October

October – two months before Christmas.  Let’s prepare our hearts and lives so that we don’t become caught up in the world’s craziness during this season.

This prayer, originally written for Lent, applies just as well in the pre-Christmas season where life seems to grow a little crazy – or we at least are invited into that crazinesss. 

It is really an ‘all year round’ prayer which has profoundly touched my life.  I wanted to share it with you.

Week 1:

CATCH ME IN MY SCURRYING: A PRAYER BY TED LODER

Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this (Christmas) season:
hold my feet to the fire of your grace
and make me attentive to my mortality
that I may begin to die now
to those things that keep me
from living with you
and with my neighbours on this earth;
to grudges and indifference,
to certainties that smother possibilities,
to my fascination with false securities,
to my addiction to sweatless dreams,
to my arrogant insistence on how it has to be;
to my corrosive fear of dying someday
which eats away the wonder of living this day
and the adventure of losing my life
in order to find it in you.

 

Reflective thought: Use your journal to jot down your anxious thoughts as you contemplate this coming season. Bring them to God in a prayer of relinquishment each time they arise.

Week 2:

Catch me in my aimless scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this (Christmas) season:
hold my heart to the beat of your grace
and create in me a resting place,
a kneeling place,
a tip-toe place
where I can recover from the dis-ease of my grandiosities
which fill my mind and calendar with busy self-importance,
that I may become vulnerable enough
to dare intimacy with the familiar,
to listen cup-eared to your summons,
and to watch squint-eyed for your crooked finger
in the crying of a child,
in the hunger of the street people,
in the fear of the contagion of terrorism in all people,
 

in the rage of those oppressed because of sex or race,
in the smouldering resentments of exploited third-world nations,
in the sullen apathy of the poor and ghetto-strangled people,
in my lonely doubt and limping ambivalence;

and somehow

during this season of sacrifice,
enable me to sacrifice time
and possessions
and securities,
to do something …

something about what I see,
something to turn the water of my words
into the wine of will and risk,
into the bread of blood and blisters,
into the blessedness of deed,
of a cross picked up,
a saviour followed.

 

Reflective thought: Do I rush around aimlessly?  What might I want to do differently this season? Imagine, draw or write about a new way to approach this season.  Sit in prayer with your images.  Commit them to God and let God draw us into a different way of being.

 

Bequeath me not becalmed seas,
slack sails and premature benedictions,
but breathe into me torment,
storm enough to make within myself
and from myself,
something …
something new,
something saving,
something true,
a gladness of heart,
a pitch for a song in the storm,
a word of praise lived,
a gratitude shared,
a cross dared,
a joy received.

Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace, Augsburg Books, 1981, 123-125.  March 8, 2019

The Rev. Dr. Ted Loder served as the senior minister of Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown for 38 years, a church known for its artistic endeavours, political activism and social justice.

Prayer:        May I recognise my moments of ‘mindlessness’.  Teach me to be present in my daily moments, and learn to live with you each moment of my life.

 

Week 4:                                              

PREGNANT WITH HOPE

 

by Kate McIlhagga (from Iona Community, she wrote The Green Heart of the Snowdrop)

 

Now is the time of watching and waiting

A time pregnant with hope

A time to watch and pray.

Christ our advent hope,

(budding spring growth)

etched (light across a brightening) sky,

leaves (budding, bursting forth),

ground softening and warming

remind us to prepare for your coming;

remind us to prepare for the time

when the soles of your feet will touch the ground,

when you will become one of us

to be at one with us.

May we watch for the signs,

Listen for the messenger,

Wait for the good news to slip into our world, our lives.

Christ our advent hope,

Help us to clear the way for you;

To clear the clutter from our minds,

To sift the silt from our hearts,

To move the boulders that prevent us meeting you.

Help us to make straight the highway,

to unravel the deception that leads to war,

to release those in captivity.

May sorrow take flight,

and your people sing a song of peace

and hope be born again.

 

Advent hope:

Now is the season of hope unfolding,

the (lightening spring) season, when hope waits to be born.

Let us come before God with receptive and willing spirits.

May our souls magnify God’s name

and our spirits rejoice in God our Saviour.

(bracketed words to reflect southern spring)