“September is another January,” writer Gretchen Rubin says often, conveying the feeling of a new start in September. In the U.S., where I live, school is starting, and students, aides and teachers are back to in-person learning in many places. This year, the beginning also feels dangerous, with COVID still hovering. Churches shift to fuller… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
God of all time, we are ready, so very ready to be done with upheaval, with masks, with uncertainty, and yet uncertainty is not done with us yet. Continue to teach us the spiritual skills of nimbleness, of hope, of seeing one another with compassion, of wrestling our own joy out of these days. We… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
At night, Welcoming God, when I can’t sleep, is that you? Are you waking me up so I can pray for someone, with more attention than in the daytime? Should I be examining a flaw I have rushed past during the day, as I answer email and go to meetings? Is it time to set… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
Creator of the earth, and of all who live upon it, we feel the oppressive heat and the drought, see the fires and taste the smoke, watch in horror as buildings collapse and roads wobble, and we wonder how to fix it. We have been careless with your gift of creation, and selfish in our… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
Sage God, things once commonplace, then forbidden, are now parts of our days again. We thank you for the tiny gifts of walking without a mask, seeing an old friend, having a guest come over – inside. We thank you for unlimited toilet paper, a smile that’s more than the crinkles of the eyes behind… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
Wise God, we give you thanks for the people who help us re-catch our faith when it grows thin, frail, and empty. For the church leader who is constant in prayer that she stirs our prayers again, for the long-ago teacher whose words stay with us, for the grandmothers and aunties whose love calls us… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
God, it seems so clear that you must love diversity. You give us a thousand kinds of cacti, fish of all sizes and shapes, bugs of every fantastical design… why would we ever think it should be different with people? Why did we ever think we shouldn’t take pride in who we are? Not the… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
Creator God, as our lives open up, as we step out gingerly of the house, as we gather with our beloved people again, or do our work in offices again, the world feels like a new creation, and part of me isn’t ready. Everything feels so loud, and so busy, and so full, and I… Read More
Narrative Lectionary: Do This, Not That (Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-21)
The church I serve is full of delightful people with a love for the world, and they find great solace in policies. Binders. Manuals. Rules. What makes me itch makes them feel secure. Looking back two thousand years, I can imagine that the churches in Galatia, once Paul left them, wanted the security of a… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
Generous God, as life expands, as we set aside the routines of the past year, and learn new ones, we give thanks for all the places of new opening… around us, and within us. May we take in your expansive Spirit, feeling joy in our individual places of opening up and breathing our thanks, maybe… Read More
