Beloved God,
You have embraced us
With a love that endures all things.
The power of your unending love
Will see us through the times
When we feel empty and bereft.
When the days are long and desolate
Draw us to your heart,
Strengthen us, and comfort us.
Reassure us that the love we share
With one another
Will go on into eternity.
Beloved God,
Thank you for love
That is stronger than death.
This prayer was adapted from Nouwen’s Open Hands and was in the chapel a few weeks ago:
Dear God:
Speak gently in our silence.
When the loud noises of the outside world,
And the loud inner noises of our fears
Make You seem so far away;
Help us to know that You are still there–
Even when we can barely hear you.
Help us cling to that still, small voice
That says, “Come to me, all you who are
Weak and overburdened,
And I will give you rest–
For I am gentle and humble of heart.”
God, let that loving voice be our guide this day.
May we find rest in Your love,
And bring that love to others.
We ask now for healing
Of body, mind, and spirit,
In Your holy name.
Amen.
This is a prayer from my journal, from an undated entry, and it’s up here in case I need to return to it. I believe I was relinquishing some things around writing at the time, but I can utter these words as I try to become a Christian:
Help me let go of those dreams, those well-fed hopes, stubborn desires even though they came mostly from places of sincerity and love and, perhaps, mystery. Grant me the freedom to choose some other life, to set some different course. Make me fearless in that choosing. Inspire me as I close and choose and change.
The prayer of examen is an old way of praying through the movements of days. It involves taking a few deep breaths, thinking about what happened in the day, noticing where God felt especially close and especially far, and remembering the feelings that came along through the day.
It’s a way of praying that can be done for chunks of time, like a week or a month or even a year. Many people pray this prayer daily, building a life of mini examens. Over time those little prayers–noticing God here and not there, re-feeling things that we misplaced somewhere else–become a way of determining what really gives us life. They become a way for us to see the doors we need to push closed and the ones we must hurry through.
Periodically I write and post a prayer for writers and for others. These prayers come out of my writing life, out of my hopes for the writers among us, and out of my desire for this blog to sit at the intersections between faith and writing. Pray them or a line from them, with and for the writers you read, know, and support. This prayer is about paying attention. Join me, if you will.
Dear God,
It’s hard to hear, see, and write the stories in us. It is often harder to attend to the you behind, under, and around those stories. The temptation to distraction is immeasurable. Our resolve to try is weak. Turn us in so we can wonder through the maze of ourselves and find good words. Turn us out so we can live full lives and feed the bellies from which strengthening words come. Writing is impractical. Make it so much a part of our days that we do it without thinking. Grant that living and writing become synonyms so we can say in truth that we live well or we write well, and so that either statement identifies the other. Spur us to focus on the important way of life, way of writing, you’ve given us. Narrow the long, wide fields of our worlds. Identify our purposes as rooted in this work. Give us joy in doing less better and in, therefore, doing more. Capture our minds with something sustainable, a character we can’t forget, an act that returns again and again. When our attention falters, gently get it back. When our energy wanes, lure us back. Help us continue looking, considering, telling, and and doing all these with better language and increasing elegance. In the name of the One who wrote lost words in the sand, Amen.
Intersections 