Pastoral Prayer for September 17, 2023

Our Pastoral Prayer this morning is by Ted Loder.

Thank you, God,

for hard lessons learned,

      dreams blistered into beginnings,

          and the terrible, lonely freedom of deciding;

for honest, artful words

     that unwind my too tight, tidy mind

          and entwine it to my heart;

for mistakes corrected, weaknesses owned,

     changes made, failures become teachers;

for those who show me the narrow, saving difference

     between cleverness and integrity,

          success and joy;

for the traces of wisdom

     the years have left in me;

for old friends, good stories,

     nothing to do, sitting still,

          listening, watching, thinking, praying, sleeping;

for work to go back to,

     for the sweat for bread;

for peace,

     and for justice,

          which is love with its sleeves rolled up;

for this stubbornly fertile,

     painfully abused,

          incredibly beautiful, beloved mother earth ;

for this fumbling, frangible human world,

     still bathed in light,

          cradled in heaven;

and this for Christ’s sake longing at the tip of me,

     and at my core,

          for what only you could make me long for.  Amen.