma of ham roasting in the oven fills the air causing our mouths to water.  One week until Christmas, I pray the anticipation is growing.  I also pray that we can confront that voice within us, our inner critic, who likes to point out all the ways that our Christmas preparations fall short.  Maybe it is just me, but the color commentary in my mind delights in noticing that I haven’t spent as much time praying as I could, that there is still clutter in the cobweb corners of my soul, that shouldn’t I tidy up a bit so that my interior heart looks more presentable for God.  It is God after all.  And then, I laugh.

I laugh because God decided that the best place to enter this world wasn’t a posh, polished, perfectly styled palace, but a barn!  God decided that it wasn’t the powerful or religious folks who would be entrusted with the message of good news of great joy, but a powerless couple and some shepherds.  God decided that dirt (which is exactly what Genesis 2 says we as humans are made of) and drafty stable was a great place to start a revolution of love that still captures my heart today. 

If a barn and manger were holy for God two thousand years ago, maybe my amateur attempts this Christmas will be enough too.  This makes me think of a wonderful poem prayer by Madeleine L’Engle entitled the First Coming.  I invite you to read this slowly, savoring each phrase and sentence.

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Prayer for Today

 

Please pray with me,

God amid all that is happening around us and within us, the streets of our minds and hearts and souls are as crowded and chaotic as Bethlehem was centuries ago.  God amid the Ceasars today who still issue demands and decrees that hurt and dehumanize, we pray You will enter still.  We pray the words of, “O come, O come Emmanuel (which means God with us)”.  That You would enter our world and re-author our stories in these days.  When we wonder, where is the spirit of Christmas; help us not force an artificial, prepackaged version of what should be.  When we struggle with how to prepare and our own expectations, help us sort through the straw of our barn-like lives.  When we feel like there is no room, remind us that You don’t ask for a mansion, just a manger in our hearts.  In the ten days to come, help us be open, curious, awake, and alert to Your presence that is everywhere we are.  In the ten days to come, let our souls feel their worth amid the ache.  In the ten days to come, may we not be searching for things to purchase, but the ways Your presence knocks softly on the door of our life in the most delightfully unexpected ways.  O come, O come Emmanuel, be with each of us this day.  Amen.  

The Serendipity of Christmas

 

Let me start with a confession that when it comes to Christmas, I am a sap.  Let the cynics mock and let the critics talk, it’s true.  My sentimentality is sugary sweet like the fudge my grandmother made.  I grew up in a family that began blaring and blasting Christmas music on our stereo the day after Thanksgiving.  It took days to decorate.  And we went through so many boxes of tinsel growing up, those tiny silver strands were woven into our shag carpet year-round, along with that green plastic grass of our Easter basket.  I know this about myself.  I still love Christmas music that speaks to not just the holly and jolly, but of the less than perfectness of life ~ because that is where God, I believe, still enters.  One popular Christmas song I find meaningful is “Where are You Christmas”.  You can go to YouTube to watch any number of singers belt this out this tune.  I think it says something profound and powerful that this music is often sung by beloved daughters of God!!  I invite you to pray the lyrics of this poem prayer with me.

Where are you, Christmas? Why can't I find you?
Why have you gone away? Where is the laughter
You used to bring me? Why can't I hear music play?
My world is changing, I'm re-arranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too?

Where are you, Christmas? Do you remember
The one you used to know? I'm not the same one
See what the time's done Is that why you have let me go?

I feel you, Christmas I know I've found you
You never fade away The joy of Christmas
Stays here inside us Fills each and every heart with love.

Where are you, Christmas? Fill your heart with love.

While I know that there is an abrupt shift from the second to third verse ~ searching for Christmas that seems lost, then suddenly finding the spirit.  How might you and I be open and curious right now?  I still tend to find Christmas in the most unlikely and unusual places and not always as I have in the past.  Yes, last year I might have found God’s love at that party or with that person or in that delicious glass of eggnog, but this year, maybe God comes in a call or card or connection to someone we have not heard from since before COVID.  This carol opens the barn door of my heart and asks me to prepare a manger size place there because the truth is I don’t always know how God will enter.  The promise of Christmas every year is that God will arrive somehow and in some way.  I pray that might be true for you this day as all of us search prayerfully for Christmas.  Amen. 

