FCCR-ACE Prayer Blog

Congregationalists Learning to Pray

I have no idea what brought you here. It’s vaguely possible you got an email from me with my email address that uses the FCCR-ACE.org domain. The vast majority of emails associated with this domain are psalms sent via the psalm-o-matic. But, I occasional use an email address from this domain for “church-y” kinds of things. Things, like reaching out to pastoral candidates.

If you’re one of those people, I’ll try to allay your confusion. This web site and domain no longer have much by way of earthly value. I’m not sure they ever had. But once, we thought it might be fun to have a church-wide prayer blog. That’s this. It’s an experiment that didn’t really pan out.

So, what I’m trying to say, is the blog is dead, and has been so for the past five or six years.

I keep the domain going to service the psalm-o-matic. That’s a service which selects a psalm at random and emails it out in the middle of the night so that it will appear in your email inbox when first you log in each morning. If you want to test the service, send an email to psalms at the domain listed above, i.e. FCCR-ACE.org, and ask to be subscribed. Once you’ve had enough of the daily psalms, you can send another email and ask to unsubscribe. Unless I’m on vacation, you’ll be subscribed or unsubscribed on the spot.

No one much ever got into posting prayers they wrote. I can, and do, post mine on my own blog, so no point in putting them here too. Thus, I stopped here at the second day of Lent, but, fwiw, did finish up over there.

The prayer blog seemed like a good idea at the time, but what do I know? I’m only a physical chemist. So, this blog is likely to bid y’all adieu one of these days. Until….

update
fwiw, I’ve turned off comments on most of the prayers. Comments are on for a few housekeeping posts and will be on for anything new.

Hi God,

Well that didn’t last long.
After finally doing a prayer yesterday
(and as you well know,
getting to it was an ordeal in itself),
I thought that getting going again
might not be so tough as I feared.
So, here we are on day two
and I’m already resisting the “discipline”.

There seem to be too many conflicting priorities,
buying groceries, walking dogs, grading papers,
making up new classroom exercises,
fixing the old ones that missed the mark,
. and . so . forth.

I need to be like those old friars
or whoever it was,
who executed every action
as if it were an act of prayer.
Once in a while, I suppose,
I can feel prayerful on a dog walk,
but buying groceries?
preparing dinner
(peeling potatoes as a spiritual discipline)?
flooding student papers with red ink?

I dunno.
I think it’s going to be a tough 40 days.
How ‘bout you join me on the journey?
Tell each other funny stories;
sing songs together;
that kind of stuff?
You down with that?

Amen

Hi God,

It’s Lent again.
The time we’re supposed to travel
with Jesus in the wilderness.
Seems like the past few months
I’ve pretty much already
been floundering in the wilderness.
So what’s likely to change? Anything?
Is that the point?
Nothing and everything changes
all . the . time.

So please help me prepare
for changes…
and for no changes.
Perhaps one day I’ll learn
just to be with whatever is.

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

Amen

Hi God,

Well, we’ve made it to day 40.
I think it was more fun last year.
Are Lenten disciplines supposed to be fun?
Whatever, this year felt burdensome:
I felt dry and empty much of the time.
Perhaps dry and empty
is what we’re supposed to feel.
We are, after all, simulating wandering…
…in the wilderness…for forty days.

If I do this again,
I think I’ll go for learning
to do more orthodox prayers.
You know the ones that have stuff like
   “forgive us for the things
   we have done that we ought not to have done,
   and for the things we ought to have done
   that we have not done.
   …and there is no health in us. “
My guess is you might like that better too.
It will sound more familiar
and familiar is comforting.
Do you get comfort out of our praying attempts?
I’m pretty sure that’s one of the points
as to why we try doing it,
To feel more comfortable in our own skins.
I seriously doubt that trying to wangle an iPad
is what the praying thing is about.
But, of course, I could be wrong.

How ‘bout when we pray for others?
Is that like hoping for an iPad?
Or is it an expression of concern
for the health of your son’s body,
a concern which can, indeed,
induce healing in that sacred body?

So, I’m thinking,
that after all this time,
we still need to learn to pray.
Maybe just a bunch of
   Our Father’s,
   Hail Mary’s and
   Jesus prayers,
   and those Calvinist constructs,
   alluded to above,
are adequate, in that
they help tune us
to your wavelength.
I implore you, please,
do help us learn
to get on that wavelength.

Also, I’ll importune you, yet again,
with the request that you, please,
have mercy on my soul,
sinner though I never fail to be.

Amen