Thursday, September 6, 2012

a prayer for a writing day

Today is a writing day...sermon preparation...finding prayers and readings and opening words and a blessing for the congregation on Sunday.

It's not a straight shot, writing. There is a lot of poking around in files, assembling pages of ideas - words scribbled on note pads while at the grocery store, words from a post it note in the car driving to the office, and more words from an email I wrote to myself last week when something important emerged - there is visiting old books where I know there is a good story...there is a lot of musing...a lot of wondering and wandering around until eventually, by deadline, it all comes together as it is, this time.

Today is a writing day...and while looking for a prayer I wrote years ago that will be perfect for this Sunday, I found this one that I shared in 2006 when I was ministerial intern at the First Universalist Society in Franklin. The beginning words are mine. The prayer itself is the creation of Andrea Ayvavian.

May it be so.



Prayer for May 14, 2006

Let us now take some of our time together to find that place within or around us
Where in silence Deep calls to Deep
Where Imagination speaks her wishes
Where we say our most precious prayers
Where we are one with all of existence
Where we come, at last, to be still, while Creation takes care of the rest.

When you hear my voice again, the words you will hear are those of Andrea Ayvavian:

if we dug a huge grave miles wide, miles deep
and buried every rifle, pistol, knife, bullet, bomb, bayonet

if we jumped upon fleets of tanks and fighter jets
with tool boxes, torches
unwelded them dismantled them turned them into scrap metal

if every light-skinned man in a silk tie said
to every dark-skinned man in a turban
I vow not to kill your children
and heard the same vow in return

if every elected leader agreed to stop lying

if every child was fed as well as racehorses bred to win derbies

if very person with a second home gave it to a person with no home

if every mother buried her parents not her sons and daughters

if every person who has enough said out loud I have enough

if every person violent in the name of God were to find God

we would grow silent, still for a moment, a lifetime
we would hear infants nursing at the breast
hummingbirds hovering in flight

we would touch a canyon wall and feel the earth vibrate

we would hear two lovers sigh across the ocean

we would watch old wounds grow new flesh and jagged scars disappear

as time was layered upon time we would slowly be ready to begin.


Amen. So may it be. Namaste.

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