FCCR-ACE Prayer Blog

Congregationalists Learning to Pray

Dear god,

Please let the stomach bug the youngest has be quick and fleeting and not strike anyone else…

Please let us all be healthy tomorrow to enjoy the Easter together…

Amen

Hi God,

I can’t believe we finally
got through Lent.
Or will have after today.
Wow, 40 days of prayers
seems like a lot of work.

So here it is,
the last day of Lent,
and I’m stuck for a last prayer.
Then again, shouldn’t I be praying
even when it’s not Lent?
I’ll need help with that.

St. Paul admonished the early church
to devote themselves to prayer continually.
I think that means more than
a few minutes a day,
every day, for a mere six weeks,

So my prayer today
is that you help us focus
on praying regularly,
and not on worrying
whether what we have to say
is trivial or unenlightening.
Isn’t it the regular connection that counts?

Also, please have mercy on my soul,
sinner that I fail to stop being.

Amen

Hi God,

As you well know,
today is Good Friday.
I would like to be good, for once,
I wonder what the chances of that are?
Not that I’m likely to be unspeakably evil.
But, if history is any guide,
I’ll spend a good part of the day
in self-centered idleness.
That’s not so good.

Anyway, it’s as good a time as any
to contemplate things like capital punishment.
The way I see it,
choosing who is fit to live,
and who is not,
is not a job for me,
or any other human,
for that matter.
The way I figure it,
you can redeem anyone,
even murderers.
Maybe even Osama bin Laden?
After all, Moses, David and Paul
were all murders,
but you redeemed them,
and they did great things.

So I’m wondering
why most Christians don’t agree
with my rather simple-minded analysis.
What am I missing?
In my flippant way,
I’m inclined to ask,
why you have forsaken us,
by not providing more clarity here?
Or were you clear, and we’re just dense?

So my prayer today
is that you pour out
your spirit on us all
so as to enable us to reach
some common agreement
at least on the very simple issues,
like life and death.

Also, please have mercy on my soul,
sinner that I be.

Amen

Oh God

What a story today represents

Amen

I am hopeful that today will be different than Good Firday’s in the past.
I hope that I will not be a gloomy guss all day,
not being able to get out of my own way or that of others.

Yet, there is a reason to pause on those kinds of Good Firday’s
to note that there has been an earth shaking event to remember,
one that changed the face of life on this planet forever.

How can it be that one life lived so long ago in a land on the other
side of the world, with no news casters and ipods and satelites
could so dramatically change the course of history?

How can the suffering and death of that one young person have so totally
changed life for so many?

So, I guess, if I am to have my normal Good Friday funk
(why is it that we call it GOOD Friday?)
it is for a good cause, that I pause to remember the saving Grace
which was offered so long ago.

Amen