Sunday, April 29, 2012
Offered by Victoria G. Curtiss, Associate Pastor

God, our loving Creator, in this new threshold time in your holy history, when we know we are complicit in the degradation of both soils and souls, you still invite us, call us, again and again to be your people—whole and holy, to live in alignment with your deep creative joy.

We are called again and again to your truth, called again and again to your justice, called again and again to advocate for the outcast and show compassion to the poor, called again and again to your more abundant life.

We, though called, are given no obvious path, only the way—the practice of discernment—in this complex, suffering, and wonder-full world. So we pray for the will to pause and to claim the art of presence in a busy and distracted world.

We pray for the stilling of inner chatter.

We pray for the capacity to recognize when we have more than enough and then relinquish our abundance as a faithful act of interdependence in a society fractured by individualism.

We pray for seeing hearts, listening spirits, informed minds, and the gift of your insight.

We pray for the courage to respond to your high calling, because we long in our essence to become again and again a more faithful people.

In the teachings of Jesus and the prophets, show us the way to organize our life in this land so that all residents may enjoy human creativity and solidarity. May our schools, families, vocations, and organizations reflect your will as they are reformed to maximize both human equality and dignity. We pray that war will cease and that we will retreat from imperial pretension beyond our shores. In your mercy, protect all who are in harm’s way. Comfort all who grieve, and heal those facing health challenges. All this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together saying, Our Father . . .

(This prayer is based on the prayer “That We May Be a More Faithful People” by Sharon Daloz Parks in Prayers for the New Social Awakening.)

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church