Maybe Not So Silent Night

 

This week we are letting Mary and Joseph’s story read and re-author our story.  We have connected our own feelings of being pushed to the fringe and fray with how we meet Mary and Joseph there.  We have let the truth that as humans we still cancel each other because there is something in the human condition that doesn’t have room for diversity and inclusiveness. 

Today, I want to shift to God entering vulnerably as an infant, born in a barn, to two unwed parents for whom there was no room.

Let’s be clear, most of our theology (God talk) doesn’t have room for this truth.  We prefer a God that is a mighty fortress and declares victory and takes our side.  We prefer a God who is bold and brave and even a bit brash with the barbs to “those” people.  We prefer a God who is strong not weak.  We prefer a God who is winning not born vulnerable.  We prefer a God who is splashy and specular, not a baby who doesn’t immediately overthrow the powers that be and make everything magically better.  This narrative should challenge us and the stories we tell ourselves.  Instead, we tend to romanticize and glamorize the birth of Jesus ~ not as painful and messy as birth is ~ but as filled with halos and angels singing.  Look at the art of the Christmas cards you receive, most can be idealized visions of what was exhausting and emotional and overwhelming. 

If you are feeling exhausted, Mary knew this.

If you are feeling unsure about what to do next or what your role is, Joseph knew this.

If you are feeling vulnerable, God enters this space in you still this day.

I pray that as you stand in the straw amid the shepherds, you would let the truth of what a messy miracle birth is reside in you.  Birth is chaotic and painful and causes all kinds of questions and at the same time a joy that causes your heart to burst.  I pray that as we gaze upon God’s entry into the world, that we might fling open the barn doors of our life for God to meet us amid the messiness of our so-called life.  May you and I find in our heartfelt honesty a manger size space for God to move in and reside not just now but every day in the year to come. Amen. 

No Room Part 2

 

Yesterday, I invited you to explore with love and curiosity the times, places, spaces, and people with whom you have felt like there is “no room at the inn.”  Those moments a door is slammed in your face or relationship cut off or words said that have left a woundedness that still hasn’t healed years later, because other people bump into that bruise reaggravating the hurt/ache. 

I don’t know exactly what Luke meant when he wrote, “there was no room for them,” but I do know that is a feel/sensation/place we have all received mail in our life.  The truth is that no one morning meditation or even a week of dwelling on these words will resolve our pain.  I do invite you today to continue to find your story in Mary and Joseph’s story.  Picture Mary and Joseph, their feet aching from the 90 mile walk to Bethlehem ~ all because Caesar said, “Go”. 

Pause ~ where do your feet ache or your soul quake or your heart break this day?  Who is making demands and decrees on you (this could be politically, relationally, spiritually)?

Picture Mary and Joseph trying to find a space and place.

Pause ~ where are you searching?  What does that space and place look like?  Who is there?

Picture Mary and Joseph amid the cattle who are lowing and scratchy straw of the dusty and drafty barn.  Really, this is how God enters the world??  God clearly needed a better public relations firm!

Pause ~ how might God be trying to enter the back door of the barn of your life this week?

Read this story from Luke 2 and let this story read/re-author your story this week.  With God’s unexpected and vulnerable love to you.  Amen.

No Room

 

All around you the hustle and bustle of the season is crescendo-ing. The chaos of Christmas is continuing to lather itself into its final frenzied sales pitch next week. The countdown calendar declares and demands that there are only thirteen shopping days left, and have you gotten a special gift for Aunt Phoebe ~ because you don’t want to disappoint her with something you get last minute, do you?  What kind of person could do that to Aunt Phoebe?

