A Disciple's 25-Word Prayer

Our Father above,
Exalt Your name,
Bring Your kingdom,
Have Your way.
Provide,
Forgive,
Help us to forgive,
Protect,
Deliver,
for all is Yours.
Amen.

I Can Come No Other Way

Then Sings My Soul

(from the hymn, “How Great Thou Art,” by Carl Gustav Boberg, trans. Stuart K. Hine; public domain)

Crow

the crow picks at death 

like the unforgiving heart; 

help me to forgive

(photo via everystockphoto.com)

Autumn

Abba, Father, the trees are ablaze with your glory.
The seasons change, but you never do.
You are always beautiful,
in the green and freshness of Spring
as in the golds and reds and chills of Autumn.
Make me like you.
Let my life reflect your beauty,
season after season,
as the calendar of my life turns and turns and turns.

The trees are letting go of this year's foliage.
Help me let go of both blessings and burdens,
and surrender them both to your loving care.

Fallen leaves pattern the ground with variety.
So design my own fallings and failings
into whatever design will please you most.

In Jesus' name, I pray,
amen.

(excerpted from the blog post, "Four Prayers for Autumn," on A Thousand Ways to Pray)

An End-of-Summer Confession

God of grace,
forgive my frantic pace,
my failure to find
a “summer place”
amid the traffic of my days,
the stubbornness of settled ways,
and too-cluttered mind,
I let this summer get away.

(excerpted from the blog post, "Five Prayers for the End of Summer," on A Thousand Ways to Pray; photo via everystockphoto.com)

To Love You With Our Minds

Our mothers and fathers
have long spoken of you.
And we have their spokenness in our hands,
in these old texts.
We propose now to study you,
to weigh and test,
to examine and assess,
to make you our "object"
and so to get a grade.
In your strangeness,
you are studied only temporarily
object only penultimately,
weighed and tested only at the outset.
But then - as always -
You turn tables,
You become subject who addresses,
sovereign who commands,
mother who loves,
warrior who defends,
And we find ourselves turned in our study to praise and adoration.
So we ask for freedom to love you with our minds,
that we may know a little as we are known,
and in knowing may love and adore,
and in loving and adoring, may obey...
to your praise,
and our joy, Amen.

(from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: The Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, by way of the Daily Prayer blog. The background of the photo is explained here, on the Hither & Yon blog)