Pastoral Prayer for January 7, 2024

This morning’s pastoral prayer come to us from Ted Loder.

Let us allow his words to become our own personal words.

Sometimes, Lord,

it just seems to be too much:

            too much violence, too much fear;

            too much of demands and problems;

            too much of broken dreams and broken lives;

            too much of war and slums and dying;

            too much of greed and selfishness

                        and the sounds of people

                                    devouring each other

                                                and the earth;

            too much of stale routines and quarrels,

                        unpaid bills and dead ends;

            too much of words lobbed in to explode

                        and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;

            too much of turned-away backs and cowardly silence.

Sometimes the very air seems scorched

            by threats and rejection and decay

                        until there is nothing

                                    but to inhale pain

                                                and exhale confusion.

Too much of darkness, Lord,

            too much of cruelty

                        and indifference . . .

Or is it too little,

            too little of compassion,

too little of courage,

            of daring,

                        of persistence,

                                    of sacrifice;

too little of music

            and laughter

                        and celebration?

O God,

make of me some light

            for these dark times,

some illumination for my brothers and sisters

            who are looking for gladness and hope,

that, being light for them,

            I may also be given light

                        from its source in you.Amen