Where is your soul amid all the activity of shopping and packing and wrapping and parties with expectations?  Do you feel elation or exhaustion or some strange collaboration of both?  Maybe you feel a bit meh this Christmas…not in the holiday spirit.  Let me remind you, this is not only okay, but there is also actually, honestly, a holiness to feeling on the fringe and fray of the frenzied pace.  Step into the story of Christmas, not as depicted on Christmas cards or portrayed in plays.  Remember that Mary and Joesph felt exhausted traveling 90 miles because when Ceasar said, “Go,” you went.  Remember that Mary and Joseph felt pushed about amid the crowd that didn’t see them.  Remember, that in a culture that valued hospitality and welcoming strangers, there was no room for them.  How could this be? 

We tend to dramatize this Christmas pageants with two kids dressed in bathrobes knocking on doors and having some other kid, the innkeeper, say, “What do you want?”  We picture “no vacancy signs” in neon signs of the hotels.  We wonder why they didn’t use Priceline to book a room before they left on the journey.  In Jesus’ day, given that Mary and Joseph were clinging to one of the bottom rungs of the economic/social ladder for dear life, you often stayed with relatives.  What does it mean that Mary and Joesph’s relatives didn’t have room?  This could be physically or maybe emotionally or relationally or spiritually for them.  Maybe Mary and Joseph felt canceled by a culture (religiously and relationally) that could not understand or accept why she was having a child before they had exchanged wedding vows.  Maybe Mary and Joseph were worn down and weary from the gossip and behind the back whispers of this “girl” who thought she had been visited by an angel.  How foolish and fanciful, people might have mocked. 

Have you ever had an experience of feeling like there was no room for you?

This could be because grief this year has you feeling out of sync and out of sorts.  This could be because you were passed over for a promotion at work because of your race, orientation, gender identity, or age.  This could be because your family decided that it was easier to act like you did not exist than deal with their own brokenness ~ always easier to blame than face our own shadows.  This could be because you did not have the “right” shoes or jeans or hair cut in school or make it into the fraternity.  This could be an illness right now or some soul ache that words can’t capture.

Let Mary and Joseph’s story this week connect to a part of your story.  Hold this amid the buzz and busy-ness of this season.  May you discover and uncover a sacred space where you open your heart to the truth that Christmas is more than exhilaration and excitement, God enters this world still through the weariness of a world that is spinning too fast to notice.  It is often amid the less-than-perfectness of life that Emmanuel, God with us and for us, resides.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

Please pray with me

 

God of arrivals in the most unusual, unexpected, outlandish places (a barn).  God who plots and plans to let shepherds be your public relations team.  God who conspires to drop off the grid after being born for thirty years while Ceasar clamors about being a god and Herod’s anxiety drenches everyone, this is not how we expect You to work in our lives.  Honestly, the script of Christmas seems a little bit far-fetched for our five-year-strategic plans.  The good news we are preparing to fling wide the doors of our heart to on Christmas Eve goes against the grains of other gospels that preach and proclaim in the world today.  Gospels of might makes right and fear and buying our way to happiness and that everything will be better when “our” people are in power.  Good Lord, what are humans that You are mindful of us?  Good Lord, how many times do we need to sing and share the familiar words of “Hope,” “Peace,” “Love,” and “Joy” before we finally let the language of Advent be our guide and grounding everyday of life.  Let the mystery of this season continue to awaken and alert us that You move in unusual ways.  Let the holiness that moves us to stillness and silence continue to open us to the truth that there is more to life than we can control or comprehend.  Let the playfulness and prayerfulness of Your way open us with curiosity and faithfulness to the wisdom that You are not finished yet with us.  God we need more than a little Christmas or holly or rushing/racing to score points, we need You now.  So come, O come, Emmanuel ~ may Your eternal embrace enfold us and hold us ~ as we continue to open our whole selves to Your arrival.  Amen.  And Amen. 

Playing with Words Part 4

 

This week we are playing prayerfully with the language of Advent ~ Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy.  Feel free to go back and read the posts from the previous days this week.  It’s okay…I’ll wait.

Insert me singing, “For we need a little Christmas right this very minute, candles in the window carols at the spinet,” which reminds to try to get the word spinet to trend on social media this week.

