FCCR-ACE Prayer Blog

Congregationalists Learning to Pray

August, as always, is slipping by too quickly.
The looked for respite of summer months is
almost behind us.
I pray that we have rested enough, laughed enough,
restored enough to energize us for the fall days ahead.
God, we have new challenges ahead of us as your church
and as your people in our country and world.
Give us the wisdom to make choices that will further your
vision of a world and people.
Help us to remember that we are not perfect and that we are
not to be judges of others around us.
You alone can judge, and we are blessed to have your mercy
that allows us to begin anew each day, with a clean slate to
make what attempts we might to please you and be your
hands and feet in our world.
Help us to be the small pebble that makes wide ripples in a pond.
Guide us and bless our doings and beings as leaves turn colors and
Life’s pace quickens once more.

Amen

Hi God,

Tomorrow is the 14th anniversary
of my father's passing away.
For all practical purposes,
he left us some years earlier
when he started having strokes.
Then again, in many ways,
he hasn't really left us at all:
many times, when beginning a task,
I hear his voice 
    coaching me,
    advising me,
    encouraging me.
Sometimes, when I screw up,
his voice combines with my own
and the chiding ensues.
Like most of us,
he wasn't perfect.
But I think he tried his hardest
to be a good father, 
and I think he succeeded fabulously.
I can only pray that
I could be half as good
fathering my own children.

Tomorrow, I'll be visiting my mother,
and we'll have fun, no doubt,
reminiscing about Dad
and about our lives 
together as a family. 
We'll also ponder the wonders
of the new family growing
in the wombs of Yuki and Katie,
my nieces in Seattle,
and the new family
in the weddings to be.
A celebration of family, 
if you will.

So my prayer today
is that we all take
a little time to 
appreciate our families:
   our parents,
   our siblings, 
   our own children,
   our weird uncles and aunts,
   our nieces and nephews,
   someday, one hopes, our grandchildren.
    And, of course, all the family
    we acquired by marriage,
    those in-laws we learn to love
    as if we'd always had them around.

Help us take time 
    to name them
    to see them in our minds eye.
    to thank you for their presence in our lives
    to feel and know You've richly blessed us.
Thank you for family.

Please also
have mercy on our souls
sinners though we be.

Amen

Hi God,

Here I am
back at work again.
As I wind things down,
and seek new opportunities,
help me to maintain
the equanimity I felt on the lake shore.

Because of the cold and rain
you showered on Maine,
mushrooms sprouted everywhere.
I didn’t know there were
so many kinds of mushrooms.
It seems that mushrooms, like people,
are a rather diverse lot.
As I began photographing them,
I saw that they
were also rather beautiful.

So my prayer
is that you help us remember
that in our diversity,
all people, like mushrooms,
can be beautiful,
given the proper growing conditions.
As your hands in the world,
give us the strength and wisdom
to assure proper growing conditions
to allow our neighbors
to achieve their full beauty as people.

Also, I ask that you
have mercy on our souls
sinners though we surely be.

Amen

Hi God,

All this rain on vacation
makes me think that
you’ve something to tell me.

Does my soul need some cleansing?
Might we be
washing away the stains
of my old life
as I prepare for change
into a new one?

OK, then!
As I make the changes to come,
I’ll try to clean up my act.

So my prayer today
is that you will
help me face new changes
with a heart and mind
cleansed from the
baggage of the old
and ready to dedicate myself
to serving you better
as I take on new challenges.

Also, please don’t forget,
when I falter, as I surely will,
to have mercy on my soul
sinner though I clearly be.

Amen

My schedule this summer is even slippier than usual. I missed two
prayers in a row. Rather than beat myself up, I tried to find verbal
support.

Dear God, help us to accept ourselves as we are.

The reason that angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly. – G. K. Chesterton

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles…by the ears, by the heels,
or any other way you can manage it. – Mark Twain

I wonder how Twain would feel about appearing in a prayer, however
loosely constructed. Let’s hope that he also strove to take himself lightly.