Okay…everyone back?  Great.  Today’s word is, Joy.  As in, thanks be to God, this is the shortest of all four words and doesn’t have an E in it.  Insert me singing, “Alleluia” here.

Today I invite you to ponder prayerfully and playfully what the word, JOY provokes and evokes as we prepare for God’s grand entry into the world in a barn of all places.  Truly I never tire of how countercultural and headshaking/head scratching the truth of Christmas is.  Perhaps it is so revolutionary that God comes quietly, silently, barely noticed expect for a few shepherds keeping watch over their flock.  That God’s grand entry doesn’t immediately and instantly overthrow the powers that be.  In fact, God in Christ will be crucified (sorry spoiler alert!).  But let’s focus on JOY. 

J ~ Juxtaposed jubilance with jabberwocky that jettisons jaggedness

O ~ Over-the-top ordinariness that orchestrates our orientation to the hOly tOday

Y ~ Yelling or yodeling to all about the yeast of life

Okay, I will admit that the “Y” is a bit of weak sauce, but this isn’t easy.  That is actually the point.  Part of the joy of this exercise and experience is that there has been a smile on my face every day that I have tried to do this…and I pray you have felt joy as you tried your hand at composing prayers.  I pray you let loose your creativity in expressing how the language of Advent awakens your alertness in these December days.  May you continue to play with the language of Advent and how we are preparing with God to celebrate good news of great joy for all the world.  May you find joy in quiet, small ways this day and in exhilarating ways as well.  Amen.

Playing with Words Part 3

 

On Monday we held the word hope, which reminds me that we are also being held by hope!  On Tuesdays we played with the word, peace.  Today, we turn to love to create an acrostic prayer.  Just to be clear recall that the first rule to this is…there are no rules.  You can use your dictionary, thesaurus, Google, your neighbor, and you can phone a pastor as one of your lifelines.  There are no grades being passed out.  Have fun with this, the more creative and audacious the better.  Remember that an acrostic prayer uses the first letter of the word to create other words that awaken your sacred imagination to explore what that word means.  Love is…

L ~ leaning in, listening with rapt attention, learning, leaping like John the Baptizer does in his mother, Elizabeth’s womb!

O ~ ordinariness that orders our life and opens us to the hOly and moments we feel whOle

V ~ vivaciousness and variety that we find in our lives

E ~ Elusive Eternal that dElightfully lEaves brEad crumbs scatted in our lifE. (I never realized how many Es there were in the Advent words!!  It isn’t easy coming up with new thoughts each day.)

Remember I would dElight in seeing your acrostic poem prayer if you would care to share with me.  May God’s love enfold and hold you in meaningful ways this day.  Amen.

Playing with Words part 2

 

This week we are praying and playing with the words of Advent as part of our preparation to welcome Emmanuel ~ God with us and for us.  Last week we named and claimed that our expectations impact our preparations.  This week we are letting loose our inner poet to create an acrostic prayer using the four words of Advent.  Remember and recall the first rule to this is…there are no rules.  You can use your dictionary, thesaurus, Google, your neighbor, and any other resource you can find.  There are no grades being passed out and this can be a group project.  Have fun with this, the more creative and audacious the better.  The second instruction is that an acrostic prayer uses the first letter of the word to create other words that awaken your sacred imagination to explore definitions and descriptions for the word.  For example, let’s play with the word, Peace and what this word evokes and provokes for you.  Peace is…

P ~ Playing and praying and participating in the pollination of the planet

E ~ Enthusiasm and excitement that sneaks quietly through the back door of life

A ~ Accepting and acknowledging the holy absurdity and audaciousness of life

C ~ Cultivating, collaborating, and conspiring with the Creator

E ~ Embracing and embodying the Eternal in ever growing and generative ways.

As always, I would love to have you share your acrostic prayer poem you create.  May you know God’s peace (shalom which means wholeness) from the top of your head to your pinkie toe this day and as we continue to wait and prepare for God’s arrival in nineteen days!  Amen.